The Knight of the Sacred Lake

by Rosalind Miles

  In one inspired move, he succeeded in getting his back against Tirre’s. Back to back, the two brothers fought nobly, but not for long. Both wounded, and one still bound, they were no match for half a dozen brutes hungry for the kill. Within minutes a rain of furious blows had driven Lavain to his knees. Tirre was brought down by a cudgel in the stomach, and lay on the ground coughing blood.

  You fools, thought the leader, with something like despair. I’d already given you the chance of a good clean death. Now the men will make your dying last for hours. Well, so be it. There’s nothing can save you now.

  Still, he’d give the order just the same. “Hang them!” he said.

  The deputy looked at him. “They’ve had their fun,” he said. “It’s our turn now.”

  The leader turned away. “Hang them!” he shouted to the men.

  All stared impassively. None moved to obey.

  “You see?” said the deputy with interest, waving at the grinning ranks.

  A dull fear fastened on the leader’s heart. He had felt this moment coming for far too long. He rounded on his deputy, feeling for the cold comfort of his sword.

  “Do you challenge me?” he barked.

  The deputy stepped toward him, his arms hanging down, his own sword and dagger swinging lightly by his side.

  “No,” he said easily.

  “Good.” The leader felt an inward spurt of relief. He stuck out his chin as the deputy approached, then glanced around the band. “Let’s hear it, then. Am I the leader here, or you?”

  “I am.”

  The unseen dagger flashed. The leader’s eyes came to a pinpoint of pain, and blood frothed from his mouth. The deputy pulled the blade from his leader’s heart, and watched the dark red stream as the dead man crumpled slowly to the ground. Nothing moved.

  The deputy stirred the heap of rags on the ground with the toe of his boot. Then he advanced on Tirre and Lavain, his hands still dripping blood. His grin was terrible. “Now then,” he said. “Who’s first?”

  ON THE EDGE of the forest, thick pools of darkness gathered under every tree. Lancelot drew his horse to a halt and felt the beginnings of despair. Parting from Guenevere had surely been enough. Did he have to send Bors and Lionel away as well?

  He shook his head. He knew only that traveling with his cousins had been more than he could bear. Each day he faced the growing sense that his love for Guenevere had blighted their lives too. And he did not know whether Bors’ grim incomprehension or Lionel’s ready sympathy had been hardest to bear. In the end he had sent them away. They had left without protest, a clear sign that they, too, felt the misery they were in.

  And now—

  He drew a deep breath and looked around without hope. Not an inn or a castle for miles, nowhere for a stranger to rest his weary head. It was not wise, he knew, for a lone traveler to venture by night in the wood, but he did not care. There would be shelter under the trees, and some rest for his aching heart. He closed his heels on his horse’s sides, and the willing beast moved off. “Onward!” he whispered. “On!”

  The first he knew of the disturbance ahead was a faint sound or two reaching him through the dark. He slowed his pace, and eased his horse in the direction of the noise. In a clearing ahead he could see two young men tied half-naked to a tree, their bodies covered in blood. Blood puddled around their feet from countless knife cuts to their chests and arms. Surrounding them were a pack of their tormentors, and even from a distance Lancelot could see their savage glee.

  Keeping close to the side of the track, he progressed as silently as he could. The horse’s hooves made little sound on the grass above the raucous shouts and laughter of the men. Their attention was divided between their sport with the two young knights and the spoils they had seized from the saddlebags. One cavorted in a shirt of silver mail taken from Lavain’s back. Another was drawing Tirre’s mailed gauntlets on and off with the delight of a child. But none of them noticed Lancelot in the gloaming till the great white horse came down on them with the force of an avenging ghost.

  “Benoic! A moi, Benoic!”

  Chanting the ancient battle cry of his house, Lancelot put the heavy horse into a gallop and drew his sword. He swept into the clearing, swinging his sword like an ax, then using the point to stab this way and that. One outlaw fell like a stone, transfixed through the throat. A second dropped where he stood, his head almost severed from his neck.

  “Every man for himself!” The outlaw band scattered screaming to the winds, with Lancelot in pursuit. Two of the fleeing men were brought down with blows to the head. Another crawled off into the undergrowth to die, a torrent of red spouting from his chest.

  “God bless you, stranger!” croaked Tirre, his lips black with blood. Lancelot pulled his horse’s head around in furious haste, and renewed his attack.

  At last only the former deputy remained, standing his ground.

  “Surrender, wretch!” cried Lancelot from his horse. “You are defeated, throw down your sword.”

  “Not so, lord,” the outlaw replied, his eyes bright. “There’s no honor to you to kill a man on the ground. I challenge you to single combat, man to man.”

  Lancelot nodded. “Agreed.” He sheathed his sword, and prepared to dismount.

  Lavain found his voice. “Beware him, knight!” he called weakly, through a mouthful of blood. “He killed his own leader treacherously without a fight. He’ll do the same to you!”

  As Lavain spoke, the outlaw sprang at Lancelot and stabbed him in the thigh. Then he threw both arms around Lancelot’s waist and dragged him to the ground. As he felt himself falling, Lancelot grabbed for his dagger, and struck straight and true. The blade found his attacker’s throat and severed the main artery in the neck. The outlaw expired as his leader had, surprised by death.

  Lancelot lay on the ground entangled in his dead adversary’s limbs. Above him, the white flank of his horse was dark with the blood from his leg. Lancelot heaved himself up and limped over to the tree to release Tirre and Lavain. Bloody and deathly cold, they stumbled out of their bonds.

  “We owe you our lives,” said Tirre, weak with wonderment.

  Lancelot waved away his trembling thanks. “Any knight would have done the same.”

  Lavain took his hand. “What may we call you, sir?”

  Lancelot hesitated. “My name is nothing. And the life I led by that name is nothing but sadness to me now.” He frowned at them anxiously. “Will you allow me to withhold it from you?”

  The brothers exchanged a bruised smile of disbelief.

  “Sir, we will deny you nothing in the world,” Lavain said earnestly. “But you must not deny us this. Our father’s house lies on the far side of the forest, not an hour from here. I beg you, be our guest for as long as you please to stay.”

  Lancelot looked away. He did not know what to say.

  “You must, sir,” Tirre ground out through chattering teeth. He gestured toward Lancelot’s bleeding thigh. “If nothing else, you’ll need treatment for that wound.”

  Lavain looked at Lancelot with concern. “The wretch who attacked you cut deeper than he knew.”

  Lancelot nodded bleakly. The outlaw’s knife had struck through to the bone. Infection would follow from the rusty blade, he was sure. Grimly he took the girdle from around his waist, pressed together the two edges of raw flesh, and bound up the wound.

  “You’ll come, sir, say you will?” Tirre’s young face was full of hope. “Our father will want to see the savior of his sons.”

  Lavain smiled. “And our little sister will never forgive us if we let the hero who saved her brothers get away. Like all girls, she dreams of the knights of King Arthur’s court, as I guess you must be. I beg you, sir, to come.”

  Lancelot bowed his head. The pain in his leg made it hard for him to speak. “I must accept. But first let me get you some covering from the night air. You are sorely wounded too.”

  Hastily they assembled their belongings and retrieved what they needed fr
om the forest floor. Concealing his own pain, Lancelot assisted the two injured knights to mount. With an effort that made him sweat in the bitter cold, he heaved himself onto his horse. Already he could feel the fever invading his bones.

  “So, sirs!” he said, summoning up a cheerful smile. “To your father’s house, then?”

  “We call it Astolat,” returned Lavain, with an answering smile.

  “To Astolat,” beamed Tirre. “Our father and sister will rejoice to see you, sir.”

  The night settled on them like a sleeping thing. Slowly they picked their way down the forest path. All the light snufflings of the woodland soothed Lancelot as if he, too, were a forest creature going to his lair.

  Ah, Guenevere, he mourned deep in his soul, you fear my adventuring will bring me other women, who will want me in their beds. But tonight I have saved two lives, and my only reward is to tell tales of knighthood to beguile a child. Lavain’s little sister, the young maid of Astolat, will not let me off lightly, I know. But my faith to you will not be threatened by her.

  Watching Lancelot carefully, Lavain took up his reins. His heart overflowed with joy. Wait, sister, see who’s here, look who we’ve brought for you!

  It was worth it, he decided, the outlaws’ beating, the knife wounds, the attack. For years he had wanted to bring home a knight for Elaine. At last he could make her childhood wish come true.

  And though he called her his little sister, she was a woman grown, and a fair one too. Perhaps this handsome knight might care for her? Weaving a gossamer tissue of hopes, Lavain allowed himself to dream.

  CHAPTER 32

  The two hooded figures trod carefully down the hill. The first snow of winter had clothed the island in white, and a mantle of ice had all but locked up the frozen waters of its inland sea. Brother Boniface raised his head and savored the biting air. Ahead of them the sky was showing he first late signs of dawn, as the days ran down to the very depths of the year.

  “Christmas on Avalon,” he breathed ecstatically. “And this year for the first time we may celebrate in full. Could there be any greater blessing on our faith?”

  “Perhaps.” The voice of his brother monk was dubious. To Giorgio, there was only one city in the world where Christ’s day could properly be kept. Rome! The very thought was a stabbing pain. When would he see the City of God again?

  “But we do good work here, brother, do we not?” Boniface asked anxiously, watching his companion’s sallow face. “We have done as we were ordered, won the Lady’s favor and gained permission for Christian worship on the Sacred Isle. With each month we have made some small advance. Surely we fulfill God’s will?”

  “Perhaps,” Giorgio said again indifferently. The warm olive bloom he had when he arrived had left him, and his handsome face looked lifeless and gray. From October onward, his hands and bare sandaled feet had been inflamed with chilblains, now cracked and bleeding painfully into the snow.

  Onward, thought Boniface, onward in the name of the Lord. Aloud he said, “The first Christmas on Avalon is a cause for joy in heaven. How many centuries has this been a pagan shrine? And now we can celebrate the birth of our Lord in this place.”

  He lifted his head and threw back his hood, careless of the cold gnawing at his ears.

  “By next Christmas, brother,” he said jovially, “we shall have a true congregation here, I do not doubt. A small one, to be sure, and mainly composed of women, for we can only work with what we have to hand. But Saint Paul himself did not disdain to work with females, even though they are God’s lesser kind. He used them widely in the founding of the Church. So may we use these benighted women, and help them redeem the lower nature that God ordained for them. God’s purpose will prevail.”

  He looked around him with an expansive sigh. On all sides, a million tiny glimmers of the rising dawn had set the snow on fire. In the apple groves of the hillside below the frost had made a delicate tracery on every branch, and the trees held up silvery fingers to the sky. Yet even now the faint scent of blossom lingered on the hill, and the white doves called from the shelter of the pines. This was a place of magic, Boniface acknowledged humbly, his soul aglow. And he and Giorgio were bringing it to the Lord.

  Giorgio watched moodily out of the corner of his eye. Living in close confinement with the fair-faced, open-souled Boniface had taught the Italian to read his fellow monk’s every thought. He loves this place, and he feels the joy of the Lord, thought Giorgio. Whereas I pine for Rome, and the warm darkness behind the altar where Tomaso waited with his kisses like nectarine...

  At once he felt ashamed. Resolutely he put away all his resentment of the burning cold, the torture of his poor bare sandaled feet, the deadness of the fingers huddled in his sleeves, and forced a smile. “How shall we keep Christ’s feast?”

  “A fast on the eve, I think,” Boniface replied seriously, “and a vigil all night, to remember the Virgin’s pains. After that we should hold a High Mass for all who come.”

  Giorgio could not keep the sourness from his soul. “Who will come to Christ’s Mass on Avalon?”

  “One or two of the young maidens, to be sure,” said Boniface confidently. “Those who have visited us for spiritual counsel over time. And a few of the Lake villagers too, that is my hope. Some of them seem ready to move out of their darkness into the light of God’s day.”

  “You think so?”

  Giorgio had yet to see in the young maidens who visited their cell any signs of spiritual growth. He knew, even if Boniface did not, that the fair, blue-eyed youth and his dark companion with tawny skin were an intriguing challenge to these girls. To Goddess worshipers, men vowed to celibacy were merely men who had never known the love their Great One gave. The spirit, he feared, had little to do with it. It was their bodies these women were interested in.

  As the Great Whore herself most definitely was not, Giorgio mused. Since the hard-won audience with the Lady of the Lake, neither of them had seen her again. If their two holy fathers, plotting from London and Rome, had expected the Lady to take either of them to her bed, they had never been more wrong. Yet the old always love to blame the young. In the eyes of London and Rome, Giorgio knew, he and Boniface had failed.

  And Giorgio saw, too, that Boniface had no idea of this. His hopes for the Sacred Isle did not end with Christ’s Mass. He saw himself on Avalon till the end of his life, winning souls for God. Plans for the coming feast and for the years ahead tumbled from his lips as they walked along. Giorgio had to nudge him to draw his attention to a figure coming down the path.

  Stepping firmly toward them through the snow was Nemue, the chief maiden of Avalon and the Lady’s closest aide. Like her mistress, she wore only light drifting robes, and though her head was covered, her arms were bare. She must have some enchantment against the cold. And how old was she? Giorgio wondered for the thousandth time. He would go on wondering, he knew, for Nemue’s small, secret face gave nothing away.

  “Greetings,” she said shortly. Her voice was like the croak of the night fowl on the marsh. “You go to the jetty too?”

  They looked at her in surprise. “No, lady, why?” said Boniface, with sudden concern.

  In reply she pointed to the edge of the lake below. At the foot of the Tor, the grass sloped down to a stone-built causeway protruding out into the frozen water like a monster of the deep drowsing half-submerged. Tying up at the jetty as Nemue spoke was one of the shallow Lake boats that plied to and fro between the island and the countryside around. Today, only the goodwill of the boatmen had brought it through the frozen mere. In a matter of hours, Avalon would be locked in ice.

  Disembarking from the boat were two men in black gowns. “Monks of our order?” Boniface gasped.

  “You did not know?” The sound of Nemue’s voice at his elbow was half a laugh, half a sigh.

  “What are they doing here?” cried Boniface.

  His pale skin had taken on a flush of distress. He set off running down to the jetty as he spoke.

&nb
sp; Giorgio followed him as fast as he dared. Could it be—? He wanted to laugh and cheer, to do cartwheels in the snow. But getting safely down the frozen slope was the main task now.

  “Hail, brothers!” Boniface cried as he approached, raising his hand. There was no answering salutation from the dock. Instead they met the hard-faced stare of two older men.

  “You’re Boniface? We’re here to take your place,” said the taller one abruptly, as they came up. His lean, unpleasant face was set in an attitude of cold disregard, and his small pale eyes looked out of a deep well of contempt within. Reaching into his baggage, he retrieved a scroll and pressed it into Boniface’s hand.

  “Orders from the Father Abbot in London. You’re relieved of the mission here, and sent back right away. You”—he nodded to Giorgio, and gestured to the boat—“you’re to go with him back to London, then on to your church in Rome. The Lake’s freezing, but you’ll get out today.”

  Rome! Giorgio burst into floods of ecstatic tears. Now he would see Tomaso and the city of his heart once again. There was nothing here to hold them back. They would be packed and gone within an hour.

  “Joy to you!” he wept.

  Beside him Boniface stood dry-eyed, numb with shock. “Who are you?” he mouthed.

  The tall monk moved his mouth into a smile. “I’m Brother Sylvester, and this is Iachimo.”

  The monk beside him nodded with an empty grin. Short and squat, he had a coarse, hostile air, and a deep scar marked his bare tonsured head. He pointed to his colleague. “Syl-vester,” he said. He turned the mocking finger toward himself. “Ia-chi-mo,” he repeated, lingering on each sound.

  Boniface flushed, but tried to smile. “Well, brothers, we surely do not need to leave today. If you’re coming to join us, you’ll need our help and guidance here. We have done much—”

  “But alas, not enough.” Sylvester’s cold voice cut through the desperate plea. “Read your orders, friend.” He widened his eyes unpleasantly. “They do not come from me. Like you, I am only God’s messenger in this place. And the message is—you leave.”