“What happened?”
“It all vanished, laddie.”
“Vanished?”
Hawk looked at him. “Lady Shadow, God bless her, never quite believed your story. But I did, son. Because I think I’ve been to that castle too, and failed, maybe worse than you. Maybe a lot of us have been there.” After a moment he said, “Come back with me, Cal. You shouldn’t be alone. Not now.”
Cal put his head in both palms. “I have to find the Grail, Hawk, I have to.”
“Then let me come with you.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? It’ll be easier with someone else.”
That was true. For a moment he hesitated; then stood up and pulled the dented mail off, and stacked the borrowed sword on its rack. “All right. I’ll get my stuff and meet you back here. Say, an hour.”
But Hawk said softly, “Don’t lie to me, laddie.”
Halfway through the door Cal stopped. The big man was watching him. He tried to smile. “Sorry,” he whispered. “It’s just . . . in the story Percival has to go back on his own. I have to do this, Hawk.”
For a moment he thought Hawk would grab him, force him to come. But the big man began unlacing his armor grimly. “I’ll wait for the hour,” he said.
The bed-and-breakfast was in a narrow street of half-timbered houses that leaned their heads together above the pavements. By the time he got to the corner it was late afternoon and the sky was heavy with sullen yellow clouds. Flakes of snow, small and hard, had begun to fall.
The osprey was perched on the railings of the churchyard.
Cal stopped dead, and it shrieked at him, one sharp screech of warning. Then it rose and flew to the top of the pinnacled tower, staring down.
Cautiously, Cal peered down the lane. There was a police car outside the bed-and-breakfast. The old couple were at the door, talking to an officer. Eagerly. Nosily.
Cal pulled his head back and swore viciously. How could they have found him? Trevor, yes, but how here?
Then he remembered taking money out of his account yesterday with the cashpoint card at the machine in the High Street. That was it. They could trace that. He felt like a criminal, like someone hunted. It infuriated him.
Quickly, barely thinking, he went back and up the alley, slipped in through the kitchen door and ran upstairs. Hurriedly he gathered his clothes, soap, maps, shoes, jamming them in the rucksack. Then he ran down and was out before the old man had finished his sentence.
All the way through the darkening streets of the town he ran, the snow falling on him and the osprey high overhead, swooping between the rooftops.
At the blacksmith’s stall he found only a small boy; pushing him aside he grabbed the sword in its plastic bag. It gave him a sly dig of pain under one nail.
The kid sputtered through a mouthful of crisps. “Hey! You can’t take that! My dad . . .”
“Tell your dad I’ve changed my mind.”
It was getting dark as he came around to the gate. The stalls were closing; snow lay on their awnings. Horses were being led out to vans, a warm, snuffling parade, steam rising from them. Somewhere in the castle Hawk was waiting for him. He turned away and walked into the falling snow.
Chapter Nineteen
Everywhere he went he found the streets waste and the houses in ruins.
Conte du Graal
“This do?” The truck driver braked.
“Oh . . . Yes. Thanks.” Jolted out of a half sleep, Cal opened his eyes and hastily grabbed his bag. They were in a busy street, packed with people.
“It’s Market Day,” the driver said, changing gear. “Can’t stop.”
“Right. Thanks again.”
Cal scrambled awkwardly out of the cab and stood back in the doorway of an empty shop, while the truck wheezed and hooted its way down the congested street.
People were everywhere. They walked in the road, chatted, waved. There were young girls dressed in fashionable clothes, old couples, boys on skateboards, farmers in a uniform of dark green worn coats and caps. This was Abergavenny. He’d never been here before.
He picked up his bag wearily and slung it over one shoulder, and pushed along the pavement. The pressure of the crowd, its laughter and life, was warm; it caught him up and swept him into the market, and he wandered aimlessly among the bleating of sheep and the stalls, looking at antiques and old amber jewelry and books and china.
He was so tired. Last night he had tried to sleep in a small hotel in Hereford, but something had been tapping on the window all night; it had woken him from broken dreams, and he had got up with a groan and staggered over. When he’d pulled back the curtains the osprey had been there.
It wouldn’t fly away. All night it had shuffled and roosted on the windowsill; he had lain awake watching it, its yellow eyes open as if it slept like that, fixing him with fierce, unblinking scrutiny. Accusing him. Even when he had drawn the curtains again and turned his back on it he had felt that gaze, tried to shrink from it, hide under the blankets. But it was still there, like the hatred he had for himself.
Then he had thought, if the bird was here, surely Corbenic must be near.
Now, in the noisy, echoing racket of the street, he rubbed his face and longed for some coffee. What the hell was wrong with him? He’d give this up. He’d go back, right now, to Chepstow, and to the neat black-and-white bedroom at Trevor’s; he’d wear his suit and go to the office and to hell with them all, and their crazy disappearing castles. He’d dump the sword. He’d do that right now.
He took it out, still in its plastic bag and thrust it blindly into a bin on the street and marched away; before he’d taken three steps a shriek of pain skewered him from behind.
A little girl was standing by the bin and screaming. Her mother ran up, and swung the girl up in terror. “What’s the matter, darling?”
“It bit me.” The child wailed, holding out a cut finger.
“What did?”
“It! That man left it there.”
The woman grabbed the bag, opened it and stared in disbelief. Then she looked up and eyed Cal. He wanted to run but couldn’t. Passersby flowed around him, turning curiously.
“What a stupid place to put something that sharp!” Furious, she flung it down on the pavement, a metallic crash.
With great control, tense in every muscle, Cal bent and picked the bag up. He turned and walked away, hearing every syllable of the woman’s comforting of the child stab him like a knife in the back.
“I’ll dump you so deep in the river,” he murmured, “you’ll never, ever trouble me again.”
The sword settled in its bag smugly.
At the cashpoint he put his card in, glancing quickly around in case anyone was watching. He punched the numbers; the machine made a small chuntering noise. Then, with shocking finality, it swallowed his card.
Aghast, Cal stared. A stark, printed message came up on the screen. THIS CARD IS WITHHELD. PLEASE CONTACT YOUR BRANCH FOR FURTHER INFORMATION.
For an instant the implications didn’t hit him; when they did he turned and ran, down the street, around the corner, up a steep ramp into what seemed like a park, checking at every turn no one was following, sprinting up a flight of steps between wintry ruined flowerbeds and collapsing onto a park bench.
Trevor had stopped his card. Furious, he ground his hands into fists and then thought, no, maybe not. Maybe he had just run out of money. In either case, the result was the same.
He searched his pockets, dug out his wallet from the rucksack, gathered coins and notes. Fifteen pounds forty-two pence. Not enough for another night’s stay anywhere. Maybe enough for the train fare home. All his money gone and nothing to show for it! He thought of how he had once gloated over the bank statements. How he had felt so good about that.