The Merriest Knight

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

  I saw a wolf, glimpsed and gone like the shadow of a sky-raking falcon. I saw a cock bustard running, a hare crouched in her form, and a raven on a thunder-blasted snag of oak. I saw a white forest cow in a dell, with horns as long and sharp as boar-spears, and a white calf suckling. She snorted and tossed her horns and chopped the sod; and I went up and around that dell by sheep-paths among rocks.

  I halted six hours later, at high noon, and drank from a bubbling spring and ate a scone. After a little rest, I traveled again. I wondered if good Brother Ambrose had by now spied out the tracks of my flight on moss and sward. I saw a dog otter on a rock in the burn; he was mustached (Brother Ambrose is my authority) like old King Uther Pendragon. I saw where a wild bull, or maybe a unicorn, had polished a horn on the rind of a young oak. I heard a snort and crash in a thicket of hollies, and ran half a mile.

  My spirits flagged in the lonely empty afternoon. Only the Old Gods and their kind keep awake all abroad in this hollow sunlight all stilled and dusked by lengthening shadows of crag and tor. I sheltered and waited in a glade between oaks and beeches, and thought sadly of Brother Ambrose. Was he still casting about for my tracks—peering down anxiously at the new grass and wet moss and the little places of mud? Or was he kneeling at the door of our hut, in prayer and lamentation? I saw him with my heart, kneeling, bowed, his long face sunk in his thin square hands. I had seen the strength of those hands on the throats of wolves and the horns of a wild bull, and had felt their gentleness a hundred times when I was little and weak.

  I arose from a mossy hummock, ready to turn about and retrace my ungrateful steps to the deserted hut and my only friend. But I did not turn, for I caught a scent of fire on the still air. It was not the reek of smoke, but a finer, cleaner thing—the thin fragrance of clear flames of bone-dry white cedar. Head up and feet as tumble, I traced it on the windless air. I passed through a tangled coppice and into another glade, and stopped and stood stock-still at the sound of a flute.

  I beheld a small fire burning with flame as clear and pale as glass in the level sun-tide washing between slanted shadows of rock and tree. I saw four people about the fire, and their gear scattered on the greensward. By their garments of dyed woolens and linen, I knew them for intruders from the great world of towns and fairs and farms. Mountainy folk go in fur and leather. One of them was a tall, large woman, long and thick of bone and flesh. She wore a shapeless garment which trailed on the ground; but her arms—as bulged with muscles as Dear Brother Ambrose's—were bare to the shoulders. Her black hair was in long beribboned braids. I had never seen or imagined such a sight, for the females of the wild mountains wear scant garments of fur and hide and sheepskin, like their males; and never had I been closer to one of those even than half-bowshot. But Brother Ambrose, pressed for information, had once warned me that women were to be known and avoided by their trailing garments and beribboned hair. Why the warning, I wondered now; for I disliked her looks strongly. I was disappointed.

  Another of the company was a short, round man. He was round of head, of neck, of face and of belly, and his shoulders were rounded. He sat on the moss beside a black leather bottle, cup in hand. His face was red and cleanly shaven. A younger and taller man stood nearby on straddled legs, and blew into a flute of yellow wood. The fourth member of the company was a slender boy of thirteen years or thereabouts, in a short green tunic with a scarlet belt and with golden curls on his shoulders.

  The woman screamed at the boy to fetch water and wood. Her voice was harsher than a raven's. She flung a leather bucket at him. He snatched up the bucket and turned directly toward me and moved swiftly. I crouched in the blossoming greenery. I retreated, still crouching, backward into the hawthorns and through tangles of black juniper and alders; and suddenly my feet were in water. They slipped on wet clay, and I sprawled forward on hands and knees. I lurched upright and stood knee-deep in the ice-cold spring, and shook to the hammering of my heart.

  The boy appeared, and saw me instantly. He stopped as if hit on the head. He opened his mouth, then closed it without sound. The bucket dropped from his hand, and he stood and stared, wide-eyed. His smooth cheeks were bloodless beneath their tan. But my face was red, for I felt like a fool, standing there in the icy water. I stepped up onto dry ground.

  "I don't bite," I mumbled.

  I tried to look both friendly and brave, but I was in terror of that big, beribboned woman.

  The lad placed a warning finger on his lips. He moved toward me slowly. He came close to me; and I saw a long red scratch on one cheek. I glanced down and saw bruises on his slender legs, which were bare from the crumpled tops of the patched buskins he wore, right up to his thighs.

  "Who are you?" he whispered.

  "Mark," I told him.

  But he paid no attention to my answer. He had not listened to it. He snatched my left hand with his right hand and pulled at it.

  "Come away from here! Quick! Don't stand gawking!"

  He yanked me off my balance and moved away, pulling me with him. He ran; and I ran with him, dumbfounded. He quickened his pace. He kicked off the old buskins, which were far too large for him; and we ran faster. Now we ran side by side, and still hand in hand. The grip of his slender fingers was hard as wood. He did not look at me now, but straight ahead and to his footing. But he stumbled once, and I saved him from falling by turning inward quickly and catching him around the middle with my left arm. Then he gave me a swift glance, but did not speak. We ran on, side by side as before, but no longer hand in hand. When his pace slowed and faltered, I slowed mine to match it. He stumbled again, and this time fell flat and lay gasping. I still had breath enough, but flopped down beside him, for his pride's sake. And for his company, in which I was already beginning to find pleasure.

  Chapter Two

  I Had Heard of These Things

  He lay face down, with quaking shoulders. I touched the nearer shoulder with a light hand, and it became still. The slender body and limbs became stone-still from head to heel, as if his breath and heart had died in him at my touch. Was he afraid of me? Then why had he come close to me and seized my hand and dragged me with him in his flight? I was confused. I withdrew my hand and sat up and looked down at his golden curls, the narrow back, and the straight slim legs discolored by welts and bruises; and my heart hurt with pity.

  "You did well, boy," I said. "You have brought me fast and far, in a masterly manner—so masterly that I came without question and am here without knowledge."

  He raised his face a little from the moss and turned his head slightly, as if to hear better, but did not speak.

  "You are strong and fleet, for a little lad," I said.

  And still he did not speak.

  "Is the woman your mother?" I asked.

  At that, he came up on his knees and faced me. His cheeks flushed and his eyes flashed, and he cried out at me.

  "My mother? That filthy common bitch?"

  I was startled and embarrassed. Again I felt like a fool, and even more so now than when he had discovered me standing knee-deep in the spring. I felt as if I had somehow lost the advantages of my riper age and greater size.

  "I crave your pardon! But how should I know?" I stammered. "She is the first I ever set eyes on—for all I know to the contrary."

  The flame of anger cooled on his cheeks and in his eyes. He regarded me curiously.

  "The first what you ever set eyes on?" he asked.

  "Woman," I said; and my glance wavered. "God's wounds!" he cried, staring.

  I was shocked and confused yet further by that blasphemy; but before I could reprove him, he said:

  "Are you a nitwit? You do not speak like a swineherd, nor look quite the fool you act. Who are you?"

  "I am Mark, as I have already told you."

  "Mark? Mark what? Of where?"

  I thought of the little mountain tarn behind our hut.

  "Of the Lake," I said, in better voice and manner, regaining something of my natural self-assurance. He is bu
t a foul-mouthed, ignorant, runaway jongleur's apprentice, after all, I thought. "And who are you?" I asked, with condescension.

  By now the sun was down behind the tops of the wild mountains.

  "You would be no wiser if I told you," he replied, in a weary and disdainful voice. "What could you know of a person like me?" he added, yet more disdainfully.

  I did not like that—neither the matter nor manner of it.

  "Of a person like you, little boy?" I said. "Only what I have seen and heard since you attached yourself to me. I have read of people, of saints and sinners, but nothing like you for which I thank God and Brother Ambrose. Do I care who you are? I am not in your company of my choice, but of your dragging. Do I talk and behave like a fool? Yes—in suffering your impudence. And do I not speak like a swineherd? So be it. I am not a swineherd. The swine are all wild in these wild mountains. The boars have tushes a yard long. I killed one single-handed, over a year ago. My spear broke, and I finished him with this knife. I carry scars of that fight. And yet I allowed a puny, saucy brat like you to drag me away willy-nilly from a clear fire and a leather bottle. My heart mastered my head. I pitied you, for I saw terror in your eyes. But now I am a fool, a clod, a nitwit. Have a care, little boy, or you may feel the weight of my hand."

  I spoke bitterly, as I felt. I had taken a sharper hurt than I could understand.

  He covered his face with his small, hard hands. His thin shoulders and narrow back quivered and quaked with his sobs.

  Rising, I looked down at him. I was at a loss. I knew nothing of children, and had known no other childhood than my own. I could not remember any human playmate save poor Brother Ambrose, whom I had deserted. My other playmates had been fox cubs, a wildcat kitten, a badger tamed by Brother Ambrose, a gyrfalcon with a broken wing, and young ravens and crows. I possessed but one memory that must have been of an earlier experience than anything I had known with Brother Ambrose in these wild mountains. It was of a great white horse standing in rich grass beneath a tree full of white and pink blossoms. Brother Ambrose had never explained that bright picture.

  I gazed down at that pitiful kneeling shape. It looked very small and forlorn in the gloom of early night in that high glade.

  "Be a man!" I begged.

  The sobbing checked for a moment, as if he held his breath, then racked on again.

  "Be a man," I repeated. "What are you afraid of? You need have no fear of my hand. I have never raised it against the weak and defenseless of beast or human, and never shall. Brother Ambrose and his books—and my own heart too—have taught me better. I am no lousy jongleur. I am kind and merciful, according to my strength. Were you a man like me—as large and strong, or larger and stronger—I would not be so soft and reasonable with you. But as it is, child, you have nothing to fear from me."

  I knelt beside him and spoke in simple terms of good Brother Ambrose, of our studies, of our adventures, and of the hut of stones and thatch under the high crags beside the dark tarn.

  "I remember no father or mother," I told him, "and no other guardian or friend or human playmate than that good hermit from whom I ran away this morning, God forgive me!"

  The boy became quiet and withdrew his hands from his eyes. His face was no more than a pale blur in the gloom.

  "I learned nothing but good from him," I said. "Latin and the wisdom of the Early Christian Fathers, kindness and hardihood, skills of arms and the chase, manners and fair play, and the noble game of chess."

  "If he was so kind and good—your wonderful Ambrose— then why did you run away from him?" asked the boy.

  "To see the world," I said. "He had seen it, and would not come away to see it again, though I plagued him day after day. To see Camelot, of which my friend had spoken sometimes with tears and wild gestures, and once had babbled about in his sleep. Royal Camelot, of crowding towers and gables, where armorers and swordsmiths beat sparks from iron day in and day out, and knights and squires and troubadours and foreign princes and soothsayers fill the humming streets and clanging courtyards, and banners fly, and shields and tavern signboards swing in the wind, and ladies and damosels walk in walled gardens and along the green terraces, and look down from high windows. Bright Camelot, where torchlight and music flood from open doors and casements, and noble and merry folk laugh and feast within, and wine and mead are quaffed from cups and bowls of gold and silver, and strong ale from great horns and leather jacks; and where the King and Queen give praise and bestow prizes for the past day's knightly deeds."

  "It is a long way to Camelot," sighed the boy. "A long and crooked way from this horrid wilderness wherein we are lost and benighted, without food or shelter, and in deadly peril."

  And he fell to weeping again, with both hands to his wet face.

  "And you—poor, nameless, boastful hobbledehoy—are my only hope!" he sobbed.

  I could hardly believe my ears. But what else could I do? He had spoken loudly enough, though thickly. I mastered my first impulse to clout his ear. I mastered my outraged heart.

  "It is well for you—you should thank God for it—that gentle Brother Ambrose had the schooling of me," I said in a half-choked voice. "Poor, am I? And what of yourself, runaway brat? Runaway jongleur! A hobbledehoy, am I? And nameless? And boastful? Holy Mother of Grief! I've had my fill of you, sniveler! I shall take you back where you belong—to your flea-pocked jongleurs—and you may watch me beat the fleas out of their dirty tunics. I will show you who I am, and what I am, by the knuckle-bones of Saint Wiggin! Come! I've had my fill of you."

  He leaped to his feet and flung himself against me, with thin arms tight around my neck.

  "No—no—no!" he cried in my face. "They would beat me—with whips and sticks. They would kill you with knives. Let me perish first in the wilderness, good boy! Good Mark! Brave Mark! I will not go back. They are cruel and vile. Let us run again, dear Mark!"

  I did not move. I scarcely breathed. He held me tight. And a strange suspicion possessed me. What was it that I had read of one Queen Gwyn, in a book which Brother Ambrose had tried to conceal from me with mumbled excuses? What had I read of that gay young queen's breast that I had not understood? Of her breasts. Breasts, that was it. My heart shook me from heels to head.

  "What—who—what are you?" I stammered.

  The slender arms clung tighter. The slender body pressed closer. I tried desperately to order my poor wits and to still my leaping pulses.

  "I spoke in anger," I said. "Yet in jest. I did not mean it. You are safe from those rogues, for all of me. I am neither churl nor knave, though I know not my father's name. Here is food. A barley cake! I shall make a shelter for you. Fear nothing. I am strong enough to protect you from lousy jongleurs or hungry wolves."

  The arms relaxed about my neck and were withdrawn. The quivering body withdrew. A hard little hand found my right hand and gripped my fingers. Then we moved forward in the dark, handfast and dumbfounded. We stumbled and supported one another. We fumbled among bushes and boulders. Thus for a mile or more of crooked distance without a moment's letting go of hands or a word spoken. But when I felt dry bracken and dry heather of last year against my legs, I told my companion to sit down and rest, and I would construct a shelter of some sort against the chill of the night. Stumbling to the right and left, I felt out little cedars and firs, which I uprooted; and with my knife I hacked matted boughs from large pines and larches. Of all this I made a crooked, bushy little hut, which I carpeted deep with dry fern and heather.

  I found my companion.

  "Here is a barley scone, and here is your house," I said.

  Nothing was heard for a little while save the crunching of crusts between our teeth. I was the first to finish my cake.

  "What am I to call you?" I asked.

  The sound of my companion's slower munching ceased.

  "I shall be honest with you," I went on, without waiting for an answer, and with my wits and heart laboring. "You have called me a fool and worse; and I have called you a saucy boy a
nd worse; and I think that we may both have been wrong. I admit my ignorance of the great world and of many worldly things. I confess ignorance—and innocence—on many counts. But among Brother Ambrose's books is one called The Song of Queen Gwyn'—not a devotional work—which he strove to keep out of my hands, but in vain. My curiosity was aroused. I read that book. But for that book—that sprightly 'Song of Queen Gwyn'—I would perhaps still believe you to be a boy. But as matters stand—and it is but fair that I tell you this—I have a suspicion that I may have been wrong."

  And there I stuck, at a loss for words.

  After a silence which increased my confusion, my companion spoke in a strange small voice—a muffled voice.

  "Do you mean that now—now you suspect me of—not being a boy?"

  "That is so," I mumbled.

  "But why? What have I to do with your old Queen Gywn?"

  "She was not old—not in the book—and she was—"

  There I stuck again, and wished that I had kept my mouth shut. After a dozen of my heartbeats, my companion spoke again, and in better voice—in a kinder voice.

  "You are right, good Mark. I am not a boy. I never said I was a boy. It was you who said it, good Mark. As for calling you a fool, dear Mark—and a hobbledehoy—I am sorry and ashamed. I mistook ignorance and innocence for stupidity. But now I know you to be brave and strong and noble. And clever! And I never thought you were a swineherd. Not really, dear Mark!"

  "You must be a girl," I mumbled.

  "A girl? I am fifteen—almost as old as you—and as much a woman as you are a man."

  A woman! Brother Ambrose had not warned me against such a woman as this. I had thought female children were called girls. And this was surely a child. And yet Queen Gwyn, of the book, had not been called a girl, though as described by the writer, she must have resembled my companion in some particulars, at least. There must (I reasoned, confusedly) be large thick women, and others like that sprightly queen of the song and this one. This girl, this companion of mine, must be the same kind of woman, more or less, that Queen Gwyn had been. And yet she had been beaten by baseborn rogues! My blood boiled at that thought.