Percival's Angel

By Anne Crompton

Lili's eyes can see in the dark like an owl. She can sense spirit auras of all creatures and perform magic more powerful than most. But because Lili is Fey, she does not possess the world's greatest power—the Human Heart. Lili wants to understand Heart more than anything and her human friend Percy is just the right person to help.

Together they begin a treacherous journey—for nothing is more dangerous than finding true love.

"Crompton succeeds in incorporating the mysticism of medieval romance into her fantasy...This well-written fantasy can be compared to Katherine Paterson's Parzival and will please the insatiable fans of Arthurian legend."

—VOYA

"Readers looking for a decidedly different take on the popular reconstructionist view of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table will find much to enjoy and consider in Crompton's latest book."

—The SF Site

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sourcebooks
• Release date: Mar 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781402263415

Anne Crompton

Anne Eliot Crompton grew up in a college town in the 1940s, a time when women’s roles in myth were less acknowledged than today. When she married and moved to the country to raise children and animals, she realized how much heavy lifting had been done by women throughout human history. Part of her life’s work has been to shine light on their immense contribution to the human story. Having come full circle, she now lives in a college town in Vermont.

Book preview

Copyright

Copyright © 1999, 2011 by Anne Eliot Crompton

Cover and internal design © 2011 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

Cover design by The Book Designers

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.

Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Percival’s Counsel

1. Born Knight

Oak Counsel

2. Never Knight

Alanna’s Counsel

3. Red Knight

Gahart’s Counsel

4. Lost Knight

Sir Edik’s Counsel

5. Knight of the Round Table

Goddess Counsel

6. Knight of the Quest

Merlin’s Counsel

7. Knight of the Grail

Grail Counsel

About the Author

Back Cover

Percival’s Counsel

Stranger, wandering this wood,

Come share my fire.

Share crumbs of traveler’s food

And tales. Come nigher.

I know the trail you take

By mere and mire.

I’ve seen the cliff and lake,

With dawn afire.

Through this enchanted wood

Leads but one trail.

Richly or roughshod

Or armed in mail,

Seeking crust of bread

Or Holy Grail,

All travelers are led;

All travelers come

By this trail, home.

1

Born Knight

Knee deep in Fey forest pool, I bend to see my own, new face. Today I am new. Today I am free.

Back before dawn, I wrapped my green, invisible cloak around me. I took up my wee bundle of clothes, knives, and fire flints, and tied my Bee Sting of poisoned darts to my belt.

In last darkness I studied the faces of my sleeping friends. (Fey eyes see in the dark like owl eyes.) I thought, Likely, we will not meet again for a while. And when we meet, we will all be changed.

Our branch of the Children’s Guard was a small group of girls. By now the Goddess had blood-blessed all of us. It was our time to go free. We were like a nestful of fledglings trying out new wings; I was only the first to fly.

Once before, I had flown a nest. I do not now remember walking away for the last time from my mother’s den. Maybe I didn’t know then that it was the last time. Maybe I thought I was only going to hunt mushrooms, or play with a friend. I did not guess, then, that my first new, spirit wings were fluttering.

I do remember looking around at noon-bright trees and rocks and thinking, I won’t go back to Mama. I’ll stay out here.

Then, I suppose, I may have met one young friend, and then a new one, and then an older Guide. I must have joined the Children’s Guard almost without knowing it; as a fledgling sparrow joins a fluttering flock.

This morning my wings bore me away again. Light as dandelion fluff, I stepped over two girlfriends and around a third. Silent as a breeze I stole away from our clearing.

Today before dawn I grew up and ceased to be Child Guard, Child, or Guard. Today and forevermore I am simply Me: Lili of the Fey.

I bend to morning-bright water. Leaves and twigs float about my shadow. Lower I bend, searching shadow. A fresh, new face rises toward me: round, dark—big dark eyes. The mouth pouts too sweetly. Sternly I straighten my lips. Relaxed, they sweeten again.

Here under overhanging leaf-shadow my aura reflects faintly in the pool. I glimpse it as a wide, blue cloud whose edges fade in reflected sunlight.

This water-girl shows me who I am now, and who I will be for a long time to come. Later, this face will change. It will coarsen. One day it will wrinkle. But I, Lili, will still be free. Always I will be free, and always cool as this water that chills my knees and the black mud that clothes my feet. For I am Fey.

My black braid slips like a snake down my shoulder. I watch the water-girl’s braid slip and drop. The two black braids reach out and touch. Shivering water, shadow, and light shatter the water-girl.

Nesting blackbirds dart and call over the pool. Spring toads peep. Ahead, a twig snaps.

That will be my blundering Human friend Percy, come to meet me. Silent motion is too much to ask of Percy!

I sink cupped hands, raise cool water toward my lips.

From behind I hear a strange, faint sound: a quiet, repeated thud.

Cupped water halfway to thirsty mouth, I pause. Listen.

Thud! Thud!

Hah! I have heard this sound before.

I have heard it while I perched in treetops, wrapped in my green invisible cloak, watching the Kingdom outside, guarding our forest from invasion.

(Something I will never do again! From now on I will be free to live my own life and be only Me.

True it is, the Goddess will demand Her sacrifice. This debt I must yet pay. But I have time a-plenty for that.)

This repeated thud! coming nearer; I have heard it pass by my spy-perch many a time. Sometimes wheels creaked and squeaked, sometimes armor rattled and clanged. This is a Human Kingdom sound from the world beyond forest. Never before have I heard it in our forest! It is the sound of slow-plodding horses’ hooves.

Splash! Noisy Friend Percy wades into the pool.

My eyes still look on my shadow. The water-girl is back, cupped hands halfway to sweet lips. She and I see Percy’s reflection wade toward us, huge and flaming-bright, like Percy’s very presence in our forest. His reflected aura ripples large and broken, orange in green water.

Always, the Children’s Guard avoided Percy as a flock of blackbirds avoids an albino. Nervously, they resisted my early attempts to draw him in among us.

You can’t fish with that Percy. The fish think his hair is the sun, and dive deep.

You can’t hide with that Percy! No one could miss that blue stare of his!

You notice he’s got hair growing on his chin?

He’s good with darts. And that’s all. What do you see in him, Lili?

Never could I say what I saw in him. My friends were right, he was good for nothing, not even for sex play. Gods witness, he lived with his mother, like a toddler! I soon gave up trying to make him a Child Guard. But we met here at this pool, or in his secret tree-den, for years.

We first met on Apple Island, home of Nimway, revered Lady of the Lake. I poled a coracle over there to learn magic, for my Guide had told Nimway I had talent. I saw auras, and fairies, as few do; and once I put a small curse on a small boy who stole my string of fish. The curse worked. I don’t think that boy has caught a fish yet.

There on Apple Island little Percy and little I first met, under the interested gaze of the Lady, and the anxious gaze of his big Human mother, Alanna.

The Lady’s gray friend Merlin also watched us meet. Later, he watched us play. Half-Human himself, Merlin saw no harm in our romping, Fey and Human together. When we tired he brought out his harp, Enchanter, and sang us Fey songs. If I were alone, magic lesson ended, Merlin might sing me Human ballads. What very little I know of the Human Kingdom I learned from those ballads.

But Percy heard only the Fey songs, never the ballads. For his mother Alanna had begged Merlin never ever to sing to him of the Kingdom; and kind Merlin never did so.

From those ballads I learned of the Human Heart. Merlin called it the World’s Greatest Magical Power.

Once he said to me, Your friend Percy will grow a Human Heart. He doesn’t know it, but it’s growing now inside him.

What about me? Don’t I grow a Heart?

No. You are not Human, Lili. You are Fey. Be glad that Heart is not a gift of the Fey! For Heart is dangerous.

Far as I can see, all magic is dangerous!

Strumming Enchanter, gray Merlin nodded.

I leaned on his knee. Mage Merlin? What Fey gift will come to me?

Simplicity. Merlin struck a sudden, bright chord. Clarity. A deeper chord. Freedom.

This last chord brought unchildish tears up in my throat.

Merlin said, Humans rarely find any of these gifts, because of the constant clamor and uproar of their Hearts.

Still and all, I longed for a Heart!

I still do. If Heart is truly the World’s Greatest Magical Power, Gods witness! I want one! (This may be what I see in Friend Percy. Maybe I hope to catch his Human Heart from him, as once I caught a cough. Maybe that’s why I trouble with him at all.)

Here he comes now, splash-splash.

Thud! Thud! From the trail behind, three horses approach.

I lower cupped hands. Water spills back to shatter the water-girl again. I glance around.

Three dark Fey maidens flit by on the poolside trail, nearly invisible in shadow. Only the gleam of merry eyes and filed teeth betrays them. For the rest they are shadows, gowned and leaf-crowned as for a Flowering Moon dance. They vanish around the next bend. I doubt that Percy notices them.

The three coming horses carry Human riders. Alert now, I hear the rub of leather, the thump of hilt on thigh. A wave of Human odor drifts over the pool like smoke. Pffa! Never before have I smelled it so close!

Somewhere ahead, these three maidens will waylay the three riders. First they will seduce, then kill them. No fear that these riders might leave our forest alive. How they ever entered it puzzles me. The Children’s Guard should have sprinkled them with poisoned darts at the forest’s edge. Unless…maybe the Children’s Guard let them through to entertain the maidens?

I swing braid back, glance over shoulder.

Around the trail bend appears a gigantic, enormous whiteness. Big white head dips and nods. Big feet plod. An innocent, grass-eater’s smell lightens the gross Human stink.

It is a great, white horse, laden with Human baggage, and with the Human giant rider himself.

Behind it appears a brown horse with another giant rider. Then a gray horse with rider. Where sunshine strikes through leaves the mixed auras of men and horses gleam orange, brown, and a trace of black.

Having spied on the Kingdom often, I know what these riders are. They look like sun-shining Gods, clad in shirts of stone. But under the stone, they are merely giants. Human men. They are fierce and strong. They carry sharp weapons. But they are also slow, easily outwitted, easily outflitted. We Guards used to tease their kind from our treetops, laugh at them, send Fey songs downbreeze to them. They never even looked up. Slow! (Like Percy.)

I glance at Percy.

Beside me now, he stares goggle-eyed at these apparitions.

Percy never perched with the Guard in border trees. He seldom reached the forest edge at all. His mother Alanna warned him off from it. She feared that we Guards might bee-sting him. For Percy is Human, after all; and no Human who sets foot in our forest ever again sets foot out of it.

So Percy has never seen such proud and shining figures before. Come to think, Percy has never seen a horse before!

Once at this pool I saw a bright Spirit sweep great rainbow wings about itself, so brilliant as to shadow the sunrise. So now Percy’s orange aura flares high above him and flames red. It sweeps itself down around Percy, and around his reflection.

***

Thigh-deep in cold pool water, Percy stared at the advancing Gods.

Never had he seen such shining, magnificent beings. Horses he had heard of, but he had not imagined them so big, so gleaming! And never in Merlin’s songs, or in his own mysterious dreams, had he a hint of such riders!

Leaf-filtered light glanced off their heads, their broad breasts. Glinting beaked caps shadowed their faces, doubtless to shield mortals from the glorious glare.

Must worship them!

They might bless him. Somehow, they might lift him up safe above his meaty, sweaty, lonely self. Or they might kill him with a glance. Gods are unpredictable.

Don’t care! Now I’ve seen them, I can die!

Unknown, unguessed joy swept over Percy’s soul like a sunrise cloud. He whispered, Lili! Come worship these Gods with me!

Silence from Lili.

He stole a quick sidelong glance from the Gods for Lili.

She was gone. Vanished without a ripple. The Fey had a disconcerting way of doing that.

Ho-so! If Lili feared the Gods’ death-dealing glance, she did not deserve it!

Percy splashed and scrambled to leave the pool. Eyes on the Gods, he tripped on a drowned branch, fell full length, crawled out, and stood up, flotsam dripping in his eyes. Wildly brushing weeds and leaves from his face, he found the trail; panting, he faced the Gods.

They had stopped dead, watching him; the first one pulled a great long, heavy knife rasping from its ornate sheath.

Percy knew what to do. After all, he worshiped God and Holy Mary every night with his mother Alanna. He crashed to his knees on the narrow trail, pressed palms together, and fixed the first God with his prayerful gaze.

The God’s great white horse snorted and half shied.

The rider leaned forward and looked down on Percy. Now might come the death-glance from his immortal eyes.

Percy cared not a twig. Joy like that of Alanna’s angels and saints in Heaven burned away all thought of fear.

The first God raised a gloved hand, pushed back his shining cap. Pushed the long knife, rasping, back into its sheath. Laughed. His laughter rang from tree to tree around the pool.

He shouted words at Percy, to Percy. He spoke differently from the Fey. In an astounded moment, Percy understood him. Holy Michael! He speaks Alanna talk! Human talk!

Ho, boy! he shouted. What do you there? If you love us so much, get up and lead us to shelter. Goddamn, we’ve got a wounded man here.

What? Shelter? Gods want shelter?

Percy’s head swam with shelters to which he could not lead these Gods. Powerful as they were, he doubted they could pass the statue of Holy Mary that guarded Alanna’s den. Even if they could pass, they could not squeeze their shining, giant selves into Alanna’s den. Percy’s own secret oak den would crash to earth

Reviews for Percival's Angel

[altheaann · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

'Percival's Angel' is set in the same world as 'Merlin's Harp,' (see my review of that book for feelings that apply equally to this novel) but it works very well as a stand-alone novel. Readers will benefit to a degree from having some of the background of the world, and backstory on minor characters if they've read the previous book, but it's not at all necessary.

The story is loosely based on the tales of the Knight of the Round Table, Percival, and the quest for the Holy Grail - but it's really about clashes between cultures, conflicts between people, and the search for meaning in life... like so many 'quest' stories.

The novel follows Lili, a girl of the fey, as she follows her childhood friend, Percy, out of the protected forest where her people live in isolation. Percival's mother took him into the forest as a babe, hoping to keep him from ever becoming a knight - a calling that proved the death of all her previous children. Regardless, Percival seeks to break free of his mother. Lili seeks to help him, and discover the power of the human heart, which Merlin has told her about, and which, as a member of the fey, she feels that she lacks.

Soon enough, Percival is recruited into the Quest for the Grail... which is simply a story that Merlin made up, to keep troublesome knights occupied in peacetime. But where humans believe, power is lent...

I didn't like this book quite as much as Merlin's Harp, but it's still a beautiful work of mythic fiction, rich in layers of meaning.

I liked it enough that, as soon as I finished it, I ordered Crompton's third book based on Arthurian tales (Gawain).

[susiebookworm · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Eh. This book has a lot going for it: an Arthurian retelling that's not centered around King Arthur, a fantasy plot that appeals to more than just King Arthur fans, and a perspective on the Arthurian legend other than a knight's. There's not much action to the plot, but it's not boring. What makes this novel "eh" is that it can be confusing. Maybe I should have read another version of the legend first (Wolfram von Eschenbach's 400+ page Parzival is sitting on my shelf), but there were places in the book that just didn't make much sense. They weren't really random, it was just that their importance in the story, as well as how the story had led up to them, was left unexplained. It became frustrating after a while, especially since Crompton's otherwise a good author and writes an interesting retelling. It's left me with mixed opinions on Percival's Angel.

[vampiregirl76 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Lili is fey, once part of the Children Guard. She yearns to learn about the human heart and this power called "Love", that Merlin speaks of. Her friend Percy is a human that was raised in the Fey Forest. Never knowing of King Arthur or his Knights. They embark on a journey together to the human world to seek out what they most desire.Percival's Angel is the third book in Crompton's Arthurian series and my first time delving into the series. A mystical and magical tale. The writing is like nothing I've read before. It's written in such a way that is almost poetic, which made for a delightful story. I was most intrigued and in the end enjoyed reading it. I have always loved the King Arthur legends, especially from the female point of view. I think fans of Fantasy and Arthurian Legends will like this one too.

[ncgraham_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Have you ever had a random food craving—random in that it is for something you rarely eat, and doesn’t even qualify as one of your “guilty pleasures,” either? Say it’s for chocolate. (Oh dear, this analogy is breaking down already … isn’t chocolate everyone’s guilty pleasure?) What you really want is some high-brand dark, but your co-worker tosses you a tin-foil wrapped mystery chocolate that she was given at Halloween, and you decide to try it to tide it over. It’s not that great—actually, you admit to yourself, it’s pretty terrible—but somehow it still satisfies that basic craving. Well, that’s pretty much what happened with me and Percival’s Angel.It’s been a couple of years since I last read an Arthurian novel, but while at a used bookstore, I had an unforeseen urging to pick one up. I did not want it to be something I’d read before, I did not want it to be too long, and I certainly did not want it to be the first book in a series. In other words, I was looking for a quick fix. I got it with Crompton’s book, and can now move on to other things, but there’s still that gnawing conviction that I could have chosen something better.Percival has spent his entire life in the Fey Forest; his mother Alanna, her niece Ivie, and their faithful steward Edik brought him there when he was only a week old, in order to keep him from knighthood and eventual death. The Forest is a strange place, and Percival has never quite felt at home there, despite the fact that he has a protector in Nimway, the Lady of the Lake, and one true friend in the young Fey Lili. When a band of knights rides through, he finally discovers what he has been longing for, and sets out to become a knight. Lili comes with him, for she has a quest of her own: to gain a Human Heart.There were a few things I found to like about the book. For one, the opening chapters set in the Fey Forest features some very nice, dreamy writing, and the choice to use first person present tense for Lili’s point-of-view contrasts nicely with the third person past used for the human characters. Crompton sees these two races as diametrically opposed, with the Fey lacking the power of the Human Heart but gaining a simplicity, a clarity, and a freedom that mortals lack. (This must make things interesting for half-Fey such as Merlin.) Lili’s desire for a Human Heart reminds me a bit of the heroine of Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid,” who longs to have an immortal soul. This was one of the more interesting aspects in the book, although Nimway’s sorrow was also compelling, and although Alanna was a little difficult to get used to, in later chapters she emerged as a truly complex person, a woman who purposely lied to her son and dressed him up as a fool, that he might be mocked and derided and eventually come back to her.Given that Percival is one of the most distinctive characters in the Arthurian legend—the sinless fool, the tarnished saint—Crompton’s characterization of him is more than a little disappointing. In her version, he’s a block-headed killing machine without a conscience, whose favorite word is “g**d***.” (Probably the weirdest feature of Crompton’s prose is the juxtaposition of such modern-sounding terms as this with high, flowery medieval language. “Lo, g**d***.” Yeah. That bad.)Much of what happens in the last half doesn’t even make sense. The Grail is worked into this story in the oddest way—I can’t even recall now how it was first brought up, and by the end everyone seems to have pretty much forgotten about it, although there wasn’t that much going on to distract them from such a high and lofty goal. It’s not exactly clear how Lili ended up gaining her Human Heart, or how Percival suddenly became a halfway decent fellow. Maybe because they had sex? Ugh, that’s just nasty. Not sex itself, of course, but the concept that it is a cure for all ills. Finally, there was all the religious imagery—the figure of Mary in this story seems to have real power, and when Lili encounters good people she often sees angels guarding them. I was looking forward to seeing how Crompton would develop the conflict (or lack thereof) between medieval Christianity and the pagan ways of the Fey, but she never really does anything decisive in that area. That was a major failing of the book: great ideas, but no development.I can’t see myself recommending this book to anyone, even fellow fans of Arthurian fiction. On the other hand, it did satisfy my random craving, so I can’t say I absolutely hated it either.

[james.d.gifford · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a strange book with odd shifts in deixis, verb tense, and perspective. It's dream-like in its confusions, and while this works and I enjoyed it, I can't help but imagine what someone with more resources might have done with the ideas. I might read it again, to think about the strangeness (especially odd syntax without a subject), but I can't say why.