The Quest took a grievous toll on Arthur’s companions. Lancelot, Galahad, Tristram, Gawain – all were dead. Six months after Mordred’s theft, only Percivale and Bors remained. Together they criss-crossed the North, sensing that the Grail was close by. A woman of power rode with them – Dindrane, the sister of Percivale – a holy nun of Almesbury.
Early on Christmas Morn, while it was still dark, they came upon Mordred and his men at a standing stone near Carlisle. And there was war between Dindrane and Mordred. Percivale and Bors shook with fear, for Mordred held up the Grail and called upon Baphomet and his face was terrible to behold. But Dindrane stood strong and tall, a sheet of white flame. She would not budge or break. Her stillness was too much for Mordred and his venom turned in on himself. The Grail was responding to Dindrane now, not to him. It burnt his hands and boiled his brain, yet no matter how he tried he could not release his grip. The Grail held him captive until body and soul were scorched through, and he fell into the void and was carted off to Hell.
Mordred’s supporters scattered as Dindrane slumped exhausted on the grass. Percivale and Bors rushed to assist, then saw a man in blue and gold vestments standing beside her, light blazing around him ‘I am Prester John,’ he announced, ‘Priest and King of Sarras, God’s sacred city on the shores of Heaven.’ He cleansed and blessed the Grail, then sung the Dawn Mass of Christmas with the standing stone as his Altar.
‘Lux fulgebit hodie super nos,’ his voice rang out, ‘A light this day shall shine upon us.’ And at that moment, far to the South, Arthur looked up and was freed from insanity. Lightning cleaved the sky and he beheld in the flash the face and form of a god – Christ, Apollo, Sol Invictus, all three rolled into one, or a completely different deity, he was not sure – but the god’s might and intensity pounded through him and he powered back to London like a super-charged Achilles, throttling Mordred’s henchmen and tossing their corpses to the dogs, before ripping up Baphomet’s banner and raising again the Imperial Crown and Cross.
Then Baphomet dispatched a beast from Hell – Twrch Trwyth, the Boar – to rive the Emperor on its tusks and lay waste the land. But Arthur slew the monster with a vicious left hook then pursued the Mordrians to the banks of the Dart, where he scythed them down like chaff. But as the sun set the god departed, and Arthur was cut by a thorn and was poisoned and died.
The Grail, by then, was far from Britain. Prester John, after Mass, had unlocked a hidden door behind the standing stone. He led Percivale, Dindrane and Bors down a steep subterranean staircase until they came to a torch-lit tunnel and a wooden truck on rails. He handed the Grail to Dindrane, ushered them onto the truck, pushed it gently, and off it sped along the tracks. ‘Farewell for now,’ he called. ‘A ship awaits you at the Western End. We will meet again in Sarras.’
Soon he was lost from view. The Arthurians marvelled at their surroundings. ‘So the stories are true,’ gasped Bors. ‘We’re in one of Constantine’s tunnels.’ Burning braziers lit up a sequence of carved illustrations on both the curving walls – Biblical images to the left, from Eden to the New Jerusalem, and Roman history to the right – Aeneas in the flames of Troy, Caesar crossing the Rubicon, Constantine at the Milvian Bridge, and countless more.
The truck slowed down and stopped. Blue sky and sunlight streamed through the tunnel’s mouth for it was now mid-afternoon. They stepped onto the platform and up onboard a ship, and on its white sail was a picture of the Grail. Out upon the Western Sea, they stood together on the prow and Dindrane held the Grail aloft, singing a litany for all those dead and dying in the Great Schismatic War.
Rain came on at dusk and continued for hours until they discerned a fragrance on the air and snippets of song from over the water. The rain-curtain turned to silver glass and was rolled back like a scroll and they saw white shores and beyond them a far green country and a shining city under a swift sunrise.
Prester John was there to meet them on the sands. ‘The Grail is withdrawn now into Heaven,’ he declared. ‘You have guarded it well but your people no longer perceive it and you must live without it for a season. When they can recognise spiritual truth again, then will it re-emerge in your realm.’ So Dindrane gave him the Grail and Prester John blessed them, breathed upon them, and called down the Holy Spirit, who descended on them in the form of a dove.
Inconceivable joy burst Dindrane’s heart in two and she was lifted by invisible hands to a Higher Heaven. But Prester John took Percivale and Bors aside and gave them new vocations. He anointed Percivale as Grail King and sent him to Glastonbury, where he served alongside Nasciens the Priest, keeping the legacy of the Grail alive and praying for its blessing and eventual return. Bors was given the title of Lord Lieutenant to the new High King, Constantine IV. He returned to London and worked in tandem with Constantine to preserve, as best he could, what Ambrosius, Arthur and Uther had so sensationally achieved.
It was a tall order, and a changed world. Without the presence of the Grail to comfort and inspire, both men felt at times that Britain was drifting into sterility and spiritual winter. But Dindrane watched over them always, embedding in their hearts the forms of things unseen and evoking the memory of that Christmas Day when the Light shone upon them and the Real was unveiled in such astonishing, unparalleled ways.
Cracking stuff! I enjoyed the energy and mixture of traditions in this. As I was reading I could envisage lots of it as vibrant images on the page.