The Camelot Spell - Laura Anne Gilman [8]
“Can you imagine it,” Gerard began, forgetting everything else to return to his favorite topic. “To be a part of…to actually lay hands on the Grail itself? They say it’s magical, that it can heal, that it can grant your heart’s dearest wish….”
“Will it make you better at your sword drills? That would be miracle indeed!”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” A girl’s voice, light and pleasant in tone, if not in the words, intruded into their conversation. “Grail this, Grail that. None of you has a lick of sense about it.”
Gerard made an irritated face at Mak, but smoothed it out before turning to face the newcomer. Ailis might be only a girl, and a servant at that, but she had come to Camelot after the battle of Mount Agned, where both her parents died. Everyone knew that the queen looked after the orphans of that battle as if, some whispered unkindly, they were the children she had never been able to give the king. And those whom Guinevere favored had a certain kind of protection, in that everyone took care to please the queen. To anger the queen was to risk Arthur’s wrath as well.
Gerard and Ailis had both come to Camelot as tearful eight-year-olds the same week, and there was a bond of sorts in that. (Even if neither would ever admit that one of them had gotten lost in the winding stone-and-wood hallways of the castle, and had to be led out, in tears, by the other.) Gerard would take that secret to his grave. Ailis might only be a servant-girl, but her parents had been honest land-holders who died for their king. And she was a good sort, for a girl.
“What do you mean?” Mak demanded. “How are we not sensible? I’d say we’re being plenty sensible—can’t go on a Quest without planning, and lots of it!”
Ailis had pretty brown eyes that could practically sparkle with laughter, but right now they looked dark and worried. “The Grail is not to be won, is it? It’s a thing that’s given.” She tugged at the end of her braid, which was dark red and long enough to coil around her shoulder and hang almost down to her elbow. “You can’t just go off and search and take it, no matter how shining your armor or fancy your horse, or full your heart with Glory-to-King.”
“And pray tell: Who gives it, then?” Mak scoffed.
“I don’t know,” Ailis admitted, looking troubled by the question. “But someone more than a knight.”
“You know nothing about it.” Gerard couldn’t believe that she was dismissing all the knights that easily. Lancelot himself was on this Quest! It was all anyone had talked about for months!
“Nor does any of us,” Ailis pointed out. “Everything we’ve heard so far…it’s just legend. And myth. But all the stories say that the one who holds it cannot be defeated on this earth.”
“All the more reason for Arthur to hold it,” Gerard said.
“But what if we’re not the ones meant to find it? Might it not be better for it to stay lost?” Ailis suggested.
Mak was scornful. “You’re a servant. What do you know about any of this?”
Ailis gulped, her cheeks going pale and then flaming red with shame. “Is that what you think? That a servant can’t know any better?”
On another day, Gerard might have tried to smooth things over, as he so often did when Ailis spoke her mind in front of his fellow squires. But he was still upset at the stable boy’s actions, and her dismissal of his heroes rankled him. “You’re a girl,” he said instead. “Maybe that’s why—”
“Oh!” Ailis looked as though she’d like to smack them both, but settled for a parting shot before she turned away. “Two of a kind, you are; overfull of yourselves and your positions—such as they are, as neither of you is actually being taken along on this grand Quest.”
They both winced as the bolt struck home.
“Ailis, I…” Gerard began awkwardly.
“Oh, go on, they’re calling you,” Ailis said, spotting a commotion near the main door. “Hurry!”
Ailis watched the two boys move across the crowded floor to where one of the under-cooks was waiting, and sighed in relief when they made it without further delay. She hated to see anyone get into trouble. Then, recalling her own duties, she