Author's note: With an Easter egg in You Deserved Better.
The Grail assigned an unusual task, Gurnemanz reflects. The Lady of this land does not need a knight to be her champion in battle—instead, she would like a knight to investigate the poisoning of the Lord, her husband, and apprehend the culprits. The Lord is slowly recovering—therefore I'm clearly not intended to become the Lady's spouse. I never was good at solving mysteries; some other Grail Knights excel at it, though. Thank God I became acquainted with Adelaide: she's a natural at this task.
On the way to the capital of that land, Gurnemanz intervened to bar hoodlums from harassing a maiden whose parents had recently perished ridding the land of reprobates. To his surprise, the maiden, Adelaide, shared with him that she intended to seek relatives in the remote village of Olostla—a village with which Gurnemanz was intimately familiar, situated neighbouring the Grail's domain. The village was a strange, self-governing community, Arthur having insisted that it did not belong under his kingship.
'I don't want to sound as though it was a bother to help you—and it wasn't, but I believe you would have managed had you needed to deal with the ruffians on your own,' Gurnemanz commented on Adelaide's composure.
'That's what I reassured my parents on their deathbed, but they urged me to seek relatives in Olostla, enticing me to expand my horizons, so I agreed,' Adelaide corroborated.
'I'll pass by Olostla on the way back. I can give you a ride if you won't think me overprotective. Or you could just have an acquaintance with whom to chat along the way,' Gurnemanz suggested. His offer being gratefully accepted, he elaborated, 'First I must settle a task in the capital. I could return later, but I fancy you'd prefer to begin expanding your horizons in the capital?'
They complement each other: Adelaide analysing people's motives, means and opportunities; Gurnemanz conducting evidence collection, interviews, interrogations and searches. As Gurnemanz strolls alone in the castle garden, returning at twilight from an interview and a search, it seems to him that he is gently bathed in a lovely magical light shimmering from Adelaide's window, through the swaying branches of flowers[1]: she is waiting up for his return, even though propriety dictates that they wait until daybreak to discuss the case. Thanks to Adelaide's assistance, it seems that in the twinkling of an eye, Gurnemanz accomplishes the Grail's task.
'Those guardians of sleep will be disappointed that their respite from being woken punctually in the morning was so short,' Gurnemanz lampoons the squires in his brotherhood. Adelaide has discovered that Gurnemanz can push the extremes of sarcasm, although never with regard to her.
On the way to Olostla and the Grail's domain, in the reflection of a river, in the last snows of spring, in the golden clouds of sinking day, in the fields of stars Adelaide's face beams forth. I am a Grail Knight, Gurnemanz reminds himself.
Making enquiries upon arrival in Olostla, they learn that Adelaide's father's maternal relatives there have passed away of late.
'Will you return home?' Gurnemanz asks Adelaide.
'No, I'll build a new life here,' Adelaide decides. 'You should be moving on, shouldn't you? Can you spare some minutes? I'd like to present you with something as a keepsake.' Seeing Gurnemanz nod, she departs to prepare a gift.
When Adelaide returns, she carries to Gurnemanz a bunch of violets, but it is the lone white flower in her hair that grabs Gurnemanz's attention. 'A silverbell?'
'Is that its name? This is the first time I've seen one,' Adelaide notes.
Silverbells only grow in the Grail's domain. How did Adelaide find one!?
Gathering his thoughts, Gurnemanz reveals to Adelaide, 'There is something I would like, but I do not know if it is physically possible. My family lives in a domain inaccessible to most people's steps. Only those who have been guided—and I am not able to be your guide—can tread the path there.'
'A dove will guide me there?'
'Perhaps—how did you know?!' Gurnemanz enquires in astonishment.
'I meant it in jest. There are no doves in this regi—' Adelaide is interrupted by a knight on horseback who rushes to Gurnemanz's side.
'Thank God you're back! Amf could not wait to vanquish Klingsor and departed for the magic garden, armed with the Spear. Ti is worried about Amf and wished that you were around to guard him,' the knight informs Gurnemanz.
Mounting his rouncey in haste, Gurnemanz says three words to Adelaide that he would not have voiced just minutes ago, and that he regrets for decades thereafter: 'Wait for me.'
Near the magic castle's keep, Gurnemanz finally descries Amfortas lying in the arms of a beautiful damsel (Was she in distress?), letting fall the Spear. While covering wounded Amfortas' flight from Klingsor and later back in the sanctuary of the Grail, Gurnemanz does not blame the son of the Knight whom he squired and his best friend from childhood for losing and falling by the holy Spear. Objectively Adelaide is not that beautiful, but subjectively she is the most bewitching woman in the world to me. Were I not a Grail Knight, mayhap I would lie intoxicated in her arms by now, he empathises.
After Amfortas has seen a sign of salvation, Gurnemanz sets off for Olostla the same evening. It is Good Friday, and breezes whisper through the tender leaves while nightingales sing, but Gurnemanz hears only the roar of waves by the magic castle.
A silverbell could have drifted on the accoutrement of one of the brotherhood outside the domain, he reasons. Don't jump to conclusions. Nor is it appropriate to consult Titurel or Amfortas presently.
Gurnemanz encounters Adelaide just before the end of the path to the village.
'Whoever is called into service in my family has their spouse chosen for them, should they be destined for matrimony. Amf—my liege lord—chose himself a lady and consequently sustained by his own Spear a wound that will not heal,' he narrates to Adelaide while gazing at the dried silverbell attached to her wrist. 'I entertained a possibility…but my family cannot afford further mishaps.'
Maintaining composure, Adelaide tells Gurnemanz, 'I hope to be able to see a dove again.' Then she kisses his lips before leaving.
Someday, Gurnemanz imagines, a flower will blossom upon my grave from the ashes of my heart, and clearly on every violet petal will shine: Adelaide!
The Grail has been 'malfunctioning' more and more, Gurnemanz reflects: lately, it has also stopped ensuring that sheep within its domain are automatically sheared. He does not mind: it gives him reason to go to Olostla. He should have anticipated that Adelaide is magnanimous enough to maintain their friendship. Her compassion shines in her conversations with him.
'I pity Klingsor,' she evaluates when Gurnemanz explains him. 'He wanted to serve in your family, and being forbidden from it drove him to his act.'
Adelaide operates a pharmacy, having learnt about medicines from her mother. One day, she mentions Kundry for the first time in connection with a salve.
'I cannot figure out that wild woman's background,' Gurnemanz concedes.
'From bits and pieces that she muttered, I conjecture that she is under a curse. She lives here now, perhaps reincarnated, to expiate some sin from an earlier life not yet forgiven there. Now she makes atonement by such deeds as benefits your knightly order,' Adelaide speculates. 'Look after the pitiful woman, be her friend.'
When the Knights say that Gurnemanz knows all, he silently credits his friend in Olostla.
'You and Amf both have extraordinary ability to synthesise observations. Amf described Kundry using ostensibly antithetical terms that were accurate and illuminating: "restless" yet "timorous", and "maid",' Gurnemanz comments.
Adelaide raises her eyebrows, but does not remark further.
As the years pass, Gurnemanz observes that Adelaide has not found a spouse. When he remarks—somewhat guiltily—about it, she replies serenely, 'I never met anyone else who captured my heart.'
Sometimes Gurnemanz wonders what induces Kundry to serve Amfortas, and by extension the Grail community, so faithfully, similarly to the manner in which Adelaide always makes time for Gurnemanz's unannounced visits, without desiring thanks or repayment. Without much thought as to why, he sidesteps certain conversations: 'With her magic balm, I fancy, she'll be the master's ruin'; 'Then perhaps it was this guilt of hers which brought upon us such dire distress?' He believes a squire is mistaken about Kundry hating the Grail community and glaring balefully at them, but if she indeed does, it is probably because they are weak, he himself being an instance.
The villagers have come to rely on Adelaide's guidance and lead in improving their conditions. It is as though she becomes the uncrowned Lady of the village.
As the Grail's 'malfunctioning' increases, Adelaide teaches Gurnemanz to identify and use herbs and roots ('Learn from the beasts in the forest'). Yet she never fails to support his faith: 'You're concerned that Amf has half given up the will to lead your order. When the innocent fool comes, he will perform Amf's office as king.' Many years later, Gurnemanz will be fully conscious of the juncture when he knew for certain that the 'who' behind the Grail—the neutral angels—approved of the heathen lass.
Adelaide ushers a confused Parzival into her cottage, fussing, 'The seneschal chased you out and told you to go on your way? I reminded him to control his sharp tongue! Don't mind him: his bark is worse than his bite.'
'Gurnemanz?'
'Is that his name? I know it not, only that he is seneschal of yonder castle,' Adelaide confesses. 'May I request a favour of you? Would you aid Queen Condwiramurs of Brobarz in her capital Pelrapeire? I passed by the city on the way back from a journey; it is under siege by King Clamide of Iserterre because she will not yield her person and land to him.'
'There is a wound in your side that will not heal?' Parzival, grasping the holy Spear, enquires of the ailing knight.
'It is infected with Irish poison,' the feeble man elucidates.
'Therefore it can only be healed at its source, in Ireland,' Parzival deduces in understanding.
'What brought you to this inaccessible land?' the knight, its Lord, asks his guest.
'An evil curse drove me about in trackless wandering. Numberless dangers, battles and conflicts forced me from my path even when I thought I knew it,' Parzival analyses, recollecting Kundry's words: 'And though you flee from here and find all the roads in the world, that road you seek, that path you shall not find, for any path and passage that leads you away from me I curse for you. Stray and be lost!'
The knight contrasts Parzival's wounds from every weapon with the unsullied, cleanly and brightly gleaming spear he grasps, and fathoms that he dared not wield this holy treasure in conflict, in order to hold it unprofaned.
'Kurwenal,' he directs his squire, 'would you please help Parzival put on my armour and shield? He'll have more use for them than Tantris the minstrel will.'
Untying a lady's token from Parzival's sleeve to attach it to the armour, Kurwenal shoots Parzival a curious look. Perceiving his host Tristan stifling a grin, Parzival relates, 'She was an extraordinary lady who sought no promises from me. I informed her that I sought wisdom regarding an event that I had seen, and that I was in no position to offer her anything while still blind.'
'Do you believe that she still waits for you?'
'I dare to hope so.'
'You make me impatient to hold a lady in my heart,' Tristan expresses. 'Hopefully I can guide your passage slightly: don't take the same boat as me. I fancy that the road you seek does not pass through Ireland.'
'May you find healing in Ireland, and the love of your life.' Parzival wishes him.
'Greetings, guest! Have you lost your way, and may I direct you?' Adelaide asks the man entirely accoutred in black armour, with closed helmet, carrying shield and spear. Receiving no return greeting, she resumes, 'You're exhausted, aren't you? This is the village of Olostla.' Then, recognising a token attached to the armour, she questions, 'That's Condwiramurs' token, isn't it?! You're Parzival, aren't you?! Kundry filled me in on you.'
Scrutinising the Spear, she assesses, 'The brotherhood will probably not be pleased with you wearing a visored helmet and carrying a shield, especially today, but it should be all right. Although Gurnemanz will tease that I am heathen.'
'See you this afternoon?' Parzival offers as greeting wearily, without opening his helmet.
Adelaide nods.
Gurnemanz watches Amfortas smile at Kundry upon having his wound healed and being absolved and atoned. Asudden, he solves the veritable mystery of salvation, one deeper than merely the identity of the damsel of fearsome beauty who bewitched Amfortas, in whose arms he lay intoxicated.
Kundry obtained redemption because Amfortas covered up for her, allowing her to serve the Grail even before being redeemed, while what tethered Amfortas to serve his Office was the piteous woman who never stopped trying to help him. They stood by each other in their time of greatest need, and in turn, time became space in their heart.
The dove that was hovering over Parzival's head unexpectedly flies away. Turning his gaze to follow the dove, Gurnemanz hears a familiar voice addressing it: 'I hoped to be able to see your kind again.'
Again.
He was a fool. She saw a dove that Good Friday.
Thank God that time becomes space in the Grail community for Adelaide too.
[1] Courtesy of Friedrich von Matthisson's poem Adelaide.
Bonus:
'Gurnemanz, how have you been raising your kids!? Liaze is infatuated not with Kardeiz or Lohengrin, who are her age, but with Parzival!' Condwiramurs chaffs.
'And Schenteflurs has a crush on Condwir!' Parzival adds mock jealously.