The Shadow Companion

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “I am thinking beyond…to the next day’s goals,” Morgain said. “And I’m looking to the months and years after that. Do you have the supplies you requested?”

  The shadow-figure nodded in assent: A shipment from the Isle of Apples, Morgain’s magical stronghold, had arrived that morning.

  “Then go work with them. When the next gift for my brother is ready, inform me.”

  One delicate hand traced the cold lights on the map. Then she pulled a canvas cover over the entire map, hiding it from sight. The word “gift” was ironic—it will not be given to him; it will not give him satisfaction or pleasure. But one could gift another with frustration as easily as joy.

  She noted that the shadow-figure was still hovering nearby. She commanded, “Go!”

  The ghostly creature went, with irritation clear in every line of its body.

  Morgain sat back down at her worktable and called a new crystal out of storage. But she did not immediately use it.

  She needed her companion’s aid and assistance. There was no way, humbling and hateful though it was to admit, that she could have gotten this far on her own, not with the level of coordination her plan required. But soon, when the time was right, when the stars were ready and the gods appeased, she would be in position to strike. One blow, sharp and hard and fast, and the island would belong to the people again. Her people, not the Romanized fools that ran it now, cut themselves off from the very spirit of the land.

  Who did they think caused the grains to grow, the people to increase in number, the winds to rise properly for ships to reach these shores? It was not man, with his sword and shield. It was not man, with his armor and horse.

  She snorted, an unkind noise. It was not man who had first tamed horses, either. But they forgot that. They forgot everything.

  She would be the one to remind them.

  And for that, for now, she needed her companion. But not forever.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Nowhere.”

  “Nowhere?” Gerard repeated the word with disbelief. Sir Matthias hadn’t returned yet from his meeting with the knights, and Ailis had been gone just as long. It was already well past dusk and raining steadily. He had been sitting on the edge of Sir Matthias’s cot, sharpening the edge of his own dagger. His blade was a simple one, but it required as much care as Sir Matthias’s more elaborate, expensive one. Ailis’s return was a welcomed break from the monotony of stroke and test, stroke and test, but he couldn’t imagine what had kept her out so long, especially once the weather began to worsen.

  Ailis let the pavilion’s flap fall down again behind her. “Gerard, leave me be. I’m neither your sister nor your wife, and you have no right to order me about.” Her tone was as mild as she could make it, but warning signs were clearly placed. He ignored them, his concern overriding common sense.

  “Ailis, I—the storm. Is that your doing?”

  Hours ago, clouds had begun rolling down from the north. Sir Matthias had ordered everyone to move their gear under cover. The rain had started coming down soon after that, and was now pelting hard on the pavilion’s roof as though trying to imitate the onset of Noah’s flood. The grass outside was now slick with mud. Throughout the encampment, men and dogs remained under cover, while horses nickered and flicked sodden tails patiently.

  Inside, Matthias’s tent was warm and dry, with expensive beeswax candles giving the space a soothing golden glow that was at odds with the gloom outside. Sir Matthias was many things, but miserly was not one of them, and he did not begrudge spending money on his people, either.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ailis took off her heavy shoes and outer jacket, shaking as much water as she could off her skirt and blouse before giving up and sitting down cross-legged on the pile of carpets with a sodden lack of grace.

  She was nowhere near as wet as she should have been, considering the downpour, but Gerard refrained from pointing that out. He merely handed her a cloth, and sat back to watch while she unbraided her plait and rubbed her hair dry.

  “Magic, Ailis. I’m talking about magic. Storms like this don’t simply blow in out of clear blue skies. They have to be called.” Although to be fair, it was autumn when rain was more the norm than not. Starting the Quest now, rather than during the originally planned and much drier summer, was purely due to the delays caused by Morgain’s mischief. Still, if she had not meddled, he would not be on the Quest at all. Thoughts like that, curling around and chasing their own tails, made his head hurt.

  “Because you know so almighty much about magic?” Her scorn was thick and understandable. “And did I use magic to make the monks decide not to help us? Or cause the knights to squabble? Oh, did I also use magic to make the laundry pot overturn and all the shirts being washed to fall into the mud?”

  He sighed. “No, Pothwen and his idiot dog did that…. Ailis, you haven’t answered my question.”

  After a while, since she showed no signs of responding and simply sat and combed out her hair, Gerard got up, threw an oiled cloth over his head to keep away the worst of the rain, and went outside. He came back a little while later carrying the evening meal; two bowls of surprisingly good stew from the communal cook-pot, only slightly diluted by rain.

  “Better than making either one of us do the cooking,” he said as he handed her a bowl, referring to their various burned or undercooked meals while on the road together in the past. Gerard was a terrible cook, Newt was even worse, and Ailis was only slightly better than the two of them.

  “It’s warm. That’s what counts.” She put down her comb and found spoons.

  “I don’t understand why you have to do that,” he said finally.

  “Do what?” Ailis was at a loss, having forgotten where their conversation had ended.

  “Use magic,” Gerard clarified.

  She put down her spoon and stared at him. “Why do you use a sword?”

  “That’s different,” he protested.

  “You’re right. It is. A sword is just a tool. Magic is what I am. Who I am. If you have trouble with that, then you have trouble with me.” Her eyes glistened, but in the candlelight he couldn’t tell if it was from anger or tears.

  “Ailis. Stop that. Please.”

  He didn’t often say “please.” In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time he had said it.

  “I just can’t understand why you don’t see how dangerous it might be,” he said, looking down into his stew.

  “Dangerous for who? For me?” She really did have to laugh at that. “Ger, I’m not doing anything big. Nothing important. Just little spells to keep myself ready.”

  He looked up at that. “Ready for what?”

  “Anything that might need magic,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Ger, do you stop practicing your swordplay just because the king has made treaties with the countries around us?”

  “Don’t be—no.” He saw the trap closing around him, but couldn’t back out of it.

  “So?”

  “It’s not the same,” he said again, more weakly this time. “Magic is different. It’s dangerous…. Unpredictable.”

  “All the more reason for me to learn how to control it. The same way you learn how to use your sword. Or do you want me to be entirely defenseless? Is that it? Even Merlin—”

  “Even Merlin what?” Gerard pounced on her words like a cat on a rat.

  “Nothing.”

  “Ailis, did Merlin tell you not to do magic?”

  “No,” she said defiantly. “In fact, he said I should keep practicing. Discreetly.”

  “And you call this discreet?” With a wave of his hand, he indicated the storm outside.

  “You’re just upset because we’re not going to be moving out in the morning the way Sir Matthias wanted, which means that another group might find the Grail first.” She shook her head. Her hair was completely dry by now, and the long, dark red strands streamed down her back in a rumpled cascade. “I told you when the king first s
tarted this—the Grail’s not a thing to be won. It has to be earned. And if you ask me, there’s not a man on this entire Quest who’s earned it.”

  “So you did cause this storm.” He declared, triumphant. They were back in familiar territory now. Ailis and Gerard had been squabbling like this, on different topics, since they were children.

  Ailis looked as though she wanted very badly to throw her bowl of stew at him. Familiar also meant that they knew exactly where to hit to accomplish the most damage. “Why are you so tangled up in the thought of me using magic? I could understand it from Newt, but you—you know that magic isn’t bad! It’s not evil!”

  “It’s Sir Matthias. He thinks…” Gerard really didn’t want to go on, but he had started, so there was no dropping it now.

  “What about him?”

  “He thinks that magic profanes the Quest.”

  “He what?”

  Gerard looked miserable. He was not only carrying tales, but making trouble, when all he wanted to do was warn Ailis. “He thinks that magic…that it’s wrong to use on the Quest. And if he finds out that you’ve been using it, I’m worried he’ll—”

  “He’ll what? Toss me out by the side of the road—to fend for myself?”

  “Of course not!” That would be wrong. Unchivalrous. And it would deeply disturb both Arthur and Merlin, who had chosen to send Ailis out with the Quest.

  “Good. Because Merlin sent me on this journey in order to use my skill to help find the Grail, remember?”

  “When the time was right, as I recall.” Gerard was also remembering a discussion he and Merlin and Newt had had before Ailis rejoined them. They talked over their concerns about the influence Morgain might have had on the girl; about what traps the enchantress might have set, waiting for Ailis to trigger them. Ailis was part of the Quest for many reasons, not the least of which was to see if she drew Morgain to her. But that was one secret that Gerard would rather die than divulge to her.

  “All I am saying is…be careful. Don’t…don’t play around with magic. Don’t cause storms, or…or do anything. Just…”

  “Just sit in a corner and do needlework and look pretty for the knights? Is that what you’re saying?” Ailis stood up, slamming her thankfully now empty bowl onto the ground.

  “I am so very tired of everyone telling me to sit, and wait, and be a good girl! ‘You’ll have your time,’ Morgain says. ‘The time is coming,’ Merlin says. ‘Don’t do anything to draw attention to yourself,’ you say. Why not? Why must everything be hidden under a rock? When do I get to stand up and take credit for helping to defeat Morgain, rather than just hiding behind you and Newt and your swords and your bashing?”

  Her hands balled up at her sides as though she wanted to hit something, and the words poured out of her.

  “Morgain was right about one thing—nobody takes me seriously! Not even Merlin! Everyone tells me what I can’t do, and nobody wants to see what I can do! Nobody—except Newt.” She saw Gerard flinch and went for the kill, not knowing why, except that it was effective and she was angry.

  “Newt’s scared of magic, but he doesn’t tell me not to use it. He doesn’t tell me to sit in a corner and act like a lady, or not to speak to anyone, and not to wear pants, or—”

  She knew it wasn’t fair. Gerard had never said those things to her. It wasn’t his fault Sir Matthias wanted her to be a substitute for his delicate daughter. And Newt wasn’t all that accepting of her, either. He wanted to keep an eye out for her, reminding her of how useless she was without the magic, and how, if it wasn’t for the magic, she would never have met Morgain. And then she never would have had her eyes opened to all the possibilities in the world—the possibilities that everyone kept holding out of her reach, telling her “not yet.”

  “Ailis—”

  “No!”

  As she shouted it, an unexpected clash of thunder split the heavens. They both stopped and stared at each other.

  “I didn’t make the storm,” she said in a much quieter voice. “But I can make it stop. That should make everyone happy, right? And nobody will ever know. Just the way you all want it.”

  She turned and stalked out into the rain, not bothering with her shoes or jacket or the oiled tarp.

  Gerard sighed, picked up his stew bowl, and started eating his dinner. If she was going to be like that, there was nothing he could do to stop her.

  Elsewhere in the camp, Newt had his hands full with a different kind of argument.

  During the storm, one of the flimsier pavilions had blown over, exposing a knight’s belongings to the weather and resulting in the hapless squire responsible having his ears boxed.

  Newt had come along while the boy and two of his friends were trying to get the fabric back up, while the knight took refuge with a neighbor, drinking wine and watching the boys struggle.

  “Fine example of chivalry,” Newt had said, but only to himself. Out loud, he had ordered the smallest boy to collect all of the objects still lying in the grass and place them under a small, oiled tarp.

  Meanwhile, he and the two other boys began replacing pegs, careful not to trip over or stumble into any of the neighboring tents in the dark. The rain finally let up just as he was about to tell them to bring out the top-most fabric. They were able to unfold the cloth and set the ropes without too much difficulty, despite the lack of light beyond the torches the knights had put up.

  “Down, boy,” Newt said now, holding his hand at hip level to illustrate what he wanted, the way he would if working with a half-trained dog. His voice was soothing, gentle, and shaking with laughter, as he teased the younger boy who held the other end of the rope.

  “Grrrr.” The boy at the other end of the rope bared his teeth and growled, but obediently went down onto his knees in order to tie the rope to the peg without losing any of the tautness.

  “You pull a good rope,” one of the squires called. “Pity it’s bound to end up around your neck.”

  Newt laughed and went to the third rope, making sure it had been tied properly. There were few things you learned faster working in the kennels, the way he had as a young boy, than how to tie a secure knot.

  “Up the tent!” Newt called, and they hauled on the ropes until the pavilion cover was upright once again.

  “Good, dog-boy!” one of the squires called, continuing the rough-handed teasing. “Say woof!”

  “That’s horse-boy to you, and I say to you ‘neigh.’”

  “Four legs, a tail, and no brains—not so much of a difference between horse and dog.”

  “You take that back!”

  Newt looked up from tying off the final rope only to see the squire flat on his back in the mud, Gerard looming over him, holding him down. “You don’t speak to him like that—not until you’ve done as much as he has,” Gerard growled.

  “Ger!” Newt knew that Gerard had a temper—he had, in fact, been at the receiving end of it many times—but this seemed extreme. “Gerard, it’s okay!” He hauled Gerard off the now muddy squire, shoving him, gently, to arms’ distance away.

  “What was that all about?”

  “He said—”

  “I heard what he said.”

  “He—it doesn’t bother you?” Gerard looked at Newt, then up at the now clear sky as though there might be some answer up there.

  “It would have if it meant anything.” Newt knew that he had sore spots, things that riled him when poked, but he very rarely got angry. His mother had taught him to let things slide off his shoulders, and working with animals sensitive to your moods had set the lessons in stone. Anger had no place in his life, especially over such a foolish thing as name-calling.

  “I appreciate the championship,” Newt said. “But I don’t need it.”

  He was tired of Gerard always playing the squire role no matter what, as though that were the only thing that mattered. He was tired of hiding his participation in events, of staying quiet in order to keep any rumor or hint of trouble at Camelot from spreading.
<
br />   “If you’d fought like that when we first met, you might actually have won,” he said instead.

  “If Sir Lancelot hadn’t shown up to save you, you’d have been wearing your face backward,” Gerard retorted, reaching to help the squire he’d just tackled up from the mud. “Callum, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry about that, Callum. Newt’s a friend of mine, and I don’t take well to him being mocked. Even in jest.”

  “I’ll remember that.” The boy was unhappy, but clearly unable to find fault either with Gerard’s apology, or his reasoning.

  Gerard glanced up at the sky, then turned to Newt, his face serious again. “We need to talk about Ailis.”

  “Ailis? Is she all right?” Newt looked around, as though expecting to see her in the crowd gathering around them.

  Gerard looked up at the sky again and found the moon that was beginning to rise. “We need to talk,” was all he said.

  “Gather!”

  The call came from the center of camp, and everyone turned to hear who was yelling.

  “Gather!”

  “That’s Tom,” Gerard said, relieved at the interruption. Tom was Sir Matthias’s squire, the one who actually was stuck polishing gear and minding the horses. “Something must have happened. Come on!”

  The two friends pushed through the crowd, slipping occasionally on the mud-slick grass, to where Sir Matthias was standing. A young, nervous-looking monk was beside him. There were torches set up to hold the darkness at bay, but even with them, everything had a strange, shadowy cast. It caused Newt to look around nervously, waiting for something to jump out at them.

  “Nobody else feels it.”

  “What?” Gerard said.

  Ailis had appeared next to Newt, looking straight ahead, watching not Sir Matthias, but the monk with him. “The darkness. Nobody else feels it.”

  “You do.” Newt’s words were less a statement than a question.

  “So do you, don’t you?” Ailis said, looking at Newt closely. They were feeling the same strange tension in the air, a tension which seemed to be increasing, rather than fading.