The Shadow Companion - Laura Anne Gilman [13]
Gerard had stopped listening to them. Instead he watched Sir Matthias and the monk.
“Which means…?” Newt wasn’t sure what he was asking.
“I don’t know. There’s something about that monk. The darkness, it has been placed on him, somehow, as though…”
“Shhhh,” Gerard hushed them as Sir Matthias began to speak.
“This is Brother Jannot. He—”
“The Grail hides.” The monk had a deep voice, deeper than his body should have been able to produce, and it carried even into the darkness. “The Grail hides in shadows, in long dark shadows. Bring the light, and dispel the shadows. Find the Grail.”
“A prophecy,” one of the knights muttered. “He’s been gifted with the art of prophecy.”
“A miracle,” another said. “The voice of God speaks through him!”
Slowly, the mood of the gathered men changed from irritation and exhaustion to exultation, with Sir Matthias and the now silent monk at the heart of it. Even Gerard and Newt got caught up in the energy, Newt totally forgetting his earlier unease.
Only Ailis, pushed to the side by the crowd of people trying to get close enough to touch the monk’s robe, looked distressed, not uplifted, by the prophecy.
“Something’s wrong,” she whispered, feeling it in her bones, in her blood. There was a sense of the world being twisted somehow. She could feel it, taste it, in the monk’s words.
But nobody heard her; everyone was so caught up in the monk’s revelation. He gave them exactly what they wanted to hear.
THREE
The next morning found them riding out of sunlit fields and into a dark, shadowed forest. The road narrowed so that they could not ride more than three abreast. The supply wagon came perilously close to overrunning the cleared area and tipping into the narrow rainwater-carved ditch on one side.
“I don’t like this.” Ailis kept looking back over her shoulder, her hand reaching to stroke her horse’s neck for reassurance. The gelding was one of Arthur’s own with the royal brand on its hindquarters. It was trained to carry messengers, lads about Ailis’s size and weight. That familiar weight, Newt had said, would keep the horse calm and steady no matter how far they traveled, or under what conditions. So far that had been true, and Ailis was thankful for it. She was a better rider now than she had ever dreamed of being before all this began, but it still wasn’t natural to her the way it was for the boys.
“Which this would that be?” Gerard asked. “The fact that we’re chasing after a rumor based on something a half-mad monk said, the fact that we’re riding into a big dark forest everyone calls the Shadows, because the word has ‘shadow’ in its name, or—”
“Or because everyone around here says that this forest is haunted with evil spirits?” Newt added.
“I don’t believe in ghosties,” Callum said stoutly, but he was a little paler than normal as he looked around nervously. He’d chosen to ride with them this morning, despite or perhaps because of the fight the night before. His mount, a delicate-boned mare with a lovely gait, was taking her cue from him, shying and snorting at every bird or small beast that moved. Newt would have felt sorrier, except for Callum’s stubborn determination to outdo Gerard in every way, including his casual disregard for anything not sword or shield. It was annoying enough to have one adventure-hungry squire around—two was exhausting.
Newt didn’t like magic. He didn’t trust magic. But he wasn’t fool enough to deny it existed. He’d never seen a ghost before. But he’d seen a dragon, a bridge troll, a sea serpent…after that, unquiet spirits weren’t so difficult to imagine.
“Why would the Grail be hidden in a forest?” Ailis asked for the seventh or eighth time since Sir Matthias had announced their destination that morning.
“Why would the Grail be hidden anywhere?” Newt asked, feeling the urge to be difficult. He wanted to show Gerard and Ailis that they weren’t the only ones with brains. “Why not just leave it in a house of worship