King and Emperor

The man who faced Shef at the top of the ladder, youngest of the perfecti, hesitated as he saw the head of the barbarian king reach the level of the rock floor on which he stood and then continue mounting, rung by rung. He knew what he was supposed to do, had seen it done a dozen times before. If the candidate for election entered the Womb, passed the trials of the Serpent, the Woman, and Death, and climbed the graduale out of the Pit, then he should be met by the most junior of the Council, the one who had passed the trial himself most recently. And the junior should put a drawn sword to his breast and ask him the ritual question: How may an old man be born again? And enter again into the womb of his mother?

But it was supposed to happen in the dark! The candidate should have only the tiny candle-flame, symbol of the secret knowledge, and should see nothing till the sword was at his heart! It was only ritual by that stage, for every candidate, whether he was prepared or not for the trials, knew the question and the answer. But they were not supposed to see the tester or his sword till they were face to face.

In the lurid glow of the dry and burning corpses, Shef could see the man facing him perfectly clearly, could see the needle-pointed sword in his hand, could see too that he had no intention of using it. Behind the man at the front of the rock ledge sat a dozen more men in grey cowls, in a ring facing him. They too were supposed to be invisible until they spoke. As they realized they could be seen, the cowls looked this way and that, men shifted position, broke out in undignified whispers. To the tester and his comrades behind him Shef himself, rising out of the Pit with every stride, looked larger and larger, his shadow reaching out in front of him with a menace in it, as if the men murdered to outfit the trial chamber had sent a representative to take their revenge. The gold circlet on Shef's head and the gold bracelets on his biceps caught the red glow and sent angry glints across the secret chamber.

“Why did you do that?” hissed the tester. “I mean…” The test had already gone wrong. He stretched the sword forward, found his wrist grasped easily by a man far his superior in strength.

“Try again,” said Shef.

“How may a man be born again? And enter again into the womb of his mother?”

The question of his dream, Shef thought. He had not known the answer then. But he had just undergone a test, and passed it. The answer to this must have something to do with the form of the test. Something Christian, or half-Christian at least. How would Father Andreas have answered? Thoughtfully, using the Arabic in which he had been addressed, the common speech of the border, Shef replied, “Cast aside fear. And lust. And the fear of death. And so climb out of the grave.”

“That is not the answer! Not in the true words.”

“It's near enough,” said Shef. The wrist he was holding was thin, that of a hunter or a shepherd, or even a priest, not a plowman. With a sudden exertion of his smithy-hardened muscles he bent it backwards, heard a gasp of pain, and the sword ring on the stone floor. He released the wrist, stopped and picked the sword up. Slight curve, one edge, needle-point. A back-stabber's weapon. Holding it in his right hand he stepped towards the seated half- circle, stood looking grimly down at them.

“Why did you set the—the men on fire?” asked the cowl in the center.

“Because they were men. Like you and me. I do not mind killing people, but I will not have them mocked in death. Among the men of the North burning is as good as burial.

“Now. You brought me here by stealing my woman. You gave me a test and I have passed it. You must have something to say to me. Say it. I expect there is an easier way out of here than the way I came. Say your piece and then let us all go home. And for the love of all the gods, light some candles! I have no wish to speak in darkness or by the flames of a funeral pyre.”

The leader of the perfecti hesitated, aware that the initiative had gone from him. Yet that might be good. It showed at least that this man, this king, was no common man. It might be, might well be, that he was the one they sought. To gain a moment's time he pulled his cowl back, raised a hand, waved for the lamps to be brought out of their hiding-places in the stone and lit.

“What is it that you wear round your neck?” he asked.

“It is a ladder, which I am told you call a graduale. It was the Emperor of Rome himself who told me that. Many years ago and many miles away. Sitting on a green hill, outside a city wall.”

The perfectus licked his lips nervously. The conversation was getting away from him already. “It is the Holy Graduale,” he insisted, “which we in our tongue call the Seint Graal. But before I tell you why it is that, you must swear to tell no one what is said here in this chamber. You must swear to be one of us. For if what I have to tell you were to come to the wrong ears, there would be in it…” He paused. “The death of Christianity.

“You must swear to silence! What will you swear by?”

Shef considered a moment. These people seemed to have no clear idea of how to deal with him. The death of Christianity—that was nothing to him. They should have understood that. Yet he did not believe in swearing false oaths. It might bring bad luck.

“I will swear by this,” he said, laying his hand on his pendant. His father-in-heaven, or in his own mind, whichever it might be, would not worry about a false oath, or an oath honored only to the letter. “I swear by my own emblem and by your holy graduale to reveal nothing of what I am told in this chamber.”

Tension began to drain out of the seated men, out of the one face he could now see: an elderly man with a face of shrewd cunning, the face of a successful trader among peasants.

“Good. The story has come to us that you gave the Emperor the Holy Lance he bears. You must know, then, why it is the Holy Lance. It was the weapon of the centurion who stabbed Our Lord on the Cross.”

Shef nodded.

“Why should there be a ladder to go with a lance? I will tell you. After the centurion stabbed Our Lord, and the blood and water gushed over his hands, pious men prayed the Romans for Our Lord's body. They were Joseph of Arimathea and his cousin, Nicodemus.”

At the last name all the seated men moved together, making a zigzag sign across their bodies.

“They took the body down from the cross. And, of course, they used a ladder. That ladder is the graduale. They lashed the body to the ladder to carry it to the stone grave that Joseph had reserved for the man he accepted as a prophet.

“Now, king, I must ask you this. They tell me you were baptized, brought up as a follower of Christ. So, tell me this: what is it that the Christians offer to those who believe?”

Shef considered. This did not have the ring of ritual, seemed an honest question. He did not know the answer. As far as he remembered Father Andreas had said that Christians should be Christians or go to Hell with the heathen. Hell? Or heaven? Perhaps that was the answer.

“They offer life,” he said. “Eternal life.”

“And how can they offer it? How dare they offer it? They offer it because, they say, Christ Himself rose from the grave. But I can tell you. He did not rise from the grave of Joseph. Because he did not die on the cross! He lived.”

The perfectus sank back on his chair, to see the effect of his words. Not what he expected. Shef shook his head emphatically.

“A German centurion stabbed him. He called himself Longinus. Stabbed him with an infantry issue javelin, a pilum. I have held the weapon, I saw the blow.”

“The blow was struck. It went astray.” The perfectus considered the strange certainty of the man who faced him, went on, “It may be that crucified men, men kept upright with their arms above their heads, that they stand oddly, their hearts shift. It is strange that water ran out of the wound. Maybe Longinus pierced some other vessel. But when Joseph and Nicodemus went after the Passover to the tomb they had made, to embalm the body: they found the Christ alive. Still wrapped in his shroud.”

It was Shef's turn to think, to recognize a kind of truth. Ten nights before he had dreamed another dream, of the man waking from the dead with his arms bound to his sides and pain in his heart, a dream of horror. But it could have happened. He had known men to recover on the battlefield as their comrades prepared to throw them in the pit, it had happened to Brand himself. And Brand too had recovered from a deep belly wound. It did not happen often, but it could.

“What happened then?”

“They told a trusted few the truth. But soon the story spread that they find in the Gospels, that the tomb was