"He lies again," said King Torrice calmly. "In fact, I am beginning to wonder if he ever speaks the truth.
"Our young friend took a few tumbles yesterday, and may take a few more today, for experienced horsemen and spearmen have ever the advantage of very young cavaliers. Even I—but let it pass! I warrant you that, in a few years time, our Lost Knight will be as firm in his saddle as I was at his present age."
"My wits are confused," mumbled Dennys. "You spoke of yesterday—of my knight taking tumbles then, but by my reckoning we were on the road yesterday and encountered only bagmen and like riffraff. Yesterday? Lord, we met neither with tumbles nor occasions for tumbles yesterday— by my reckoning."
The carping old knight uttered a derisive hoot, but the old King of Har spoke gravely and kindly.
"Your reckoning took a buffet and a tumble, good Dennys; and while you lay here, with a leech from young Arthur Pendragon's train at work on your damaged skull— which the learned man pronounced the thickest he ever saw, glory be to God!—Sir Lorn rode for a few honorable falls in the lists only two longbow-shots away. In truth, it is a full twenty-four hours since the honest smiths brought in you and the child, with the honest dog at their heels. I rewarded them, in your name, and have seen to the comfort and safety of child and dog."
"Gramercy!" Dennys acknowledged. "Gramercy, Sir King!" He pressed his right hand to his bandaged head, but instantly flinched and dropped it. "But with me laid useless here, who squired my master? Who harnessed him and served him with new spears?"
"You would be surprised," the King murmured, smiling.
"Even you wouldn't believe it!" snarled Sir James.
"He was well tended," King Torrice went on, and now with a chuckle in his voice and a merry twinkling of his eyes. "He was well buckled indeed and latched and armed, fear not! No knight there, whatever his name or prowess or degree, was better squired—nor half as well, by the knuckle-bones of Judas!—than young Lorn le Perdu."
Dennys was silent with grief, believing that his friend had forsaken and forgotten him for a more experienced comrade and attendant, or a more powerful and fashionable: for some earl's son in search of adventure, perchance. But he was soon enlightened.
"In other words, King Torrice of Har hid his royal head in a squire's casque and played the varlet to that nameless vagabond's shameless pretensions," sneered Sir James. He paused, veering his shallow glance this way and that, but always avoiding the others' eyes. "And his reward was dust in his nose," he concluded, fairly snarling.
The King ceased smiling now and turned a bleak and considering look upon the carping knight.
"Mind your speech and your manners, James," he warned in a low voice. "Ay, and your thoughts too. They have all worsened fast, of late: not that they were ever good. Have a care that you don't force me to forget that you owe your miserable life to me—for it is a responsibility that irks me increasingly, the longer I know you."
The knight's jaw sagged, and his barbered face went white—even the sharp nose, save for a purple tip. He blinked his eyes, which were no more human now than scales of mica, and breathed noisily in short gasps through open mouth and long sparse teeth. Then he got to his feet and stalked from the room. King Torrice met Dennys' bewildered gaze with a smile and a nod.
"A most unpleasant old man," he said lightly. "But more fool than knave: at least I still hope so. Now I must see to our champion, and off with him to the lists. I shall tell him of your improved condition; and if he should feel in better spirits tonight than he does this morning—which I wager he will—I´ll bring him in after supper. Now I shall send the leech to you—a renowned chirurgeon."
The great doctor arrived, moving fast, with one of King Torrice's ancient servitors tottering far after him, burdened with an ewer and a basin and a roll of bandages.
"Conscious, clear-eyed, and sane!" the visitor gabbled, stooping and peering. "Exactly as I predicted, and to the minute. You are fortunate, young sir. If there had been an hour's delay in fetching me, or if any other chirurgeon in this realm had been summoned instead, you'd be dead now. And 'twas only by chance that I was disengaged at the time of the arrival of King Torrice's urgent messenger, for practically all the best vital organs and bones of King Arthur's court are in my care, including his own; and my written certificate that your head has been mended by me will serve you as an introduction to society as well as any warrant of knighthood or even a patent of nobility, I dare say."
While gabbling and bragging, the doctor's hands and eyes were as busy as his tongue. He unrolled yards of bandage from Dennys' tender head, examined and washed the wound, salved it, and swathed all in clean linen.
"Most satisfactory!" he exclaimed. "Chicken broth for breakfast, and this pill directly after it. You, my good man, attend to what I say to this young gentleman, and look well to this pill, for Doctor Watkyn's words cost a silver penny apiece, and the very least of my pills the price of a firkin of butter. See to it that he swallows this pill with his last sup of broth; and that he remains recumbent till noon, at which time he will be so far recovered—thanks to my skill and God's mercy and a thick skull—as to permit the elevation of his head and shoulders on three pillows, and the consumption of another bowl of chicken broth." "Gramercy!" said Dennys.
Dr. Watkyn bustled off. Dennys addressed the old servant.
"What of my broth?" "Tis in the kettle, sir."
"And what of the child I took away from the two torturers?"
"She does bravely, sir. She is in Eliza's care, and the dog too. King Torrice charged Eliza, who is my daughter, to tend her like a princess, and the thin dog like a queen's pet."
"She? Is it a girl, then?"
"Devil a doubt of it, sir! And no common one, by my guess: or why were the two Yer Honor rescued her from— the man was found roasted on his own hearth, but the woman got away—trying to burn a brand on her? But Master Watkyn's salve will heal it in a day, so he says himself. And she be safe with Eliza, sir, never fear! For there's a wench that would have made a man-at-arms to match any knight alive. And now she wears knives in her garters, and keeps half-pikes and long-hafted maces standing in every corner of her room."
"I want to see her."
"She's a grand sight, sir, though no beauty from a young gentleman's point of view; and no chicken, neither; and I warn you, sir, shell knock a man down with no more provocation nor a look."
"Are you mad? That pitiful child?"
"God forgive me! I thought you spoke of Eliza! I´ll have her fetch her, sir—my daughter fetch Yer Honor's little damosel—when I fetch the broth."
"So be it, good fellow," murmured Dennys, closing his eyes.
* * *
He dozed into confused dreams. A weight on his sore left shoulder wakened him, and he opened his eyes and looked sidewise at a broad black muzzle and yellow mask and amber eyes. A lip lifted and disclosed formidable fangs: but it was not a hostile grimace; and the eyes showed warmth of trust and affection through their amber shining. It was the dog of yesterday. The heavy head withdrew from his shoulder. He shifted his glance upward, and met the fixed regard of yet another pair of eyes.
These were neither amber nor trustful, but gray and black like the depths of a mountain tarn, and searching and cold in their regard. It was a woman who stood beside his couch and looked down at him. He guessed her sex by the two long and thick braids of hair which hung before her shoulders and down past her waist. This hair was coarse and black and strong, like the tails of mountain ponies. But for the hair, the head and neck and shoulders might well have belonged to a full-grown—nay, an overgrown—porter or swineherd or forester. Likewise the face; for the jaws looked to be as strong, and the nose as broad and depressed, as a bull-baiting mastiffs. He met that stare for as long as he could. He held it till his sore brain began to spin and his eyes to dim. He blinked and cried out suddenly and fretfully:
"God's wounds! What ails you, woman? What's your errand here? Speak up—or go away!"
She ve
iled her eyes and bowed her head, and spoke with voice and air of mock submission.
"I beg Your Honor's pardon. I am here at your bidding, with our little damosel. I am Eliza."
He looked lower and saw the child, and knew her only by her eyes; for only in them did she resemble the pitiful naked creature of yesterday's adventure. She stood close beside his cot. But this was not the infant of that mad rescue and chase. This was, in very truth, a little damosel. She wore a bonnet of fine lace, which hid her short and jaggedly snipped pale hair. The face framed by the bonnet was like a white flower blushing to rose. Her parted lips were rose petals. She wore pearls at her throat, and a narrow gown of white samite threaded with gold. But her eyes, still misted with tears though her lips smiled now, looked into Dennys' eyes just as he remembered from yesterday.
Embarrassment was added to his bewilderment. It replaced the spasm of childish anger and fear which the woman's stare had inspired. He tried to think of something to say. He belabored his sore brain for appropriate words of greeting to an agonized, terrorized small child that had become, overnight, a smiling damosel in white samite. A small damosel, in truth—but just that, nevertheless. But the only result of the effort was a stammered question. "What is your name?"
"The gypsies called me Cynara," she whispered. "But Eliza says that is a pagan name—a wicked gypsy name."
"The gypsies? But your skin—your eyes—your eyes are not like theirs!"
The woman said: "She's not one of those people, as any fool can see. But she cannot remember her own people."
"Those two fiends of hell were not gypsies," he said.
"True—but she had been in their hands only a sennight," said the woman.
Now the little girl's mouth began to tremble and change from smiles to the pitiful grimace of terror; and she shivered against Dennys and crouched forward and slipped thin arms around his neck and pressed her face against his breast. As her arms tightened, stabs of pain shot through his head. It was all he could do not to cry out. Instead, he gritted his teeth and shut his eyes and drew the small body closer and held it so. Despite the pain he was in, he spoke with calm assurance.
"You have nothing to fear. You are safe now. I´ll not let anything hurt you, little one."
The clasp of her arms loosened slightly, but vastly to the relief of his anguished head, and her trembles lessened perceptibly. It seemed to him that she listened for more, though she did not raise her face from his breast.
"Be happy," he went on. "Rest easy. There is no evil here to harm you, little Cynara. You are in my keeping for now. You have Dennys to fend for you now—and from this time forth."
He felt the woman's disturbing gaze upon him, and looked up and met it again; and he was relieved to find less of hostility and black suspicion in it now.
"And who will fend for brave Squire Dennys?" she asked derisively.
But there was anxiety as well as derision in her voice and eyes. She stooped over him, and continued in an urgent whisper:
"Are you blind, poor lad—or demented, like your lost master? For lost indeed is that poor young knight—utterly, heart and soul! And you are in peril of your own soul and body, in this place. It was the curse on your master—for he is accursed, in very truth!—that brought you to this house. What do you know of this king? Even Peter the groom does not know his true age. He too is accursed or bewitched, this King Torrice, for all his learning and prowess—and a fool to boot; or how else would he suffer that old rogue Sir James? Beware of that hoary knight. He hates and fears your witless master, and you too, and will get rid of you, if he can. He is as crafty as wicked; and if he cannot trick you to your deaths, he will kill you himself."
"Why?" asked Dennys.
She lifted her head and veered it, then stooped lower and whispered:
"I hear him. Take this. Under the sheet with it! Accept nothing from his hands—and threaten to strike if he crowds you."
She stood upright quickly, only to stoop again as quickly and lift the little girl in her arms; and Dennys was alone three seconds later. Even the dog with amber eyes was gone. But he could not think he had dreamed that visit, for his right hand grasped the haft of a dagger beneath the sheet. Is she mad too? he wondered. Is everyone mad here but me? And Cynara? And even she must be bewitched, to grow so fast.
He glanced up and saw Sir James on the threshold, bearing an earthen bowl in his two hands. The ancient knight approached with greater speed than Dennys had credited him with the strength for. He drew a stool to the right side of the cot, and on it set the bowl. He straightened his back and smiled and spoke smoothly.
"Your broth, my young friend. Your chicken broth, just as prescribed by the great Doctor Watkyn. If King Torrice of Har sees fit to serve Sir Lorn le Perdu as squire, why should not I, poor old Sir James of Redrock, play butler to Squire Dennys? Think nothing of it, my lad. Drink it down. Tis at just the right heat. The good Watkyn made such a point of this matter of temperature that I told him I would see to it myself. Here, let me raise your head and hold the bowl to your lips."
"I have no appetite for chicken broth, honored sir," lied Dennys. "Nor for any kind of broth, at this moment. The steam of it even raises my gorge. Stand away, Sir James— I warn you!—for my stomach heaves and quakes."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Sir James, gone sharp and jerky of a sudden in both voice and manner. "Quaff it off! Doctor's orders!"
He took up the bowl in his right hand. He was close now. With his left hand he reached for the pillow beneath Dennys' head. And then a strange thing happened. The bowl fell to the floor and broke, and the broth spattered and splashed abroad. With an oath, Sir James jerked straight and stood staring down at his empty hand and past it at the ruin on the floor.
"Something struck me!" he cried, his voice gone thin as a gnat's. "My wrist! Something hard!" His pale glance flickered the length of the couch and all around. "What goes on here? There's deviltry here!"
"I doubt it not, worshipful sir," Dennys murmured; and he smiled among his bandages, lying straight and still between sheets of linen, beneath a silken quilt.
To look at him, one would never guess that his right knee had been so out and active.
"But here comes another bowl, so why worry over spilt broth?" he added.
Sure enough, here was that old fellow Eliza's father, bearing an earthen bowl on a pewter tray. This was just such a bowl as the other had been, but a horn spoon stood up in it. The fellow moved circumspectly and with downcast eyes and a suggestion of humble benevolence about the droop of his whiskers; but when the wreckage on the floor came within his range of view, he stopped and recoiled as if at a buffet in the face, and all but dropped his burden.
"Have a care!" cautioned Dennys. "Good Sir James had an accident with his offering, and I'm in no mood to be cheated of my breakfast entirely, for I feel hungry now."
He looked where the old knight had stood but a few seconds before, just in time to glimpse the stooped and narrow back as Sir James glided from the room.
"This is beyond me," muttered the servant, beginning to shiver. "Sir James fetched broth to you, d'ye say? Then he stole it from under Luke's nose. Did you sup of it?"
"Not a sup, old man," Dennys assured him. "Your daughter Eliza told me to take nothing from him. Set it down here before you spill it, and calm yourself. Eliza is a grand wench, and I'd liefer call her friend than foe. Tell me your name, old friend; and help me with the broth."
Eliza's father's name was Matthew, and he was known as Matt. He was a timid soul; and it was hard for Dennys to believe that he had sired masterful and intrepid Eliza. But he was an excellent serving-man, for his years. He raised Dennys' head and shoulders on extra pillows and helped him to his broth as well as any nurse. He had a fund of information and a lively tongue, but a quavering utterance. He was a natural gossip and artless scandalmonger. Born in a swineherd's hut in one of the great forests of Har, he had herded swine till he came to his full growth, but as that growth had fallen short of req
uirements for warding against wolves and thieves, he had gone down to the nearest castle and been hired there for a scullion.
The wandering King Torrice had visited that one of his many castles between foreign adventures, and tossed pennies about so freely that Matt had stolen off in his train. There had been gray in the King's whiskers even then, but he was still a mighty man of his hands. And as for his adventures—a young gentleman would not believe them. Sometimes, in trying to recall them to mind, Matt doubted them himself. They were all undertaken, or encountered by chance, in furtherance of a quest which His Majesty had followed since his early manhood—but of the name and nature of that quest, Matt was as ignorant now as he had been when a scullion in his first scullery. But there was something queer about it. Many things about it seemed queer to honest Matt. The ladies concerned, among them. Nay, the ladies most of all. For there were ladies and damosels—ay, and queens even—in every adventure of that quest of King Torrice of Har, that strange and seemingly endless quest.
It was believed by some people, said Matt, that the King's quest had been for the Fountain of Youth, and that he had succeeded over a hundred years ago; but he did not share this belief. Whether or not King Torrice had ever drunk of the Fountain of Youth or of any other spring or well of a like character, or maybe of a magical elixir in a bottle, he didn't know; but in his humble opinion the royal quest was of a far more mysterious and perilous nature than that implied by those people, despite the fact that there had been a lady—one, at least—in every adventure of it.
Take the adventures in Spain, for example. Once the questing king had won his way, by wit and physical prowess, into the Queen of Spain's boudoir, only to excuse himself and back out, after a few questions. Matt had been told this the following day, by a gentleman then serving Torrice as senior squire. Yet she was a straight round queen with starry eyes—or had been, for she would be a grandmother by now, if still anything. But the King of Har had done the right thing by her pride. He had sent her, the very next day—before she could have him dispatched by poisoner, strangler, or stabber—a grand song of unrequited love and a necklace of rubies to match it. Always the perfect gentleman: that was King Torrice!
The Merriest Knight Page 30