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him feel bold and harsh; he looked away and said, “Can’t the doctors do anything?”
    Bron stopped. He seemed tense. He said, in a quieter voice, “There may be one cure.”
    â€œThen go for it. You’ve got money. Go private. Money can get you anything.”
    â€œCan it?” The King’s green eyes were watching him. “You believe that?”
    â€œI’d like the chance to find out. Yes, I do. Why not?”
    Bron frowned wryly. “Maybe I thought that once.” He held out a coiled piece of fish; the osprey snatched it greedily. “I cannot walk, Cal, or ride or hunt, and because of that I amuse myself by fishing. Leo carries me down to the boat, and we row out onto the lake, under the moon. How cool it is there, and the waves lap so calmly. And we fish. All the silver, teeming life of the lake comes into our nets, big and small, good and evil. Many we throw back. Some we bring here, to the Castle. And Leo jokes that one night we might catch a real treasure, a great fish with a ring in its belly as in the old stories.” He glanced at Cal, sidelong. “Maybe tonight we did.”
    Cal drank. The wine was blurring his eyesight; he felt dizzy and awkward. He wasn’t sure what all this was getting at. Maybe now he’d eaten he could make some excuse and get to bed.
    â€œWhere were you going,” Bron asked quietly, “on the train?”
    â€œTo live with my uncle.”
    â€œFor good?”
    â€œToo right.”
    â€œYour mother will miss you.”
    â€œShe’ll get by.”
    â€œAnd your father?”
    It was against his rules to answer but something made him say, “My father walked out when I was two.” He shrugged, watching the candles, how they put themselves out, one by one. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this anyway. She doesn’t care. Not really. She drinks. Says she hears voices. Now she can get on without me.”
    â€œAnd will she?”
    â€œI’m past caring.” Grimly, Cal filled his glass and drank again. It was the music that was doing it. The music had turned into a fog; it was winding down from the gallery and was snuffing all the candles out with deft gray fingers. Even the great fire that had roared in the hearth behind them was sinking, clouding over. The clatter of knives and forks, the chatter of the guests, was fading under the weight of it, an obscurity in the room, a gathering mist. Someone was turning down the world’s volume.
    Cal tugged at his collar. “It’s hot in here.”
    Bron’s fingers were white on the wineglass. “Cal, I need you to help. You must . . .” He stopped abruptly, then turned and said with sudden desperation, “This agony runs through all my realm. The kingdom is laid waste. You can heal it. If you went back . . .”
    â€œBack?” In front of Cal three candles winked out; he stared at them in bewilderment. “Back where?”
    â€œHome.”
    He stared at the man in amazement, his narrow, oddly familiar face. Then he stood up. “No chance!”
    Bron swiveled his wheeled chair with his bony hands. He seemed consumed with a secret torment. “Please. The Grail is coming. Only see it. Look at it. Do what you can to help us.”
    And the music stopped. It stopped instantly, like a CD switched off in midnote. The room was black. All the people had gone. Cal swallowed; for a second he knew he was somewhere lost, a palace nowhere in the world, deep in darkness, and then the doors opened, and a boy came in. He was one of the tall, fair-haired ones from the door, and he carried what looked to be a long rod, upright in both hands. He walked across the room quickly, without looking at Cal, and Cal stared, stunned at what the wine had done to his eyes. Because this was no rod, but a spear. And the spear was bleeding . Slowly, horribly, a great globule of blood welled from its tip; it ran down, trickling