Kingdom of the Grail by Judith Tarr Page A

calmly. “Remember that.”
    â€œI would rather remember words of magic.”
    â€œThat is magic,” said Ganelon: “potent and ancient.”
    Pepin did not remember being sent away. He was in the tent with Ganelon and the heaps of parchment. Then he was not. Was that magic? He thought it might have been; but he had no memory of it.
    The next day his father sent for him. That was not uncommon. Charles liked to know where all his children were, always. But so soon after Pepin had approached Ganelon, it seemed ominous that the king commanded his eldest son to attend him.
    It did not begin badly. Charles was swimming in the river as he always did in the morning, his white body flashing through the dark water. There was the usual flock of hangers-on, gabbling like geese as they loitered on the bank or, if they were very bold or very foolish, swam in the river with the king.
    At Pepin’s coming, Charles called a greeting with every appearance of gladness, and surged up out of the water. Pepin could never look at him without a stab of—something. Jealousy? Admiration? Both? Charles was tall, straight, magnificent. He was everything that Pepin longed to be.
    Pepin’s mother said that he was handsome, but a mother would. His face was like his father’s, he knew that. His legs were long and strong, and his arms and hands. Buthis back was a poor crooked thing, twisting him altogether out of true.
    Charles never shrank from it. That much Pepin granted him. He laid an arm about it now, freely, and half led, half pushed Pepin to the little pavilion that stood near the river. In it was his bodyservant with cloths to dry him and sweet oil to rub on his skin and fresh garments to clothe him—for Charles never wore the same tunic after a bath as before. Charles was strange that way; obsessive. A little mad, maybe, but one did not say such things of the king.
    There was someone else there, too, sitting in a corner, silent, dressed in black. Those cold eyes were unmistakable.
    â€œFather Ganelon!” Charles cried as the servant began to dress him. “Come here, meet my son. Pepin, you know the good Father, yes? He’s been one of my wandering ministers for a long while, but now he’s back to serve in the court. I’ve asked him, as a favor to me, to teach you such things as a prince should know.”
    Pepin lowered his eyes before the light in them betrayed him. Here was his answer after all. Here was his heart’s desire.
    To his father he said in a low calm voice, “I thank you, Father.”
    â€œWhat, no dancing in delight?” But Charles was laughing. “Come, boy, you’ve run half-wild since old Albrecht died. Now you’ll be a scholar again. You’ll learn your Latin and your Greek, and write a fair hand; and you’ll learn statecraft, too, and the arts of princes.”
    â€œNot the arts of kings?” Pepin heard himself say, just above a whisper.
    Charles’ ears were keen. “A king is a prince writ large,” he said. “Study well, and listen to my counselor. There’s much that he can teach.”
    Indeed, thought Pepin, still with his eyes lowered, pretending to be the sullen prince robbed of his freedom. But his heart was singing. Magic—he would have magic. He would learn more from Ganelon than his father would ever have conceived of.
    â€œI should have trusted you,” Pepin said to Ganelon. “I should have—”
    â€œBorel,” said Ganelon as if Pepin had not spoken. “Show my lord prince how I prefer my parchment to be scraped. And see that he grinds the ink suitably fine.”
    Borel was one of Ganelon’s kinsmen, people said, tall and silent as they all were, with a long pale face like Ganelon’s, and a fringe of colorless hair round a close-shaved tonsure. He did not meet Pepin’s glare as he began to show the prince what Pepin had learned from his first tutor when he was a child;