by Mike Ashley
Elsewhere in Arthur’s expanding realm, Sir Balin sought adventure; and his quest was marked by error and darkness. The whole length of his story need not be told, of how he slew the good and avenged those of little merit; inspired the suicides of pure maidens and brave knights; decapitated lovers in their bowers; and in the end slew even his beloved brother, and died miserably beside him. Who is to say that any of it would have happened, had not the Loathly Maid brought him a sword of blackest iron.
Upon that fateful day when first he kidnapped the maiden, she said, as they rode upon the trail, “Sir Balin, you have a good sword at your side, by which you have performed mightily. You do not require this dark sword of mine. So I beseech thee, but just this once, return my sword to me.”
“It is a good sword, and I have gained it fairly,” said Balin, filled with self-deception. “I will keep it beside my other, and be called the Knight of the Two Swords, until there is someone strong enough to wrest the black sword from me.”
“Then know that by your choosing you must slay with that accursed sword one whom you best love, then lie down beside him to die, with heart full of regrets. And the one to wrest the black sword from your stiff dead fingers will be Morgan le Faye, who will make good use of the jeweled sheath, the form of which is the similitude of the scabbard of Caliburnus.”
“I will not be frightened by a witch’s vision,” said Balin, lowering a malignant brow.
The Loathly Maid rode upon the rump of Balin’s horse, her back to his. They travelled far together, and through many of his deeds, dark and otherwise, she was there. As days slid by, she seemed not to be offended if he called her My Lady, though as lovers they were chaste; and he counted on her daily for multitudinous assistance.
Never again, after their first meeting, when he pressed his hand around her throat, did he ever think to abuse her, for he was more than a little afraid what she might do. This fear of her came about on the second day out from Arthur’s court.
As they rode together on one horse, they came to a sea-green field of poppies. As it was still winter, the vision was unlikely and startling. As if the unseasonable blossoming was an insufficient strangeness, there stood, along both sides of Roman cobbles, thirty lean soldiers at regular intervals, each clad in armor of gleaming jet, looking as though they wore the very Night as protection from the sun. And there was one more knight, smaller than the rest, more elegant, whose armor was alabaster.
The thirty-one knights were so devoid of motion that Balin thought them statues until, as he cantered closer, the thirty in jet turned their heads as with one motion, raised their spears, and stepped into the road facing his direction.
He reined aside his steed and said to the Loathly Maid, “Slide down and wait among the poppies. I will fight these weird knights one by one.”
“You will not,” said the Loathly Maid at his back. Then she called forth, “Let us pass, for Sir Balin is under my protection.”
The thirty knights in jet stood off the road again. The one in alabaster strode forth, leading a dappled mare belonging to the Loathly. Maid. She slid down from Balin’s horse and mounted her own. In the same moment, the thirty-one raised their visors, and Balin saw that each had faces of beardless youths – no, they were maidens! – their beauty flawed by the dark round eyes of bitches.
They held their spears aloft so that the Loathly Maid passed underneath the shafts. Balin, full of trepidations, followed humbly. As he and the Loathly Maid neared the forest beyond the red-specked field called Lyll’s Meadow, he turned to look behind. He saw no knights by the road, but a white scenting-hound fleeing amidst the poppies, and thirty black bitches in pursuit of some invisible prey.
And Balin’s knees were quaking in their greaves.
* * *
One evening, not long after Sir Balin slew a knight errant in fair if unnecessarily mortal combat, he and the Loathly Maid were reclining in a pavilion which the freshly deposed knight had pitched alongside a serpentine river. The pleasing sounds of rushing water and evening songbirds eased Balin’s mood. He wanted to speak endearments to the Loathly Maid; but he saw she was already sleeping, and thought it best not to rouse her with such backwoods twaddle as must pass for poetry from his lips.
With deep sighs of affection he observed her still body. She frightened people, even as did he, so he thought they were a perfect match. He wanted to take her to the city of Trinobantes on Candlemas, and there be wed to her, even as Arthur would be wed. That day approached, yet Balin had not been able to ask, for fear of her reply.
As he watched her unmoving body, he was gripped by a fear dread that she had died. He wetted his palm and slowly moved his hand before her face, trying to feel a breath, but felt nothing.
In that very moment a terrific vision sent him reeling backward, so that he lay sprawled in a corner of the pavilion with mouth agape. It seemed as though the Loathly Maid burst apart like a chrysalid, and from within her arose a woman whose beauty was exceedingly great, her garment swirling about her as though she stood within a gale.
Yet the Loathly Maid had not moved, had certainly not burst asunder. She merely took a long wakeless breath, as though for her a dream had just then ended, and her sleep grew deeper.
The woman who stood between Balin and the Loathly Maid was no spirit, he was certain; she was as much of flesh as he.
“Who are you, and what, that comes forth from out of my lady?”
“Do you not know me?” said Nimuë.
“Are you the sorceress, Morgan le Faye, come to wrest the black sword from my dead hands?”
Nimuë smiled at that, and pitied Balin his many fears.
“No, I am not the Morrigu, and you are not a ghost. I am the Lady of the Lake that gave you life. This young amazon, who I do perceive you love, is but one of my many selves, such as I have often shed as serpents slough old skins. Yet she is separate from me as well, for serpents do not take up old cloaks again. You have never asked her for her name, so I will tell you it is Lyll, the Lady of Poppies. She has her own history, and will tell it to you, if you ask, and truly care to know all that she has known. You need not be so shy with her, for I leave her at your side for the sake of your illumination. Speak to her warmly, and give up your fear of her powers. While it is true she is not the best part of Me, neither is she entirely the worst. She will love you gladly with encouragement, for at base we demonkind are angels.”
“Is she, then, a portion of my awful curse?”
“She is your consolation. You may not have long together. So make all you can of your time, and do everything with grace.”
“And you?” asked Balin. “Why have you shed her now?”
“As you are kind enough to wonder, I will tell you only what Lyll by her gift was this moment dreaming. The Lord of Horn Castle has been slain by cruel Queen Ettard, who is another of my sloughed skins. As I desire Pellinore for my husband, I must lead him back from death.”
“As you once restored my life,” said Balin, remembering.
“Not quite as I made you. But you must forget all that,” said Nimuë. “Now sleep, so that when next you see me, you will think it our first meeting.”
Nimuë faded like a shadow, like a dream, and sank into the floor of the pavilion as Sir Balin closed his eyes.
“Not long after the Beginning of Days, when first humanity learned to murder, Adam in his grief for Abel separated himself from the Bright Mother. He dwelt for one-hundred twenty-six years with Naamah, on whom he sired a multitude of demons, who dwell yet upon the earth and in the sea, continuing their allegiance to the Mother of Darkness.”
Pellinore heard this sermon in an unlit place, from the lips of the sainted anchorite David, bastard son of Nonita, abbess of Ty Gwyn, who some have called Queen of Elves. The voice of David was soft and insinuating, inducing a quiet state so that Pellinore would not move his neck, which David had dressed with healing herbs.
“Darkness is not a fearful thing, but is only Light Unmanifest; for Darkness
and Light are each the mother of the other. So it was that Eve, when Adam abandoned her, dwelt in the Cave of Treasure with a serpent, whose name was Emmanuel. And she brought forth a multitude of demonesses, who run in and out between the pretty toes of She Whose Feet Go Down To Sheol, and Whose Head Is In The Stars; for Eve sent her dark daughters into the hollow of the world, beneath the Sea of Reeds, to be wetnursed and schooled by Adam’s gloomy paramour. And these demonesses are fair maidens that bear torches in the world below, such as may be seen as stars reflected in the depth of a well.”
Now as he learned these mysteries, it seemed to Pellinore that he got up and left the cliffwall cell. He was walking through a forest on a clear night without moon or stars. He came out of the forest onto a little-used road that was overgrown with weeds, and saw thereon, some distance down the way, a maiden holding a firebrand aloft.
In the light of her torch he saw that she was comely, but dressed in sackcloth with ashes on her head. She did not beckon to him, but when she turned her face away and began to walk along the weedy lane, he knew he was meant to follow.
In his current dreamy state, it was difficult to quicken his pace. Yet the road became less difficult as he drew nearer the torch-bearer, although once, when he looked behind, he saw that tall briars blocked the path behind him, springing from wherever he set his foot. And he saw, too, caught among the thorns, with a black sword swinging impotently in his left hand, and a bright steel blade in his right, the pathetic spirit of Sir Balin, whose eyes were white and whose armor was like carven stone.
Eventually Pellinore came alongside the torchbearer, and matched his step to hers. He tried to speak, but he was in a soundless place, and could not hear the flutter of the torch, nor any foot tread, nor so little as his own heartbeat or breath. The damsel tarried at a bend and raised one arm to shove aside the writhing vines at the side of the narrow road. Pellinore stepped through the opening, but the maiden did not come after.
Moonlight was restored to the world, as was the sound of wind through branches, though as yet there was no heartbeat or breath within him. He saw Ettard’s fastness in the distance, and Saint David’s Cliff beyond, with the whole of the countryside made silvery by a planter’s moon.
His spirit sought David’s cell, knowing he must return to his ailing flesh, or die with all his quests incomplete. He was flying over the castle, drawn toward the high cliff, when he was suddenly overcome by an urge to interrupt his flight. He had to see the beautiful Ettard peaceful in her bed, that his soul might worship hers. Down he flew and down until he peered in at a narrow window with its tinted pane opened, and its draperies parted wide.
He saw Gawain, friend and fellow knight of Arthur’s court, upon a fine broad bed, sleeping at the side of Queen Ettard. The wraith of Pellinore stepped through the window into the room. His spirit-heart was leaden. He hung his head, weighted with melancholy. He did not care, in that moment, whether or not he was alive.
Then he looked about the room, that was filled with Queen Ettard’s trophies, and saw his own sword hanging on a wall, among many. He pointed his spirit-hand toward his sword and it drifted away from the wall, floating to the bed where it hovered point-down above the throat of Sir Gawain.
Temptation was mighty, but Pellinore would not slay his faithless friend. In the next moment he let the swordpoint hover over Queen Ettard, imagining the blade plunging once, withdrawing, then plunging once again, gouging out her eyes. He despised Ettard with an intensity equal to his former love, for Merlin’s spell that had long held him thrall was lifted by tragic revelation.
He slowly changed the position of the sword, which lowered horizontally, until it lay with flatside across the throats of the restful couple, doing them no harm; but upon waking, both would know Pellinore might have slain them.
His spirit flew from the castle straight into the cliff, where Saint David saw the wounded knight’s still body lurch into wakefulness. Pellinore felt the bandage at his neck and asked hoarsely, “How long has it been?”
“Many days and nights, my friend, and more than once I thought you dead.”
“As I truly would have been,” said Pellinore, rising weakly to his knees, “had I succumbed to blind revenge. Even now, a part of me is dead, for I have returned to the world of the living without love, and am bereft.”
“Then I commend you, Sir Knight, to the Queen of the World, Our Blessed Virgin Maria Sophia, who knows all things of the light, and all things of the darkness. Let us pray that in days to come, you may plumb these and other mysteries without so grave a portion of pain.”
On Candlemas day, the knights gathered in Trinobantes. Their damsels went into the Church of Saint Stephen when the sun was yet showing, but the knights were for some while kept away. They spent the sunlight hours with laughter and field sports, jousting without malice, while all the ravens of England gathered in Trinobantes to watch them play, and caw their raucous approvals.
At evening they took off their armor and clad themselves in bleached linen. They came into the dark, dark church, whose tinted windows had been covered, so that even starlight did not find entry. They could not see, but their mouths were watering from the odors of a waiting meal; and they heard the Bishop of Canterbury as he intoned, “Saint Februaria, Mother of Dispatch! Saint Demetria, Mother of Maiden Death! Queen Maria, Mother of Jesu! Saint Fauna, Mother of the rainsoaked Pan! Come forth with Thy heavenly light to ease our dreadful darkness!”
The knights heard the hollow grinding sound of a sliding grate. The hair of their napes pricked with expectation when up from the crypts beneath the church came Brides in White, one after the other, each bearing a green taper. The Archbishop said, “And when the days of Her purification were fulfilled, She came from out of the darkness, with grain issuing from out of Her Holy Womb, beckoned to the Light of God.”
The brides placed their green candles throughout the banquet-set cathedral, while acolytes brought trays of white candles, arranging them everywhere in tiers. Arthur’s knights were stunned by the eerie beauty of the thousand scattered lights. And visible on each of ten tables were roasted lambs stuffed with winter apples and partridges, upon beds of crescent cakes, and tankards of wine set all around.
The bishop concluded, “And She came up to Jerusalem, where She held forth a bundle of grain, and said, ‘This is My Son, for whom my soul is pierced in seven places. I consent to his death, so that his Flesh may be eaten, and his Blood refresh thy lips.’”
Each of the knights was joined at table by his perfect bride. Balin had his Dame Lyll, who was not so loathly dressed in white. Pellinore was with Nimuë. Sir Gawain took the hand of Dame Ragnall. Sir Kay was with Sgoidamur the Lady of the Bridleless Mule. Sir Gareth was with Lady Lionessa. Sir Agravaine stood by Lady Laurel. Sir Gaheris smiled beside his Lady Linette. One hundred knights in all, with one hundred damsels; and each bride brought into her marriage lands and castles for husbands to protect and to render into service of their liege lord, King Arthur.
When the Archbishop left off his blessings, and as the expectant gathering awaited the arrival of Arthur and the Giant’s Daughter, many embraces were shared between strong men, and many an introduction was given. Old wounds of pride were forgotten, with promise that all the baronies of Britain would be given unity by the weddings of dames and knights of every royal house.
“And you love him, though he stole your sword?” said Pellinore laughing; and Lyll replied, “I am the spirit of the dismal sword, so it was I that Balin captured from the start.”
Balin said, “And you, Sir Pellinore, you have won the love of the mysterious Nimuë of the Hidden Country! Has she pledged her secret lands to you, and have you seen them, and are they all beneath the lochs?”
“It was just like this,” said Pellinore in famous spirit. “I was dying of a wound, and the herbs of Saint David were insufficient for my cure. But every night in my fever I saw a woman of dream hovering about me in sackcloth, with ashes on her head. I thrashed and raved to David,
‘Tell me! Who is she!’ as he held me to the floor of the cell and told me there was no one there. Then one morning I awoke from alternating comas and mad ravings knowing I was well, though extremely weak. Right then, who do you think it was that found her way to the hermit’s nest? It was the very woman of my dream, though in the dream she was black, and Nimuë is pale. She brought my sword, steed, and armor, which had formerly been stolen and which I’d had no expectation of recovering. I asked how she knew where to find me; she said she was led to me by a poppy’s glamor. I knew at once no Dane possessed a greater shieldmaiden, and no Pole a more valiant vila. If ever I have loved another than Nimuë, it was due only to some awful spell best left forgot.”
All grew silent when Arthur entered to join the Archbishop at the head of the gathering. He wore the same plain linen as his knights, having added only a crown of willow withes.
The glory of the night belonged to Gwenhwyvar, who entered from the vestry to stand by Arthur. Her glow dimmed the brightness of the candles and her presence illuminated Arthur. Her hair hung down in braided cornrows, woven with sheaves of grain, all golden and bright as an angel’s halo. She was exactly as tall as Arthur; and judging by their supernal beauty side by side, they might have been twin divinities born of the same First Thought.
The acolytes moved swiftly and unobtrusively around the edge of the cathedral, drawing the tapestries aside from leaded glass so that tinted portraits, lighted from without by moon and stars, smiled upon the congregation from every angle. Saints, heroes and angels cast blessings with their shining hands, settling peacefulness upon every groom and bride.
Then all were wed as one, with the nation likewise knitted. When the joyous deed was done, Pellinore whispered to Nimuë a thing he thought he must have heard in dream. “Darkness is Light Unmanifest,” he said, then: “This night burns brighter in my heart than any sunlit day.”