Hot Night in the City

by Trevanian

  "Use? Wear? Admire? Punish?" asked Sir Gervais, now confused and ashamed, and therefore sore wroth. "Thinkest thou I be the low-born sort of fellow who must use and wear and punish his grail just because he has it in his courtyard? May not a man of highest parentage and pedigree put a grail into his courtyard without having any such base designs upon it? Challenge me one word further in this matter, sirrah, and thou shalt feel my boot far up thy fud, thou base, French-loving, dung-munching, host-spitting, sheep-foining bastard!"

  "...French-loving? French-loving! O-o-oh, now has thou brought thine o'er-bred, chinless face into jeopardy from my steel-gaunted fist, thou scrofulous, leprous, lecherous, stenchy, title-licking, back-stabbing, hag-swiving..."

  ...Allow me to draw a curtain over this scene before it descends into incivility. No doubt the perceptive reader wonders at Sir Gawain's last epithet and asks why a knight so proud of rank and breeding as Sir Gervais would go about swiving hags, for scant is the joy and meagre the reclaim to be gained from applying one's love-tool to ancient crones.

  The explanation of this slight flaw in Sir Gervais's otherwise irreproachable gentility is to be found in the true and instructive tale of Sir Gervais in the Enchanted Forest, wherein the attentive reader will learn how that noble knight earned the title by which history remembers him: Gervais! Swiver of Crones!

  Know ye that it was upon a soft and fog-laden morning in autumn that bold Sir Gervais, bedecked in his richest armour, rode forth from Camelot in quest of the Grail, and of such encounters as might add to his reputation and his purse. Nor was it long before he found himself deep within a dark and dire forest where his stallion's hoof made no sound upon a thick mat of leaves as man and mount glid past ghosts of trees that emerged from the mists before, then were swallowed up by the mists behind. Overhanging boughs brushed and hissed upon his helmet, the plumes of which drooped limp with the damp.

  Now, Sir Gervais was a brave warrior of lofty blood, so we are obliged to assume that if his eyes darted from side to side, it was only to seek out the adversary, and if he whistled thinly and dryly, it was only to announce his presence to any foe who might dare to face him, and if his palms sweated, it was only because they itched to grasp his sword in combat, and when he suddenly decided to turn his horse and quit that dark, dank, ominous forest, it was only to go in search of yet greater and more dangerous adventure; and surely the yelp that escaped from his throat was a sort of war cry, when he suddenly espied an ancient crone of surpassing laidliness standing beside the path, beckoning with a gnarled finger.

  His voice tight in his throat, Sir Gervais addressed the hag, saying, "How now, beckoning crone of surpassing laidliness, canst direct me out of this forest? I wit thee rare gifted in the craft of telling directions, for one of thine eyes doth scan to the left whilst t'other scans to the right in such wise that their paths do intersect some few inches before thy hooked nose."

  And the crone did cackle with pleasure and turn her face aside modestly. "Nay, good knight, think not to weaken the barriers of my chastity with cozening praise, for I do perceive that thou hast penetrated the mystery of this enchanted forest."

  "Sayest what?"

  "Nay, feign not, shrewd seducer. Well dost thou know that in this enchanted forest all things appear the very opposite of what they are."

  "How's that?"

  "Nay, nay, noble knight. Do not pretend ignorance."

  Sir Gervais stood stiff in the saddle, his dignity bristling. "Thou dost accuse me false, rank hag! Ignorance is no pretence with me! And woe betide the base defamer who claims it so!"

  "Be not wroth, good knight. For know ye that even my senses are sometimes bemused, though I have long lived here. Forgetting for a moment the other-seeming enchantment of this place, I thought at first that I was addressing a scrawny beggar astride a pig, his knees scrubbing the muddy track, and his feet dangling behind."

  The proud knight looked about for the person thus limned.

  " 'Tis of thee I speak, fair—if ugly-seeming—knight."

  "Art thou plotting to get thy scabby head bashed in, ugly—and ugly-seeming—hag, in the hope that a bashing might work improvement on thine appearance?"

  "Nay, stay thy wrath and be informed! What I have described is only thine image as it appears to be, here in a forest where all things do seem the very opposite of what they truly are. Seeing thee ugly, trembling, deformed, puny, and graceless, I know that thou must, in fact, be a brave knight, puissant and fair of visage."

  "Crush-m'-cullions if thou hast not limned me to the last jot!"

  "And I have no doubt, brave warrior, that my own grace, my delicacy, and my blushing beauty have, in thine enchanted eyes, taken on some other appearance."

  "They have, Madam. Oh, indeed they have!"

  Upon hearing this, the crone (or seeming crone) drew a great whimpering sigh, and a tear slowly toiled its way down the ravines of her wrinkled face to drip, at last, from the tip of her warty nose. This long and tortuous passage gave Sir Gervais season to ponder what mysterious thing had befallen him in this Forest of Enchantment. He did conclude that there stood before him a deserving target for amorous dalliance, provided, of course, that her seemingly low rank was, in fact, as high as her seemingly ugly aspect was, in fact, beauteous. For know you that Sir Gervais would not—indeed, could not—bring himself to foin a woman, however lush and frick, if she were not of noble birth, for he possessed the overweening pride of his class in such full measure that his member shrank from the debasing task of swiving low wenches, however toothsome, but it ever stood to pert attention in the presence of any woman of high title, however loathly, sere, or harsh-featured.

  "But I forget form and duty," the seeming hag said, her tear having completed its lengthy course. "Surely thou art weary from thine adventures and wouldst share the comforts of my castle."

  "Thou art most gracious, fair maiden."

  "Princess, actually."

  "Princess? Princess? Oh, forgive me, desirable Princess! May I offer thee to ride behind me?"

  "Gladly would I, though I have never sat astride a pig"

  "A pig?"

  "Oh, la, what am I saying? Even I do sometimes err and accept the evidence of mine eyes, though I know better."

  And with this, the seeming crone scrambled up behind Sir Gervais, hitching her skirts high and wrapping her seemingly scrawny and scabby legs about his.

  As they rode along, Sir Gervais did exercise his courtly speech, saying, "Knowing, as now I do, that in this forest all things are the reverse of what they seem, fair Princess, I trow that the enticing bouquet rising from thee—this seeming stench—must, in fact, be the very essence of all spices rare and flowers fragrant."

  The maiden blushed and wrapped herself closer to him, and his eyes did smart with the beauty of the moment.

  Not far along, they came upon a fetid bog on the verge of which a crude hovel sagged upon rotting beams.

  The maiden laughed a seeming cackle and said, "See how my castle's drawbridge is down, as though in anticipation of thine entrance? Oh my, I hope thou dost not take this to be a metaphor for my highly prized and well-defended chastity, you naughty, naughty, naughty man!" And with her bony knuckle she delivered him several coy knocks on the helmet that made his ears to ring.

  "Drawbridge?" he said in confusion. "Castle? Ah! Of course! Know ye, Princess, that upon first glance I mistook your drawbridge for a slippery log laid across a sluggish swamp!" And Sir Gervais did laugh heartily at his error.

  It became evident that thoroughbred horses, no less than high-born men, were victims of the forest's enchantment, for in attempting to cross the drawbridge, Sir Gervais's noble steed slipped as it might have slipped from a narrow log, and precipitated both riders into the moat, out of which they clawed their sputtering way, and beside which Sir Gervais stood at last, stenchy bog-water draining from his armour.

  "I fear thou wilt attrap thy death of cold," the lovely princess said. "Quickly into the castle, and out of that damp
armour. A good roasting before my vast hearth will regain thy temper."

  Soon the knight stood beneath the soaring vaults of the castle's great hall that the uninitiated might have mistaken for a low, filthy chamber with rush-strewn dirt floor below and rotting thatch above. He shivered, all nude, before the roaring hearth that had the superficial aspect of a feeble twig fire the smoke of which coiled and recoiled beneath the roof in search of chinks and gaps.

  Know you that the maiden had, for the good of her health, doff'd her sodden garments and now stood before him clothed as Eve had been when she harkened to the snake's twisted counsel.

  "My God!" the knight cried. "How comely thou must, in reality, be! For if each perfection doth appear a blemish, then thou art Beauty itself, from thy balding pate to thy gnarled toes! I can no longer contain my ardour! Have at, then!"

  At great length and with much invention did they tangle and roil among the seeming sodden rushes of the great hall's floor in every use and pose of amour. When finally exhausted and empty of essence, Sir Gervais rolled off, panting and clutching at a rag to cover his shivering nudity withal, while the seemingly foul crone crooned and sighed her affection as she strove in many coy and clever ways to reaffirm his lance for the lists of love.

  For a year and a day, Sir Gervais languished in this enchanted castle, his body nourished by luscious joints of stag and boar that had the delusive appearance and taste of nettle soup, and his ardour nourished by an inner vision too strong to be extinguished by the evidence of his senses. And in this, he was not unlike the rest of us, each in our own personal enchanted forests—or so the sages would have us believe.

  On the morning after the year-and-a-day, the seeming crone challenged Sir Gervais to offer proof of his undying love by going forth against her enemy, a neighbour baron in whose oak patch her swine did envy to snout about. At first Sir Gervais was loath to wreak hurt upon a knight with whom he had not exchanged those introductory insults that usage and breeding require, but when the seeming hag described the evil baron as a frail old man full of years and feeble of body, then did the knight recall her many kindnesses and his chivalrous duty. And thus it was that, after another dampening mishap upon the drawbridge, Sir Gervais rode forth to avenge the insults borne by the princess who clung to his back.

  They soon encountered a woodcutter of great girth and so tall that he looked at the knight eye to eye, though he stood upon the ground and Sir Gervais sat astride his charger. The peasant's beard was gray, but he was sturdy as an oak and so broad of chest that he, in rough cloth, was wider than the knight in his armour.

  "Tell me, hefty varlet," Sir Gervais said, "knowest thou the hiding place of the evil, if puny, baron who has given insult to this dainty, high-born maiden behind me?"

  "Dainty maiden?" cried the woodcutter, and he laughed until tears ran down his cheeks and he was obliged to hold his sides in ecstatic pain.

  The princess whispered into the ear hole of Sir Gervais's helm that the scoffer who stood before them was the very baron they sought.

  Then spake the knight behind his hand, asking, "But lacks not this stout fellow the qualities of frailty and decrepitude thou hast ascribed to the baron?"

  "Ah, my love, hast thou forgot that all things here are other-seeming?"

  "Uh-h-h-h-h... Ah! Of course! Aye, but art thou certain sure that yonder laughing giant is, in fact, a puny and feeble thing?"

  "Seems he not otherwise?"

  "Most otherwise," the knight confessed with an uneasy glance at this huge ox of a man.

  "Well then! There's your proof!"

  Sir Gervais struggled to digest this, saying, "Uh-h-h-h-h... Ah! Of course!" Whereupon he addressed the seeming giant, saying, "Leave off thy laughter, uncivil cur, and hear my demands! Grant the swine of this princess of passing beauty the use of thine oak patch, or risk a passage of arms with Gervais, knight of the Table Round!"

  The woodcutter dried his eyes upon his sleeve and said, "Hast taken leave of thy senses, lad? Were we to grapple, thee and me, I would crumple thine iron suit in my hands in such wise that thou wouldst be unable to get out when the need to shit came upon thee."

  Sir Gervais whispered over his shoulder, "How is it, Princess, that this varlet does not tremble at my high rank and martial prowess?"

  "Why 'tis clear as my maiden conscience, lover. Just as he appears to thine enchanted eyes to be vast and well-proportioned, so dost thou appear to him to be a scrawny thing of slight danger. Such is the way of other-seemingness."

  Sir Gervais blinked and bent his mind to this complex matter. After a longish time, he cried out, "Ah-h-h! Of course!" Then he chuckled to himself. "What a dolorous surprise will be his, should we meet in harsh combat." Then to the peasant he shouted, "Enough of this petty parley! Do as I bade thee, churl, lest thy brittle old bones be brast by this hand!"

  "Nay, nay," the seeming giant said, waving away the glowering knight's threat. "Do not require that I bash thee, lad, for I am as gentle of humour as I am stout of limb. Know ye that yon stenchy hag has oft and again sent befuddled fools to wrest my oak patch from me, and each of those simple fellows has earned damage most woeful. But I had rather deal with thee than dent thee. Let us bargain. Forsake that crone clinging behind thee and let me welcome thee as my son. For know ye that my daughter is a frick, lusty-tempered lass of rutting age and the need to swive and be swiven is hot and hasty upon her. But there are no men in this damned forest but we two." And with this the peasant gestured to the side of the path, where stood a maiden ripe and moist, with breasts that strained the fabric of her bodice, with hair fresh-spun of gold, fair of face, clear of eye, slim of waist, comfortable of haunch, and whose pink tongue did flicker between teeth of purest white.

  Seeing her, Sir Gervais's pulse did quop in his temple, and elsewhere the restraints of his armour did irk him.

  But before he could spit on his palm and cry, "Agreed, done, and double-done!" the seeming hag rasped into his ear hole, "I perceive, brave hero, that thou dost pant and drool and quop and bulge, but remember that all things here are other-seeming. To unenchanted eyes this maiden is revealed to be the very lees and slag of womanhood, ugly beneath description, diseased to the marrow, so repulsive that passing toads do retch and gag." And she went on to confide that the source of her discord with the scrawny baron was that he could not marry off his flawed and blemished daughter because his neighbour's beauty diminished the wretched little thing by comparison.

  After a very long silence devoted to trying to unsnarl this, Sir Gervais said, "Uh-h-h... You mean... Wait a minute— She's not... While you're... Hm-m-m. Ah-h-h, of course!" Nevertheless, his manhood continued to pulse and quop of its own will until the crone mentioned that the seeming frick and juicy girl was not of their class. Her vowels! Her aitches! No, no, not at all one of us. The knight almost swooned with relief at his narrow escape from the disgrace of foining beneath his station. "Without thy guidance, Princess, I might have fallen victim to this knave's low plot! Prepare to suffer, varlet!" And with this, he drew his sword with the intention of cleaving the woodcutter's pate down to his saucy grin.

  But the seeming giant grasped the hilt in midair, brast the blade over his knee, and tossed the pieces into the brook.

  "Oh-ho!" cried the knight. 'Wow hast thou precipitated my wrath upon thine aged and brittle back!" He leapt from the saddle and clutched at his adversary's throat.

  But the woodcutter lifted the grasping hands from his throat as easily as if they had been placed there in caress, and he slapped those steel gauntlets together until the knight's palms stung with his vigorous applause. Then he turned the knight upside down and swung him so that his head played the clapper to the bell of his helm.

  "There now," he said, setting Sir Gervais again upon his feet. "Let that be an end to it. If thou wilt not have my daughter to wed, so be it. Go and pester me no further."

  Dazed, his ears ringing, his palms throbbing, the knight staggered to his horse and clung to the pommel, his knees buc
kling.

  But the seeming hag leaned down from the saddle and whispered, "Prithee, be more gentle with this frail old baron, my champion! Though I would see him punished for his insults, I do not want the sin of his murder upon thy soul!"

  "Sayest what?" Sir Gervais muttered, half senseless.

  "Thou hast done him great and telling hurt. Sure, he must yield after another such chastisement."

  "I have wrought hurt upon him?"

  "Joy-o'-my-nights, hast thou forgot that here all things are other-seeming?"

  "What?" The battered knight frowned in deepest thought. "Uh-h-h-h." He squinted at the sky in intense concentration. "Er-r-r-r-r." He squeezed his eyes shut and marshalled all his powers of reasoning to the problem. "Uhn-n-n-n-n." And finally, "Ah, of course!" And with that, he flung himself again at the seeming giant's throat.

  Annoyed by this fool's persistence, the woodcutter grasped him by his shoulders and shook him until his limbs dangled and flopped loose, then he forced the knight's helmet into the fork of an oak and left him hanging by his chin, his body swaying gently in the breeze. And with this, he strode away, taking his daughter with him.

  Tossing the fig after the departing woodcutter, the seeming hag growled bitterly that Sir Gervais was useless to a poor girl seeking to affirm her swine's snouting rights, and she departed to her castle to await the arrival of a stouter champion.

  Night fell; the forest darkened; nocturnal creatures scuttled and scurried; and still Sir Gervais hung in deepest melancholy, wondering what magic had transported him to this high tree and lodged his neck in the crook of this branch after he had so sorely punished the feeble old baron that enchantment had disguised as a stout woodcutter.

  He was lost in these philosophical speculations when a soft voice called from the forest floor. Bending his eyes downward—for nothing else could he move—the knight espied the seeming lush and juicy daughter of the seeming giant, the moonlight shining upon her golden-seeming hair and her bulging, ripe-seeming breasts.