Kingdom of the Grail by Judith Tarr

hands were clammy. He wiped them surreptitiously on his tunic, and stood as straight as he could. The hump that deformed his back was aching again, stabbing outrage at being forced to let him stand almost tall. He ignored it. What he wanted, he wanted with all his heart.
    Father Ganelon regarded him with a cold dark eye. “And why do you think,” he asked, “that a man of the Church would so far transgress as to teach you magic?”
    â€œThey—they say,” said Pepin, stammering and hating himself for it, “that no one knows it better than you.”
    â€œ They say? And who are they?”
    â€œPeople round about,” said Pepin.
    That was not exactly a lie. People did talk of anything and everything. They might talk of magic and of learned priests and of royal counselors, perhaps even in the same breath.
    Pepin was not going to tell the exact truth. That he had been walking past this tent in the evening, trying to go quietly as a hunter does, or a shadow. He should have beenattending his father the king, but he had escaped—and something, some flicker of movement or glint of light, had made him pause. It was accident, maybe: a gust of wind lifting a tentflap, causing a lamp within to flare.
    Inside was a vision of wonder and delight, a golden paradise: a garden of flowers that transmuted into a flock of beautiful women—women in sheerest gauzy drifts of draperies, through which their bodies shone with a wondrous and tender light. Soft white breasts, sweet curve of hip, the exquisite turn of an ankle . . .
    Ganelon stood in the midst of them, attended by three tall and motionless figures in antique armor. The nondescript priest of no particular age was dressed in a robe of light. It illumined his face, transformed it as the blossoms had been transformed into women. He had beauty here, and power. He was a creature of gleaming splendor.
    Pepin had gone away dazzled, but his mind had recorded every tiniest detail of that vision. It had stayed with him, obsessed him, until he gathered all his courage to approach the king’s counselor.
    He had never wanted anything as much as this. Not even to be king—though that too he wanted, to the heart of him. If this could bring that about . . .
    He was going to be refused. He could see it in Ganelon’s eyes. Ganelon was a priest, after all. Priests were forbidden the dark arts.
    â€œI know,” Pepin said in a rush, “what you can do. I know what you have done. If the bishops knew, or the lord Pope—he spoke to me, did you know? He was kind to me when we were in Italy. He said that maybe the Lord would make my back straight, if I prayed.”
    â€œAh,” said Ganelon, and in that brief sound was a world of understanding. It shattered Pepin’s pretensions. It came near to breaking his courage.
    â€œSo,” said Ganelon in the silence. “You threaten me, as a prince may do. Were your prayers not answered? Perhaps you were simply not patient enough.”
    Pepin held his temper in check, though it threatened to burst free. He was a prince. He was his father’s son. He could master himself, even in this twisted body that God had seen fit to give him.
    Ganelon nodded as if Pepin had spoken aloud. “Youhave pride enough. But have you discipline? Can you submit to another’s will—submit utterly, as if to the will of God?”
    â€œThat is blasphemy,” Pepin said.
    The dark eyes flashed on him and struck him mute. “If you would master the powers of the elements, of earth and heaven and the realms below, you must learn to submit with all your being. Can you do that, prince of the Franks? Can you even begin to try?”
    â€œCan you?”
    Ganelon did not strike him down. He was rather surprised, and a little disappointed. He had hoped to see sorcery, a bolt of wrath or at the very least a crackle of lightning. “Pride is the destroyer,” Ganelon said coolly,