The Shadow Companion

by Laura Anne Gilman

  Gerard had assumed at first that the new title was just a fancy, courtesy term for squire, and that he would, in fact, be shining armor and cleaning boots, among other familiar chores. But Sir Matthias had a squire already who did those things, a young boy named Jon, who was bright and eager and very green.

  Instead, once Sir Matthias discovered Gerard could write, he found himself oft as not with quill in hand, taking notes while the knight paced and spoke, or carrying highly sensitive messages to and from the other knights, or—as was the case this day with the abbot—asking to arrange a meeting.

  In the weeks since the Quest had ridden out of Camelot, Gerard thought that he had learned more of how to manage men than he had in all his years with Sir Rheynold. Not to dismiss his master’s talents, but Sir Matthias was a leader, rather than a warrior. His way involved not the swing of a sword, or even the rallying of men to his side, but the more subtle coaxing and chivvying of men to propel them the way he wanted them to go.

  And, when that failed, he had a strong sword-arm as well.

  The walk back to the encampment was a quiet one. The first thing a squire learned was to speak only when there was need, and to never, ever interrupt a knight while he was thinking. Sir Matthias was clearly thinking, and thinking hard.

  “The trouble is,” the gray-haired knight said finally, as they were climbing the last yards of rock-lined path to the meadow where their encampment had been settled, “the trouble is that our Quest, our journey, is too vague. ‘Find the Grail,’ we were told. As though the very virtue of our noses might direct us to it. It led the men to believe that the task would be simple, as though they were on one of the queen’s May Day jaunts to fetch flowers, not a long-lost holy artifact!”

  Gerard hesitated, his need to show himself worldly warring with his promise not to divulge anything of what Merlin had said before sending the three young friends to join the Quest. The desire to impress Sir Matthias won. “Merlin said that magic might be—”

  Sir Matthias rested a heavy hand on Gerard’s shoulder, cutting off his words. “I will speak no word against Merlin, who has proven himself in service to our king. But magic has no place on a Holy Quest. It profanes the search, and I am ever thankful that Arthur understood this and did not allow his enchanter to interfere in our search.”

  Gerard wasn’t sure Merlin could have done anything that directly, even if he were asked. He had seen enough to know that magic, while fabulous and a little frightening, also had limits. If Merlin could whistle up the Grail, Arthur would already know of its location. Suddenly, Gerard wondered how much of Arthur’s original dream of the Grail and his decision to send knights in search of it was of his own inspiration—and how much was he influenced by advice from Merlin.

  “I don’t know how he does it, Gerard,” the knight said. “I don’t know how the king keeps us all in line.”

  They passed by a number of other pavilions. Squires were seated outside working on equipment, walking horses to the stream, or running various errands, waiting for new orders. In the distance, toward the center of the encampment, four or five of the twelve knights Sir Matthias had kept with him were gathered in a tight knot, clearly focused on something on the ground.

  That sight did not improve Sir Matthias’s mood at all. As they reached the larger tent which served as his home and headquarters, Sir Matthias shook his head, this time in resignation.

  “Either gambling with dice or fighting. I have a desire to take them all out and horsewhip them, save it would do no good but make them surly.”

  “Sir, if I may be so bold…”

  “Go ahead,” Matthias said, lifting the door-flap of the simple canvas pavilion. He gestured for Gerard to go before him.

  “Is it always like this? When they’re not being watched, is it always thus?”

  As he entered, Gerard saw Ailis out of the corner of his eye. She was seated on rugs piled four deep, putting something away. Her expression was one of deep thought and mild discontent.

  At the very beginning of the Quest, Sir Matthias had taken one look at her—Ailis being much the same age as his own daughter back home—and had insisted that she sleep in a corner of his tent, for propriety’s sake.

  Ailis hadn’t done anything other than curtsey and say “thank you,” but Gerard got the feeling she wasn’t happy staying here. He didn’t understand it—he’d gladly have traded the discomfort of sleeping on roots and dirt for one of those rugs underneath him at night and a roof, however simple, to keep out the rain. Hadn’t the three friends complained of exactly those things during their mad rush to find Morgain the first time? They still rode together most days, when Sir Matthias didn’t require him, and Newt wasn’t helping out the various pack animals elsewhere….

  “No,” the knight said, distracting Gerard from his thoughts. Sir Matthias unbuckled his sword belt and dropped it carelessly on his cot for his squire to put away. One did not carry a blade into a monastery—not without extreme cause—and so he had left his great sword in the wooden stand inside the pavilion by his bed. From there it could be taken up at a moment’s notice, even if Matthias was just waking from a deep sleep. “No, it’s not always like this. When men have purpose, when they have a direction, they are magnificent creatures.

  “You know this from your own adventures. The sense of life that fills you, the surge of inevitability, knowing that the day can only end one way.”

  Ailis was shamelessly eavesdropping now, her expression less gloomy. Her hair was braided and pinned up on her head. Gerard missed the sight of her red plait swinging freely over her shoulder, the way she wore it back in Camelot when they were younger.

  Sir Matthias saw Gerard watching Ailis and moved his body between the two, an obvious move to break Gerard’s study of his friend. Despite his growing fondness for the girl, Sir Matthias had clearly decided that any deepening of the relationship between Gerard and Ailis would be unsuitable.

  The knight went on with his commentary as though nothing had happened. “But for now, chasing after this dream of ours, we are lacking that surge, that sense. And so men find other things to do with their energy. And that will include bragging and brawling, if I do not give them direction. Lord, to think that this is the best of Camelot!”

  He pulled off his formal surcoat and replaced it with a more comfortable, worn one. To this he added a simple belt, and an ivory-handled knife in an unmarked leather sheath. “I must go speak to two particular troublemakers now, to make sure they do no further damage to each other. Do not hold up the evening meal for me.”

  With a nod to Ailis, he walked out, sure that his unspoken reminder to Gerard—that he was not to spend too much time with the girl—was understood.

  Gerard understood. But despite his respect for Sir Matthias, it went unheeded.

  “You think he will succeed?” he asked Ailis, referring to both the two troublemakers and the Quest in general.

  “Not without a horsewhip,” she said grimly. He stared at her, but she merely went back to whatever she had been doing over in her corner. She pulled a small wooden box the size of her palm out of her pack, slipped her shoes back onto her stockinged feet, and followed Sir Matthias’s path toward the doorway.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Must I account for my every movement to you?”

  Gerard was taken aback by the sharpness in her voice. He knew that Ailis had a temper, but it seemed extreme in response to a simple question. He had never thought that she would be the one to heed Sir Matthias’s objections, and turn away from him.

  She saw his confusion, and her face softened. “I’m sorry. It’s…female things,” she said, and lifted the box as though that would explain everything. Suddenly Gerard didn’t want to know. Female things were not anything a squire needed to know about.

  Ailis left the pavilion with an air of relief. The more time Gerard spent with Sir Matthias the more like the knight he became. While there was nothing wrong with Sir Matthias—she certainly preferre
d him to Sir Daffyd, who stank of stale herbs, or Sir Ballin, a man who never missed a chance to make a comment about the “inferiors” on the Quest—she missed the old, less self-conscious, less officious Gerard. The Gerard who had once waded into a creek to battle a bridge troll only to require rescuing himself, and was even able to laugh about it afterward. Knowing that things had changed for all of them didn’t make the results any easier to bear.

  From the way the two of them had been talking when they came in, she assumed that discussions with the monks had not gone well. She could have told them that the night they arrived. The stone walls of the monastery were fine, indeed quality work that would doubtless stand a hundred or more years, but there was no feel of magic to them; no sense of the awe or wonder that Morgain said permeated any area where a magical object had spent any length of time.

  The Grail was magical, even if it was not magic itself. Too many people believed in it for it not to be magical. Faith was power.

  Ailis believed that magic was power. Not physical strength, but the ability to do, to create. She once shared these thoughts with Gerard. She told him that the Grail is supposed to embody power—the ability to create a High King. She said, “So that’s magic. Because the source of magic is belief. You know it exists, the way you know the wind and rain are real. And so you trust in that belief. Merlin said that. You have to believe.”

  “The Grail is more than magic,” Gerard had retorted. “It’s faith. Something you don’t know and can’t prove. You simply have to…have faith.”

  Faith might not be magic, but Ailis knew enough now to understand that belief was essential to both. And if you did not believe, you did not succeed.

  As she walked, her feet pressed down on grass that hadn’t been trampled by male feet. She followed a trail that led into a narrow copse of trees. Sunlight barely reached through the branches. For a moment, she was plunged into dusk, until the narrow path carried her to a smaller meadow on the other side.

  The grass was almost knee-high here, and scattered with small yellow thistles and white bindweed. The smell of dirt and fresh air was a welcomed change from the musty, musky smell of leather and metal that filled the camp.

  Satisfied that she was alone, Ailis bent down and placed the wooden box she had brought with her on the ground. She opened it up and withdrew a long, knotted piece of string.

  It was a simple spell, one of the first Morgain had taught her. Merlin had said she was to practice. And she was far away from anyone who might notice. All the knights were being scolded by Sir Matthias, and the squires would be taking advantage of the free time to do…whatever it was boys did when their masters were busy.

  She wasn’t doing anything wrong. You never knew when you might need to raise the wind—to move sails along or distract the nose of a predator.

  Holding the string in both hands, she ran the fingers of her left hand up and down the knots, her lips moving in a soundless invocation.

  Once…twice…the third time she repeated it, her voice was barely audible. The wind in the trees behind her rose in volume. A fourth time, and clouds began to shift across the sky. Her hand stilled on the string. There was no need to go all the way to gale force. She had told Merlin she would behave, and not draw attention to herself. Creating a storm out of nothing was not, by anyone’s rules, being proper or demure.

  “Nice breeze.”

  She dropped the string, and the wind died. “Newt.”

  “I was taking a walk. I saw you and decided to follow.” He circled around so that they were facing each other. He had gotten taller since they left Camelot. She used to be able to look him directly in the eye. Now she had to tilt her head up slightly. Upon examination, Ailis decided that he still needed to do something with his hair other than brush it with a piece of straw when he woke up.

  As though of its own accord, her hand reached out and smoothed down his rumpled black hair, trying helplessly to get it to lay flat. His hair was rougher than Gerard’s. She had known Gerard many years; they had been children together, running through the halls of Camelot on the sort of errands they sent pages and girls on.

  But Newt, for all that they had been on such adventures together, was still an unknown to her. He could be so stubborn, so dismissive of everything he didn’t approve of—like magic—and yet he was courageous, too, when he needed to be. He had even braved Morgain’s castle, despite hating magic the way he did, to rescue her.

  She hadn’t actually needed rescuing, but that was beside the point.

  Newt made her feel so uncertain, always wondering what he was thinking, what he was going to do. With Gerard, she knew. Newt was…different.

  “You didn’t think maybe I wanted to be alone?”

  “I think maybe you’re alone too much.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  He gave a huge sigh. “I don’t know. But you were all alone in Morgain’s castle—yes, I know she was there, but she left you alone a lot—you said so. And now you’re here, and it’s not like you have anything to do, and I thought—”

  “Do me a favor, all right? Don’t think. You’re not designed for it.” Her words were sharp, but his accusation had gotten to her. She was alone. She was useless. And she didn’t need a stable boy’s concern for her to make it even more obvious.

  “Fine, then. I’ll go.”

  “Yes. Do that.”

  The moment he was gone, she wanted to call him back. She felt sorry for snapping at two friends in such close succession. Instead, she picked up the string, and started whispering the spell again.

  “Magic. It makes you mad.” That was the only explanation Newt could conjure for the way Ailis was behaving. She had spent many days with Morgain, and with Merlin. It was driving her mad, the same way they said it had driven Nimue mad, which she must be, to play such games with Merlin and distract him from what he needed to be doing.

  A sense of unease moved through Newt whenever magic came into play. It shifted under his skin, raising the hair on the back of his neck and the tops of his arms. Magic. He didn’t trust it; didn’t like it. Never had.

  He felt sorry for Ailis, and would keep his promise to Merlin to watch her and make sure that the hooks Morgain had set into her mind and soul didn’t do any further damage.

  But if she didn’t want him around, he wasn’t going to lurk in the grass like some lovelorn courtier trying to get a glimpse of his lady-love. As the sole stable boy brought along on the Quest, he had responsibilities beyond keeping one female out of trouble.

  Newt liked the feeling of being responsible. In the stable at Camelot he was one of the youngest to care for the horses, having only recently been moved up from minding the dog kennel. And on their journeys, he had been mostly deadweight. Useful occasionally, but not in charge. Never in charge. It was always Gerard’s skills in battle or Ailis’s magic that saved the day. Knights needed him, even if it was only to ensure that their mounts were all healthy and well cared for, and the mules content enough to carry their burdens. It was simple work, and not as time-consuming as being back in the stables. He was learning a great deal by observing the actual conditions his charges were put through daily.

  Unlike Ailis, he knew where his place was, and he was satisfied.

  Having abandoned the girl to her sulking, Newt walked back out into the sunshine and was immediately engulfed in the calls of several squires who wanted to know where to water their horses now that several of the other squires had foolishly fouled the small inlet in the creek they had been using.

  Yes. The things he knew—the homely, ordinary things he knew—were needed. He was needed.

  TWO

  “Witch-child, where are you? I can feel you, I can sense you, but I cannot see you. Who is hiding you from me? Is it Merlin? Never fear, I will find you.”

  The scrying crystal shimmered slightly in response to Morgain’s words, but the haze did not clear. Whoever was protecting the girl from her—and she could only assume it was Merlin—was doi
ng an excellent job of it.

  “Arrrgh!”

  Her hand swiped over the crystal and it shimmered again, then shattered in a silent explosion, disappearing as it broke apart. A waste, but she felt better for the momentary release of frustration.

  A cool hand rested briefly on her bare shoulder, and she pulled the fur robe up more securely, brushing off the contact. She wanted no comfort, not from that hand. Although the workroom was perfectly insulated and heated, she felt a shiver in her bones; a shiver she refused to let show.

  “Let go of the girl, my lady. There are more important things which require your attention at this moment.”

  The voice was as cool as the hand, but Morgain had spent her entire life listening to what others were not saying as much as what they were, and she heard the disdain in those tones. Looking over her shoulder, smoothing her plush red, fox fur robe with one hand, she merely raised an eyebrow at the speaker, half daring more to be said.

  The shadow-figure was dressed today not in its usual flowing robes and billowy hood, but dark leathers more suitable for travel, with a woolen cowl that came up over its shoulders and covered the back of its head. Even when looking closely, its features were obscured from view, as though the moment a person tried to see its face, their vision would fail.

  “Your goal is within sight, Morgain. You must concentrate on that. Let go of the girl. She will still be there when this is done.”

  The sorceress rose from her chair and made her way to a map on the wall. Small, glowing lights moved over the outline of an island, and in the waters just off the coastline. Pale blue, cold white, and dark red—each color indicated different factions. Blue for Arthur’s forces, white for Morgain’s. Her allies were smaller in number, but more cunningly placed, hidden in the common farms and towns throughout the land. Arthur might have mighty warriors, but she would have the element of surprise. The red dots, the allies her companion promised would rise to her aid, were invisible to all who might seek to discover them.