Gawain

by Gwen Rowley

  He turned, his gaze passing over the group in the center of the floor. “Sir Lancelot,” he said. “Pray explain the meaning of this.”

  Lancelot’s cheeks were poppy red, but he managed an insolent smile. “It is a merely a jest,” he said. “A joke between friends.”

  “A joke?” Gawain repeated incredulously, his gaze moving from Dinadan to Aislyn. “A jest?”

  “We were having a bit of fun,” Lancelot went on. “A thing you wouldn’t understand.”

  A few people laughed, but the laughter was uncomfortable. They knew they had done wrong. Yet they were angry, too, like children caught out in some mischief. They would not thank Gawain for this, she thought, nor forget how he had shamed them tonight.

  “You are right, I don’t understand,” Gawain answered. “Perhaps Sir Dinadan would explain.”

  “Ask your lady,” Dinadan said tightly. He tore the remnants of the gown from his shoulders, stepped out of the puddled fabric and walked from the hall. The people, silent now, parted to let him pass.

  Gawain turned to Aislyn, his brows raised in question.

  “They were making mock of Sir Dinadan,” she began steadily enough, “and I—but then . . .” She blinked hard, and when her vision cleared, she saw Gawain raise his hand and slowly, with great deliberation, strip off a glove.

  For a moment, Aislyn thought—hoped—that he would strike Lancelot across the face with it, but he merely let it fall onto the yellow gown.

  “Sir Lancelot,” he said with icy courtesy, “will you meet me in the lists tomorrow?”

  Lancelot bent to pick up the glove, looking as though he’d been handed the keys to paradise. “Sir Gawain,” he answered with a sweeping bow, “it will be my pleasure.”

  A cheer greeted Lancelot’s words, and Aislyn shook her head. Fools. Fools and children, that’s all they were. And now they had found a new champion, one who would not challenge them to be better than they were, but pander to the worst in them.

  If Gawain was aware of the cheering, he gave no sign of it. “My lady,” he said, offering his arm.

  Was he mad? He could have made a magnificent exit, head high and dignity intact. That was impossible with her hobbling along beside him. But he did not hurry her. The moment they were through the door, the laughter burst out, Lancelot’s rising above the rest.

  Gawain was silent as they walked through the corridors to his chamber. “Please excuse me,” he said when they reached the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the chapel.”

  “Aye. But don’t you be staying up too late, now.”

  “I won’t.”

  She watched him go down the hallway. “Sir Gawain,” she called after him, and he turned, the torchlight falling on his face. “Mind you beat that rascal tomorrow.”

  “I will do my best, but . . .” He smiled and his shoulders moved in the slightest of shrugs. “In destinies sad or merry, true men can but try.”

  Of course he will win, she told herself as she stepped into the chamber. He is the best, isn’t he? If there is any justice in this sorry world, Sir Lancelot doesn’t stand a chance.

  She stripped to her shift and hoisted herself onto the bed with a groan. She was weary half to death, her joints afire. If only she had her bag, she could have brewed something to ease the pain. But Gawain had taken it from her. Anger flared anew, then died when she remembered him striding into the hall, and in her mind, bugles and banners heralded his entrance.

  What a tangle it all is, she thought drowsily, wrong and right so twisted together that it is impossible to pick out the knot. That Lancelot is dangerous . . . Gawain himself is dangerous . . . yet she could not deny that she’d been proud of him tonight.

  He would not lose tomorrow. He could not.

  ’Tis but a joust, she told herself, drifting on the edge of sleep. Two men riding at each other with sticks. It doesn’t matter who knocks the other down. There was no reason to feel that the fate of Camelot was hanging in the balance . . .

  And yet she did.

  Chapter 16

  THOUGH it was the last match of the day, no one had slipped away early to the castle. Princes and duchesses, lords and ladies, knights and squires and pages and damsels—everyone, down to the meanest varlet or kitchen slut who could bribe or sneak their way into the stands were on their feet and shouting as Lancelot and Gawain rode to the royal pavilion to make their bows to king and queen before the joust.

  They reached the royal pavilion at precisely the same moment. As neatly as though they had rehearsed it, they bowed their uncovered heads, gold and sable moving in perfect unison.

  King Arthur stood. He had returned this morning, and Aislyn had not seen him until he joined her and Guinevere in the royal pavilion. He was very grand in his crimson robe with the jeweled crown upon his brow.

  “Kindly bear in mind,” Arthur said, his keen glance evenly divided between the two knights, “that this is a courtesy match. We shall be most displeased if any injury results on either side.”

  He was already displeased. That had been clear from the moment he arrived. He had hardly spoken two words to his queen, though Aislyn suspected he’d had plenty to say to her in private. She certainly looked like she’d been scolded soundly.

  Lancelot nodded, acknowledging the king’s words. Aislyn wondered if it was fear or excitement that blanched the color from his face. Only Gawain looked himself, impossibly handsome and cool as a mountain tarn.

  Arthur sat down. Having been dismissed, the two knights cantered back to their respective ends of the tourney field and accepted their lances from their squires. Lancelot was upright, leaning slightly forward, his lance held straight before him, while his mount—a breathtaking white stallion— pranced restively beneath him. Gawain sat easily in the saddle, as close to slouching as his armor would permit. His steed, Gringolet, stood flat-footed, looking as bored as his master.

  Aislyn watched the marshal’s hand rising, rising—the stands were so silent now that she could hear the rapid thudding of her heart. And then the hand fell.

  Gringolet took off like a shot from a crossbow. Lancelot’s mount was a bit slower off the mark, but soon found its pace. The two met at a flat gallop, and a cry went up as their lances crashed and splintered. Gawain reeled but kept his balance. Aislyn was on her feet, cheering as Lancelot’s shield spun through the air and he was knocked backward, feet flying from his stirrups, arms pinwheeling in a futile attempt to gain his balance. He was falling, falling . . . Aislyn fell abruptly silent, her mouth still open as Lancelot hung suspended, the force of his fall arrested as though an invisible hand had seized him by the collar. And then somehow he was upright again, clutching his horse’s mane as the animal slowed and stopped at the end of the lists.

  The crowd went wild, stamping and screaming as Lancelot’s squire hurried forward to retrieve his shield and present it to him, along with a fresh lance.

  That couldn’t have just happened . . . but it had. “Impossible!” the people cried. “A miraculous recovery!”

  It had been impossible, that much was true, but Aislyn had seen the impossible before. She had done the impossible by transforming herself into a twisted hag and wedding the fairest knight in Camelot. She knew exactly how she had done it, too, as surely as she knew what had happened here today.

  There was power in a name. And the name for what she had just witnessed was not miracle, but magic.

  The marshal signaled the beginning of the second joust. This time Lancelot did not hesitate. He and Gawain met at a full gallop; again, their lances splintered and both knights reeled, though both kept their stirrups and their balance.

  The crowd was turning. Aislyn could feel it. They sensed something was amiss, even if they could not say what it was. Now as many cried Gawain’s name aloud as Lancelot’s as the two knights accepted fresh lances from their squires.

  A hush fell as the marshal cried the third and final ride. Aislyn was still on her feet, drawn taut as a
bowstring. This time, she thought, this time Gawain must prevail. His cause was just, his skill so great that he had withstood a magical assault not once, but twice. He couldn’t lose now. He couldn’t.

  The marshal’s hand fell. Gringolet surged forward— and stumbled over a piece of splintered wood. It was a small stumble, and the stallion recovered almost instantly, but Gawain’s balance had been thrown. Aislyn saw him recover his grip on his lance and straighten in time to meet Lancelot squarely. Against any other knight—any earthly knight—he would surely have prevailed . . .

  But not against Sir Lancelot.

  He turned Gawain’s lance point easily with his shield, while his own hit straight and true, knocking Gawain backward with such force that he flew from the saddle to land in a cloud of dust upon the field.

  “The victory to Sir Lancelot du Lac!” the marshal declared.

  “No!”

  Aislyn did not realize she had cried the word aloud until King Arthur looked over at her, a frown creasing his brow. “That was wrong,” Aislyn said to him. “You know it, don’t you?”

  “It was unlucky that they missed that piece of wood,” Arthur agreed. “But the match was fair.”

  “Fair?” Aislyn cursed her hag’s voice; now, when she most needed to speak firmly, it rose into a shriek. “It was nothing of the sort! It was sorcery!”

  Arthur leaned toward her. “How dare you?” he demanded in a low, fierce voice. “Sir Gawain has enough to bear; do you seek to shame him further with this vile accusation?”

  “No! It was—”

  “Silence!” Arthur roared, and heads turned in their direction. He lowered his voice, though his knuckles shone white against the armrests of his throne. “Do you think I have not divined your purpose? Whatever grudge you bear Sir Gawain is a matter for another day. On this day you will behave with dignity or I will have you carried to your chamber, gagged if necessary.” He leaned a little closer, his eyes boring into hers. “Do you care to try me?”

  “No. Sire,” she added grudgingly, sinking down into her seat.

  Gawain’s squire darted out to help him to his feet. He pulled off his helm, the sun beating down on the pale gold of his hair as he gazed up at his opponent. Lancelot sat unmoving, still holding his shield and lance, his visor concealing his expression.

  Gawain bowed to him. Aislyn clenched her hands in her lap, fighting back the almost irresistible impulse to leap to her feet and shriek out the truth. When Gawain straightened, he raised a mailed hand to his lips, then flung it toward the stands with a brilliant smile.

  They surged to their feet and cheered him, shouting out his name. He bowed to them, then gestured toward Lancelot and walked off, yielding him the field.

  Lancelot did not remove his helm. He did not acknowledge either Gawain or the applause of the crowd. He simply sat where he was, still holding his lance and shield until his squire arrived to take them from him. Then, at last, he seemed to wake. He flipped up his visor and trotted his horse down the length of the stands toward his own pavilion. As he rode off the field, flowers fell like rain into his path.

  Aislyn was already on her feet and halfway down the aisle before the crowd stood and surged toward the castle, bearing her along until she reached the bottom of the stairs. She fought against them then, cursing her frailty as she was buffeted this way and that, but at length she was free and heading toward the knights’ pavilions, standing in a row beyond the tourney field.

  It was quiet beyond the barrier. A few pages and squires lingered by the paddock, groaning and laughing as they settled wagers won and lost. No one spared her a glance as she hobbled between the deserted pavilions. She wished she’d brought her stick, for her legs were shaking with the aftermath of rage, and she kept her head bent as she picked her way through the shattered lances, discarded helms and buckets littering her path.

  She halted when she heard harsh, rending breaths coming from between the pavilions. Her heart constricted; she turned to leave, reluctant to intrude on such a private grief. But it was wrong that Gawain should be alone now. Even her company must be better than nothing.

  She rounded a corner and halted at the sight of an armored man bent almost double, his back against a post. He dragged off his helm and let it fall, then raked his fingers through his hair, the heels of his hands pressed hard against his eyes as he drew another of those terrible, sobbing breaths.

  Aislyn stood motionless, the words frozen on her lips. At last the knight raised his head. Their eyes met and held for an endless moment, long enough for Aislyn to take in his pallor, the dark patches like bruises beneath his eyes, the moisture on his cheeks—

  Lancelot’s face twisted with rage. “What are you looking at?” he shouted, his voice hoarse and shaking. “Foul witch! Go—leave me—” He turned and buried his face in his hands.

  Aislyn went.

  SHE had only a glimpse of Gawain through the open flap of his pavilion. His younger brother, Agravaine, after informing her curtly that Gawain could not see her, planted himself firmly in her path.

  “Look here, you,” she said, poking him in the chest, “I have every right to—”

  “Agravaine, what are you doing?” Gawain called from within. “Stand aside and let my lady enter.” He was seated on a stool as a squire unlaced his greaves, sweat-soaked and disheveled with a streak of dirt on one cheek. But he smiled and lifted a hand in greeting. “I took no hurt,” he assured her. “Do not wait for me, Dinadan can take you to the hall. I’ll be up as soon as I am washed and dressed.”

  Dinadan obediently came forward and took her arm, guiding her back through the pavilions.

  “How is he really?” she asked Dinadan.

  He shrugged. “As you saw him. He’s taking it a good deal better than the rest of us.”

  Particularly Lancelot, she thought, casting a quick glance toward the place where the knight had stood. He was gone now, and she would have been tempted to dismiss their strange encounter as imagination if she did not see his helm still lying where he had dropped it.

  Well, it was a grand victory, and apparently Sir Lancelot’s heart’s desire. Yet he had not looked like a man who wept for joy.

  “And what of you?” she said to Dinadan as they stepped into the courtyard. “Are you all right? What Sir Lancelot did to you was a shameful thing.”

  “I’ve had better days,” he agreed dryly, “but I daresay I’ll survive. And Lancelot apologized very nicely earlier. I suspect the king ordered him to do it, but what’s done is done and best forgotten. But stay, I owe you thanks— forgive me, I should have said so earlier—”

  “No thanks needed,” Aislyn said. “So long as you are well, I am content.”

  “I am. And I did learn something . . .”

  “No more songs, then?”

  He raised a brow. “I didn’t say that! No, next time I’ll fight my own battles.” His smile died. “If not for me—”

  “They would still have met some time,” Aislyn said, patting his arm. “It was bound to happen. But you’re right. If you’re going to set yourself up as a court jester, you’d best be prepared to defend yourself . . . or learn to run fast.”

  “A knight of Camelot does not run,” he said reprovingly.

  “Then you’ll be spending a lot of time in the practice yard, won’t you?”

  He sighed. “I daresay I will.”

  THE feast was already in progress when Dinadan delivered Aislyn to her seat and went off to the knights’ table. King Arthur glanced at her across Gawain’s empty place and nodded shortly by way of greeting. Beside him, Guinevere was still subdued, though she brightened visibly when Lancelot walked into the hall.

  Swept into the hall, borne on a wave of applause to his seat at the high table beside the queen. He was clad in white—a magnificent silk tunic sprinkled with tiny diamonds about the neck—and wore a silver circlet round his brow. His dark hair curled around it, still damp from his bath, and his cheeks were blazing with fresh color. He smiled and waved as
he took his seat, managing to look both modest and proud at the attention.

  Was this really the same man she had seen behind the pavilions earlier? It seemed impossible to believe. When he met her gaze down the table, he smiled and raised his goblet to her, nodding in the friendliest fashion imaginable, as though the thought of shouting at her had never crossed his mind.

  Someone was mad, and Aislyn was fairly sure it wasn’t her. She knew what she had seen before, both behind the pavilions and earlier in the lists. Sir Lancelot was no mere knight . . . but was that any surprise, given who had raised him? He had come to Camelot from Avalon, a place shrouded in such mystery that many believed it a legend. Oh, they said he was the son of King Ban of Benwick, but as both his parents were dead and Benwick had fallen to invasion, how could there be any proof? He could be anyone . . . or anything.

  Aislyn frowned, watching him. He was a handsome lad—perhaps a bit too handsome? They said the men of faery were so fair that no mortal woman could resist them. It did not seem that Guinevere was even trying; she was turned toward him, laughing, her hand resting on his forearm. Nor did the king seem at all troubled by this familiarity. He was smiling, too, having obviously forgiven Lancelot for what had passed the night before. And Aislyn couldn’t really blame the king for that. Sir Lancelot could be extremely charming when he put his mind to it, and she had never seen him on anything less than his best behavior when Arthur was present.

  But who was he? What was he?

  There was one way to find out.

  Aislyn closed her eyes, picturing a page in her grimoire. She could see the spell now, tucked into the margin in Morgause’s sprawling hand. She muttered the words beneath her breath, dipped a finger in her wine and flicked a few drops in Lancelot’s direction.

  Nothing happened. She tried again, careful to get the words exactly right, but the effect was just the same. The third attempt, directed at the king, yielded no better result.