The Knight With Two Swords

by Edward M. Erdelac

  “Some quest for Arthur?”

  “No,” said Balin. “There is an evil knight there, whose blood will cure Count Oduin’s afflicted son.” He didn’t think the vengeance of Sir Herlews worth mentioning just then.

  “A blood quest?” Brulen said with a hint of surprise. “Not the usual fare for a Christian knight, is it?”

  “I see nothing wrong in bringing God’s justice to a pagan villain,” Balin said, eyeing his brother sideways, repaying his mockery a bit.

  “Every man thinks himself justified and no man a villain.”

  “Sage words from Brulen The Sinister,” Balin quipped.

  “If our nom de plumes are any indication of our character and judgment, what does yours say about you, Balin The Savage?”

  They stared at each other a moment, and Balin wondered if they were still joking.

  Then Brulen chuckled, and Balin felt easy again and laughed too.

  Yet something had been gnawing at him, and as they worked on in silence, he couldn’t hold it to himself any longer.

  “Brulen, before he died, Lot told me to seek out a painting at St. Stephen’s in Camelot. I saw it. It was of a serpent attacking Arthur in his bedchamber, and a servant in black was dumping a nest of eggs into the sea. I saw Lot represented by the double headed eagle, attacking. A priest told me the whole composition sprang from a dream of Arthur’s.”

  “Gernemant used to tell me that the dreams of the guilty are the whispers of conscience they ignore by day,” Brulen said grimly.

  “Then Dagonet told me…”

  “Dagonet,” Brulen scoffed. “Does that clown still serve his master?”

  “He told me that the number of eggs was the same as the number of the rebel kings who had died.”

  Brulen clenched his jaw. “What else did Sir Dagonet say?”

  “He told me my heart would be broken twice over if ever I learned the meaning of the painting. But I don’t see how I ever shall. You know I don’t have a mind for puzzles. Yet I think you know the answer.”

  Brulen turned on him, eyes fiery, his previous mirth burned away. “I had asked you not to pursue this line with me. Twice now, by myself and by Dagonet, you have been urged not to dwell on this. You have a good heart, brother. A hero’s heart. If you would keep it, stop.”

  Did he, though? Balin wondered.

  “You know Dagonet. That is why you share the secret, isn’t it? What do the eggs mean, Brulen? What do they have to do with why the kings rebelled? What does it all mean?”

  “It means, brother,” Brulen snapped, “that once, on a May Day, I did your beloved king a service. The last I will ever do for him, or any other king, so help me mercy.”

  Balin stared at his brother’s back. He was trembling as he worked to cinch the saddle of his horse. He wanted to reach out, to touch him, to give him some assurance. Yet, how could he? He did not know what troubled him and was baffled by this revelation. For surely there had been a revelation, one which it pained Brulen to speak of. Yet, what had been revealed, Balin cursed his dimwitted mind, he couldn’t guess.

  May Day. What had Brulen done for Arthur once upon a May Day?

  “I am going to pack feed for the journey,” Brulen announced and stormed away to the stable shed to fetch grain, empty feed sacks over his shoulder.

  Balin watched him go, frustrated.

  “Will your brother be riding with us to Lystenoyse, Sir Balin?” Count Oduin called from across the courtyard.

  Balin opened his mouth to answer that he didn’t know, when Merlin strode over from some unobserved spot in the courtyard, fully clothed now, and once again bearing his staff.

  “Lystenoyse?” he said, frowning. “Why are you going to Lystenoyse?”

  “Merlin!” Balin spat angrily. “You abandoned us last night and now you have the gall to show your face?”

  “I was momentarily distracted by the appearance of someone I had been keeping an eye out for. It was urgent and couldn’t be helped. Besides, you all seem fine.”

  “Sir Garnysh is dead!”

  “Yes, I know,” said Merlin, “but Sir Garnysh’s pride had dug him a grave some time ago,” he went on, touching the side of his nose impishly, “and his course was quite unalterable. As is yours, if you do not at last heed my advice and be rid of that wicked sword of yours. I suppose it is the reason you are going to Lystenoyse.”

  “I’m on a quest,” Balin said. “To avenge the Lady Lorna Maeve’s knight and bring her killer to justice.”

  Merlin glanced across the courtyard to where Count Oduin and Lorna Maeve sat atop their horses waiting. He looked disinterested at Balin, then narrowed his eyes, looked back again, and came away with a broad grin.

  “You are in love!” he exclaimed.

  Balin’s eyes widened involuntarily and he shushed the impious wizard. First Count Oduin, then Lorna Maeve herself, and Brulen, and now Merlin. Was he that transparent?

  “Oh, but it’s true! It’s all about you!” Merlin continued. “Well, the beginnings of it, anyway, for you do not yet know what love is. But what of that?”

  “Keep your voice down!” Balin snarled.

  “Hah! Not a hint of denial, though. Well, this is something. This is a start,” he mumbled to himself. “Isn’t she the same one you saw through my hedge? How interesting. Yes, maybe there’s hope yet. Nimue’s hate put the sword in your hand, maybe love can take it from you.”

  “Who’s Nimue?” Balin asked, even more confused than ever.

  “Never mind, never mind,” said Merlin. “Let me worry about her. Tell me of this woman now. Does she reciprocate your affection?”

  “She loves a dead man,” Balin murmured sadly.

  Merlin rolled his eyes. “Too much love of death these days and not enough vested in the living. This business with Lanceor and Colombe…”

  Balin felt his heart seized by a fist. The shame brimmed in him again. “How did you know about that?”

  “What matters is this,” said Merlin, taking him by the shoulders. “It is not yet out of your hands. Abandon your quest. Abandon all questing. Choose the life of the one you love or take that life yourself. In your right hand, the sword of a poor knight, unsung, but true. In your left, the curse of a storied hero, born from the death of your mother. Choose!”

  “My mother?” Balin hissed.

  What did his mother’s death have to do with any of this?

  “Balin…” said Brulen, coming out of the stable behind him.

  He turned and saw his brother. Merlin released him. Brulen looked past Balin, and seeing the enchanter, he scowled, but in that same moment, his face grew slack and he dropped the four full sacks of feed, so they burst open on the cobblestones.

  Balin looked back and saw Brych the pied raven, flapping off over the trees.

  When he looked again at Brulen, his brother was reeling, and leaned hard against a support post, apparently to stop himself from falling. Balin went to him and gripped his arms. “Are you alright? What’s the matter?”

  “Balin…” Brulen mumbled. “Merlin.”

  Balin began to relay the wizard’s explanation as to why he had left them the night before, but Brulen shook his head furiously.

  “No, no. That mottled raven. That was Merlin.”

  Well, that was obvious, wasn’t it? Hadn’t Brulen seen him change?

  Brulen seemed to gather himself, breath coming out in wrathful huffs that flared his nostrils, until he expelled an anguished cry, “MERLIN, YOU BASTARD!”

  It startled even the horses of Count Oduin and Lorna Maeve across the courtyard.

  “My God, what is it?” Balin said, shaking his brother. “What is it?”

  “That damned villain!” Brulen hissed, and tears of rage spilled from his red eyes.

  Balin could only embrace him, and it was a clumsy embrace of steel against steel, like feeling for the flow of a river through shoes.

  “Brother, speak to me,” Balin urged. “What is the matter?”

  Brulen his
sed in his ear. “How could you not know? Have you ever seen a raven like that? Ever?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Think, you imbecile! Have you ever seen a raven mottled in color like that one?”

  Brulen had never spoken to him so harshly, in such a passion.

  “Yes,” he mumbled in confusion.

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know, all over.”

  “No, you haven’t! There are no such birds. Think, Balin. Where have you seen it?”

  “In my prison window at Camelot…in the forest of Bedegraine…”

  “All those times,” Brulen interrupted. “It was Merlin, wasn’t it? Now think back. Have you ever seen a bird like that when it was not Merlin? What about that day?”

  There was no question of what day Brulen meant. Throughout their lives, in the history of days, that day had always been the day they had seen their mother burn. There was no other day, really worth remembering. How could there ever be? What day could ever hope to measure up to that day?

  “In the tree, Balin! Don’t you remember?”

  He did remember, the pied raven cawing in the boughs of the apple tree on the hill overlooking their cottage.

  The raven that had flown in the face of Gallet.

  The pied raven, which was Merlin.

  Merlin had been there the day their mother died.

  “He’s been there! Even on that day. He’s been there our whole lives, the fiend!” Brulen babbled. He shoved away from Balin, who was too dumbstruck to react. He went straight to his horse and practically vaulted up into the saddle, for all his weight. The horse reared, but Brulen fought him down, savagely drawing the reins.

  “Where are you going?” Balin whispered.

  “Do you know what I did for him and his damned boy king, Balin? Do you know what I became?” he screamed.

  He didn’t. He still didn’t understand.

  “Where are you going?” Balin asked again, louder this time, finding his voice.

  Brulen shouted to his horse and spurred it, and went galloping down the forest road away from Aspetta Ventura.

  Balin could only watch him go.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Sir Balin puzzled mightily over what had transpired. He did so on the back of Ironprow through Carteloise Forest, as he and Count Oduin and Lorna Maeve left the shadow of the castle of the Leprous Lady.

  He could not answer his companions’ questions about Merlin and the unexpected flight of his brother. He had no answers. None at all.

  He rode in quiet at the head of their trio, turned inward, thinking not even of Lorna Maeve, only of serpents and wizards, eggs and kings, and May Day.

  Once upon a May Day, Brulen had done Merlin’s king a service, he’d said.

  One upon a May Day.

  And something about May Day stuck in the mire of his hopelessly whirling thoughts.

  May Day.

  Dagonet had told him: “May the day never come when you understand. May the day never come.”

  Dagonet had been trying to tell him, hadn’t he?

  May the Day.

  But he was no closer to understanding the mystery.

  The revelation about Merlin distracted him further.

  Merlin had seen their mother die when they were boys. He had been there. Balin had always known about Merlin’s ties to Avalon, but Brulen had told him the Lady Lile of The Lake had been their aunt. Merlin dealt so closely with the ladies of Avalon. Maybe it was understandable that he had been there. He had flown at Gallet, tried to stop the burning in a small way.

  Yet Merlin could have stopped the entire affair. He was certainly powerful enough. Why hadn’t he?

  The curse of a hero, born from the death of your mother, Merlin had said.

  It was too much for him to think about.

  Mulling over this riddle made the time pass quickly. The sun sank, and they were well away from Carteloise and in a deep green valley when Count Oduin suggested they stop and sleep, near a small lake. On the shore of the lake there was a twisted old oak half leaning on a tall, rounded, moss covered sarsen menhir.

  Distracted, Balin tended to the horses while Lorna Maeve built the fire and Count Oduin brewed a broth that was bubbling by the time he joined them at the fire.

  Count Oduin said grace and then ladled out the warm broth, first to Lorna Maeve, and then to Balin. Then he settled in himself. They ate as they had ridden, in silence, until Lorna Maeve spoke, “Are you alright, Sir Balin?”

  He was pleasantly shocked by her concern but knew better than to take it as anything but concern that the only man-at-arms among their party had lost himself.

  “I’m fine,” he said quietly.

  “Is everything alright with you and your brother?” Count Oduin said. “I was sorry to see him ride off.”

  But Lorna Maeve was not content with this civility. “He seemed beside himself. Did it have to do with Merlin’s departure?”

  “More to do with his appearance, I think,” said Balin. Then he shook his head. “It’s old family business,” he said apologetically. “I am sorry you saw it.”

  “We are already in the borders of Lystenoyse. Tomorrow we will come to Carbonek,” said Count Oduin. There was a hint of worry in his voice. They were very close now to their purpose, and it would not do to have him lose his wits here.

  Balin nodded, looking into the fire. He did not want to involve these people in his personal tragedy, but he couldn’t help but think he might not have another chance for help in solving this perennial riddle he struggled with.

  “What is the significance, please, of May Day?” Balin blurted out. “Maybe I have lapsed as a Christian. I remember the crowning of Mary the Blessed Virgin from my boyhood, but what else?”

  “It goes back further than that, Sir Balin,” said Lorna Maeve, smiling somewhat indulgently. “To the Goddess, whom the Romans called Flora. My mother called it Bealltainn. When I was a girl, two bonfires would be lit, and the cattle would be driven between them to their summer pastures. The people marked the beginning of summer with songs, and drink, and dance.”

  “My people kept some of the old Roman customs when I was a boy,” Count Oduin said. “The maidens would bind wild vetches and lupins, and throw them at each other, and in April, the men would trap and keep wild hares and set them loose by the hundreds for the boys to chase across the field.”

  These stories reminded him of some of the queer customs of his mother. They called to mind a long forgotten memory, of he and Brulen shrilly screaming, of Killhart barking excitedly, as their mother chased them round and round the outside of the cottage, each of them letting fly with fistfuls of hard, dried beans and laughing till their bellies hurt when they scored hits on each other. She had gone with purple garlands in her hair, and they had all visited the village, to see the children dance around a birch pole strung with colorful ribbons.

  None of this was helpful, of course, and they saw that he was vexed.

  “Why do you ask, Sir Balin?” Lorna Maeve said.

  He shook his head, grimacing.

  “I don’t know,” he groaned. “Is there nothing else either of you can think of? Something that might concern the rebel kings?”

  Lorna Maeve and Count Oduin looked at each other, and in Lorna Maeve there was no spark of insight.

  Count Oduin stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Much of the rebellion has taken place far from my country,” said Count Oduin. “But news from Malehault necessarily came my way now and again, as King Aguysans was my neighbor for many years. I lost more than a few of my own household knights trying to go off and join his famous Hundred. But I recollect that it was on a May Day two or three years ago that some of the Hundred came to Meliot searching for a pair of boys.”

  “Boys?”

  “Yes. Just infants. One of them was the son of the captain of the Hundred. The other was Aguysans’ own. What was his name? Margon or…Malaguin or something,” said Count Oduin. “Yes, it was
ghastly business. They found their cradles empty that May Day morning. They were never found. The common folk all attributed the disappearance to faeries. Who can say what truly happened? And the strangest thing, they shared the same May Day birthday. It would have been their first.”

  Balin narrowed his eyes, thinking hard. There was something here. But what? What?

  “Are you certain you’re alright?” Lorna Maeve asked, laying a light hand on his elbow which burned him like a glowing brand.

  And then the thought was gone, leaving only a vague sense of trouble.

  “I’m fine,” he said, standing up abruptly, so that her hand fell away. “Both of you should sleep. I will keep watch.”

  “Wake me at midnight,” said Count Oduin, gathering up the crocks. “I will relieve you.”

  Balin did not. He stayed up through the night, thinking. Thinking, and watching the gentle rise and fall of Lorna Maeve’s shoulders.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Clouds of blue-black rolled in agony as white lightning scourged them and they bled rain. The vast dark sea beneath raged and rose to terrifying heights, then fell in impotent tantrums of white foam.

  A lone knight in blood red armor stood alone on a slick stone jutting from the angry waters, slashed by silver rain and spray. The knight stomped furiously upon a robin’s nest like a spoiled child, and three of the bright blue eggs within broke apart and spattered his strange, tapering sabatons with dark blood.

  The knight stooped down and lifted a single unbroken egg from the ruined nest, then lifted the beak of his pointed visor, revealing the horrendous face of a black billed crow, shining bead eyes rolling madly in its mottle-feathered head. It stuffed the egg hungrily into its mouth, then fell to its knees, cawing horribly, and vomited a long, curling black serpent onto the rock, which had the face of a mewling child.

  And when the infant drew its primal, gasping breath, it expelled not a babe’s wail or a monster’s roar, but Brulen’s own voice.

  “MERLIN, YOU BASTARD!”

  ***

  Balin nearly fell sidelong from his saddle.

  Count Oduin reached out and caught him.

  “Sir Balin?”

  All the world was bright and sunlit, and every resplendent hue of the rainbow seemed represented in the costumes of children who giggled at Balin’s near mishap.