Another letter – perhaps slightly overdue – was sent at the same time by Alexander to Craig Arian to tell his mother the news of his marriage and his accession by it to the lordship of Castle Rose. With it he gave her the news of King March’s imminent death, which had ended his own quest for vengeance. He had not thought it necessary, he told her, to take the matter further in his letter to the High King, nor had he any wish to pursue a possible claim to what was to him a foreign kingdom; there must surely be some other heir, whom Arthur could approve, waiting anxiously for King March’s demise? As for Craig Arian, he would of course, if she wished, come south to talk with her about the settlement of the estate there, but …
He could have saved himself the doubts. The Princess Anna herself came north with the returning messenger to bring her own assurances of joy and satisfaction over the match, and to declare herself content at last to lay Baudouin’s ghost to rest. Sadok had already sent word to her of March’s approaching death, so on receipt of Alexander’s letter she had (with some private ceremony, it was understood) burned the blood-stained shirt and buried its ashes at Craig Arian, which was now her home, as Castle Rose was to be Alexander’s.
So Cornwall and its dark past were laid aside, and all was rejoicing. Another feast was held to welcome the Princess Anna, with nothing more alarming to follow than an exchange of gifts and compliments. The two ladies embraced, assessed one another carefully with the sweetest of smiles, and found that, with the one fixed at Craig Arian and the other at Castle Rose, they could be and remain the fastest of friends. And so it came about. Anna, truth to tell, would have grudged handing over the rule of Craig Arian to one she still saw – would probably always see – as an untried boy. She went back to it, and to the undemanding help and devotion of Barnabas and Theodora and their servants, and waited eagerly for the next news to come from Castle Rose.
Which it did, in time. But not until Alice and her father had made their last pilgrimage together.
It was early in November. By that time affairs were in good train at the castle; Alexander had come to know every farm, field and tenant on the place, whom to trust, whom to watch, when to move and when to be patient. Soon he was almost as much part of the place as Alice, and the duke, watching with deep contentment, could set out at last on his journey home.
Alice, nearly four months pregnant, insisted on going with him, and allowed the litter to be ordered mainly so that her father, should he tire, might be persuaded to ride in it. They set out quietly, as so often before, and if this time there were tears among the people assembled in the courtyard to watch them go, why, there had always been tears, even when their lord had been expected to come home again.
So they went, taking it easily, through the cool mists of a mild November day, and there at the convent Alice, between her father and her husband, prayed at her mother’s tomb. Later, by that same tomb, she said goodbye to her father, and the two groups parted, the duke to be escorted to St Martin’s by his servants, and the young folk to ride home to take up their life together.
Soon after this the looked-for letter came from the High King.
The lovers were walking on the terrace in the faint warmth of the November sun. Below them, along the river’s bank, the beeches blazed, magnificent in red and gold, among oaks still green, but edged and splashed with amber. The delicate birches, half their leaves already gone with the autumn winds, showed spangled with palest yellow. The hollies were rich with berries, and busy with blackbirds greedy for the first fruit. All the birds of summer had gone, but a heron flapped heavily to his fishing-place, and a charm of winter finches wrangled somewhere among the boughs. The river, full and smooth, slid past almost without sound among its reeds and sallows.
There were two letters. Alice, moving still lightly but with more careful grace than of old, sat down on a seat framed by the bare twining stems of roses and honeysuckle, and reached a hand to Beltrane, who came bustling up, full of importance.
“From my father?”
“Indeed, indeed, my lady. And this other has the royal seal. From the High King himself, it must be!” An anxious look. “My lord duke, he’s well?”
“Yes.” Alice was skimming the brief letter. “All is very well. Oh, and he has heard from Jeshua. He and Mariamne reached Jerusalem safely. She’s to have a baby in May, the same as me! They’ll stay with his family till the birth, then he wants to come back to Castle Rose. Since Queen Clotilda went into the convent there’s no place for him there. Well, that’s good news for us. You’ll soon be able to take things more easily, Beltrane! And it will be good to have Mariamne here again. That’s all, thank you. Tell the other servants, will you?”
Alexander was already deep in the other letter, which was indeed from the High King. It was long, beautifully penned by Arthur’s scribe. In it the King thanked Alexander for what he had done to defend his corner of the realm against treachery, and acquitted him of any blame over Madoc’s death. He himself (he wrote) had for some time been watching the activities of the Young Celts; had even, in the person of his trusted nephew Mordred, infiltrated their counsels. So he had been forewarned. But now (he went on) with the possibility of Britain’s involvement in the wars on the Continent, he must make his back safe. To this end he had caused Queen Morgan to be removed under guard to the remote fortress of Castell Aur in the Welsh mountains, where another nephew, Gawain of Orkney himself, was set to keep close watch on her. In any case her following would soon disperse. The fighting abroad would sufficiently divert the energies of the idle swords, and feed the ambition of the young men thirsting for action and glory. Meantime, if Prince Alexander ever rode south to Camelot, he would be assured of an honourable place among the High King’s Companions …
“Camelot!” said Alexander, when they had both read the letter.
“Camelot!” sighed Alice. “I used to think I wanted to go there more than anything in the world!”
“And don’t you now?”
She smiled, smoothing her hands down over the soft swell of her body. “Fine dresses, satins, jewels? They’d not fit me for long! No, it was a girl’s dream. I have all I want here. And you?”
“A boy’s dream, no more,” he said. His hand went out to lie gently over hers. “All I want, all I shall ever want, is here, too.”
It is a fact that Alexander never did get to Camelot. It was written later, by the chronicler, that “He lost his way, and wandered for a great while.”
But he knew, and we know, that he had found it.
* * *
THE LEGEND
* * *
(The tale of Sir Alisander le Orphelin and Alice la Beale Pilgrim, as related by Thomas Malory in Le Morte d’Arthur, Book X.)
King Mark of Cornwall had a younger brother, Boudwin, whom the people loved. There came a time when the Saracens attempted to invade Cornwall from the sea, and Boudwin, raising the country against them, put wildfire in three of his own ships, and sent these among the enemy ships, destroying them, and killing the whole invading army of forty thousand men.
King Mark, already jealous of his brother’s popularity, was angry at Boudwin’s success, and planned to kill him. He sent for him to come to court with his wife Anglides and their infant son Alisander. At supper the king picked a quarrel with Boudwin and stabbed him to death. Queen Isoud sent to warn Anglides that her son was in grave danger, so, helped by Sir Tristram, she fled from Mark’s castle, taking with her Boudwin’s blood-stained shirt and doublet as a reminder of a murder which must be avenged.
Meanwhile Mark, raging through the castle and failing to find the child to kill him, sent a knight called Sadok to catch the fugitives and bring them back. But Sadok had been Boudwin’s friend, so when he came up with Anglides and the child he let them go, only requiring her to promise that one day, when Alisander was grown, she would send him to avenge his father’s murder. Then Sadok rode back to tell King Mark that he had drowned the boy himself. At which Mark rejoiced.
Anglides travelle
d on till she came to the castle of Arundel in Sussex, which belonged to a cousin. She was made welcome, and lived there in safety till Alisander was grown. Then, on Lady Day, when he with twenty others was made knight, she showed him the bloody shirt and doublet, and bade him avenge his father’s murder.
When the feasting and jousting were over Alisander set out to ride to London, but, missing his way, journeyed on, fighting in one tournament after another, always overcoming his opponent, until eventually he was wounded in a fight undertaken for a damosel who owned a castle nearby. The damosel had the wounded Alisander carried into her castle, where Morgan le Fay (who suspected the damosel’s motives, and who wanted him for herself) tended him for a while. At length, after drugging him, she carried him off to her own castle, where she promised to heal him on condition that he made no attempt to leave her lands for a year and a day. Perforce, he promised, and she did heal him.
But then one day a lady who was cousin to Morgan warned him privately that Morgan intended to keep him there as her lover, at which he was horrified. “I would liefer cut away my hangers than I would do her such pleasure,” he cried, but because of his promise he could not leave the castle. Then one day the castle was attacked and burned down, so he was able, with the lady’s help, to escape into the grounds, where he camped out, setting himself to defend the land (and presumably his virtue) from all comers for the required year and a day. His fame as a fighter soon spread through the kingdoms. It appears that Morgan did not pursue him.
There was a duke called Ansirus, who travelled every third year to Jerusalem, so that he was known as Ansirus the Pilgrim. He had a very beautiful daughter called Alice, whom men called Alice la Beale Pilgrim. She heard of Alisander’s prowess, and gave it out that she would marry any knight who could make himself master of the piece of land which Alisander was holding. Since she was so lovely, and sole heiress of the duke’s estates, many knights tried to dislodge Alisander, but failed to do so.
At last she decided to see him for herself, and reached the place in time to watch him defeat a notable knight, whereupon she ran to his horse’s head and asked him to take off his helmet and let her see his face. He did so. “O sweet Jesu,” said Alice. “Thee must I love, and never other.”
“Then show me your visage,” said Alisander. Then she unwimpled her visage, and when he saw her he said: “Here have I found my love and my lady.”
So they were married, and lived in great joy. But it so happened that Alisander had never grace nor fortune to come to King Arthur’s court, and he never did avenge his father’s murder.
* * *
AUTHOR’S NOTE
* * *
My story has two primary sources. One is a remark made to me by a friend: “Everybody has their own Grail.” The other is a brief incident in my book The Wicked Day, where Mordred, alone in the forest, encounters a wandering priest and a young girl. I had Malory’s “Alice la Beale Pilgrim” in mind – she had long fascinated me – but somehow she could not fit into that story. Here she is at last.
It will be seen from the “legend” summarised here that Malory’s tale of Alisander le Orphelin and Alice la Beale Pilgrim was not easy to transpose into the “real Arthurian” or Dark Age setting. It is a mediaeval tale of action where kings, queens and knights move as conventionally as chess pieces, and, like chessmen, make the same moves over and over again. The main concern of the knights seems to be their jousting scores – the mediaeval equivalent of the batting average.
Malory’s brief reference to Duke Ansirus the Pilgrim, combined with the idea of some kind of “grail quest”, gave me the Jerusalem and Tours settings. Again, a reference from The Wicked Day remembered the murder of the young Merovingian princes, so I linked the pilgrims with the adventure of Chlodovald’s rescue.
Here we move from legend to historical fact. The necessary source for any account of the Merovingian (Merwing) kings is Gregory of Tours’ History of the Franks. In Book III he gives a vivid account of the murder of the young princes by their uncles, and the agonised grief of Queen Clotilda at the choice of “scissors or sword” that the murderers gave her. He tells us that the youngest boy, Chlodovald, escaped, “for those who guarded him were brave men”. He cut his hair – the symbolic lion’s mane of the Frankish kings – with his own hand, and devoted himself to God. He stayed for some time in hiding, but eventually returned to his own country, where he founded a monastery, which bore his name. This was St Cloud, near Paris. For the purposes of my story I have had him taken to a hiding-place in Britain.
Gregory’s history is one of battles, murders and sudden deaths, relieved by the deeds of holy men, but with very little in the way of description or social background. For an account of the Merovingian way of life – houses, occupations, countryside – I went to Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Europe under the Merovingians. Clovis (481–511 AD) unified Gaul, and established Paris as his capital. At his death his lands were divided between his four sons. The eldest son, the bastard Theuderic, received lands around the Rhine, Moselle, and upper Meuse. Chlodomer was established in the regions along the Loire. To Childebert went the country of the English Channel, with Bordeaux and Saintes. The youngest, Lothar, was settled north of the Somme and in Aquitaine. These territories were supposed to be roughly of equal value, but this was obviously disputable, and, as the boundaries of the “kingdoms” were not well defined, the result of the partition was a constant quarrelling – what one commentator calls “bloody competition” – between the brothers.
Pilgrimages. By the first century AD there was a system of guest houses for pilgrims to Jerusalem, on traditional routes provided with watering-places. Pilgrimages became extremely popular. As Philo of Alexandria wrote: “It is a test of faith and an escape from everyday life.” And Chaucer made gentle fun of the fact that when the good weather arrived, “than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages”. The earliest known account of a Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem was that of the so-called “pilgrim of Bordeaux” in the early fourth century.
The Legend of the Holy Grail. The Grail was the cup or chalice traditionally used by Christ at the Last Supper. According to one legend, Joseph of Arimathea, having preserved in it a few drops of Christ’s blood, brought it to Britain, where it soon disappeared. There is a mass of literature about the quests for the lost grail, which is associated with the spear that pierced Christ’s side, and a sword. In my book The Hollow Hills I used the quest story, but with the sword as the object. That sword eventually came into Arthur’s possession, as Caliburn (Excalibur), but the spear and grail were given for safe keeping to Nimuë, Arthur’s chief adviser, who had been the pupil and then the lover of Merlin the enchanter.
Morgan and Morgause. Morgause, according to legend, was Arthur’s half-sister, the illegitimate daughter of his father King Uther Pendragon. She married King Lot of Lothian and Orkney, and had four sons by him. She also bore a son, Mordred, to her half-brother Arthur, whom she seduced into an incestuous union. She was murdered by one of her sons, Gaheris. Morgan, Arthur’s legitimate sister, married King Urbgen of Rheged. She took a lover, Accolon, and persuaded him to steal the enchanted sword Caliburn and with it to usurp her brother’s power. The plot failed, and she was put aside by Urbgen, and imprisoned (fairly comfortably) by Arthur.
March. This is King Mark of Cornwall, who in mediaeval Arthurian romances is uncle to Tristram (Drustan). He is usually depicted as cruel and treacherous. Mark’s queen, Iseult the Fair, and Tristram were lovers.
Some Other Brief Notes
Place Names. I have followed a simple rule, which is to make the geography of the story as clear as possible for the reader to follow. Hence the use of some modern names alongside those of the Roman or Dark Age maps.
The Saxon Shore. This was a stretch of the south-east and south coastal regions of Britain, roughly from Norfolk to Hampshire, where Saxon incomers were allowed to settle.
The Saracen Longships. Malory’s tale is of cour
se mediaeval, but since we are here in the Dark Age of the early sixth century, the invaders are Saxon, and I have reduced their numbers to something a little more likely than forty thousand.
Castle Rose. This has nothing to do with Rose Castle, the seat of the bishops of Carlisle. It owes its name to the lovely New Red Sandstone of Cumbria (Rheged), of which it would probably have been built.
Mary Stewart, one of the most popular novelists, was born in Sunderland, County Durham and lives in the West Highlands. Her first novel, Madam, Will You Talk? was published in 1955 and marked the beginning of a long and acclaimed writing career. All her novels have been bestsellers on both sides of the Atlantic. She was made a Doctor of Literature by Durham University in 2009.
Also by Mary Stewart
Madam, Will You Talk?
Wildfire at Midnight
Thunder on the Right
Nine Coaches Waiting
My Brother Michael
The Ivy Tree
The Moonspinners
This Rough Magic
Airs Above the Ground
The Gabriel Hounds
Touch Not the Cat
Thornyhold
Stormy Petrel
Rose Cottage
The Arthurian Novels
The Crystal Cave
The Hollow Hills
The Last Enchantment