Corbenic by Catherine Fisher
Before him, seated on a simple bench, Arthur waited, though instead of his usual tweed he wore armor now, a strange, semi-Roman breastplate, dinted and battered from old blows, and a white cloak that seemed ghostly under the eerie light, because the moon had risen, a thin crescent over Wentwood, and it glimmered on the cold edge of the sword.
Arthur stood, and said quietly, “Welcome to the Round Table, Cal.”
Cal shook his head. “I thought . . .”
“Yes. Well, no piece of furniture would be big enough.” Arthur turned to Shadow. “And you. Are you ready to join us?”
“Yes.” Her voice was low; Cal saw her hands were clasped tight together, black fingers with small silver rings over the gloves, and a faint silver thread embroidered there. She glanced quickly at him; the cobweb a dark mask over one eye.
If he was lying, he thought, if he was betraying them, then so was she.
Arthur raised his voice. “Friends! Does the Company of the Island of the Mighty accept these two among us?”
There was a murmur of consent, and a yell from Hawk that made Shadow giggle.
Arthur held out his hands for the sword; Cal laid it across his palms. “Now, both of you, put your hands on it.”
Shadow’s fingers lay on the blade; Cal put his fingers beside hers, feeling ridiculous and grave and afraid all at once.
“You must swear loyalty to me,” Arthur said. “But first tell me that you have no dishonor in your hearts.”
That shook Cal. His fingers went icy on the pale steel. And how could Shadow say, “None,” like she did, so calm, so quiet?
Arthur looked at him. For an instant Cal thought of his mother, sitting on the sofa in the cold house. Of the new Christmas tree. It would be lopsided. She’d never have been able to make a good job of it on her own.
“None,” he whispered.
The flames crackled and spat. The wind roared.
Arthur said, “Then take your sword, Cal.” He stepped back, leaving them both holding it between them, heavy, wickedly sharp, gleaming.
And it snapped. With a crack that rang in the broken walls and tunnels and hollows of the amphitheater, the sword broke itself in two, vindictively, spitefully, and Cal staggered with the sudden shock of it, Shadow’s stifled scream, the words that hissed out of the dark. “It will serve you as you have served me.”
For a moment of terror he knew these were the voices; then he turned, and saw her standing there, the girl who had carried the Grail. She was wearing the same long dress, her hair braided up, but her face had changed; it was old now, so ugly, wrinkled, and heavily lidded that he would hardly have known her.
Horrified, he staggered back; Arthur caught his arm and said, “Who are you?”
The old woman’s smile was sour. “Hear me, King.” She turned, raising her voice. “Hear me, you, Arthur’s men.”
Kai was shouting orders; Hawk leaped down into the arena.
“Don’t listen,” Cal hissed desperately. “I don’t know her.”
Her finger stabbed at him. “Here is one who has betrayed you! Here is one who saw the holy things, and could not ask about them, not what the cup contains or who drinks from it! Who didn’t care why the lance bleeds! Here is one who denied they ever existed!” She turned around and glared at him, and to his terror her face flickered in the flame light, young and old, ugly and beautiful, as if the red glimmer of the light and the wind redefined it, and he knew it, and then it was strange, it changed as his mother changed, minute by minute.
Arthur made a swift downward jab with his hand; the men running toward him slowed, wary. “We know about this. But the boy is young; he . . .”
“You do not know the reason for his failure.” She was speaking to Cal now. “He cannot make a new life on the ruins of the old. There is a thing he has left undone. Unsaid. A weight on his soul. A woman he has abandoned. Until he goes to her and heals himself he will never find the Grail. And the Waste Land will remain waste, and the Fisher King will suffer his endless pain.” She spat at him; he jumped back. “He is a fool,” she hissed. “He has failed.”
The wind roared; a police siren echoed far off in the village. From the church, suddenly, joyously, the bells began to ring, a clashing, jangling frostiness of sound. It was midnight. It was Christmas.
“Who does she mean? Who is this?” Arthur was asking.
Cal swallowed. It was impossible to say the words but in sheer despair he said them. “My mother,” he whispered.
Shadow said, “Thérèse?”
He turned to her. “Not Thérèse.” The siren was loud now, the car racing up to the amphitheater, stopping with a squeal of brakes.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, to her, to all of them.
“What?” Wary, Shadow glanced around, backed off. “Have you told the police about me? What have you done, Cal?”
The woman was going, turning and walking into the dark, and in her hands he saw she held a shape of darkness, veiled and hidden. From the entrance tunnel voices rang, angry, until Arthur roared, “Let them through!” his breath smoking in the frosty air.
Two figures. Running. A man and a woman.
“Don’t blame me,” Cal said miserably, clutching the sword. “I thought it was for the best. I did it for you. I’m sorry, Shadow.”
“You stupid, stupid fool!” she hissed.
The bells stopped instantly. And suddenly in the terrible silence, across the frosty field he saw that the man was Trevor, and the woman, breathless, one high-heeled shoe slipping off, was Thérèse.
Trevor grabbed him. “Cal! Thank God!”
“What? What is it?” He was icy with fear. Shivering, sweating with fear.
Trevor glanced at Arthur, then back. His face was aged and stricken in the red flames. “It’s your mother.”
“What!” In agony Cal flung the broken sword down. “What? For God’s sake tell me! Tell me!”
But it was Thérèse who came up and put her arms around him. It was Thérèse who told him that his mother was dead.
Stone
Chapter Seventeen
For when thou didst set out against her will,
pain leapt up in her . . .
Peredur
He edged the dusty net curtain aside and watched the street. Kids were in a gang on the corner, arguing. They climbed and perched on the old settee that was rotting there, absorbed totally in whatever the fight was about. One of them lit a cigarette, throwing the match down the drain. It amazed him that people could go on, as if nothing had happened. As if she was still alive.
The first night, with Trevor hushing the neighbors away into the back room, he had sat here and stared at the six o’clock news, waiting for the item to come up: woman, found dead in Bangor, the pills, the bottles of spirits. It hadn’t. It wasn’t important. It probably happened somewhere every day.
Now the taxi was turning the corner. It came up past the kids and crawled, looking for the number.
Cal glanced around, suddenly panicky. The room was quite empty, all the flat was. It looked stark and tiny and grubby; he could hardly believe all his life had been spent between these walls. He had a feeling he should be sentimental now, go around saying good-bye to places, like the room where . . . her room. But he couldn’t. He hated the place more than ever. He would never have to see it again.
Quickly, he picked up the rucksack and went outside, closing the front door with a clap, sending a few more flakes of its blistered paint scattering.
Sally must have been looking out; she was waiting by the taxi, and to Cal’s embarrassment she put her arms around him and squashed him to her. She was big, and smelled of soap.
“Bye, Sal,” he muttered.
Her eyes were red. “Look after yourself, boy. Give us a ring now and then, we’d be glad to hear from you, Cal. Don’t forget all about us.”
“No,” he said dully. He didn’t know what he meant by it. She was looking at him as if he was small and lost and he was and he couldn’t let her know, so
“Right, mate.” The taxi jerked and reversed and pulled away. Sally waved. He made himself wave back.
But once around the corner he sank into the seat, exhausted, as if some tacky elastic cord had snapped, and he was free. He couldn’t feel anything. He was numb.
There had been the funeral, in the big, cold church she had only gone to when she had nowhere else to go, and the cold rain in the cemetery, and all the neighbors looking at him. If it hadn’t been for Thérèse he’d never have gone through with it. They were all sorry, they said, but he knew what they thought. They blamed him. Going off, leaving her. They looked at his new work suit and the gray silk tie and they despised him. They were right to.
“Don’t blame yourself,” Thérèse had said. She meant well.
The inquest had been worse. Rhian had given evidence, a pretty woman with brown hair, flustered; she had come up to Cal after and said, “I’m so sorry,” and he’d thought that she didn’t know, did she, that no one knew except Trevor and Thérèse that he had killed her. That his staying away had killed her.
There had been doctors, and Sally and then Trevor, and the verdict had been left open, not even suicide, because she was so absentminded, Sally had said, and she might not have known she was taking too many. And she’d been drinking.
“Unfortunate,” the coroner had said. “An unfortunate and tragic event, and our sympathies to the family, especially her son.”
“Three pounds, mate,” the taxi driver said again, patiently.
Cal paid, got out, went into the station, sat and waited without thinking, staring at the advertisements on the wall, reading them over and over and not seeing them.
After Thérèse had left he and Trevor had cleared the flat. There had been the lopsided Christmas decorations to take down, and the tree, but Trevor had done that, because Cal had had to go out, away from it. She had tried. It was the trying that hurt him most.
Most of the furniture was cheap and worthless. Trevor had put an apron on and worked all day, grimly, barely speaking, phoning charity shops and dealers, getting everything sold: her clothes, the cups and saucers, the junk in the cupboards. His distaste had been silent and bitter. Cal had burned with shame at the mess.
“Take anything you want, mind,” Trevor had kept saying, and Cal had fingered old schoolbooks and smelled her cardigans, but there was nothing here he wanted.
Except, at the back of her bedside drawer, there was a picture he had drawn when he was about five, for Mother’s Day. The straggling writing was huge, copied from someone else at school, probably. Have a Happy Day Mummy. He had never called her that. Almost, he had cried then. A hot lump had come in his throat and his eyes had gone sore, but Trevor had called from downstairs, and he had rubbed his face and swallowed the lump and pushed the card into his rucksack. It hurt him. Like a wound. He didn’t know why he was keeping it.
The train came in and he got on it, and all morning he watched the woods and mountains and the tiny newborn sheep in the frosty fields, and the great expanses of sea at Rhyl and Colwyn Bay. People sat by him and came and went; he had a newspaper but he couldn’t read it, and finally at Crewe he got out and found himself sitting on the red metal seat on the platform reading the destinations board stupidly, as if he had been traveling forever and had never even started out.
She had killed herself. Sometimes he was sure of that, despite what the coroner had said; he imagined the scene in every detail, the Christmas tree, the bottles on the table. The pills. Her hands, taking one after another, deliberately, shakily. Her hands holding the cup. Sipping. And then, straight afterward, he wasn’t sure; it could have been an accident, she was drunk, she could easily have forgotten she’d already taken them. It was a nightmare seesaw of thoughts that he couldn’t get off.
Trevor had gone back to work two days ago, and Cal had had to stay in Bangor till everything was sold and the landlord had had the keys. Now there was nothing to go back for.
As the train rattled down through Cheshire and into the hills of Shropshire he knew that he was free, but the release of that was tiny against the terrible, cold stab of blame. It was his fault. And her fault. She had spoiled everything forever. He would never be free of her now; the blame and the shame of it would ruin his life, as she’d ruined it when she was alive, as she’d always ruined everything. It was too hard to think of; he hated himself. He got up and grabbed his rucksack and shouldered past the drinks trolley ferociously, down the carriage to the door and he had hold of the door and was pulling it and pulling it, just to get some air, to get away from the thoughts, to get out.
“Son.” A hand on his arm. “Son. Take it easy. The door’s locked.” The guard. Two women behind him, looking scared and concerned. A whole carriage of horrified faces.
Cal took his hands off the door and stepped back. He was shaking, his back wet with sweat.
The guard said, “It’s okay.” He had hold of Cal; Cal went weak at the knees.
The guard flipped down the overflow seat and turned quickly. “Get him some tea,” he said.
The train rattled over points, swung through a long curve. Trees flashed past the windows.
Cal couldn’t speak. He was shaking too much, and the guard crouched down in front of him and said, “Drink this, son. You look done in.” It was a white plastic cup, and when he sipped from it the hot tea hit him like a blow, and his ears seemed to pop, so he heard the words from the women behind, the words shock and suicide.
“Better?”
He said, “I wasn’t . . . I forgot we were moving.” It sounded crazy.
The guard said, “Whatever you say, son. How far are you going? Is anyone meeting you?”
“Corbenic,” he said. Then, confused, “Chepstow.”
The guard nodded. Suddenly Cal was alarmed. Would he radio ahead, would Trevor hear about this? With a terrible effort he stood up and said normally, “I’m sorry. I really thought the train had stopped. Half asleep, I suppose.” He tried to smile. Maybe it looked all right because the guard got up too, his knees creaking.
“It’s two hours to Newport. You change there. Maybe you should have some more sleep.”
When they’d left him alone, and the two women had gone back to their seats, Cal sat by the window and stared out at his own reflection over the flashing fields.
The cup. He looked down at it, an empty plastic cup, and would have crushed it in his hand, only that it would make loud cracking noises and people would look at him again. If he had opened that door and fallen out . . .
He closed his eyes. He had to be careful. Follow the rules. Not panic. But the rules were shattered and useless and he knew that his shirt was dirty and his trousers scruffy and he hadn’t even thought about anything like that for days.
The cup. That’s what he would do; he would find the cup. That shining Grail, that feeling it had given him. He had failed her, but he wouldn’t fail at this. And for a moment he almost thought that if he could find the Grail it would bring her back somehow, it might help, might cure the hurt, not just for Bron but for him. There was nothing to go back to Chepstow for; Shadow would have been found by now, she’d despise him, and the Company . . . he had lied to them. He hated his job; only now could he see clearly that it wasn’t for him, that he only endured it for the money. Why had he ever thought he could do that for the rest of his life?
The guard was passing. “okay now?” Keeping an eye, Cal thought.
“Fine. What’s the next station?”
“Ludlow. Ten minutes.”
It was here. Somewhere. Out there in that green wasteland of woods and rivers and hidden valleys, of castles and factories and hills. Corbenic was out there, and he would find it. It would be his quest. And Ludlow would be as good a place as anywhere to start.
He made no move till the train hissed in and stopped; then when the doors had whished open he grabbed his rucksack and stepped out. Cold air en
“Hey!” At the front end of the train the guard was waving. “Son! Not your stop!”
Cal ignored him. He waved, turned, and walked up the steps quickly, over the little bridge, down the other side. There was a street leading past a big new supermarket; he went down it, and into the town. Shops. Old black-and-white inns. A few market stalls.
He went into a café and bought a coffee, and asked the girl who brought it if she knew a place nearby called Corbenic.
“No, sorry.” She looked at him shyly. “But you could try the library. They’ve got maps.”
He nodded, stirring the sugar in.
It was not on any map. After a good hour of searching he sat with both hands on the wooden desk, feeling lost and worn out. There was no such place as Corbenic. Or as Merlin had said, it wasn’t to be found on the map.
He picked the rucksack up and wandered outside, and found it was dark. The shops had closed, and a faint icy rain was falling, spotting the pavements, soaking his hair quickly. He walked on. He was in a strange town, alone, at twilight, with no idea where he was going or what he was doing, but he wouldn’t give up. Because this was the quest; this was where it began. The descent, the marvels, the terrors. His penance.
He found a hotel on the main street; there was a phone box in the lobby and he rang Otter’s Brook and Trevor answered.
“Hi,” Cal said quietly.
“Where are you?”
“Still in Bangor.” Still lying. “Look, I’ve got a few friends to see, and then . . . well, I thought I’d take a bit of a break, if you don’t mind.”
He could feel Trevor’s sigh. “Well, I suppose a few days would be only . . .”
“Not a few days. A week, maybe.”
“What! Doing what?”
“Traveling. I just feel . . .” He lowered his voice. “I just feel I need to sort myself out. Find out what I really want.”
“I can’t keep the job open indefinitely.”
“I know.” He didn’t say, “I don’t want the job.” He didn’t need to.