The damned book pulsed against his skin, breathing. Alive. All of these words, snatches of phrases and portents pounded through his mind, matching the relentless drumming of Marchante's hooves on the road and the pulsing of the Devil's book against his chest.
Up ahead of him, the Stanegate Road divided around a lightning-struck tree the locals called Hangman's Oak, because of the way one of the branches had been split away from the trunk by the lightning strike to form a gallows arm. Some called it the Devil's Tree.
Alymere slowed Marchante, pulling up on the warhorse's reins until he slowed to a canter.
The crow perched on the furthermost tip of the gallows arm, the white feathers clearly visible as it stared at him intently, but it was not the bird that caused him to stop, but rather the crook-backed figure of an old woman resting in its shadow.
She raised her head and a long gnarled finger, which she levelled at him. He saw something then, in her eyes, that frightened him bone deep. She moved forward two shuffling steps. The shadows cast by Hangman's Oak on her pallid skin came alive beneath that slight movement, stretching and writhing as they were pulled out of shape. He didn't care about the shadows; they could not hurt him.
'What do you want from me, witch?' he called, hating the way his new voice sounded in his own ears still. It was as though a stranger spoke through his mouth. But why should it be any different when a stranger wore his face?
'Alymere, Destroyer of Kingdoms. Alymere, Killer of Kings. Alymere, Champion of the Wretched. Alymere, Saviour of the Sick. Alymere, son of Albion? Which is it? Which do you choose, now and forever; who shall you be?' He had heard these names once before, when Blodyweth, the Crow Maiden, first greeted him. To hear them again now, so close to where he had stumbled upon the Summervale, caused him to doubt more than just his ears. The woman before him was no maiden. It was impossible to imagine her as ever having been young, and harder still to imagine her having been beautiful. But then beauty was a transient thing. He touched his own ruined cheek. Who was he to judge now?
The old woman pointed first to the right of the Devil's Tree, 'The path of the righteous,' she said. And then to the left, 'Or the sinister path? Which is it to be? For the day of Alymere the Undecided is at an end. Life is not a single continuous thing,' she said, mirroring his own thoughts of days before. Could she somehow tap into his mind? 'It is made up of lots of smaller lives. Your old life is at an end, Champion. You are born again. So tell me, who are you?'
The church lay to the left, the nearest settlement to the right. It was possible the priest was to be found at the end of either road, or nowhere at all.
'Who am I?' he asked, as though the old hag might offer answers. He drew himself up in the saddle. 'I am my father's son,' he said simply. A smile split half of his face.
The crone cackled at that. 'That you are,' she said. 'That you are. I was there at your birth, young warrior, and I will be there at your death,' she told him. 'And that is the one truth you will utter in all those days in between.'
'What is that supposed to mean, woman?'
'There are many lies around you, warrior. Even the face you present to the world is not your own. Some lies are yours, many are not, but that does not change the fact that they are woven around you like the cloak you wear. So, I ask again, who are you, warrior?'
Beneath his clothes he felt the words of the book crawl across his skin, bleeding into him. In his mind he heard the echoes of the same phrases over and over again:
'I am Alymere. No more and no less than that. You can speak your riddles, they mean nothing to me. I am not your plaything. Now move out of my way. I will ride you down if I must.' He did not wait for her to scurry out of his path. He spurred Marchante forward. The warhorse reared onto its powerful hind legs and kicked at the air. When they came down the horse set off running.
Alymere took the left hand path as the crone had always known he would.
Thirty-Six
He stood at the door of the church, but could not bring himself to cross the threshold. He hadn't noticed it before, but carved into the transom, in the block of wood above the doorway, there was a goblet — a chalice — and the constant abuse of the weather had turned it black.
There was nothing untoward about a church bearing the mark of the grail.
He and his uncle had sought the grail once, as had most of Arthur's court at one time or another; so much had happened since they had ridden out together across marsh and field in the rising fogs to find the Chapel of the Fallen Brother, where the first clue to the whereabouts of the grail was carved in stone. It had begun as a great adventure and ended in bitter frustration and disappointment. But that wasn't what Alymere was remembering. The recollection came to him with unerring clarity and for a moment it was as though memory were layered over reality, both doors before him. There had been a single carving etched into the keystone of the chapel's entrance, a chalice.
Could this humble church be part of the grail quest?
Was that what the carving meant?
There was no mistaking the image — it was the cup that had caught the blood of Christ. What more holy symbol could there be?
But for it to have turned black…
He could not shake the feeling that it was an ill omen.
His mind raced, making leaps of logic that churned his stomach: the Devil's book, the Black Chalice, both, surely were the antithesis of these most holy relics, God's Book and the Holy Grail? It made a sickening kind of sense, and explained why Blodyweth feared the book falling into the wrong hands. If the grail were the ultimate prize of good, then surely the black grail must stand as its counterpart on the scales of balance, the ultimate prize of evil?
Instinctively, Alymere made the sign of the cross over his chest, and then winced as the sudden movement caused the book tucked beneath his shirt to dig into his ribs.
He hammered on the door with his clenched fist and waited.
The words of the crone still haunted him all these hours later.
What did she mean, his life was wrapped in lies?
What, if anything, did these lies have to do with the Devil's cup?
Before he could answer the questions — not that he ever could — the door groaned open and a pinch-faced priest peered out through the gathered shadows. His complexion, sallow skin and tired eyes, set into waxy dark circles beneath his heavy brow, bespoke years of austerity and hardship. But for all of the exhaustion there, there was strength too: the strength of faith, the certainty that he was walking the path his God had lain before him, and that every step was a step taken towards Him. Alymere had no such faith. It had been a long time since he had. He could name the day, all those years ago when he became Alymere the Poor Knight instead of Alymere son of Roth. So, for that unwavering confidence, he envied the priest.
In that moment, before he recognised Alymere, the old man's face betrayed his fear.
