The Mammoth Book of Merlin

by Mike Ashley

  After one backward glance, the tyrant went faster than any knight in full harness had ever before gone on his own unaided legs. He fled toward his own horse, which stood at no great distance. He would make it, even though the white stallion should continue to gain a yard on him at every earth-jarring bound. He would just make it, with nothing to spare – but once in his saddle, he would beat the devil off with his mace. He saw the mace, short-hafted and spike-headed, where it awaited his hand on the saddlebow; and it held his agonized gaze, and spurred him to the utmost cruel fury of effort, like a bright star of salvation. Now! One more wrench of muscles, nerves and heart, and he would be safe! He flung himself at the saddle, touched it with outflung hands – and the black horse swerved. Screaming like a snared rabbit, he fell flat on his vizored face.

  Sir Lorn, who had stood staring like one entranced, shook off a mailed glove, thrust two fingers into his mouth and whistled like a kelpie. The great stallion clamped all four hooves to earth, tearing and uprolling the sod before him, and stayed his course a hand’s-breadth short of his quarry. He stood uncertain, tossing and swinging his head and clashing bared teeth; but at a second shrill blast, he wheeled and trotted back to his master. Lorn patted his neck and was about to mount, but was checked by King Torrice.

  “Too late,” said Torrice, pointing.

  Sir Lorn looked and saw the scoundrel whom he had spared twice up on his strong horse and in full flight, across meadow and cornland, toward the nearest edge of forest.

  “Why did you let him go, dear lad?”

  Lorn looked apologetically at his grandfather, who was afoot only a pace away, with the old gray’s reins in his hand.

  “A false knight,” continued Torrice mildly. “Murderer, torturer, infanticide, seducer, traducer and common thief, according to the manikin Joseph. He would be better dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lorn muttered with a red face. “Had he cursed me, or had he turned on Bahram – but no, he squealed for mercy. Mice have more manhood. I stayed my hand, and Bahram’s hooves, for very shame – shame of all creatures made by Almighty God in His own image.”

  The old man was startled, distressed and confused. For all his ding-dong years of unconventional, even crazy questing, and his competence in the making of romaunts and rondels, he was still, at heart and head, a gentleman of the old school rather than a philosopher.

  “Never mind it, dear lad!” he cried hurriedly. “There’s no great harm done, I dare say. But your squire could have used that big horse very well. We have five remounts, however; and the least of them is bigger than a hackney. All proper warhorses. I shall shift my saddle to the late Sir Barl’s big courser, and so let faithful old Clarence here travel light from now on. We have done very well. Five dead rogues and five quick horses, and not a scratch taken.”

  “And the blackest rogue and the biggest horse gone clean away!” moaned Sir Lorn. “But never again – no matter how so he may squeal and pray like a soul in torment!” he cried.

  They crossed the little river and went behind the willows and took possession of the pavilions and everything else that they found there. The false knight who had fallen to King Torrice’s spear, and the four knaves who had fallen to the swords and knives of squires Peter and Gervis and grooms Goggin and Billikin, were buried deep, and without benefit of clergy, by a party of rejoicing yokels.

  The dwarf, whose name was Joseph, ran forth and back between manor house and camp, whistling in high spirits. He was a lively little man of uncertain age, flickering eyes and a sly smile. He fetched wine and cakes, with the Lady Clara’s compliments and thanks, and took back King Torrice’s poetical expressions of devotion. He fetched jellies and sweetmeats, and a pretty message from the lady to the import that she had made them with her own hands of the very last of her store of honey and other such ingredients: whereupon the King sent back to her, by the two squires in their best suits of velvet and Turky leather, his last crock of brandied peaches, a cup of silver gilt and a necklace of French workmanship.

  The squires went side by side, with Joseph strutting importantly before. Master Peter carried the crock, which was considered by King Torrice as the senior gift, and Master Gervis carried the cup and necklace. Peter did not like the mission.

  “Much more of this tomfoolery, and by Sir Michael and Sir George, I cast my new gentility like a snake his old skin and go back to my currycombs!” he muttered to his companion, as they marched along the most direct path to the great house.

  Gervis laughed at him. Gervis had been born and bred to this sort of thing, and liked it.

  “Then the more fool you, my Peterkin!” replied Gervis. “There would be no gentility but for the thing this mission of ours is a token of. Without it, chivalry would be naught but dust and sweat and spilled blood and broken teeth; and if bruises and empty bellies and foundered horses were the only rewards for questing, how long would knights-errant continue to mount and ride? Our royal old Torrice prates of the Spirit of Beauty, but it’s the soft eyes and red lips which beset his ways that have withheld him all these years from the softest armchair in the biggest castle of Har. As for young Lorn – do you think he rides only for love of weary marches and hard knocks? Nay, nay, my Peterkin! He seeks that which he can neither remember nor forget. The Spirit of Beauty? Not so! The eyes and lips and hands and tender breast of a damosel he knew are his quest: and that she happened to be a heartless witch as well as an enchanting companion is his sad misfortune.”

  “I’ve had neither time nor opportunity for such plays, and no more acquaintance with elegant damosels than with luring witches,” said Peter gruffly.

  “But you have bussed goosegirls behind haycocks,” said Gervis, and as Peter ignored this, he added: “Goosegirl or damosel or Queen Mab herself, the only differences between them are rosewater and moonshine. They all ply the same arts: otherwise, there would be no more chivalry in the courts of Camelot and Carleon than in forests of red swine.”

  “A pox on it!” muttered Peter.

  People of all ages and several conditions gathered about their path from every direction. There were wobbly gaffers and gammers, and able-bodied men and women, and youths and wenches and toddlers and babes in arms. Only a few wore the bronze collars of serfs, but all appeared to be of the humblest sorts of peasantry – plowmen and herdsmen and ditchers, without a yeoman or steward among them, nor even a smith. All stared curiously and hopefully, yet fearfully, at the two squires, though these bore gifts in their hands and had only short ornamental daggers at their belts.

  “Bah!” exclaimed Peter; whereat the nearer members of the crowd cringed backward as if from a whip.

  “Are they sheep?” he continued, but less emphatically. “The tyrants were but six – and right here I see enough brawn to overcome a dozen such.”

  Joseph turned his head and replied, with a rueful grimace:

  “You say truth, fair sir: but lacking a master, muscly brawn has no more fight in it than clods of earth. Sir Gayling and his squire were long past their physical prime; nor had they ever been notable cavaliers, but bookmen and stargazers and alchemists. They were murdered in my lady’s rose-garden by the base knight Drecker – spitted like larks, and as easily; and the high steward and Tom Bowman the head forester – old gentlemen both – were waylaid and done to death in the North Wood; and the miller, a masterful man, was slain trickily in his mill by the other dastard knight; and their six knaves set upon Ned Smith working late at his anvil, and slew him; and after that, the four that had come alive out of the smithy, murdered three farmers and a master cheesewright in their beds.”

  “Weren’t there any men about the house – butlers and the like?” asked Peter. “Scullions? Grooms and gardeners?”

  “All too old,” said Joseph. “Boyhood companions of poor Sir Gayling, most of them.”

  “A dozen old men hobbling on sticks, or old women even, would have served to chase off Drecker and his rogues,” said Gervis. “Better still, a mixed force. I can see it in my
mind’s eye: the old lady herself, up on her palfrey, leading a host armed with crutches and distaffs against the invaders. That would have confounded them, and saved us the trouble of killing them.”

  He chuckled at the conceit, then sighed. Being young and romantic, he had hoped for something more amusing than the relict and household of a doddering old philosopher. The dwarf’s only answer was a slow, peculiar smile. And so they passed through the wide gate and were met in the courtyard by an ancient major-domo and two old lackeys. After having names and style and mission shouted into his left ear by Joseph, the major-domo, leaning on his staff of office, led the squires into the great hall.

  Dame Clara Entertains her Champions

  The squires were gone a long time on that errand: fully two hours, by King Torrice’s impatient reckoning.

  “So here you are at last!” the King exclaimed with a poor effort at severity. “I began to fear that Merlin had waylaid you in the guise of a distressed damosel. Now what of your visit, lads? Were my poor gifts well received? And what is your opinion of the poor lady, and of the situation generally? The late Sir Gayling, I gather, devoted his time to stargazing and kindred impractical pursuits, with the result that his affairs were in a sad way even before his foul murder. The manikin has hinted as much, at least, in his own elusive manner. But even so, we have no time to administer the estate of every distressed person who receives our chivalrous services. We are knights-errant, not lawyers or magistrates. Have I neglected my own earthy interests all my life – the one score baronies and five score manors of my Kingdom of Har – to concern myself, at this late day, with a stranger’s petty problems of lost rents and ravished cheeselofts? Not so, by my halidom!

  “I am sorry for the poor old dame, of course; but we have already done our knightly duty by her. If she will accept a few hundred crowns, she is welcome to them. But we must be on our way again by noon tomorrow, without fail. Now tell me your opinion of this Lady Clara, my lads. Her messages have been prettily worded – but her manikin Joseph is a clever fellow, I suspect.”

  Gervis slanted a glance at Peter, but the senior squire continued to look straight to his front.

  “Yes sir,” said Gervis. “Very clever. I mean very pretty. That’s to say, the lady was very polite. And she sent another message to Your Highness – and Sir Lorn – and it includes Peter and me too. It is an invitation to supper this evening.”

  Torrice sighed.

  “Supper with a mourning widow.” he muttered. “Do you know, dear lads,” he went on in a better voice, “I fear I took a strain in the spitting of that rogue Barl. It looked easy – but the fact is, I’m a shade past my physical prime. A wrench when the full weight of man and horse was arrested by my point, you understand. A wrench of the back, which has already extended upward to the neck – a thing not to be disregarded, especially at my age. I have seen young knights incapacitated for days by just such wrenches. I shall stop here and rub my neck with tallow. See – I can hardly turn my head. And I am sure that my company would be of no more comfort to the bereaved chatelaine than her tears and moans would be to me. With a grandson and two squires to represent me at the supper table, I shall rest here on my cot with an easy conscience, no matter how uneasy a neck.”

  Again Gervis slanted a glance at Peter; and this time it was returned.

  “Then we may go, sir?” cried Gervis, joyously.

  Torrice regarded him with raised brows.

  “It is the wine, sir,” said Peter. “Gervis enjoys his cup. Dame Clara is very hospitable. We have tasted her wine already, sir. Wines, I should say – various but all rare. The despoilers did not get into the cellar. Old Sir Gayling’s father was a collector of vintages from many lands, but Sir Gayling drank only milk and whey, it seems. And the lady said that she would produce even rarer vintages at supper than those already tasted by Gervis and me. And the butler told me there will be a lark-and-pigeon pie for supper.”

  “And strawberries and a sillabub,” said Gervis.

  “Say you so?” murmured the King; and he bent his brows and stroked his whiskers consideringly. “Poor lady! She might take it to heart, as an affront – my refusal of her hospitality. I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but neither do I want her or any woman to think me discourteous, which she might if I excused myself on the plea of a crick in the neck. So, on second thoughts and for our common credit in the poor dame’s eyes, I shall go, and grin and bear it.”

  Sir Lorn, who had lain flat and motionless and silent on a cot throughout the conversation, now swung his feet to the ground and sat up and spoke in a dull voice.

  “I’ll stay here. The poor lady owes me nothing at all – neither supper nor thanks.”

  “Nonsense!” his grandfather protested. “You pulled down the biggest of them all – and you afoot! No champion in Arthur Pendragon’s train could have done it better, my dear boy.”

  “And to what end, sir?” Lorn muttered. “I pulled down the biggest rogue from the biggest horse – and they are gone unscathed, man and horse! But your rogue, and all the rest of them, are buried deep, and their good horses are ours. Peter and Gervis bloodied their swords, and the grooms their knives. Only I failed in duty. I’ll stop right here, sir, by your leave.”

  But after half an hour of argument – in which Gervis was almost as voluble as the King, and even Peter grumbled and swore in support of the majority argument – Sir Lorn gave in.

  Joseph reappeared at the pavilion to escort the guests to the manor house. The dwarf was still in green, but now of silk and velvet instead of wool. The knights and squires were sumptuously garbed. Having arrayed himself as if for a royal feast at Westminster or the court of Camelot, the King had insisted that Lorn and the squires should help themselves to what remained of his extensive wardrobe. Sir Lorn and Peter had accepted no more of this additional finery than could be politely avoided, but young Gervis had taken full advantage of the opportunity. They made the short passage from pavilion to great house on foot, with Joseph strutting before. People came running.

  “Mark His Kingship’s mortal great whiskers with more hair in them than three horses’ tails!” cackled a toothless gaffer.

  “I vum they be all kings an’ princes,” shrilled a woman.

  A young man cried: “It was him – the old gentleman – as run a spear through Sir Barl – through shield an’ mail an’ breastbone – like skewer through duckling.”

  Another cried: “And I see the big young prince there pull Sir Drecker to earth like a sack of corn an’ set dagger to gullet – an’ Sir Drecker get up an’ run an’ ride away with his head half cut off.”

  “Not so!” cried the first. “I see that too, but not like that, Dickon Cowherd. I was up in the pollard willow. I see the prince spare his gullet, an’ kick his ribs, an’—”

  “Mind your manners, you louts!” screamed the dwarf, with a baleful glare around and a hand at his belt.

  * * *

  It was still daylight without, but the torches flared and smoked in the great hall. The tottering major-domo met King Torrice and his companions at the threshold and led them within. Joseph ran ahead and disappeared. The guests advanced slowly on the heels of the house-steward. The King looked about him alertly, narrowing his eyes against the wavering reds and blacks of flames and shadows. He observed trophies of arms and the chase on the walls – weapons of chivalry and venery of an earlier time, and moth-eaten boars’ heads with upthrust tusks, and pale skulls and horns of stags and wild bulls, and one even of a unicorn; and toothy masks of wolves, badgers, wildcats, otters and a dragon; but though he gave the green fangs and leathery forked tongue of the dragon a second glance – an inferior specimen, in his opinion, obviously – his concern was for the weapons.

  He stepped twice from his place in the slow procession to jiggle antique swords in their sheaths, and nodded at finding that they would come clear easily, despite the dust of idle years. He glanced and smiled meaningly at his grandson and over a shoulder at the squires. Peter an
d Gervis grinned and nodded back at him. Good old Torrice! Always the gentleman! He would as lief and as likely be seen consorting with murderers as wearing arms and armor – little begemmed daggers are but table-gear – when supping with ladies; but to ascertain the whereabouts of the nearest weapons, just in case of accident, was no breach of etiquette.

  The major-domo drew aside a curtain of arras and stood aside with it, bowed low. The King and Sir Lorn halted and blinked, and the squires halted at their heels and blinked past their shoulders. For a moment, all their eyes were dazed by the shimmer and shine of tapers. For a moment it seemed to them that the place was full of slender, pointed yellow flames, and gleams and sparkles of fire from metal and crystal.

  “Welcome, King Torrice,” said a lilting voice. “Welcome, Sir Lorn. Welcome again, friends Peter and Gervis.”

  And now they saw her, but vaguely and glimmeringly at first, like a face and form materializing from the sheen and soft radiance about her, but more clearly as she approached, and definitely when she stood within a small step of the King and extended a hand.

  “This – forgive me, my dear! Your Ladyship must try to excuse me – forgive me – my confusion – surprise,” he stammered.

  “You are forgiven,” she murmured, and laughed softly.

  He sank on one knee, took the proffered hand lightly and pressed his lips gallantly to the bejeweled fingers, while his twirling wits cried a warning between his ears:

  “This isn’t real – nor right! More devilment of Merlin’s, this – or worse! Have a care, old fool!”