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“Try doing more circular motions,”
Percival grimaced at the helmet and the cloth he was using to polish it, “I was trying to, but-” then his brain caught up, and he looked upwards toward the door and the familiar voice.
“Gwalchmei!”
Gawain was leaning against the door to the armoury. He smiled.
“Hey, Percy. How is the path to knighthood?”
He frowned down at the piecemeal armour set and the cloth in his hand, “There’s an awful lot of cleaning so far,” he said, then backpedalled, not wanting to seem ungrateful, “But it’s all I’m good for, anyway, so it’s fine, I don’t mind,”
“All you’re good for? Who said that?”
“Sir Kay,”
Suspecting there was more, Gawain waited. He was right.
“Kay says I’m the stupidest person he’s ever met, and I can’t be a knight because I’ll never learn anything!” Percival was despondent.
“Nonsense. Even if Kay’s correct, and he often isn’t, that’s no reason you can’t be a knight. Lancelot’s not particularly smart and he’s the best knight in the world.”
Percival didn’t look convinced, “What about Sir Tristan?”
“Also quite dull, bless his heart.”
“No, I mean, isn’t he better than Sir Lancelot?”
“Oh,” Gawain considered it for a second, “I suppose they’re roughly equal.”
Percival looked thoughtful. “Is that why you aren’t the best knight in the world anymore? You’re too smart?”
Gawain laughed, surprised, “don’t mistake eloquence for intelligence- I’ve made some remarkably poor decisions in my life. No, I just got out of practice and let some French upstart take the title. It was a lot of trouble, he’s welcome to it.”
The boy was quiet for a long time. When he finally spoke, it was in an unusually serious and careful voice. “And Galahad? Mordred says he must be a great fool, for wanting to find the Holy Grail.”
With a pitying look that he didn’t yet understand, Gawain answered, “I don’t believe so. I wouldn’t know anything about your grail, or why he should seek it. Why don’t you ask him?”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that!”
“Whyever not?”
Because he was a fool, everyone said so, and he said the wrong things, and Galahad was wonderful and shining and special, he spoke with conviction and always stood apart from the other young knights in training, all golden hair and fine, dark eyes. He imagined the derision in those eyes, at the annoying, unrefined boy from the backwoods of Wales, and his stupid questions.
“I, I’m sure he’s busy.”
“You’re sure, are you?” Gawain snickered, “I don’t know what he could possibly be busy with. He’s too good for training and too Christian for having fun.”
“It- he isn’t- he’s just too virtuous and good for whatever, well whatever you’re speaking of,” He protested clumsily, feeling cross and not knowing why. He had not even spoken to Galahad in the week since he’d arrived in Camelot on the night of Pentecost, did not know why he felt the need to defend him.
“Yes, I suppose you’re right, and I’m sorry to have derided him.” Gawain agreed, conciliatory as always.
Percival stood, decided, “I think I will go see if he is busy- and if he isn’t then I’ll ask him.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Oh,” Percival said, embarrassed, surveying the half-polished set of armour laid out before him.
“I’ll finish cleaning this for you, and Kay won’t have to know.” Gawain frowned, “For that matter, I need to talk with him about how he treats you.”
“Y-you don’t have to do that-”
“No, I do. Besides, It’s not all about you, I’m still mad about Gareth.” Taking the cloth from him, Gawain sat and selected dull-looking pauldron from the pile. After a few moments, he looked up, as if surprised Percival was still there.
“Go! Make a little Christain friend your own age!”
Grateful but a little indignant, Percival went.
Naturally, he checked the chapel first, but Galahad was not there. Then he asked Mordred, who gave him very complicated directions that turned out to be completely wrong. Running down the list of Orkneys, he asked Gareth, who did not know where to find the son of Lancelot but was happy for any excuse to talk about his father, and thus it was with great difficulty that Percival extricated himself from the conversation. Gaheris didn’t care, and Agravaine was too intimidating to ask.
He found the Grail Knight, eventually, in the gardens under an apple tree, sitting with his eyes closed and lips moving in silent prayer. Percival said nothing, afraid to rouse him from this revery. It felt profane, to even think to speak to him now, and, feeling guilty and foolish, Percy was turning to leave when Galahad opened his eyes.
“I- I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you,”
“I was finished.” He said, and his voice was terribly soft.
“I really am sorry, I- I’m Percival.”
“...You’re sorry that you’re Percival?”
“Um- no, I-” Right now, yes!
“I’m G-”
“Oh, I know!” he said, and immediately wished he hadn’t, because it was rude to interrupt someone even if you hadn’t meant it to be.
“I see. Was there something you wanted?” He asked stiffly.
Percival flushed, “I’m s-” Don’t keep apologizing! “I wanted to meet you, and to ask about the grail, and why you want it- I’m sorry if that is a stupid question,”
“You wanted to meet me?” He asked, as if it was a possibility he hadn’t ever considered. Percival nodded.
“You could sit. Here, with me, I mean. If you want to hear about the grail.”
And all at once Percival understood that Galahad’s clipped, cold responses were the same as his own rambling, stuttering questions, that what he had believed was a distance that stemmed from lofty superiority, came simply from shyness. He smiled, no longer so timid, and sat with Galahad under the blooming tree.
Galahad spoke about God, and the Holy Grail, and destiny. Percival told him about Camelot, which knights were kind and which were not, how they celebrated at Christmas and cheered at tournaments, and in return was granted tales of growing up in a nunnery.
He did not speak of his mother, claimed to remember nothing of his life before the cloister, and said he did not know who his father was. It was a lie, of course- everyone knew who his father was. It was written in all his features, his strength and skill at arms, an inescapable brand. But Percival did not pry, though he also did not understand.
They spoke for a long time, each privately relieved to have someone to talk to, till bells rang for vespers and Galahad went away to pray, with some reluctance that Percival hoped desperately was not imagined.
His hopes were confirmed the next day when Galahad sought him out, to practice. The other squires and new knights were sick of this new boy showing them up, but the older, more skilled knights often did not have the time to spar with him. So it became a habit, to train together.
Percival knew he was good- he’d unhorsed an armoured knight on foot with no training, it was how he’d won a place at Camelot.
But Galahad’s skill was incredible, uncanny even. Every day Percival, bruised and sore and sweaty, would marvel because after hours of knocking him around on the practice field, his friend was unperturbed, as effortlessly strong and lovely as a marble statue.
Some knights did make time, on occasion, to practice with them, for the sake of a challenge if nothing else. Gawain would accept his inevitable defeat with good humour, and praise them both, though Galahad was the only one that ever beat him. Gareth took each loss as a challenge, and would cheerily promise that each beating was only one step on his inevitable path to supremacy. Tristan fought once and came the closest anyone had yet to victory over Galahad, and because Tristan had tried and failed, Palomedes had to try as well, and then Dinadan, who didn’t like fighting but also didn’t like being left out, also had to fail.
Lancelot, though, did not ever practice, not with anybody, and certainly not with his son. Over the next few months, he was away from Camelot even more than normal.
“It’s because he’s afraid he’ll lose if he does,” Mordred said, voice sharp and derisive.
“He has better things to do.”
They lapsed into unhappy silence. The three of them were cramped in the belfry with the pigeons and the sticky summer air, hiding from Kay and his endless chores.
Mordred was a problem. They were friends, of a sort, though Percival wondered if it was right for friends to be so mean to each other. But he was also a bastard, like Galahad, and there was some understanding they shared because of this, that sometimes made Percival feel as if he was on the outside of something he didn’t comprehend.
Like now, because they were sharing a dark look, some common insight into the nature of fathers and sons that Percival could not see. His father had died before he was born, but he had been married to his mother when he did so, and that mattered a great deal apparently.
“When I first saw a group of knights, I thought they were angels,” Percival said in, for the sake of saying anything, the first thing he thought of, just to remind them that he was there.
Mordred made a face as if it was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard.
“Wow, that was the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Oh, leave off him. I’m sure there was a logical thought process,” Galahad spoke up in his defence.
Nodding, Percival explained, “They were like angels because they were so wonderful and sparkling and more beautiful even than God,”
“...I really wish you wouldn’t say shit about like that about my brother.” Mordred grimaced.
“Oh, but I-”
“Galahad, back me up here,” Mordred interrupted, “you’ve had to listen to Gareth talk about Lancelot, so you understand my pain, right?”
Galahad nodded reluctantly, “Yeah- Percy, don’t say Gawain is more beautiful than God, it’s weird.”
“I didn’t mean it like that!” he protested, turning pink.
“Sure, Percy.”
“But I really didn’t!”
Mordred stood abruptly, “as riveting as this is, I actually contribute to this kingdom, unlike you two, so I’ll be leaving. Have fun with the pigeons.”
The sound of his footsteps down the tight spiral staircase echoed in the belfry, then faded, and they were left alone.
“I bet he doesn’t even have anything to do, he just wanted to make a dramatic exit,” Galahad said conspiratorially.
They laughed, and Percival’s breath caught in his throat, looking at him. The gentle afternoon light lit up his smiling face, catching in his hair like sunbeams in amber, and he was all gilded and glowing and beautiful, shockingly so, like the knights he’d seen in Wales, all transfixing, heavenly grace. But where the knights were silver and cold, Galahad was golden, and so very warm.
Percival was, by nature and by choice, kind, brave and unselfish, and while some considered him stupid, it was more naivety and a disposition to think the best of people, even those who didn’t deserve it.
But if he did have a fatal flaw in his character, it was this: he loved all beautiful things.
He’d loved the knights, who his mother said were death, because they shone like stars in the form of men. He loved Camelot, though it was cruel to him, because it rose like an alabaster crown into the sky. He loved Galahad, and he loved the grail, though he had never glimpsed it.
“When you go to find the Holy Grail, promise you’ll take me with you?” He said, because suddenly he couldn’t stand the thought of that departure.
Galahad sighed, “Percy…”
“Please,” he begged, hating how childish it sounded.
“My quest is dangerous. And it isn’t your destiny, it’s mine. Why do you even want to?”
Because your hair is like honey and the way it falls about your face must be the most beautiful thing God ever made.
He thought it was better not to say that, though, vow of chastity and all. It was fairly sacrilegious, too. Yes, he’d definitely better make something up about the grail.
“I-I want to be with you when you find it. I want to see it, or at least to try.”
Galahad studied him, and until the verdict was rendered he was frozen, unable even to breathe. “You’re sure about this, aren’t you.”
Percival reassured him that he was, and after a perilously long silence, Galahad smiled.
“Then I’ll be grateful for your company.”
I swear you won’t regret it, he would have said, but the bells rang, as they always seemed to, at the wrong moment. Galahad rose to leave, but turned back after a moment.
“You should come with me if you’re serious about the grail.”
Percival did not like church. He had faith in God, and prayed every night as his mother had raised him to do, but hated the incense and the stifling stillness of the chapel, the dull voice of the priest and the awful restless guilt he always felt. But this was something he had to do if he wanted to go with Galahad, and so he would kneel in the chantry for however long it took, from now till judgment day.
He scrambled to his feet and followed Galahad down.