Best Knight Ever (A Kinda Fairytale Book 4)

by Cassandra Gannon

  “So you wish to get children killed.” Trystan summarized. “Why do you hate children, knight?”

  “I don’t hate children!”

  “Then, why do you teach them to lose to puppets?”

  Galahad was clearly aggravated by that inescapable logic. “Why do you even watch the show, if it bothers you so much?”

  “Avalon watches it. I am merely in the room. Occasionally.”

  Every day.

  He watched it every day, trying to make sense of the confusing stories and telling himself that the knight could not possibly be that attractive in reality. That he doubtlessly had a dark soul, given the things he’d done, so it was wrong to have such erotic thoughts about him. That the inexplicable pull he felt towards the man was his instincts misfiring, due to lack of more suitable companionship.

  The mental lectures hadn’t helped.

  Trystan cleared his throat. “It’s a very badly written program.” He reiterated, because it was true. Trystan had always had an affinity for storytelling. He took the work of weaving a tale seriously. “With some help, though, you could improve the lessons you seek to impart to the young.”

  “Wait… You’re going to rewrite my show, now?” Galahad’s eyebrows soared. “Is that it? You think you can do better?”

  “Of course I could.” There was nothing Trystan didn’t excel at. Even pointless things like television came easily to him. He was sure of it. “Much of your audience has grown up in the shadow of war. They must be taught about reality, so they can deal with what they have seen.”

  Galahad seemed agitated, now. It was a welcomed change from the silence. “Oh, the sponsors are going to be lining up for this program.” He settled back with a grumpily expectant expression. “I’m all ears. Enlighten me on how you would script Trystan’s Musical Puppet Show Death Match.”

  “To begin with I would remove the puppets.”

  The knight made a frustrated sound. “Jesus, why are you so against the poor puppets? What did they ever do to you?”

  “They are talentless performers. Also, their dead eyes are unsettling.”

  “You want to stick live eyeballs on the dolls? Wouldn’t that be even more unsettling?”

  Trystan rose above the sarcasm and removed his cooked lizard from the fire. “I would teach the children real things.” He stressed again. “You wish to say that Good will always win, but that is nonsense, knight. There is no point in deceiving children.”

  Trystan crunched down on the body of his lizard. It was cooked perfectly. He had lived on the creatures for much of his life, so he knew how to prepare them. Unlike the knight, he’d never had the luxury of agonizing over the morality of eating meat. Lizards and leprechauns had been the only food sources for the gryphons during the War. You ate them or you starved.

  “What kind of ‘real things’ should I tell a five year old about battle?” Galahad demanded. “You think they want to hear about the bodies we pushed into mass graves? The wounded soldiers screaming over their missing limbs, as the fight raged around them?”

  “I think you should tell children that sometimes evil will triumph, but they should stand against it, anyway. Life will be unfair, and unjust, and they will want to give up. They will often be alone and afraid. They may have to eat lizards to survive and so they should learn how to catch them. Because warriors do what they must in order to carry on with their missions.”

  Galahad’s expression changed, becoming less annoyed.

  “You tell them that life will be hard, at times. People will perish and kingdoms will fall. No one goes through life and never fails. It is the effort that counts, in the end. Many of their dreams will not come true, but they should continue to have them. Without dreams, people become ghosts.”

  Galahad seemed transfixed.

  “Most of all, you tell children that their actions always matter and their stories will endure, long after they are gone. So, if they are on the right side, they should fight on, regardless of the consequences. They should fight, until they win or die. Because that is how the world changes for the children who follow them.”

  Galahad stared at Trystan for a long moment. “Yeah.” He finally murmured. “That does sound like a good show.”

  Trystan grunted. “I know.” He paused. “Also, you should show the young how to use an axe to defeat their enemies.”

  Now, Galahad looked almost entertained. “You want to train preschoolers to kill people with an axe? On Saturday morning TV?”

  “Of course.” Trystan really should write the show. Now that he was generating ideas, the program was coming together nicely in his head. “Axe-handling is a difficult skill to master. How will children learn to do it well, if they are not taught?”

  Galahad’s mouth twitched at one corner. “That’s a fair point, Trys. If I ever work on another television show, I’ll insist that we decapitate all the puppets, at least once a season.”

  “That would be a good start.” Trystan was pleased to help the man see reason.

  “So, what kind of dreams do you have?”

  “What?”

  “You said everyone has to have dreams or they die. So, what are your dreams?”

  “To kill all my enemies.” Trystan said without hesitation.

  Galahad seemed puzzled. “That’s it?”

  “What else matters?”

  “I don’t know. It’s your dream. It should be what you want most. What do you want most?”

  Trystan frowned, uncomfortable with the question, because he wasn’t sure of the answer. The man asked too many questions that had no answers. It was so… irritating. “I prefer discussing your TV show to discussing myself.” He decided.

  “You prefer insulting my TV show.”

  “Not entirely.” Trystan wanted to be fair. “I did approve when you battled the fuzzy green whale on your program. That episode was far superior to the others.”

  Galahad’s grin stretched wider. “I was shirtless and wet for most of that episode, wasn’t I?”

  Trystan shrugged, like he couldn’t recall. “The plot was excellent. Very engrossing. I enjoy tales of the sea.”

  “Thanks.” Galahad was happy, again, which was always a pleasure to witness. His gaze shone brilliantly, and his smile was magical, and Trystan experienced peace just from being in his company.

  Trystan glanced away, irritated by the rightness of it all. “Fine.”

  Between them the fire crackled and popped in the dark night. Only bamboo, cactus, and wishing trees grew in this region of Lyonesse. Bamboo was the easiest to gather, but air pockets in the long stalks exploded when heated. Wishing trees were “too special” to cut down, according to the knight. That left dried up cacti as fuel, so that’s what Trystan was burning. Thankfully, it hadn’t spoiled the taste of his lizard.

  “So,” Galahad said out of the blue, “would you like to have sex?”

  Trystan’s head snapped up. “What?” The knight randomly said many strange things, but this had to be a translational problem. The common tongue was Trystan’s third language, so…

  “Sex.” Galahad repeated and there was simply no mistaking the word. “I want to seduce you. Did you forget what I said to Ayren before?”

  No. He hadn’t forgotten. At all.

  “I mean I’ve been giving you time to think about it,” Galahad went on, “but I’m really, really attracted to you. When I look at you everything feels safe. And true. No one else has ever felt that way to me.”

  Trystan had no idea what that meant… but he didn’t hate hearing it.

  “So, I don’t want you to think I come on to guys all the time.” Galahad assured him. “It’s really not like that. I’ve never been with a man, actually. I’m just thinking it’s probably easier to ask you outright than use subtlety. I suck at subtlety.” It was a trait he shared with Gwen. “You don’t seem like someone who responds to subtlety, anyway.”

  “You’ve never been with a man?” How in the hell was that possible? Why was it possibl
e? What did these puritanical people do to themselves? …And why was it so appealing to know that no other male had ever touched the knight?

  “No, I haven’t.” Galahad shook his head. “To be honest, I’ve never been with a woman, either. I considered that, when I was younger. I wanted to fit in. But it wouldn’t have been right to sleep with someone who I wasn’t genuinely attracted to. Someone I didn’t have true feelings for.”

  Trystan stared at him.

  “I’m living a life of truth.” Galahad told him with earnest virtue. “I don’t ever want to lie, again. And it would be a lie if I didn’t tell you that I think you’re beautiful, and interesting, and I want to have sex with you.”

  Trystan considered that. Considered everything.

  “I’m not going to untie you.” He finally said.

  “Okay.” Galahad agreed readily. “It’s the part where we’re not having sex that I’d like to be untied for, honestly. We can keep the ropes on for the sex part, if you like. I don’t mind.”

  Looking at the knight’s guileless face, Trystan saw how it would be between them. Shimmering blond hair caught in his fist, guiding Galahad’s head… Lavender-blue eyes shining up at him as Trystan found release in his perfect mouth… The sense of connection he’d experience when he’d give Galahad pleasure in return… How exactly right it would all be. It wasn’t just some fantasy or a product of his imagination. For just a second, he saw it.

  That whisper of fate flickered in his head again.

  Shit.

  Trystan frowned and went back to eating his lizard.

  Galahad grinned, somehow taking his silence as a positive sign. “You know you didn’t actually say ‘no,’ right?”

  “I didn’t say ‘yes,’ either. Eat your fucking cactus.”

  “Okay great!” The knight lived in the sunlight, seeing only the brightest of sides. “Think it over and get back to me.” He paused for approximately two seconds. “Are you thinking it over?”

  Trystan rolled his eyes and bit off the lizard’s tail. It was the best part. “Mostly I am thinking you’re a twisting path. One I’m unsure I wish to walk.”

  “Jesus, you really just said that.”

  Trystan shrugged. “I do not know where you will lead me.”

  That wasn’t entirely true. A part of Trystan already knew where the path was headed. He’d known it from the second Galahad bested Ayren’s men and then fell apart in his arms. When the knight had held onto him like Trystan was the only solid thing in the world, something had moved inside of Trystan’s chest. Something protective and tender and vast. Something that told him just where this path would go, if he continued down it.

  Which is why he hesitated, now.

  This wasn’t a path he’d planned to take with a wingless knight who had been his enemy for years, and asked unanswerable questions, and possessed a reckless amount of optimism. It wasn’t a path he planned to travel with anyone, in the foreseeable future. He needed to deliver Galahad to Gwen, then leave Camelot to kill all the men on his list. Then, eventually, he would choose a hero as his mate. That was his plan and he would see it through.

  But his eyes kept returning to Galahad.

  “You really shouldn’t walk my path.” Galahad admitted, his smile vanishing again. “I’m messed up in the head, and everybody keeps trying to kill me, and my name will always be tainted. You can do better.”

  “Probably.” Trystan agreed.

  “You saw what happened in Ayren’s village. I can snap at any time.” Galahad snorted. “I’m not even a knight, anymore. I was stripped of my title when I was banished. There was a ceremony and everything.”

  “You will always be a knight.” Trystan ate some more lizard, still trying to figure the man out. The campfire smoke added a pleasant taste to the meat. “It seems to me that it is the deepest part of you, as all your terrible TV shows revolve around the glory of it.”

  “I don’t glorify being a knight. I teach the importance of the Knights’ Code.”

  A knight protects those weaker than himself.

  Trystan knew that vow. But, none of the knights he’d ever met even attempted to live up to the simple rightness of the words. Galahad seemed to believe in it, though. Seemed to want to keep that promise, now. That was interesting. “If this code is important to you, why do you no longer fight?”

  His eyes dimmed. “You know why.”

  “Legion?”

  Galahad took a deep breath. “After Legion, nothing was ever the same.” Apparently, he wasn’t going to shut down all conversation about that day, as he had before. That was a promising sign.

  “Ayren says you stopped the Rath, in the end. The weapon would have killed the last of the survivors. But you stopped it, yes?”

  Galahad shrugged. “I stood on the wrong side of a massacre. That’s the bottom line. Everything else is just details.”

  Trystan couldn’t argue with that. Still, having met this man and spent time with him, he saw something… special. “No one goes through life and never fails.” He reiterated. “Not even you. The only way to make up for the harm you’ve caused is to use your gifts to help others. Otherwise, you are squandering your abilities.

  Galahad had defeated five trained men while his hands were bound. No one else could have done that. Trystan wasn’t even sure he could’ve done it. He wasn’t ready to agree that Galahad was the “best knight ever,” but he was easily --easily!-- the greatest fighter Camelot had ever produced.

  Only the man didn’t want to hold a sword ever again, thanks to Uther and his fucking War.

  Trystan believed Galahad’s claim that the old king had kept him in the dark about most of the War’s worst brutality. If you had to pull a cart through thick mud for miles on end, you didn’t kill your best horse trying to accomplish the task. No. You sacrificed all the less significant, more malleable beasts in your stable on the grunt work. You kept your finicky thoroughbred safely tucked away from anything that might spook it or break its spirit, because you wanted to win races. Uther had needed Galahad committed to the cause and the man’s soft heart would have gotten in the way of victory.

  “Killing more people won’t make up for Legion.” Galahad sounded very sure. “It will just sink me deeper into darkness.”

  “Someone once told me that you should not judge a man on his worst day. You should judge him on his best.”

  “Well, my worst day is pretty damn bleak.”

  “Yes.”

  “After the War, I was able to push it all down for a while. I had Gwen and Avi to anchor me. I did my TV shows. I tried to be normal, again. I thought, if I just kept busy, doing everything I could think of…” He trailed off. “But it never went away. And when I was banished, it just got worse. I can’t even sleep most of the time.”

  Trystan had noticed that he stayed awake at night. It was not healthy. “Nightmares fade when you speak of them.” He wasn’t sure why he said that, but the words were just suddenly there. “Do you wish to speak of them with me?”

  “No.”

  Trystan wasn’t surprised by the answer. The knight preferred to do everything alone. For all his sociability, he kept the core of himself hidden. Galahad shared nothing he did not wish to share. And he did not wish to share much of importance. He had not mentioned his treasure lately or asked Trystan about the men he planned to kill in St Ives. He seemed to embrace the idea that their separate missions were separate. The longer they were together, the less inclined he seemed to try and recruit Trystan as an ally in his madness.

  That was… fine

  Obviously, Trystan wanted no part of whatever nonsense he’d dreamed up. He was pleased that the man seemed content to wait until they returned to Camelot to continue his quest for gold. Trystan’s irritation was only because Galahad was in his care and the knight suffered with memories that could only heal if they were shared.

  “You should tell these nightmares to someone, even if it is not me. You are the most popular man in your kingdom. There is no
one you can talk to about the War?”

  Big eyes met his. They were the exact shade of the sky just after sunset, when light still illuminated the clouds. No one else had eyes like that. No one else in the world.

  From out of nowhere, Ban’s voice sounded in his mind, giving him the advice that had helped Trystan find his way home, after the zoo: “Do not move until you see the lavender hues of twilight. Purple. That is your path home.”

  Shit… The thought was a sigh in his own head.

  Purple is the path.

  “The Galahad on TV is the most popular man in the kingdom.” Galahad told him, not noticing Trystan’s distraction. “I’m just an unemployed, disgraced knight, convicted of treason.”

  “Camelot still has your face on every magazine at every supermarket.” Trystan cleared his throat and refocused. “Last month, one theorized that you were working on a top secret project to reach the moon.”

  “I haven’t been to the moon, yet.” Galahad really, honestly, literally said “yet.” “Magazines write all kinds of stuff and most of it is wrong.” He arched a brow. “For instance, in any of the articles, did you read about my statement during the hearing on Legion?”

  Trystan tilted his head, watching him closely through the smoke of the campfire. “No. I did not even know there was a hearing on Legion.”

  “Exactly.” Galahad gave a humorless smile. “No one wanted to print my recollections. They wanted to weave fantasies about how they were in the right and build statues to their Martyr.”

  “You knew Bedivere?”

  There was a beat of silence, like Galahad was weighing a careful response. “Yes.”

  “The hideous statue you refer to sits in the courtyard of the palace. It claims that he died a hero, saving children at Legion from a fire. Did you help him in this deed? Is that what Ayren was talking about?”

  “No. I wasn’t a part of anything Bedivere did. Truthfully, the only heroes I saw that day were all on the gryphons’ side.”