Lost Years: The Quest for Avalon Read Free Page B

fashion. His father had once declared that his son’s emotions ranged from surly to furious.
    I swear but he has the face of a passing Jew peddler, thought Lego, half in jest.
    In truth, though he had no serious doubts about his parentage, Parsival sensed that the lad’s looks added to the distance between them.
    “You think what you do doesn’t matter,” Lohengrin said.
    “This is your good morning? Don’t you say: ‘I’m pleased you escaped with your life, father?” said Parsival. He instantly regretted it because the response was automatic. He knew he had to be more patient but they instantly slipped into their familiar roles.
    “Good morning? I only get to say farewell to you, father. Was your life in question?”
    He watched him, dark eyes showing nothing. Parsival sighed. “How old are you now?” he asked.
    “Know you not?”
    Parsival heard Lego mutter something under his breath.
    “What am I, a calendar? You are of age to bear arms.” Parsival said. That was fourteen.
    “But not to bear my life.” the boy said.
    “As I was. Bah,” he said. “Mine were not footsteps to follow but a track to miss.” He shrugged and sighed. “Bear what you may.”
    “You are a great knight, lord.” Said Lego, stolid, sullen. “All men know it.”
    “And how as a father?” inquired the hawk-nosed son. He finally had Parsival angry. It usually came to that.
    “You task me too far,” he said. “I want to bring peace between us, Lohengrin. I want to help you become a full man.”
    “Like you? Full of what?”
    Lego cleared his throat. He would have liked to have struck the youngster. He thought about what he would do if he were Parsival.
    The parent tried, he went to his son, up the four stone steps. Lego hoped to witness a round blow box to the arrogant child. He was surprised to see his lord, in his odd outfit, take strong young Lohengrin by the shoulders and just hold him. He thought of the biblical story of King David and his son Absalom. The local priest had worked over the tale a few weeks ago. He recalled being strangely moved, almost to tears by the words spoken when the unhappy king of the Hebrews faced the messenger from the battlefield where his furious and rebellious son was trying to overthrow his own father. The messenger gave him the worst news a parent can ever dread and: “When David heard that Absalom was slain he went to his chamber and wept. And thus he said: “Absalom my son would God I had died for thee.”
    “I have much to repent of as a father and husband,” the knight was telling his child. “Pray you allow me to do so.”
    Lohengrin started to reply and then didn’t. That was new. He was actually surprised. He didn’t pull away from those almost delicate, hard, well-shaped hands that could have practically twisted the head off a bull.
    Parsival had no more to say. He stared into Lohengrin’s eyes, wondering how to express to him the strange truth he’d just been touched by. Lego sighed a deep breath.
    Parsival had done Lego a service in the wake of a minor battle between King Arthur and some rebellious Baron. Parsival was looking for any of his wounded or dead they might have missed. Dusk was coming on as if it flowed subtly from the rills and stones and sparse, harsh highland trees themselves. He heard shouts and a clank of arms nearby.
    He’d been crossing a stony, smooth hilltop. Down in the shallow valley a row of huts smoldered, the dark smoke streaking the warm dusk. He could see the baron’s castle set well up the far hill-slope. That lord and what was left of his forces were sealed inside, repairing themselves and eating bitter bread and turnips, hoping there would be no siege. The fields beyond the huts were littered with their dead.
    Parsival had followed the sounds over the reverse slope and found a posse of some of Arthur’s hired men-at-arms (the sort who blurred the boundaries of banditry) had trapped and disarmed a man who’d been wounded in the thigh and