Return of the Grail Bearer

Percival hid behind the curtain of willow branches in full leaf, watching the knights practice jousting across the river. He wove the slenderest willow withes he could find into his first suit of armor, and put it on over the furs and hides that were all the clothing of his feral childhood.

This was his favorite moment in all the stories that had been told about him, the one he retreated to when nobody needed him to heal a Fisher King. He was laughable in his innocence. The knights would laugh, later, when he emerged from the forest to join them. That was all right. Bearing the Grail demanded laughable innocence, and in Sir Percival's experience, Fisher Kings often needed to laugh.

Something long and shiny parted the branches -- plastic, that was the word, and shaped like a boat paddle. The blunt prow of a bright blue tandem kayak nudged into Percival's hiding place. A bespectacled woman slid her her craft alongside the river's muddy bank, looked up at him, and said, "Sir Knight?"

"Milady," said Percival, because he still wasn't sure of the correct form of address from a character to his author.

"I'm so sorry to take you away from this, but we need you again. Same Fishers, different King. There's a biopsy coming up, and the results have to be good. I don't suppose anyone's told you the parable of Schroedinger's cat..." The words had started out all business, but now her voice quavered. "Will you come?"

"Of course I'll come. And there was much talk of the miraculous cat at the Grail Castle of Sloan-Kettering."

So Percival let go of his feral child form and became his pilgrim self, humble in sackcloth.( Read more... )