by Unknown
The dragon was bad enough, but when I’d cut off the last of its heads, I still had the bridge before me. And that was worse than a herd of dragons.
Over a burning river, the only footholds were hovering sword blades spaced so far apart, and so unevenly, that a mountain goat could have lost its footing. To make it a bit more interesting, the fire below the bridge had an annoying habit of spurting up at intervals perfectly timed to set one’s nerves off-key. Crossing it would be like a caper with death. Luckily, I’d learned capering from the jongleurs who sometimes stopped at my father’s hall along the way to more illustrious castles. I fancied I might have a better chance on the Bridge of Blades and Flame than a knight whose chivalric training had been more regular.
I considered leaving my armor and sword on the bank; they’d weigh me down as I leapt, and if I were really unlucky, they might get hot as branding irons. But I dared not trust that the Bridge of Blades and Flame was the last layer of deviltry wound around the Garden of Delights. Whatever bloodthirsty strategist had placed the dragon on the bank of the icy torrent, and the gulf of flame just beyond the dragon, might set a hungry lion or an assassin on the other side of the bridge. I kept my armor on. Muttering a quick prayer—God guard fools!—I leapt to the first blade-thin foothold, just missing the first jet of flame.
It was indeed a bit like dancing. Once I caught the rhythm of the fire’s music, I could be almost safe on that ghastly bridge, leaping just in time to avoid each burst of flame. All the same, exhaustion was a formidable foe. By the time I reached the far side, I was in no state to fight off a lion or even a particularly determined lapdog. I collapsed on the bank, dazed. When I opened my eyes, I found an elegant lady offering me a hand up.
I accepted her help with thanks, too startled to be distrustful just yet. She looked as young as I was, and a good deal richer. She wore no silken headdress over her shining black hair, but that hair was a wealth in itself, the intricate braids cascading from her broad forehead to the silver belt at her hips. Her gown of crimson silk brocade must have cost a fortune, and the bodice that offset it was so thickly flowered with embroidery that I couldn’t tell what color the cloth might be. And yet here she was, dressed fit to meet the king, lounging out in the garden where the dew might spoil her silk. How rich she must be to treat such finery so carelessly, I could scarcely imagine. This was my first journey far from Révie, and I had not yet seen much of the world.
She smiled at me, and her teeth, of course, were perfect. “Welcome, bold adventurer, to the Garden of Delights. You have passed the last test, the last peril, and arrived at the haven reserved for the bravest of the brave. You have swum the River of Pain, fought the many-headed dragon, and crossed the Bridge of Blades and Flame. All here is yours, O flower of knighthood, and all is for your delight, for this is the Garden of Delights.”
“So I see,” I said. “Someone told my brother Roland to come here seeking the Water of Life that heals all wounds.”
“Yes, here flows the spring of the Water of Life,” the lady said. “You can fill your vial before you return home, victorious hero. But meanwhile, rest and refresh yourself in this fair land.” She laid a blossom-light hand on my shoulder. “All here is for your pleasure, good sir: the Water of Life, the shade of the bower, the fragrant apples, the sweet dark grapes—and me, the Damsel of the Garden of Delights. I also await your pleasure.”
The damsel leaned against me. She was a head shorter than I, but something in her bearing convinced me she was nothing near as fragile a blossom as she appeared. Her deep blue eyes sought mine—foiled, of course, by the visor of my helm. I slid a hand around her waist, but kept myself masked. Playfully, she put a hand to my visor. “Let me look upon the face of my hero and plant a kiss of welcome on—oh!” the damsel cried as she unmasked me, “you’re a girl!”
“That I am, Jezebel,” I said, “so you can stop pressing your brocaded bosom against me.” I clasped her to myself—an embrace she no longer desired—and glared into her too-perfect face. “Someone went to great expense to deck you out as bait. Virgin Mary’s eyeteeth, an army of women must have labored over that embroidery!”
“I live a retired life here with little to occupy my time besides my embroidery,” the Damsel said. “But you are not so constrained, good maid-at-arms. If the Garden of Delights does not please you, by all means, fill your flask and go your way.”
“You’re as anxious to be rid of me now as you were to detain me a moment ago,” I said. “You wanted a man, and I doubt it was for the obvious reason. This garden is built on strong magic, and here you are in the center of it like a spider in her web. If you only wanted a lover, you needn’t take nearly so much trouble: one glimpse of your pretty heart-shaped face in the church square would be enough. No. You—or more likely, whoever owns you—set out to lure men to this secluded place for a purpose.”
“It’s true that my Lady Ettarre of the Island commanded me to attract a knight into her service,” the Damsel conceded, “and as I doubt a female would satisfy her—”
“A knight? Your lady wants one knight? Why, then, have all my three brothers disappeared into this trap? WHERE ARE MY BROTHERS?”
“Why, how should I know?”
“Because you lured those three fools here and you bound them to your service—with this!” I brandished the hazel wand I’d found in the back of her bodice when I pretended to embrace her.
“You—” For a moment I thought she would spit fire. Then, regaining her self-command, she laughed. “You’ve put too much faith in minstrels’ tales if you think that twig can bind men-at-arms.”
“Really? Then why did you keep it hidden in your bodice?”
“It must have gotten there by accident. Look, I’ll show you how harmless it is.” She reached for the wand, but not quickly enough.
“No you don’t! I’m not fool enough to give a witch her wand back to use on me!”
“I’m not a witch. And you’re a thief!” The Damsel of the Garden of Delights lunged toward the wand, but to no avail. It’s nice to be tall: all I had to do was hold it above her head.
“A thief, am I? For taking an old twig that got into your clothes by mistake? Oh, that’s droll, Jezebel. You’re not only a witch, you’re a wit.”
“Stop calling me that!”
“A wit? Certainly. It wasn’t so terribly witty.”
“I’m not a Jezebel. I didn’t want to kiss those sweaty, smelly, self-conceited knights. And I’m NOT A WITCH.” The Damsel made such a lunge for the wand that she nearly tore one of her fashionably close-laced sleeves.
“Not a witch, eh? And this is not a wand, so you won’t mind if I toss it into that bird’s nest, high up in the tree?”
“Not a bit.” The Damsel spoke with such sincere unconcern that I saw through her instantly.
“Ha. You could always climb up and get it afterward, couldn’t you? Very well. You won’t mind a bit if I mar it a little—chew on the end, perhaps?” I snapped at it teasingly, like a cat playing at fighting.
For answer, she kicked me in the shin. The armor I’d managed to scrounge from my brothers’ leavings did not extend to my legs, and the damsel’s shoes had nasty pointed toes. I didn’t drop the wand, but I did let loose some of the choice language I’d learned in my travels. “That does it!” I said, when I was done cursing her and her shoemaker. “The wand pays for that kick!” And I brought my teeth down on it.
That was not the wisest thing I’ve ever done. It was like biting a bolt of lightning. Pain lanced through every fiber of my body. When I could see again, I realized I’d dropped the wand, and the witch was scrambling for it on the ground.
“Oh, no you don’t!” I threw myself on her.
“Get off me, you great heavy brute!” she protested as we grappled. But at last she got the wand in her hand, its tip against my throat. “Be still, or I’ll—I’ll give you such pain you’ll wish you’d been skewered and toasted on the bridge.”
“What does it matter what I
do now? You’ll treat me as you did my brothers.”
“I don’t want to,” the Damsel said. “But I will if you force me. Back away.”
Wary of the wand, I disengaged myself from our tangle of arms and legs and gave her some room—but not so much that I couldn’t close the distance quickly at need. “What good is it for me to back away? Surely you can bewitch me as well where I am.”
“I won’t, if you give me no reason,” the damsel said. “My Lady Ettarre wants knights, not maidens. Leave now, and I’ll let you go unharmed.”
“Free my brothers and I’ll leave gladly.”
“I can’t do that. My lady needs them.”
“Whatever for?” I said. “Even my father scarcely knows what to do with them.”
“She needs one-and-twenty knights of proven worth. Bound together by enchantments, they will become an unstoppable force to help her reclaim the inheritance that was denied to her. She has twenty now. I can’t take three from their number when we’re so close to completion.”
“It’s hard to imagine my brothers making such a difference in a battle,” I said. “Between you and me, they’re not very great swordsmen.”
“I don’t believe you,” said the Damsel. “If they came here, as you say, then they fought the dragon and braved the Bridge of Blades and Flame. Only the flower of chivalry can attain the Garden of Delights.”
“My brothers, the flower of chivalry?” I snorted. “I can out-fence every one of them.”
“Maybe they didn’t come here after all,” said the Damsel. “Maybe they only claimed to be searching for this garden, and went seeking their fortune instead. If they’re not here, you can leave with a clear conscience.”
Privately I had to consider the possibility. Given such a golden chance to get out from under Father’s thumb, why shouldn’t Roland, Raoul, and Berenger put as many miles between themselves and home as they could? But I had to brazen it out, or I’d never learn the truth. “Oh, you’d like me to believe that. You’d say anything to get rid of me.”
The Damsel fumed for a few moments in silence. Then, “Come,” she said, “see for yourself.”
She led me down a pleasant stone-cobbled path from one glorious scene to another: a garden of roses that filled the September air with the heady scent of June; an arbor of grape vines, all bearing fruit; a bed of fragrant herbs; a grove of nut-trees; a broad orchard where every branch drooped with golden-skinned apples.
“Such a marvelous land!” I said. “It goes on and on, from beauty to beauty, from bounty to bounty. What inheritance could your Lady Ettarre wish to claim that could compare with what she already has?”
“Why should she be content with just this island, when by rights, all Loegris should bow to her?”
“All Loegris? What does she think she is?”
“She is the rightful sovereign—”
“Who told you that?”
The damsel’s blush told me all I needed to know.
“She did herself, didn’t she? Well, doesn’t that just figure. All I can say is, I never heard of any Queen Ettarre.”
“Who cares what you’ve heard of? Who are you?” the damsel shot back.
“Who are you?” I countered. “Tell me your name, and I’ll tell you mine. Or don’t you have a name, witch?”
“I’m not a witch.”
“Then give me something else to call you. Witch.”
“Isabeau.” She scowled as if she had lost something, giving that away.
“Why the long face, Damsel Isabeau? I can’t work spells on your name. But I’ll even the score: my name’s Ursula. My father’s the lord of Révie, a rocky scrap of land at the back end of nowhere. When bards stay at our hall, he sometimes tells them he was cheated of a much wider inheritance. To his face, they all agree with him—but behind his back, they laugh.”
“Well, no one laughs at my Lady Ettarre.”
“Locked up in this inaccessible island, how would you know if they did?”
Isabeau stalked on in silence a while, but her pretty clear-skinned face changed from white to red, and her shapely hands clenched.
After a time, bored with the silence, I tried to strike up a conversation. “What’s Lady Ettarre like? Is she a witch, too?”
“I am not a witch!”
“Right, right, and that twig’s not a wand.”
“I am a learned enchantress, educated according to the School of Salamanca. I know the spirit-lore of Solomon, the Enneads of Plotinus, the natural history of Pliny, the charm-lore of Africanus, the herb-lore of Hildegarde, the geometry of Euclid, and the algebra of the Arabs.”
I was a bit impressed. Father didn’t hold with book-learning. “You must have been at Salamanca all your life to have learned so much.”
A look of discontent crossed the enchantress’s features. “No, I was here all along. My grand— er, my lady taught me. She was at Salamanca in her youth.”
“Ah. Well, this is a fair enough place to take root in.”
“Take root!” Isabeau kicked a stone in the path. “As if I were one of these trees. I might as well be one. Did you travel from your homeland all alone?”
“Oh, yes.”
“What was it like, traveling by yourself?”
“It seems almost heartless to say it, with my brothers missing, but this has been the best time I’ve ever had. Not that it hasn’t been hard, too—sleeping outdoors, eating whatever I could find, fighting off the occasional brigand—but oh, the open road! The prospect of something new over every rise! And this armor—Roland’s second-best—how handy it is to put my visor down and be mysterious: the knight without a face! People treat me like I’m someone important when they can’t see it’s just Maid Ursula, the squire’s youngest brat.”
Her blue eyes assessed me curiously. “You carry a sword. Why didn’t you draw it on me when you had my wand?”
“Well, really, what do you take me for? I wouldn’t kill you in cold blood, would I? You haven’t done me any deadly harm—not that I know of,” I added. “But rest assured, I know how to use that sword. My three brothers needed a fourth as sparring partner, so they taught me. Let me ask you a question in return, Isabeau. Why didn’t you use that wand on me as soon as you got it back?”
“Because you never drew the sword on me,” said the Damsel. “But trust me, Maid Ursula, I know how to use my weapon, too.”
“I believe you,” I said. “How did you come to be the Damsel of the Garden?”
“My mother was Lady Ettarre’s daughter.”
“She’s your grandmother? Why do you call her Lady Ettarre, then?”
“When she chose me as her apprentice, my lady said it was better I should see her as mistress than as kin.”
“She did, did she?”
“It was an honor to be so chosen.”
“Huh.”
“None of her children inherited her skill,” Isabeau said a touch defensively. “None of her legitimate grandchildren, either. I outshone them all, legitimate and illegitimate. My lady said I was the only one worthy to inherit her knowledge.”
“Then you must be the heir of all this beauteous land.”
She looked sour. “And are you, then, heir of your own homeland, Ursula?”
“No, Damsel,” I said. “No more than you are.”
We came at last to a stand of willows near the brook. Isabeau’s steps slowed. “We’re almost there,” she said. “The knights, they—they rest under the shadow of the willows. If you don’t find your brothers there, will you promise me—promise to leave me in peace?”
My heart sank to my stomach. “There’s something you don’t want to show me. I promise nothing. Show me first.”
Sighing, Isabeau led me across the brook at the ford.
Under the trailing branches of the willows stood an array of extraordinary statues: young men of marble, standing or sitting or reclining on the grass, leaning as if to embrace an unseen person. They were most marvelously lifelike. And as my eyes swept the crowd of
marble forms, I knew one of them at a glance. “Berenger!” He stood, leaning slightly forward, looking downward fondly, as if into the face of a lover. I ran to him and cast my left arm about him. My right hand drew my sword, and the heat of fury rising through me could almost have melted it.
“Drawing steel?” said Isabeau, raising her wand. “You said you didn’t want to kill me.”
“That was when I believed you’d done no great evil.”
“I didn’t kill them! I mean, they’re not dead.”
“No,” I choked out, “they’re neither alive and free, nor dead and with God. They’re in some godforsaken nowhere, like a little girl’s dolls left carelessly under the bed. Like things.”
“It’s only until we get the twenty-first.”
“And then what? Then they go free, I suppose, little witch?” I spat at her.
“Then they become Lady Ettarre’s champions.”
“Yes. Instead of standing spellbound, they’ll march spell-kicked and spell-goaded, with no more choice where to go than a farmer gives his wheelbarrow.”
“Only until my lady has her rightful inheritance.”
“Which you claim is the whole realm. The realm and all its people in the grip of a woman who thinks it fair to bind young men in living death. How can you lend yourself to this evil?”
“When did I have a choice?” Isabeau said.
“I don’t know. But you’ve surely left Berenger no choice.”
“So. Now we’re foes, are we? Why don’t you strike, then, swordswoman?” Isabeau taunted. “Afraid I’ll strike back?”
I smacked her with the flat of the sword. She staggered and pointed the wand at me, chanting, and I braced myself for a bolt of lightning, a burst of flame, some huge, swift, and painful retaliation. That was stupid, a beginner’s blunder. I ought to have gone on swinging. Never having faced magic before, I hadn’t yet learned that it doesn’t always come at once—especially when the magician is young and distracted by a muddle of emotions. When it looked to me as though all Isabeau’s wand-waving was for naught, I recovered my wits enough to aim another blow at her. That was when the slow-building spell finally broke over me. It was like the rolling pains I had with the vomiting sickness one Shrovetide. It wrung every fiber of my body, from my heart outward. Before I quite knew how it happened, the ground came up and hit me in the back. When I could see anything but dancing sparks, I found Isabeau bending over me, her brow creased. “Ursula? Oh, God in heaven. I didn’t mean to kill her.”