When the queen called, Sir Una answered, as she ever had.
She rode out that very night to seek the grail, the holy cup that had resurrected the Savior Himself, that would now pull Yvanne from the very edge of death.
But understand: In that time, the grail was less than a legend, less even than the meanest rumor. Only the most dogged priests spoke of it as any other than a holy gesture, and only the most foolish of men went looking for it. None of them found anything but their own graves.
But see now how God favors Dominion. To all those desperate, greedy grail-seekers, He had said nothing. To Una—whose heart never once faltered, whose faith never once wavered—He said two words:Cloven Hill.
Few people knew that place, then. It was not labeled on any map or mentioned in any myths; it was nothing but a low mountain far in the Northern Fallows, too lonely even for hermits, too barren even for goats.
But the queen’s service had sent Sir Una to every corner of Dominion. She had walked the storm-bitten coasts and ridden down the white streets of Cavallon, chased her enemies through the north and slept in the cool shade of the western woods. She had eaten of every orchard and drunk of every beck, so that if you plucked her heart from her chest it would be a perfect map of the country, with blood for rivers and red muscle for mountains.
God no sooner spoke the words than Una saddled her horse. North she rode, as hard and fast as her loyal steed would carry her, stopping only when the falling light risked the horse. Then she wrapped herself in her woolen cloak and slept the deep, untroubled sleep of the faithful.
At dawn she rose with the sun and rode north.
Most often she took the secret ways of hinds and hares, or the dirt tracks of farmers and herdsmen. Only sometimes did she take to the great roads, veering between merchant carts and mule teams until someone saw the device on her shield, and the cry was taken up:Make way! Make way for the Queen’s Champion!
Wherever she rode, the people of Dominion bowed low as she passed, and wept tears of awe and joy, and told their children and their children’s children about the day the Red Knight rode through their village. Little girls tossed torn petals wherever she walked, and boys crossed stick-swords, and their mothers and fathers welcomed her into their homes.
For they knew what she had done for them, and they loved her for it.
—Excerpted fromThe Death of Una Everlasting,translated by Owen Mallory
Six days later, you raised your arm and pointed over my shoulder at the horizon, where the shadow of a mountain now stood. The clouds clungthick and white to the ground, so that the mountain reared up like a broken molar from pale gums.
“There,” you said.
I asked, “Are you sure?”
You did not bother to answer, and I did not bother to ask again. I knew, somehow, that you were right: We had come at last to Cloven Hill, where lay the grail, and the last dragon of Dominion.
7
I HAD READand re-read every version of your battle with the last dragon. I could—and had, on several regrettable social occasions—recite Montmer’s account in the original Middle Mothertongue.
It began:It was there, in that burnt and barren place, where Una met the dragon, last of his kind.
Cloven Hill was, to Montmer’s credit, fairly barren. There were no towns or villages here, or even the lonely camps of shepherds or hunters. There was nothing but bare stone and wind-stunted pines, and the shifting clouds that kept the peaks partly obscured, like poorly kept secrets.
And yet: The earth was not scorched. The air was not sulfurous. An aura of dread did not blacken the skies. There were still slim gray foxes and white hares among the stones, and colorful bursts of lichen and juniper berries. It reminded me, inexplicably, of the Queen’s Wood. It was the sheer wildness of the place, maybe, the sense that no mapmaker had ever written down its name, and no army had ever driven a flag into its dirt.
When the land turned steep, you made one of your subtle gestures to the horse and we halted beneath an alder. You dismounted and I slithered ungracefully after you. You caught me as you always did, hands braced patiently around my waist until I found my feet.
You spoke to the bay for a while, in that soft, private voice that made me wonder if you were lying about not naming him, before you loosed the bindings on the packs.
I didn’t understand what you were doing until I caught the mirror gleam of metal.
You laid a vambrace against your left forearm and pulled the strap tight with your teeth. Knights were supposed to have fleets of servants to assist them, but it was clear you’d learned to manage alone.
I fished the second vambrace from the pile and held it ready.
After a sharp, inscrutable look, you set your arm carefully against themetal and permitted me to wrap the leather straps around it. I didn’t have to ask which piece came next; my fingers already knew the shape of each greave and gauntlet, each strap and buckle. It fit you well, impossibly well, as if the iron had been poured like candle wax over your skin, and the metal was as fine as anything made in my century. (If I ever saw Sawbridge again, I would tell her plate armor had been worn much earlier than she claimed.)
Piece by piece I transmuted you from mortal to myth, from flesh into blinding, blue-white steel. If you wondered where I’d learned to play squire, you did not ask, and I was grateful; I had no good answer.
“Shield?” I asked, hefting it.
“Won’t need it.”
