The King turned a troubled, inquiring face to his grandson.
"It is the truth," said Sir Lorn grimly. The King looked at Peter.
"It is Christ's truth," honest Peter told him, gruffly. "Nay, Satan's, more likely! You were bewitched and bedeviled, sir. No mortal man—not the best poet in the world—could make such a song else—nor any drink from this side heaven or hell!"
"Inspiration!" cried Torrice fretfully. "Must you bawl witchcraft and deviltry just because I make a good song? I'm a poet. Pure inspiration. But as I cannot recall it—song nor incident—not clearly . . . the wine may have something to do with it. But enough of this! Let me sleep now. We all need sleep."
"May I suggest, sir, that Duke Merlin bedeviled the wine?" ventured Gervis.
"Hah—that old trickster!" the King exclaimed. "What more likely—since he brought us here on his bedeviled horseshoes? He doesn't love me, that warlock! He first tricked me long ago, in the matter of an elixir. And today he stayed Lorn's dagger from Drecker's throat. And tonight those wines! We must be on our guard every moment, at every step. But now let me sleep!"
* * *
After a little while of grumbling and uneasy tossing, the dark pavilion was silent save for the old King's fitful and uneven snores, and the occasional sighs and moans of his companions. Every one of them suffered strange dreams. Torrice fought with a knight in black armor, both of them afoot in dry sand, until arms and legs ached with weariness; and his sword broke on the black helmet, but that same stroke brought the sable knight groveling in the sand; and when Torrice tore away the helmet—behold, the thing disclosed was a fleshless, eyeless skull! He had done battle with a dead man.
And Sir Lorn wandered about the margins of autumnal tarns and in desolate mountain gorges with red sunsets flaring at their far ends. And the squires pursued damosels who turned into hags in red cloaks, and creatures of mist and moonshine, and hedge goblins and young dragons, between their hands. All were dreams of ill omen, according to the best authorities; so it was fortunate that only illusive and elusive fragments remained with the dreamers when they woke. . . .
It was another fine summer morning. Sir Lorn, who had taken only two cups of the Lady Clara's yellow wine, was the first of the four cavaliers to wake. He went out from the pavilion softly and into a new world of level sunshine and dew-washed greenery. His eyes were clear, but his mind and heart were darkened by dream-shadows. As he looked about him, the shadows withdrew. He saw Goggin and Billikin busy among the horses; and he heard them too, for the lively fellows were whistling to match the birds in the willows and orchards. Observing the increase of the herd by the five big black chargers, yesterday flashed on his mind like pictures:
Five strange horses? Five instead of six! He alone had failed to contribute a good beast to the herd and a dead rogue to the common grave! Again he saw Drecker galloping off unscathed; and he blushed with shame. To blame the warlock Merlin did not occur to his honest mind. He blamed his own faint heart. To slay a man horsed and spear in hand, or afoot and sword in hand on even terms, had never distressed him greatly, for he had never—unless in that time of which he had no clear memory?—engaged to the death with any save tyrants and murderers and false knights of sorts; but to kill one beaten and disarmed and squealing for mercy, he lacked the required hardihood. He knew this, and felt guilt and shame. And then he thought of that old questing king-errant, his grandfather, asleep there in the pavilion behind him. He had seen that champion in six mortal combats, but never had he seen him put a disarmed and beaten foe to death.
So he thought less shamefully now of having spared that false knight.
* * *
Young Gervis issued from the pavilion and greeted his master with a merry face. Sir Lorn regarded him with surprise, having expected to see pallid cheeks and bleary eyes.
"It was fairy wine of a certainty, sir, for even if I had drunk as little last night as you did, I swear I'd feel no brighter than I do," babbled the squire. "And I pray the same for the King and Peter. I have suffered some horrid dreams—but they have fled already, glory be to the holy saints! And now to bathe and shave, sir." "Shave what?" Lorn asked gravely.
"I have numerous sprouts, sir," Gervis informed him proudly: "and 'tis a full sennight since I last laid steel to them. And may I venture to suggest that a touch of the razor might become you as well, sir; for I seem to remember having noticed something last night—and that by the dazzle of tapers. We may meet her again—the lady of the manor, that is to say!—at any moment; and in broad daylight, I hope. That's to say, I hope the King doesn't intend to ride away without seeing her again."
Lorn fingered his chin and cheeks thoughtfully, and puckered his brow, before he replied:
"I hope not. He can't do that. She—these defenseless people—are still in peril. It is my fault, for letting Drecker escape. So it is my duty to remain till all danger from Drecker is past. He will see that, at a word from me—my grandfather will. And I think you are right about my face. But my razor is duller than a hedger's hook."
"You may use mine. It is of Damascus steel and honed to a whisper. Come down to the river, sir, and well both use it."
So they went down to a screened pool in the river and bathed and shaved. They were joined there by Peter, who raised his eyebrows for a moment in acknowledgment of their smooth faces, but reported matter-of-factly that he had inspected the horse-lines and found all correct.
"The shoes?" murmured Lorn.
"Every shoe still firm in its place," Peter assured him.
"Is the King awake yet?" asked Lorn.
"He was combing essence of lavender into his beard when I saw him last," said Peter.
Gervis laughed and said: "A dash of the same, and a touch of the razor, would not be amiss with you, my Peterkin."
Peter nodded, stepped close to his fellow squire, took the razor of Damascus from unresisting fingers, and a little vial of crystal from Gervis' wallet with his other hand, and knelt and stooped to the mirror of the pool—all without a word or a smile. Merry young Gervis laughed again.
"But that's not lavender, my Peterkin! 'Tis essence of laylock.
"Anything will serve but essence of horse," muttered Peter.
Gervis winked at Sir Lorn.
"There's sorcery in it, by my halidom!" he cried, and laughed again. "And sorcery more potent than any of old Duke Merlin's hocus-pocus. When did our Peterkin ever before prefer lavender or laylock to honest horse?"
"I don't agree with you," Lorn said gravely. "I think all this babbling of witchcraft is childish—in this case. It is all quite human and natural—especially for Peter to become more particular about his toilet, no matter how suddenly. As for your fairy wine—it was good wine, pure and old, that's all. There's no sorcery here."
"I but joked, sir," Gervis replied. "But you cannot deny enchantment. There was enchantment last night of more than the juice of earthy grapes, else how did the King come to make that song, and sing it like an angel, without knowing anything about it?"
"Inspiration—as he told us himself," said the knight; but his tone was more troubled than assured. "He is, in truth, a great poet. I admit that the wine he drank made him forget the performance when we told him of it last night—but I think we shall find that he can recall it now, and even the words and air of the song."
They returned to the pavilion, leaving Peter still splashing and scraping.
"Look there!" gasped Gervis, gripping his master's arm.
They stood and looked. The curtains of the pavilion's doorway were drawn back to right and left, and King Torrice sat smiling out at them across a table bright with napery and silver dishes and polished horns and flagons. Behind him stood the manikin Joseph and one of the ancient footmen.
"Fried trout and hot scones!" he cried. "Strawberries and clotted cream. Brown ale and dandelion wine. Lady Clara sent it over. Come and eat, dear lads. No time to spare. Where's Peter?"
"No time to spare?" Lorn echoed. "What d'ye mean, sir
? You cannot possibly intend to take the road today, dear sir— and that parlous rogue I spared, foul Drecker, still at large?"
"Certainly not!" retorted the King, fretfully, with a quick change of countenance for the worse. "We recognize our responsibilities, I hope. I said nothing of taking to the road again." His merry smile flashed again. "We are to attend Lady Clara on a tour of inspection of her demesne, to see what damage it has suffered. She sent word of it with our breakfasts. Half-armor and swords. All six of us mounted."
Both Sir Lorn and Gervis looked their relief. They took their places at the table and ate and drank as if for a wager. Peter arrived, smelling like a spring garden, and with his face shining like a summer apple; and upon hearing the King's news, he sat down and fairly gobbled and guzzled.
They paraded in the forecourt of the great house within the hour. Sir Lorn was up on his white stallion, but the King rode the black charger from which he had so recently hurled the late Sir Barl. The squires were on black warhorses too, and the grooms Goggin and Billikin forked the squires' lively hackneys. All six wore breastplates and long swords, but there was not a helmet among them. The King's, Lorn's, Peter's, and Gervis' caps were of crimson velvet, and the grooms' were of leather. The gentlemen sported long feathers in theirs, the knights' fastened with gold brooches and the squires' with silver. The Lady Clara appeared from the gloom within and paused under the arch of the doorway, with the Damosel Mary, seemingly old enough to be her grandmother, blinking over her shoulder. The King and Sir Lorn and the squires came to earth and louted low, caps in hand, like one man. The lady blushed like a rose and curtseyed like a blowing daffodil. She was encased in samite of white and gold, and from the white wimple which framed her face soared a pointed hat like a steeple with veils of golden gauze floating about it like morning clouds.
"Our jennets were stabled beyond the wall—and carried off to the forest, saddles and all; so Mary and I must go afoot," she cried in pretty distress.
"Nay, our horses are at your service," the King told her. "Choose any two that take your fancy, my dear."
"Gramercy!" she laughed. "But the saddles?"
"Hah!" Torrice exclaimed; and he regarded the great war saddles with baffled looks.
Then Gervis spoke up, in dulcet tones.
"If I may venture a suggestion, Your Majesty and Your Ladyship, I suggest pillions. And may I add that this newly acquired steed of mine is as gentle and easy-gaited as a jennet for all his size and strength, and is therefore peculiarly suited to the task of carrying double."
Torrice eyed him dubiously, then turned a glance of doting inquiry upon Dame Clara.
"The very thing!" she cried, with a swift widening and half-veiling of her multicolored eyes; and she turned her head and called for two pillions.
(Lorn thought: I can't make out their color, even by daylight; and they are not always black by candlelight. Something with a sharp, hot edge stirred in his brain. Memory? A thin splinter of it from that lost time by which he was haunted night and day, and yet of which nothing remained to him save the sense of loss? He tried, fearfully yet hopefully, to remember. He racked brain and heart cruelly but in vain. He sighed.)
Two of the ancient footmen brought two pillions and followed their mistress and the Damosel Mary down the steps. Dame Clara, moving very slowly because of the attentions of King Torrice and the squires, inspected and seemed to consider each of the four chargers, and spared gentle glances even for the hackneys upon which Goggin and Billikin sat like seasoned men-at-arms.
"May I sit behind you?" she asked the King.
His eyes shone, and his lavender-scented whiskers rippled. He strapped a pillion to the back of his saddle with his own hands, mounted with but little apparent effort, leaned, and held down his right hand. A hand touched his, a foot touched his stirruped foot, and she came up to the pillion like a white bird. From that soft perch she pointed at Sir Lorn's saddle with her left hand, while holding fast to the King's belt with her right. And so it was that Damosel Mary had a higher seat than the lady of the manor, by half a hand. Lorn's face wore a polite smile which was entirely muscular. His eyes were blank. Gervis look dismally dashed, and Peter grinned derisively. As the little cavalcade moved off, the manikin Joseph leaped up behind Peter.
"What else would happen to me?" Peter grumbled.
"Worse might have happened to you, my friend," said the dwarf. "Would you liefer it was the big damosel gripping you about the middle, as she even now grips the young knight? You might do far worse than ride double with poor Joseph."
"I am glad to hear it, since I seem to have no choice in the matter," said the squire. "But will you be so kind as to tell me why?" he added.
"There are many reasons why," the dwarf replied. "One is, I was born with seven wits, whereas you and your grand friends have only five—and those somewhat deranged in the cases of your old king and your young knight. But I was born with seven, but at a sad cost to flesh and bone. If I had your stature, King Arthur Pendragon would be taking his orders from me."
"I believe it," said Peter, with mock solemnity. "I feel your power and see it in your eye, but I don't quite understand it. I never before met a person possessed with seven wits. Is it the power of knowledge or wisdom or cunning?"
"Of all three," the dwarf answered, complacently. "I know everything; I understand everything; and I can think as quick and crooked as any witch or wizard."
"In that case, you would know Duke Merlin if you saw him."
"Yes, it was that old warlock brought you here, though he pretended to be a holy palmer. But he didn't fool me. He drank two quarts of wine and took the road to Camelot. He said he was going to Tintagel, but I knew better."
"You are wonderful, Master Joseph. Now tell me why you and Merlin brought us to this place?"
"To rid the lady of her oppressors."
"So they are friends—your mistress and Merlin?"
After a moment's hesitation, Joseph said: "No, it was old Sir Gayling, the stargazer, who was Merlin's friend."
"And yet Sir Gayling was stabbed to death in a rose garden, while his friend the powerful magician played his hocus-pocus elsewhere," sneered Peter.
"As to that, my friend, I could enlighten you if I would, but I know without trying that it would be too much for your five poor wits," the dwarf replied, in a voice so insufferably supercilious that Peter was hard put to control an impulse to reach a hand behind him and brush the little man to the ground. "However," Joseph resumed, "I shall satisfy your curiosity concerning the Dame Clara."
But, at that very moment, King Torrice drew rein at a word from his passenger; whereupon Sir Lorn drew rein, and Peter drew rein, and the dwarf slid to the ground, and every rider drew rein. Peter and Gervis fairly flung themselves from their saddles in desperate competition for the honor of dismounting Dame Clara from the King's pillion. Gervis won. The lady descended to earth like a feather, and the King followed her down smartly.
All were down now save Sir Lorn and his passenger from the back of the mighty Bahram. The knight could not dismount in the orthodox manner while Damosel Mary remained up behind him; and he was not in the mood to sacrifice his own dignity, not to mention proud Bahram's, by quitting the saddle with a forward, instead of a backward, swing of the right leg. His grandfather and the squires were too intent upon Lady Clara to perceive his difficulty; and it was not until the dwarf had pinched both the squires, and Peter had come—however ungraciously—to his rescue, that he dismounted.
Afoot, they inspected a farmstead in which the farmer had been murdered and from which five beeves had been driven into the forest by the Drecker gang and there handed over to confederate but less daring outlaws, and a bag of silver pieces taken and pouched by that rogue knight himself. Next, they inspected a second farm from which a dairymaid and cheeses and barrels of ale had been carried off after the murder of a stubborn cowherd; and a third in which the master had been tickled with knives— he was still in bandages—until he had handed over all h
is life's hoardings of ducats and crowns. And all this was no more than a representative fraction of the villanies perpetrated by the scoundrel Drecker.
"I don't understand this," said King Torrice, who had suffered more footwork and more emotional strain than he could endure with manly resignation. "Are your people mice? Nay, for mice will fight. Then why didn't the rogues make a job of it, instead of only killing and thieving a little every here and there? Why didn't he put your own house and household to the torch and sword? Hah!—now I recall what the manikin told me—that the foul Drecker aspired to your hand!"
He leaned against his horse and clapped a hand to his brow. The lady hung her head and touched a very small handkerchief to her eyes. Sir Lorn moved close to her; and if he thought, it was subconsciously. Without a word, and with a dazed, faraway look in his eyes, he laid a hand on her nearer arm and propelled and guided her, gently but firmly, a few paces aside to where his great white stallion stood watching them. King Torrice lowered his hand from his fretful brow and blinked after them, but before he could utter a word of inquiry or protest, his squire Peter spoke at his shoulder.
"Sir, I've but now heard it all from her dwarf. Let us mount and ride into the fields, and I´ll tell you the whole story."
There was no argument. The King mounted with alacrity, though a trifle stiffly. He was eager to hear what trusty Peter had heard from the lady's dwarf, and even more eager to get his weight off his poor feet.
Chapter Six
The Dwarf Told Peter and Peter Told the King
The Dame Clara (so Peter told King Torrice) was one of four daughters of a gentleman of remote kinship with the late rich and star-struck old philosopher of Joyous Vale. The father, when young and single, had cut a dash in the train of old King Uther Pendragon for a few years, but had been cheated out of all his patrimony by certain fashionable companions; and too hot of head to retire from court gracefully, he had brawled with, and mortally wounded, one of the cheaters in the King's own hall; and so he had fled for his very life and not stayed his flight save to sleep, and to eat when he could find food, until he was across the Marches of Wales.
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