Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
KINGSTON
I almost trip over my feet standing up when she comes in. She notices and presses her lips together like she wants to smile, but is sparing my dignity.
"Hi," I say, nodding.
"Hello," Gwenna says, sounding a little suspicious. She looks down at my desk, which is covered in my research, which I've been working on practically all morning.
"Did you sleep all right?" I ask.
"Um, yes," Gwenna says. "Gwenna says." Not meeting my eyes.
"Your room was all right? The food?"
"It was fine, Kingston," she says, smiling. "Really, it was, I promise."
I nod. "All right. Good." I'm still standing up, I realize. I sit back down, stare at the books, try to remember how I was going to start.
"I found something," I say. "A lot of things."
Gwen appears over at me. "You did?"
I nod. "I went back to some of the church fathers, different ones," I interject, "because I had a theory.
And look at this." I flip to the first one in my notes, William of St. Thierry.
"He writes all about how God is life's sap, which at first I thought was just a poetic.
.. metaphor, but it could be more literal. "
"Okay," she says.
I don't think I've convinced her. "Or," I say, pulling up the next text, "St. Ambrose, he talks about the vessel of grace, but not just... containers like active conduits. They transmit. They have power that flows through them."
"Okay." Gwenna leans in now, a little interested.
"And then Gregory of Nyssa," I say, going to my third, surprised at how exciting it is to get her attention. "The idea that a human, person is the cosmos in miniature."
"That one's kind of a stretch," I admit, "but—"
"Hmm," Gwenna says.
"And Augustine," I say.
Gwenna starts to roll her eyes.
I gesture frantically. "Wait, no, I know," I say, "but I realized he writes a lot about, um..." I swallow. "Seed?" I say it like it's a question. "Corruption, generation, regeneration. It's very—"
"Fertile," she says.
"Right.”
“So what are you trying to say?” she says, her eyes narrowed.
"I guess I'm saying that I believe you," I say. "I think your theory is right. That it's not contradicted by the rest of the church. It's just buried in there."
And I think Emrys chooses that exact instant to burst through the door. "Here we are," he says. "The Song of Ammergen. I don't have the best critical copy, but—"
He hands it to Gwenna, something she must have asked for the previous class.
She reads it aloud.
"What is this?" I ask.
"It's a mystical poem," Emrys says, "from one of the founders of Ireland long before it was Christianized. And it sounds like it…”
“It sounds like Caritas," Gwenna says. “The cosmic woman. 'I am life, I am rationality, viriditas, the life force, the fiery force that lies hidden within these things and they burn because of me.”
None of us says anything for a moment.
“It's a sovereignty poem," she says. "It's about claiming to be everything, all of nature, the life force speaking through human form."
My mind flashes back, back to something Emrys told me months ago, what feels like a lifetime ago. The grail isn't a what, it's a who.
"This is a person who—"
"A woman," Gwenna interrupts me. She's staring at her desk. "Who embodies viriditas, who renews what's dying...”
“Who heals the Fisher King and who makes the wasteland bloom,” I add.
She nods. “And who burns but is not consumed. It’s all…” she trails off.
“It’s all the Grail,” I say. “You were right. I didn’t see it at first—”
“Wouldn’t see it,” Gwenna mutters.
“—but it is,” I finish. “Theologically. Mythologically. It all aligns. We have proof that whatever you saw in the future is…right.”
The three of us sit silent a moment.
"My," Emrys says. “My, my, my. You’ve cracked it. The two of you have cracked it.”
I shake my head. “Hardly.” I look at Gwenna. “She put it all together.”
She doesn’t look at me, but her mouth twitches, like she might smile.
“So.” Emrys turns to me. “What now, Mr. Pendragon?"
"Me?" I say.
"Yes, you," he says. "What must we do now? Do you have a report to make, or…”
He trails off.
Of course. Somehow, despite having trained for this my whole life, I forgot what the quest actually is.
It’s not simply finding the Grail. It’s bringing it to the White Brothers.
“Don’t you know?” I ask, a bit helplessly. He shakes his head.
“Alas,” he says. “The mechanics of what happens next—well, next for the two of you—are shrouded in mystery. Even to me.”
I look at Gwenna. "There's nothing to tell," I say quickly. "Yet."
She looks up.
“It’s too risky right now,” I say. “We’re leaving soon, for St. Ignaty.
They will…” I clench my fist. “They’ll play dirty,” I say.
“Try to hurt me, or all four of us. I know how they work.” I haven’t wanted to say it aloud yet, haven’t wanted to acknowledge the truth, but there’s little point in denying it much longer.
The Russians don’t simply want to beat us in a fencing tournament. They want to debilitate us.
The fire was only a taunt, an immature lashing-out that happened to destroy much more than a few million dollars’ worth of manuscripts. Bringing us to their home turf is the kind of killing blow they could only dream of.
“We need to just…get through this,” I conclude. “I apologize, but until then, I’m simply going to be…too distracted.”
I duck my head, not wanting to look either of them in the eye.
“A final trial,” Emrys murmurs. “A feat of arms.” He looks between the two of us. "I suspect," he says slowly, "with the incipient travel, and your recent loss, Ms. Vale, we might be best served by taking a bit of recess in this class, just for today."
Gwenna nods. "Okay."
"I am extraordinarily proud of you, both of you," he says. "I could not have done this alone, or perhaps even at all, but with the two of you..." He smiles. "A shining example."
He strides over to my desk, extends his hand. "I wish you the best of...luck against your opponents, Mr. Pendragon, though I have no doubt you will emerge victorious as usual."
I shake it. "Thank you."
"And Ms. Vale?" Gwenna lifts her head. "I bow to your scholarship." He presses his palms together. "We will reconvene upon your return, and perhaps then discover what you might…do with all of this.”
As he leaves, Gwenna gets up to start packing up her things, and I feel my heart pound. Not yet. I need her to stay just a moment.
"Gwenna," I say, "wait. There's something more I need to—"
She waits, looks at my books. “I get the point," she says gently. "I really believe you did the work, Kingston. I'm impressed—"
"No," I say. "It's not that. It's something else. If you could just—"
She still waits. I take a deep breath.
“I’m assuming you probably still hate me,” I start—I’m speaking too quickly, and force myself to slow down—“and I just want you to know that I understand why you feel that way. I’ve made mistakes—I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and poor choices, and bad judgements.
And for all those, I am sorry. I’m very, very sorry.
I don’t know how else to tell you or to prove it, but I am.
” I draw in a breath. “But more than that, Gwenna, I’m sorry… I’m sorry it had to be you.”
At that, she frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” This is the part I haven’t thought through. I’m going to have to improvise. “I’m sorry that this—this power, or being, or whatever it may be, that it couldn’t be someone else. That it can’t be someone else. I’m…angry that it has to be you.”
Angry. I don’t think I realized that was true until I said it just now.
Gwenna looks surprised. “Really?”
I nod. “Yes. You…” I exhale. “There’s so much you can do, Gwenna.
So much you can interpret and solve and read and write, and so…
well. Just—look at all this, for example.
” I gesture at the piles and piles of text facsimiles, the stacks and stacks of books.
“You shouldn’t have to do or be anything more than that. ”
“You’re saying I’m too special to have some kind of secret power?” Gwenna says steadily. “With all due respect, Kingston, that hardly makes any sense.”
“No, no.” I rub my forehead, frustrated that I’m not getting my point across. It’s so ambiguous, nuanced; I’m not used to parsing things out like this. “I’m saying…I’m saying you do have power, and that power isn’t a secret. It was never a secret how brilliant you are.”
“Brilliant,” she repeats.
I nod. “You could do so much. You could…” My pulse is ticking uncomfortably in my throat. I swallow. “If it were up to me, I’d…I’d take all my father’s money and buy up a library and just give it to you so you could read forever.”
Gwenna’s lips twitch. “Wouldn’t he be…mad?”
I give a grim smile. “Probably. No, definitely.”
She considers. “And why isn’t it up to you, Kingston?”
I grip my fountain pen a little tighter. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, why don’t you just say fuck it and give it all up? Why stick with this if it’s so…so much for you?”
“I’m obligated,” I say. “This is what I have to do.”
“Because of the vows? The Consistory? Kingston—”
“No,” I say, interrupting her without even pausing to apologize. “Because I have to. Because I have to. Since I was born. Since the moment of my birth, it has my obligation to…to…”
I’m holding the pen so tightly it’s spattering tiny drops of ink across the page.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“You don’t have to apologize.” From the corner of my eye, I see Gwenna sit on the edge of her desk. “It’s your notebook, for one thing.” She pauses a moment. “Your mother.”
A hot, tight feeling seizes my chest.
“She hemorrhaged in labor.” I can’t bear to look at Gwenna as I speak. “It was very fast, very sudden. They said she took her last breath before I took my first.”
“Oh, Kingston.”
I realize I’m still holding my pen. I set it down, then hold the notebook firmly in place so I can tear out the ruined page along the binding.
Which reveals the page behind it.
Blood oranges = preferred fruit (winter)
Prefers skirts to pants (hard to find tall women’s inseams)
All fish except tuna salad = “gross”
Hopes to learn to ski one day
Ears pierced BUT: allergic to gold
Does not follow pro sports but does like the Phillie Phanatic (baseball mascot; he once gave her a balloon animal)
It continues from there. And onto the next page. I watch as Gwenna’s eyes go from the page to me to the page again. She blinks.
“Is that…about me?” she asks at last.
I can’t read the expression on her face.
It isn’t angry, though.
“It’s…” There’s no point in lying, I suppose. “Yes,” I admit.
“What?” She frowns. “How did…”
“I heard you mention things,” I say. “Mostly to the others. But sometimes here. I made a study of it. So I could know how to…treat you better.”
At that, Gwenna laughs.
I realize I don’t remember the last time I heard her laugh.
I really like how it sounds.
“That’s so incredibly, immeasurably weird, Kingston,” she says, once she calms down.
I feel heat flare in my cheeks. “Listening when you say things? Knowing what’s important to you?” I say. “Is that not what people do?”
“It’s not,” she confirms. “Not like…that, anyway. You’re…” She laughs again, softer. “You’re so strange.”
Her eyes drift from the notebook up to me. Her gaze holds mine a long, long moment.
“I’m sorry it had to be you, too, Kingston.”