Gawain

by Gwen Rowley

  It struck the knight on the brow, and though the blow was glancing, the surprise of it sent him reeling back so sharply that his mount, startled by the sudden shift of weight, reared, iron-shod hoofs beating the air. The knight went over backward and landed with a thud upon the moss. His mount pranced nervously, then halted, trembling, beside the prone form of his master.

  Launfal scrambled to his feet, breathing hard, a second stone ready in his hand, but the knight lay unmoving. After an age had passed, Launfal forced himself to approach the fallen man.

  “Sir?”

  The sound of his own voice startled him so much that he jumped, and something between a sob and a laugh burst from his lips. “Sir?” he said again, not knowing why he bothered. The man obviously could not hear him. If you had any sense, you would take to your heels, Launfal told himself . . . and yet he could not leave this poor madman lying unconscious in the forest, prey to any sort of beast.

  I’ll get him on his horse, he thought and went down on his knees, slipping his hands beneath the man’s arms and lifting—and it was then he saw the dagger’s hilt protruding from the knight’s back. With a low cry, Launfal laid him carefully on his side and drew the dagger forth, staring in dismay at the blood seeping from the wound.

  And it was thus that the knight’s companions found him.

  Chapter 31

  GAHERIS arrived rather breathless in the hall, where Arthur and his queen were breaking their fast.

  “Sire, have you seen Gawain?” Gaheris asked.

  “He left me a quarter of an hour since,” Arthur replied. “To meet you in the practice yard.”

  “He did not come,” Gaheris said.

  The two exchanged a glance, and Arthur half rose from his seat. Guinevere looked at him questioningly. “Sir Gawain must have been delayed,” she said. “My lord, do sit down, you have not finished, and I did want to talk to you—”

  “No, I—I have no appetite,” Arthur said and when Guinevere’s puzzled frown deepened, he remembered that he had only just declared himself half famished after his vigil in the chapel. “That is, I—I will eat this as I walk,” he said, seizing a slice of bread. “I shall attend you and the queen of Orkney later this morning,” he promised, noticing her hurt expression with only a small part of his mind as he hurried from the hall.

  “COME out,” Gawain said.

  “No, I don’t think so. Why don’t you go off and do whatever it is you do,” Aislyn said from behind the screen. “Come back at sunset.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Gawain said, smothering a laugh. “It’s not as though I’ve never seen Dame Ragnelle before!”

  “But it’s different now.”

  “No, it’s not. I want to talk to you.”

  “Talk then,” she retorted. “I can hear you fine from here.”

  ARTHUR and Gaheris hesitated outside the door to Gawain’s chamber. “Perhaps it would have been better to send a page to him,” Arthur said. “I do not want to alarm the witch.”

  Gaheris gnawed his lower lip. “Aye, you are right. Let us—”

  The sound of Gawain’s laughter came from within. “Sire,” Gaheris said, “it is not my habit to listen at doors . . .”

  “Nor mine,” Arthur said.

  Their eyes met briefly, then broke away to peruse the hallway.

  “But this once . . .” Gaheris began.

  “Do it,” Arthur ordered tersely, and Gaheris put his ear to the door.

  “Well?” Arthur said after a moment, alarmed at the expression on Gaheris’s face. “What do you hear?”

  “Oh, sire—”

  Arthur leaned forward and laid his head against the wood, where a voice that sounded like Gawain’s was clearly audible.

  “Now, stop being foolish and come sit on my knee. That’s better. It seems an age since I have seen you. I thought about you all last night.”

  “Did you?”

  That was Dame Ragnelle; her harsh croak was unmistakable, even when lowered to a sickening coo.

  “I could scarce keep my mind on anything I did.” It was definitely Gawain, much as Arthur longed to deny it. “Come, love, don’t turn away—”

  Gaheris and Arthur exchanged looks of horror.

  “Oh, God,” Gawain groaned, half laughing, “I don’t know how I can wait until tonight.”

  Arthur leapt back, his stomach heaving. Gaheris followed suit, his face a shade of delicate green as he pressed the back of one hand against his mouth. But when Arthur raised a fist to pound upon the door, Gaheris caught him by the wrist.

  “No,” he mouthed, jerking his head down the passageway. “Wait.”

  Arthur followed him some distance down the corridor.

  “This is far worse than I suspected,” Gaheris whispered. “I fear for Gawain if we confront her in his presence.”

  “You are right.” Arthur looked toward the door. “Oh, Gaheris, don’t think badly of your brother. The fault is mine. I should never have allowed—”

  “You did not know what she was, no more than Gawain did. But all will be well once he is free of her. You must send again to the duchess of Cornwall—”

  “I have already done so.”

  “Then we must keep them apart until she arrives. Sire, do you keep Gawain by you, and we shall post a guard outside the door.”

  Chapter 32

  LAUNFAL half fell into the windowless chamber, propelled by a hard shove at the small of his back.

  “But I told you—it was an accident.”

  “You can tell the king himself—when he has time for you,” one of the knights replied.

  “At least unbind me. For pity’s sake—”

  “Pity? You dare—” Mailed hands pushed him against the wall. He hit it awkwardly with his shoulder and went down hard upon his knees. “I’ll give you pity—the same pity you showed Marrek!” the knight shouted, drawing back his foot.

  “Peace, Kay,” a cool voice cut in. “He’s just a lad, and he hasn’t even been tried yet, let alone condemned.”

  Launfal knew that voice—it was the one that had stopped the others from slaying him out of hand back in the forest. Now its owner drew off his helm and went down upon one knee, taking the dagger from his belt. “Relax, lad, I’m not going to slit your weasand. Just turn so I can get to these—”

  “Dinadan, don’t!” the other—Sir Kay, Launfal thought— protested.

  “Why not?” Sir Dinadan stood and sheathed his dagger. “He’s no danger here to anyone save himself.”

  “At least put him in the cell,” Sir Kay said, gesturing toward an iron cage, barely visible among the shadows.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Kay, what do you think he’ll do, dig through solid rock with his bare hands? We’ll bolt the door and post a guard.”

  Launfal stood, rubbing his wrists where the ropes had cut into them. “Thank you, sir,” he said with a bow. “I shall never forget your courtesy.”

  Sir Dinadan nodded, his eyes cool and watchful. “Let us hope you have a long life in which to remember it. But if you are guilty, I’ll be the first in line to watch you die.”

  Die? Was he to die? No, it was impossible—and yet Launfal knew that it was not. He had as little control over his life as a piece upon a game board, moved hither and yon by some unseen hand. He had known that since he was a child, when his life was a frail thread like to snap at any moment, and as a child, he had accepted it. Later, he had pushed the knowledge aside, but now he knew how foolish he had been.

  But to die like this—for nothing! It was unendurable . . . and yet, was it not somehow fitting that his death would be as futile as his entire life had been?

  “Don’t look like that,” Sir Dinadan said. “The king is a fair man, he will hear you out.”

  Launfal nodded, but he did not allow himself to hope. He had hoped too often in the past. Better not to think at all, to simply accept whatever happened next without complaint.

  He slid down the wall, wrapped his arms around his shins and laid his bro
w on his bent knees. He heard the knights departing and thought himself alone until a voice broke the heavy silence.

  “Lad.” Launfal lifted his head to see Sir Dinadan leaning against the doorpost, arms folded across his chest. “Do you have a name?”

  “It is Launfal.”

  “Launfal, then. Why did you do it? Really? Were you hungry?”

  “I told you,” Launfal said wearily. “He attacked me; I attempted to defend myself. His horse threw him and he fell on his dagger.”

  Sir Dinadan made a low sound of disbelief. “Marrek? He hasn’t attacked anyone since Uther Pendragon’s day. You’d do better to leave that part out when you tell your tale to the king.”

  “I cannot say other than the truth.”

  Dinadan raised one brow. “Why did you stay, then? Why did you not run once he was down?”

  “Leave him insensible in the forest with the wolves and vermin? Would you have done that?”

  “No. I would not leave any knight—even an enemy—in such a case.”

  “Well, then—”

  “But I am a knight of Camelot.”

  Launfal’s face flamed. “While I am nobody, and perforce a stranger to all honor?”

  “I meant,” Dinadan said coolly, “that I would have no need to run from the outcome of any challenge. Were I in your situation—” He shrugged. “I daresay I would have taken to my heels.”

  Launfal shook his head. “You wouldn’t have.”

  “Lad, any boyish dreams of chivalry I might have cherished were beaten out of me long before they could do me any harm. If you want to survive, you’ll have to learn to—” He broke off with a curt laugh. “I’ll save the lecture; you have enough to bear. Is there anyone who should know where you are? Family? Friends?”

  Launfal shook his head. “No. There is no one. Only—is Sir Gawain at court?”

  “You know Gawain? Why did you not say so at once?”

  “I don’t. Not really. But we did meet, long ago—not that I expect him to remember, but . . .”

  “A slim chance is better than none. I’ll see if I can find him. Good fortune to you.”

  “And to you,” Launfal answered, but Sir Dinadan was already gone.

  Chapter 33

  GAWAIN mastered his instinctive shudder as the crone sat down upon his knee. This was Aislyn. His Aislyn, who had lain in his arms just two nights past, trapped in a form that seemed far more revolting now that he knew it was a magical creation. It was that, more than her wrinkled skin or misshapen body that disgusted him.

  Poor lass, he thought, his stomach twisting as he forced himself to stroke her lank hair and speak cheerfully until at last she smiled. My poor little love. This must be infinitely worse for her than it is for me.

  “Sweeting, this is folly,” he said gently. “Hiding like this, keeping all a secret. I know you fear my mother, but we cannot wait for Morgana to return. I will go to the king—no, hear me out—and explain all. Even my mother daren’t disobey a direct order from him; she will be forced to lift this vile enchantment.”

  “She cannot,” Ragnelle—Aislyn—said.

  “Isn’t there always a counterspell—or whatever it is called?”

  “It was not your mother who put the enchantment on me.”

  “Not my—? Then who?”

  “Your aunt,” she said, not looking at him. “The duchess of Cornwall.”

  “Morgana?” Gawain laughed aloud from pure relief. “But why? What did you do to get in her bad graces?”

  Aislyn slid from his knee. “It makes no matter now. But if you were to ask her to lift it, then she might.”

  “You can be sure I shall. I’ll send her a message at once, explaining . . .” But there was no need to explain. Morgana had been here, she had seen how matters stood with him. And she had done nothing.

  “I cannot believe it was her,” he said, his amusement dying. “Oh, we have sometimes been at odds of late, but still—” He stared unseeing out the window. “She knew we were wed, and yet she told me nothing. Why? Why would she do such a thing to me?”

  “It was me she did it to,” Aislyn pointed out.

  “Aye, it was. And I never would have thought her capable of such cruelty. What did you do?”

  “Naught so bad as to deserve this,” she replied, her back to him as she smoothed the coverlet over the bed.

  “But what was it?” he insisted. “Aislyn, you must tell me.”

  “Yes, I suppose I must.” She turned to face him. “Now, Gawain, I don’t want you to get angry. You see, that day when you and the king came riding into the forest to meet Somer Gromer Jour, I always meant to give the king the answer.”

  “And you did,” he said.

  “Yes, but—well, when I saw it was you with him, I decided to—You have to remember that I didn’t know you’d gone back for me that night in Lothian. I thought you just rode off and forgot all about me, never caring if I’d lived or died. I was wrong, I know that now, but when I saw you riding down that path with the king, I was still a bit—well, more than a bit angry. So I changed myself into this form—”

  “You changed?” he repeated, bewildered. “But you said Morgana—”

  “Yes, but that was after, when she came to court that time. She knew what I’d done, you see, and she didn’t like it—you being her favorite nephew and all—so she put a spell on me so I couldn’t turn myself back, not until you’d kissed me. A kiss given with love and received in kind, that’s what she said, and she made it so I wasn’t able to tell you anything. But it all worked out, you’ve broken the enchantment—well, half of it, anyway, and I think if you were to ask her, she might lift it altogether.”

  Aislyn had been speaking more rapidly as she went along, and it took him a moment to sort out all she’d told him. “After?” he repeated slowly. “You mean to say that when we first met—and when we married—you did that yourself?”

  “Well, yes, I did,” she said, “it was—well, a joke.”

  “A joke? You—the wedding, and—and—when you— for a jest?”

  “Not only for that,” she said quickly. “I had to get away from your mother—she’s the one who was behind that whole Somer Gromer Jour business—”

  “What?” He took a step away from her. “You and my mother are still—”

  “No! I haven’t seen her since that night you left Lothian! I’ve been hiding from her ever since, but when I heard about Somer Gromer Jour, I knew it was her plan. And I knew she’d guess ’twas I who gave the king the answer. So I thought I’d be safer here than anywhere, and—I never meant for you to be wed to Dame Ragnelle forever! I just meant to hide here for a time, and to teach you a bit of a . . . I’m sorry for it now,” she added quickly. “I know it was . . .”

  Gawain stopped listening. He stared at the bent old woman before him, remembering the first moment he had laid eyes upon her in the forest and all that happened after. Morgana had not arrived on the scene until two—or was it three?—days after they were wed. She’d come early, and he was still abed, reluctant to wake because . . .

  “Wait,” he said, cutting off Aislyn’s voice. “Wait. That night. Not our wedding night, the one after, I dreamed . . . or did I? Aislyn, was that—was it a dream?”

  The crone seemed to contract upon herself, but her eyes did not waver from his face. “No,” she whispered. “It was not a dream.”

  “It was you?”

  “I thought you didn’t love me,” she cried. “I thought there was another, and—and—”

  “You touched me here”—He put a hand to his brow— “and said it was a dream. You enspelled me, didn’t you? And then you—we—”

  He sat down hard upon the trunk, feeling as though he might be sick. She had lied to him. Again. And this had been no lie borne of desperation, but one chosen of her own free will.

  Aislyn was not the victim of enchantment, but its mistress.

  She had tricked him, humiliated him, played him for a fool.

  She had robbed
him of his reason and stolen his will.

  She was a witch.

  Oh, she might say she loved him—she might even believe it—but she did not know the meaning of the word. Witches loved nothing but themselves and their own power. They asked no man’s leave to work their will, and no man could stop them from doing it.

  “Gawain, don’t look at me like that!” Aislyn cried, laying her clawlike hands on his shoulders. “I was wrong, I’m sorry—but you were not the only one to suffer. Please, you must believe me—say you do, say that you forgive me—”

  Her eyes were brilliant with tears—Aislyn’s eyes, the very eyes he had gazed into the night that vile spell was broken—and five years ago, in Lothian. She had not changed—and, God help him, nor had he. Even knowing what she was, he could not give her up.

  “If you love me—” he began.

  “I do!” she said, her voice breaking.

  “Then renounce magic forever.”

  She drew away, looking so stricken that he wanted to call back his words. The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that she could never be a wife to him. Not as she was now. He could love her with all his heart until it ceased to beat, but that would not prevent her from using her arts upon him whenever she desired.

  “Renounce—” She faltered.

  “—Magic,” he said implacably. “Forever.”

  “But—but that is impossible,” she cried. “You might as well ask me to tear off my arm.”

  He forced himself to speak calmly, hoping against hope she could be reached by reason. “It is not the same at all. Your arm is a part of you—”

  “Magic is a part of me.”

  “Perhaps, but it is a part you need not use. Don’t you see, this is what destroyed our love before! Please, I beg you, give it up. For my sake.”

  “No! I cannot!”

  “You mean you will not,” he said bitterly. “But that is no more than I expected.”

  “Expected?” she shot back. “Or wanted? Why else would you set impossible barriers around your heart, knowing full well that I must fail to breach them? I am as I am—either you love me for myself or you do not love me at all!”