Grails

"In the west," the hermit said, "a Cup stands on an altar in a golden tower. You know of it. From its brim the lips of God have tasted.
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"To take it and bring it away, that ever after it will exalt the hearts of men. Who then will dare it?"

Up from their chairs the knights leapt, bold and loud. "I! I will dare!"
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I went to her in the sunset of the third day. The rosy glow hung low upon the orchard, and she walked there in her pale summer gown, her gold hair flowing like a stream of light off from her fair face, round her shoulders, to her narrow waist. If I had not done more than touch her mouth or fingers, that too was my strength, for she was beautiful.

"My love. I must be gone with the dawn."
"I know it."
"And if I must ask you, will you wait for me? This road may be long, arduous and cruel."
"Yes, I will wait, my knight. My soul is in your heart."
"And mine in yours," I said.

She wept and her tears were sweet to me, for by her pain I saw her love- God knew, I had had no other proof.
I gave her a ring of gold set with a square blue gem. It lay on her white hand like a flower.
"I will return to you, and you will be my wife."
"I know it, too."
We kissed and parted, and the sun went down.
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Tales are told of such a quest, of the adventures that attend it and the perils that hunt it down. But there were no mighty deeds or terrors that befell me.

I slept by night in ruined chapels, under tall hills, beneath the eaves of forests; or else in byres, in rich lords' halls.

When winter came, I kept on. More than one winter came and went, as had more than one summer. They were all alike, as the villages were like each other: the squat churches and the carven halls.

I understood the way. It was only to go on.
It might be I should not find my goal.
So much too I comprehended.
I was humble, patient. Yet, was I not sure?
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By night I dreamed of it. I dreamed I came and put my hand upon it. Sometimes it burned and again it might be icy. Or it changed to water and clipped away, or into a snake, and wrapped about my arm and stared into my eyes. But I knew I would see it. And in the days I dreamed of it too, more and more, and it seemed to me that the more often the Grail was there before my inner vision, the more certain I should be to come to it. As if- God Forgive my blasphemy- I gradually and carefully fashioned it myself, out of the air.
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Then there was an Easter-tide and when I beheld the children playing in the house, I thought of sons and daughters. And that night I dreamed, in that soft bed, of the children a young knight should have with his young wife.
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I found the Grail. It was in a tower of gold, beyond a wall of bone...as they said. They do not lie. And the Cup itself? Yes, a single tear, now like blood and now like emerald and now like the sky of night with all the stars inside it.

It was done.
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"It was a slow, sore journey home and I had been so long on my road, I had mislaid the way. But I was a traveller now, and it was all one to me. Did I yearn for the known land, the castle on the plain, the gardens and the court? They were dreams. I yearned for them. But, idly. I had grown used to loss."
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"Liege, I have searched these many, many years and brought home to you the Cup of Love. The Grail." Then they murmured, and even into his muddy eyes there swelled a sort of gleam. But it faded.
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"Later I sought my lady in the broken gardens, and under the apple trees which had died, she met me. She gazed at me askance, finding how I had aged, so lank and lean and grey. She too was wizened and her beauty was all gone, like her golden hair, but on her withered hand the blue ring still perched, a drop of summer water on a dying leaf."

"I have been a long while, " I said.
"I know it."
"But I will wed you now."
"No," she said, "we will not marry. For my dreams of children are all dead, and besides I should not please you."
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Then I bowed my head and tears fell from my eys, into the grass and thistles, as her tears had fallen at our former parting. But she was old, and half blind and did not see them.
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During the days which followed, the King's antique cranky men decreed that a magical cup must be hidden in a golden casket, inside a tower of stone, and this sealed with iron and bronze, and a great wall built up, guarded by mastiffs. This, to keep all safe. Therefore barely any remember now that such a treasure is with us, and only a handful know that it was I who strove, and completed the quest. I do not have a care for that, or for anything.
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In this way I sought and found the Grail, which exalts the hearts of men.
Above Red text are Exerpts from Tanith Lee's Exalted Hearts
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Our true Grails are often not the ones we seek. The "Quest" itself can disguise the treasures before us.
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My grail is before me-
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I can see it, I can touch it, I can hold it, I can even love it. But will I be able to see it for what it is before I discard it in the quest for something new?
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God, I hope I can.