Kingdom of the Grail by Judith Tarr Page B

could not save him from the truth. Ganelon knew, if not yet what Roland was, then certainlythat he was a danger. And he had killed one of Ganelon’s servants. He would pay for that, and dearly.
    He would have paid with his life if he had not killed first. He gathered his garments, his weapons, everything that could betray him. He blurred and scattered the human footprints that he had left, and laid a wolf’s trail far into the wood. Then he buried the body, digging the grave deep beneath the roots of an oak. The tree shuddered at the presence of so ill a thing, but it was old and it was strong. It would render the flesh into earth and the bones into stone, and dissipate the darkness within them.
    Ganelon would miss his servant soon, if he had not already. But Roland prayed that it would be long before he discovered what had become of the creature.

CHAPTER 8
    T he hour before sunset found Roland at the king’s table, seated in a place of honor at Charles’ right hand. He was scrubbed clean of black earth and serpent’s blood, and dizzy with the simple pleasure of living and breathing and walking free under the sky. Even when he caught sight of Ganelon far down among the priests, his heart barely stopped. He was safe, for the moment. And when this feast was over, he would speak to Charles. He would warn the king.
    He took his determination with him well into the night. The feast went late. Charles drank little, nor did he encourage his men to drink themselves into a fine Frankish stupor, but he was caught up in a disputation between a pair of priestly philosophers. Charles loved such contests, though his Companions tended to find them stupefying. Roland, who had no earthly interest in the precise order and ranking of the angels, nodded off where he sat.
    When he woke with a start, it was deep night. Charles was gone—to bed, no doubt, and wisely, too. There were no few snoring bodies amid the remnants of the feast. Roland had drunk little, but he had eaten less. His head ached abominably; his stomach snarled at him.
    There was still half a loaf of good white bread near his hand, and a bit of roast duck. He ate what he could, a fewgrimly determined bites of each, and drank from the cup he had been mostly ignoring. The wine was well watered. It steadied him well enough.
    As he sat sipping the last of it, gathering will to rise and seek his proper bed, a small sleek shape wove among the snoring bodies. His belly knotted, then eased as he saw what it was.
    A grey cat leaped into his lap, curled there with the utter insouciance of its kind, and began to knead his thigh, purring raucously. Its claws were wickedly sharp.
    He had seen this cat among the Saracen tents, the night he went there as bodyguard to the king. It was fey as all cats are, but still, he thought in the clarity of very late night, this one was more fey than most.
    Its purring rose to a crescendo. He plucked it from his stinging knee, tucked it under his arm, and went out into the night.
    It was almost dawn. He could smell the morning. The cat was quiet under his arm, purring still, tail flicking gently in rhythm with his stride. It had about it an air of considerable satisfaction.
    Roland could refuse to let a cat rule him so, but he sensed no evil in it, though he searched wide and deep, and by every way he knew. This was no serpent come to slay him. But neither was it a simple mortal cat.
    Its purring soothed him. The part of him that twitched to run to the king, wake him, warn him, subsided somewhat. His steps slowed. His senses opened as they had seldom done since he was a boy in the wood of Broceliande. The tent-city was beginning to wake. Men were yawning, stirring, rousing out of dreams. Monks and priests were up and praying, some in the slow roll of chanting, others in a shimmering silence.
    The darkness was like a canker, small as yet but already deep. It had Pepin, held him fast. It stretched—yes: toward the queen and the child