BLANCHE WAS SURE, NOW, THAT SHE wasn’t dreaming. Her heart was hammering too hard for this to be a dream.
The young savage spoke again in the shushing tone she used herself to calm a horse. “Duw a rodo da ywch”—but now suddenly the words made sense to her. It was Welsh. It was a greeting in Welsh. She knew Welsh because Sir Ector insisted that she practice it often when she went to visit poor folk in the village.
“Good morning,” she said in the same language, and swallowed hard.
He looked at the food on the table by the couch. “I have travelled far, damsel, and am very hungry.”
Blanche edged away from the table, closer to the wooden chest which led back into Nerys’s bedroom. “Eat,” she said with an imploring gesture.
He went to the table, dropped into a low crouch, and began to eat with great tearing bites, never taking his eyes from her face. Caught in that gaze she dared not turn and bolt into the wooden chest, so she stood motionless staring back at him. He was lean and brown, all bone and sinew. There were white scars and scabbed cuts on his bare arms and legs and the skin wrinkled like old leather at his knees and elbows. Above all that his face was incongruously young, so young that she began to fear him a little less. Then for the first time she really saw the look in his eyes, so frankly admiring that she turned her head away with an angry blush, and the taste of dread came back.
He ate half of the food exactly: one of the bannocks, one of the apples, and one of the collops of meat, wolfed down in less time than she thought possible. There were two cups on the table as well, and when he had finished everything else, he sniffed and tasted the wine. Immediately he spat it onto the grass.
“It has gone sour,” he said, seeing her horrified look.
She shook her head at him, lest he suspect her of meaning him harm. “It’s wine. It should taste like that.”
He replaced the goblet on the table and rose to his feet, picking up the javelins again.
“I thank you for the food, damsel,” he said, but he made no move to leave. Blanche tried to think of something to say, but before she could open her mouth he moved forward and caught her hand, even as she shied away. She smelled smoke and sweat and horse.
“Be not frightened,” he said, very earnestly, pulling her back to face him. “I will serve you. I will give you a ring for this one.”
She looked at him blankly, then glanced down at her hand.
The ring of Guinevere.
“It was my mother’s,” she murmured, but her mouth had gone dry and no sound came from her lips, and she was already reaching up with her free hand to pull off the jewel. Let him have it, if he would only leave her. And who was her mother, anyway?
He took the ring and dropped it into the pouch that hung from his belt, and produced another, gold with a blood-red stone, which he slid onto her hand where her mother’s ring had been.
“I thank you, damsel.” And he leaned forward and kissed her, very quickly but fiercely, on the mouth.
When he had kissed her he released her and fell back a step, looking doubtful, as if suddenly aware that he had trespassed some boundary. At that look Blanche’s mind began to work again, and she found she was clenching her hands into fists by her sides.
“You had best run,” she told him coldly. “My guardian is near, and if he finds you here he will kill you.”
He fell back another few steps, said “Be well, damsel,” and turning on his heel left as silently as he had come. Only the flap of the pavilion shivered to show that he had been.
Blanche stood rigid for as long as it took to count to a hundred before she sank onto the couch. Now that the boy had left, she began to shake. In vain she told herself that he had not hurt her, and (after another moment) that she did not think he would have. She threw her arms around herself in an absurdly literal attempt to pull herself together. And what of the country in the wardrobe? And what of the sun, shining in the night?
There was a rustling sound in the grass outside, and Blanche bolted to her feet. If it should be the boy again—
It was Nerys: hair loose, robed in blue, looking more like a queen than a lady’s companion. But when she saw how Blanche was trembling, she came forward with quick compassion.
Blanche flew into her arms and gasped, “Oh, Nerys—I was looking for you, and there was a savage man, and—”
“Shh,” Nerys said, as if she were a mother comforting a frightened child. “Nimue never—I didn’t know of it until a moment ago.”
Blanche pulled away when she realised that she had been clinging for safety to a woman whose head nearly fitted under her chin. In embarrassment she changed the subject. “Nerys, why is it morning here?”
Nerys sighed, a long slow breath of regret. Instead of answering, she said, “Blanche, you’re very tired. Sleep.”
“No,” Blanche protested. She wrenched away from Nerys and staggered toward the pavilion door with some idea of retrieving her mother’s ring, if she could. “He won’t be far—”
The words thickened like syrup on her tongue, even as she pulled aside the flap of the pavilion. Outside, she saw a dark pool and a forest under a bleak ridge. She took another step forward, missed her footing, and fell…
WHEN BLANCHE OPENED HER EYES, SHE was curled into her own warm bed early on a frosty spring morning.
So it had all been a dream. She could even feel the cabochon-set ring on her finger; the threads of worry, pulled tight in her mind, came loose and drifted. She had woken from the nightmare, and it was not true after all.
She slid the ring off her finger and brought it out from under the covers. But it was not her mother’s ring. Red-gold it shone in the grey dawn light, red-gold as the ring which the stranger in the pavilion had given her.
3
For if he live, that hath you done despite,
He shall you do due recompense again,
Or else his wrong with greater puissance maintain.
Spenser
IT WAS A FEAST-DAY WHEN PERCEVAL came to the High King’s city of Camelot, riding in an uneasy fog of thought, for he began to wonder if his mother might not have meant something different by her instructions about the ring. Once he had become a knight, he thought, he would go in quest of the damsel of the pavilion, and if he had done wrong, he might yet give her reason to forgive him.
Camelot castle stood on a hill in a low wide valley opening toward a plain on the south, a labyrinthine many-spired place melting into the noisy little town at its feet. A river came down out of the northern hills to moat the town and castle, the eastern bank of which was good black farmland, but the western bank was weaving forest.
Llech distrusted the bridge. He stepped onto it only after persuasion, and when he heard the hollow thud of his hooves on the wood he threw up his head and plunged into the crowded street, swerving around to face the echoes when he had reached safety. Perceval, accustomed to riding bareback, kept his seat easily and glanced about for the sentries. They stared, but made no move to challenge him. And no wonder! Turning Llech to continue up the street, Perceval saw farmers, beggars, knights, tumblers, jugglers, minstrels, kegs of ale, and the blazing colours of best clothes.
Someone called out, “Come and have a drink, stranger!” but Perceval replied, “Not I! I am going to the King.”
His voice was almost swallowed by a ringing clatter on the bridge. Llech shied around again to see, and Perceval saw a knight in gilded armour upon a mighty horse like a thunderhead bearing down upon them. For a confused moment Perceval’s pony planted his feet and balked. A voice grated out of the knight’s helm, “Way, fellow,” and the iron figure hefted the butt of his spear to sweep Perceval aside. In the nick of time Llech danced out of the way. With a rush the knight clattered past, up the hill toward the keep, leaving merrymakers tossed in his wake.
“Follow that oafish one,” someone called to Perceval. “He’s off to the King, no doubt.”
Perceval heard and dug his heels into the pony’s sides. Up the hill they ca
ntered among the protests left in the knight’s trail, and trotted beneath a massive carved door-lintel into a high-roofed hall rippling with bright banners. Here under soaring arches in the light of a hundred high windows stood a great round table in the midst of the hall, scores of men seated around it talking and eating and laughing. Perceval looked once, then again, and his stomach quaked as he realised that he was in the presence of the greatest warriors of the world, each one tried and tempered on the field of war.
Could he prove himself worthy to sit among them? For the space of a breath he was glad that none of them saw him come in. They were falling silent, staring at the gilded knight, who trotted between the round table and the long straight tables that flanked it on each side toward the King’s seat at the head of the hall.
Here at the Table the King sat enthroned (pewter-grey hair the King had, and the marks of war on his hands, but piercing eyes that would be wise in judgement); the pale Queen stood beside him with an upraised goblet of silver and glass, and words dying away on her lips. The gilded knight swung down from his horse and strode toward them without a pause. “Who is this,” he shouted, “who is this that stands at the head of the Round Table to pledge them all to truth and virtue, and is herself no better than a common stale?”
There was the rattle of a chair sliding across cobbles, a raking up of rushes, and a flash of light as a blade was drawn. One of the knights, on the far side of the table, was on his feet, moving—the King, more slowly, rose from his seat—the gilded knight snatched the cup from the Queen’s hand even while he spoke.
And flung the wine in her face.
“A fig for the Table,” the ruffian was shouting, with a laugh, over the uproar of shouts and falling chairs. Perceval saw the King say a soft word, and a lean grey shadow leaped from under his chair. The gilded knight vaulted to his horse as the hound sprang with bared teeth and straining red maw for his heels. Then the warhorse neighed and lashed out with a hoof. The dog scrabbled uselessly across the floor; another heartbeat, and the gilded knight was gone with the drumming of hooves.
Above it all the Queen of Britain stood still, wine dripping from her face, her mouth pressed shut in a white and wordless fury which swept impersonally across Perceval and all the people gathered in the hall before alighting on the King. Arthur turned to meet it and with a curiously practical gesture offered her a napkin. Then everyone was talking at once—the knights around the table, the ladies in the galleries above, the plain people at their low tables. But in the midst of the commotion, the man who had risen from his seat at the table when the strange knight first snatched the Queen’s cup now sheathed his sword, stalked up the hall to the King and said, low and grinding: “Give me leave, lord, and I’ll beat him like a dog.”
It was the hawk-faced knight Perceval had met in the Welsh forest, the man called Lancelot. His words would have gone unmarked in the clamour but for the hush which fell upon the hall when he came to the King.
Every face was turned upon the knight Lancelot as he stood before the High King of Britain. The Queen bent her head and pressed the napkin to her eyes. Only the injured hound whimpered from the corner.
Crash! A knotted fist smacked the table, making the cups jump, and its owner—a stocky, bull-headed man—growled, “Sire! I’ll go.”
“Gawain!” said Lancelot. “Of your courtesy, this is my fight. Sire, give me the quest!”
Perceval knew that if he waited another moment his own chance would pass. He kicked Llech into a trot and rode to the head of the table, scattering attendants. “My lord king, a boon!”
The King had stood unmoved amid the outcry, but when Perceval spoke he turned his head and looked from the muddy pony to its skin-clad rider, and a gleam shone in his eye. “Speak, good fellow.”
“My lord, send me to avenge this insult, and let me receive knighthood when I have proven myself.”
“What!” A very tall man who, when the knight came, had leaned back and begun to crack nuts, laughed at Perceval. “Look at him! Darts and rabbit-skin armour! One look down that knight’s spear and he’ll run back to his pig-pen. Go away, boy, this is work for knights.”
If Perceval had doubts about facing the enemy knight, he lost them now. “I came here to be knighted,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear, “but I see I must have an iron pot to put my head in. Very good! I will ride after that knight and equip me with his spoils, and I will bring back the goblet to the Queen.”
The man laughed again. But one of the damsels who had come to tend the Queen went to Perceval smiling.
“Sir Perceval, the flower of knighthood,” she said. And she curtseyed to him.
The tall man jumped up, knocking his chair over behind him. “Spiteful imp! You live here a year, refusing to smile or speak, and now you smile at this puppy in the face of King Arthur and the Table Round, and call him the flower of knighthood?” Before Perceval could stop him, he had reached out and cuffed the girl’s ear.
“Kay,” said the King, quietly, but Perceval saw the man named Kay flinch at his tone like a dog coming to heel. “Will you prove the knights of the Table no better than their enemies? Be sure you will suffer for that.” He turned to Perceval. “I grant your boon, boy. Follow that stranger. When you return bearing the cup, and wearing the armour, the knighthood is yours.”
Perceval did not hear the murmur of protest that rose in the hall; he hissed in a breath through teeth clenched on the foretaste of victory. He had no words for thanks, but he bowed his head low to the mane of his pony. Before he turned, he spoke to the knight called Kay. “I also swear—when I return, you will pay for that blow.” He set heels to Llech’s sides and went out the gate and down the hill at a reckless canter.
Folk at the castle gate pointed north when he asked in a shout for directions, and Perceval and his pony went thundering up the road, the mount toiling gamely, the rider laughing and brandishing his darts.
PERCEVAL CAUGHT UP WITH THE THIEF of the goblet a league from Camelot on a slope running down into the forest. The knight was walking his horse, evidently not in dread of pursuit, and though he glanced behind when he first heard Llech’s hooves, he paid no more attention to the pony or its rider until Perceval came within a spear’s length and hallooed. “Turn around and face me, coward knight!”
Ahead, the knight yanked his horse around and gripped his lance. “Do you think to fight me?” he asked, laughter in his voice. “Which swine-shed did they raid to find you?”
“They keep wolves where I come from,” Perceval said. “Why should I fear a sneaking dog? Be on your guard!”
The gilded knight gestured behind Perceval, where the road ran over the crest of the hill. “Run home, boy, and send one of those knights on the hill to fight me. I see the bars of Lancelot, and I did not dare this adventure to fight with such as you.”
Perceval did not spare a glance over his shoulder, but he breathed slowly once to calm the fire in his belly. So if he died here today, the pale Queen had other avengers. And if he lived, his victory had witnesses. He took a dart, balancing it in his hand, choosing it with as much care as his next words. “Buckle to fight,” he said. “If I allow it, you may yet live to boast of the day you met Perceval of Wales.”
Within his helm, the knight snorted in derision.
“Besides, I go in need of arms, and I mean not to leave without yours.”
“I should only dishonour my blade on you, boy.”
“No fear of that,” said Perceval, and grinned. “You have seen to that already.”
The knight spurred his horse forward suddenly and swiped at Perceval’s head with his spear-butt. Perceval ducked, and the blow fell on his left shoulder, momentarily numbing the arm. He forced a laugh.
“I only ever allowed my mother to beat me,” he said, “and even she could hit harder than that!”
His enemy drew back up the hill, set his spear in rest, and came thundering down toward Perceval. The spear passed through empty air, for Perceval slid aside and down
and clung to his dozing pony with just one arm and leg thrown athwart the back.
“Hah! You call yourself a knight!” he mocked, pulling himself upright. “First you go to spear an unarmed man, and then you run away down the hillside!”
The knight kicked his horse around and drew his sword, galloping back up the hill. Perceval waited for his chance. The distance between him and the knight closed to only a few yards before he lifted and flicked his arm. The dart flew true, striking home in the slit of the knight’s visor.
The dead man toppled backward and fell to the ground at Llech’s feet. With a snort, the pony awoke.
Perceval slipped to the ground, kicked the sword away from the body, yanked out his dart, and knelt to listen at the visor slit for breath. There was not a sound. Opening the knight’s wallet, he found the Queen’s cup and set it carefully in the grass by the road. Then he began to tap at the joints of the armour, and managed to slide off one of the knight’s gauntlets. He glanced up the hill, wishing that the two knights on the crest would come and help him, but they had ridden after the dead man’s horse.
Perceval unclasped the knight’s belt and sword, and laid them in the road. He pulled off the wine-coloured surcoat and began searching for an opening in the mail. There was a leather lacing at the neck, where the helm was attached, and when he undid it and lifted the helm he saw the face of the man he had killed—his eyeball a bleeding mess, his pale, sweat-streaked face looking idiotically surprised. It was not the first time Perceval had killed a man, but it was the first time he had had to disarm a body. He thought of pulling the knight through the gorget, but the effort was obviously useless. He sat back, trying not to retch.
There was only one thing he could think of—fire. He scraped up a pile of tinder and took a flint from his pouch.
At that moment he heard the clatter of hooves and looked up to see the two knights who had followed him, Lancelot who bore red bars on a field of white, and the one named Gawain, whose sign was a five-pointed golden star.
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