Quicksilver's Knight

by Christopher Stasheff

  "Neither in women, nor in any of the things of this world," Geoffrey told her. "Even the monks in the monastery are too much concerned with the toils of daily living to sustain his interest long."

  She frowned. "Does he strive for sainthood, then?" Geoffrey shook his head, exasperated and, for the first time since she had known him, totally at a loss. "He pays no more heed to religion than any of us do. He says he solved its puzzle years ago, so it holds his devotion, but no great interest."

  "Solved its puzzle?" Quicksilver stared. "God is infinite, and your brother says he has solved His puzzle?"

  "Not the puzzle of God," Geoffrey corrected, "but the puzzle of religion. He is most emphatic in that distinction. He says that God is not a riddle, but a mystery, and Gregory refuses to seek to understand that mystery until he has all the facts."

  "But one can never have all the facts about God!"

  "So Gregory says," Geoffrey agreed. "To him, that is the highest praise that he knows."

  Quicksilver turned to stare at the youngest Gallowglass, sitting with legs folded and back straight, gazing off into space. "He loves puzzles and mysteries, but has no interest in women?"

  "I cannot comprehend that, either," Geoffrey said, sighing, "but for his part, he says he cannot comprehend my interest in battles."

  "Or women," Quicksilver added.

  "Oh, I think I may finally have grown past that," Geoffrey said, entirely too casually. "By your leave, Chieftain, I must sleep. I trust you shall, too."

  Quicksilver would see him hanged rather than let him have a good night's sleep—perhaps hanged literally, for a groggy Geoffrey might be one it would be possible to beat. She sat up awhile, dressing her hair, carefully sitting right where neither Geoffrey nor Gregory could avoid seeing her. She leaned her head over to brush out her fall of rich auburn, twisting and contorting her body as she did. She didn't see Geoffrey's eyes open, but after a while, he turned over, as though in his sleep. She smiled and rose, going past him to take a ribbon from her pack, then sat down in full view of him again (and, beyond him, of Gregory) and arched her back, reaching up to part her hair, then began to braid it. She smiled with satisfaction when she heard a very faint moan coming from the mound that was the supposedly sleeping Geoffrey, and took pity on him, going back near the campfire to plait her other braid—but doing so fully in the light of the fire, still with her back arched, sitting in profile to Gregory.

  She wished she hadn't.

  It wasn't that he did anything to offend her, nor even gazed at her lasciviously. That was the trouble—that he did not. He sat there as though he had not even noticed her, gazing off into space.

  Finally, exasperated, she rose with a stamp of her feet and marched away, around behind him, and stood with her arms folded and her back to the men. She would not violate her word of honor; she would not signal her bandits to come and bear her away; but she knew that, by her posture and attitude, they would infer that she no longer wished the company of Geoffrey Gallowglass.

  Of course, that was anything but true. Still, he was obviously not interested enough. If he were, he would have followed where she led, not the other way around.

  Minerva and Jory took the signal, sure enough. In minutes, dark forms bearing steel and staves had surrounded the campfire. Quicksilver looked up to find herself facing Minerva. "Do them no lasting hurt," she breathed.

  Minerva turned to look at Gregory with contempt. "A fine sentry is he, to sleep while he wakes!" She looked up at Jory and nodded.

  The outlaws moved silently toward the two brothers. Cudgels swung up and smashed down...

  And jarred to a halt.

  They didn't bounce, as though off an invisible shield; they slowed abruptly, then stuck fast, as though in a mire of tar. Minerva and Jory both pulled back on their weapons, but they would not come. They tugged harder, but both cudgels resisted. Finally, in exasperation and almost in unison, they dropped their sticks and whipped out their swords.

  "No!" Quicksilver cried, but too late—the blades were already flashing down...

  And sticking. Tight. Not as though in tar, but as though they had chopped into a very hard wood, and would not now come loose again. Minerva and Jory tugged as hard as they could, threw all their weight against their hilts, but they would not come loose.

  The bandits muttered with superstitious fear, but they raised their weapons...

  "You must not harm them!" Quicksilver hissed. Finally, Gregory looked up from his trance. "Do not fear, maiden. They cannot hurt us."

  Total shocked silence fell on the band; even Minerva and Jory froze.

  "You have known all along what they did?" In her shock and, yes, fright, Quicksilver almost forgot to whisper.

  "I have—though it was not worth breaking my stream of thought. Your own anguish, though, is."

  "My anguish? What know you of my anguish?" Then Quicksilver, glad to feel outrage, demanded, "And how can you be sure I am a maiden?"

  "Why, it is evident," Gregory told her. "Evident! By what signs?"

  Gregory shrugged, with a trace of irritation. "Too many to mention, too numerous to even register consciously. Like will to like. It takes one to know one. What more need you know?"

  She stared at him, speechless. So did the rest of her band, men and women alike; they had never heard a male openly and willingly acknowledge the fact that he was a virgin—not unless he was a priest.

  "Go back to your camp, now." Gregory turned slowly, taking in the entire band as h%4 spoke. "You shall not prevail, for I shall not sleep, and while I am awake, your weapons shall not strike. I would not have you lose your rest to no purpose."

  He was so confoundedly gentle about it! So gentle, and so polite!

  "We shall not go without our chief," Minerva said nervously.

  Gregory turned to give Quicksilver a searching, and very thorough, look. It made her skin writhe, for there was no admiration in it, nor even interest just a one-second examination to determine her state of existence. "She is not chained, nor do I hold her caged," Gregory said, then to Quicksilver, "What holds you?"

  "My word," she said.

  Gregory just gazed into her eyes a minute, with that look that seemed to see far more and far less than it should. Then he nodded. "Then you are bound far more tightly than any shackle could hold you. I can do nothing thereby."

  "Then we must steal her away!" Minerva insisted. Gregory considered the statement, then shook his head. "Geoffrey would not wish it."

  "Oh, would he not!" Minerva said angrily, and aloud. She ignored Quicksilver's frantic shushing motions and stepped up to seize her chief around the waist, to lift up...

  Quicksilver stuck fast.

  Jory saw and came running to throw his arms about his sister, too, and help pull. A dozen more of the bandits crowded around, male and female both, tugging frantically. Quicksilver bit her lip against a cry of pain.

  But Gregory heard her mind and said, not loudly, but with a voice everyone heard right next to his or her own ear, "Desist. You are hurting her."

  They dropped Quicksilver as though she were a hot rock and leaped back. "Let her go!" Minerva said angrily. "No," Geoffrey said simply.

  Enraged, Minerva spun away, seized a battle-axe from another bodyguard, and swung it down at Gregory's head. "No!" Quicksilver screamed.

  "No indeed," Gregory agreed, looking up at the whetted edge that was stuck fast in mid-air eighteen inches from his face. Behind it, Minerva struggled to pull it free, cursing furiously, red in the face.

  "We have come back to where we began," Gregory said. "It is fruitless. Go away."

  "Fruitless indeed!" Quicksilver snapped at him. "How many men would it take to overcome you? A hundred? A thousand?"

  "Too many," Geoffrey said. "They could not all come at him at once, and I would chop them down from behind." Quicksilver whirled. He was leaning up on one elbow, smiling, still under his blankets. He did not even think them enough challenge to get up and draw his sword!

 
"Oh, there is no fairness in you, in any of you!" Quicksilver raged. "There is no justice, no equity, in fighting a Gallowglass, is there? For even if I should manage to work out a way to settle with one of you, the others would pile in and vanquish me utterly! No, you are unfair, unjust, you with your magic and your thought-hearing and your skill at swords! There is no winning against a Gallowglass, because Fate has endowed you with gifts denied to the rest of us! No opponent has a chance against you, against any of you, for you will all come at us in a gang!"

  "It is even so," Gregory said quietly. "There are six of us, and we have you outnumbered."

  She spun about, staring in fury—but the look on his face was bland, even serious; if he had mocked her, he seemed unaware of it.

  "I have never known him to use sarcasm," Geoffrey said, "nor to boast."

  Quicksilver turned her back on Gregory with a shudder. "He is inhuman!"

  "Now, that he is not!" Geoffrey was on his feet suddenly, fists clenched. "He is a good man, one of the best, and he has done you no wrong save to keep you from wronging me! Yet you have wronged him, who is the gentlest and best of boys!"

  Quicksilver stared at him, amazed at his anger. Then she spun about to Gregory, and saw the signs of hurt in his face. Even as she watched, he smoothed them out, hid them—but now she knew they were there.

  Minerva stared, shocked. So did Jory, and all of them. "It is you who have wronged him, Madam!" Geoffrey snapped.

  She turned to look at him, and now she knew the tone, knew the look—it was the elder brother defending his little brother, as Leander and Martin had done for her, as she had done for Jory and Nan. Suddenly contrite, she turned back to Gregory—and saw him suddenly not as a heartless, imperturbable monster, but only as Geoffrey's little brother. Her heart broke open; compassion flowed. "Oh, I am so sorry! You have done nothing but aid your brother, nothing but defend yourself against me and mine! Nay, there is nothing inhuman in you, save your strength." That wasn't quite true—she also could have mentioned his apparent lack of a sex drive—but she was able to bite her tongue, for once. And she was repaid, in a sudden beam of gratitude from Gregory that seemed to light up his whole face. It held her transfixed for a moment of sheer surprise.

  Then it was gone; he closed his eyes and bowed his head courteously, saying, "I thank you, Chieftain Quicksilver. I spoke aright before; you are all that a lady should be."

  For some reason, she felt completely and very oddly flattered.

  She turned to her band, waving them away. "Back to your campfires! Away! I cannot thank you enough, good friends, for seeking to free me from a road to the gallows—but I can see it is not to be done this way. No, away, and I thank you with all my heart!"

  Unsure and looking askance, they nonetheless began to slip away into the woods, until finally only Minerva and Jory were left. Quicksilver gave Minerva a little nod of assurance, and she went.

  "Sister..." Jory pleaded.

  "Nay, you must leave me, too, brother," Quicksilver said, low. "Do me the courtesy to believe that I know what is best for me—and that I have enough sense of honor to keep my word, once it is given."

  "Why, I shall trust in that fervently," Geoffrey said. Quicksilver felt her heart flutter, but Jory frowned at Geoffrey, puzzled, and Quicksilver wondered, impatiently, if her brother would ever lose his essential naivete. "I am well for now, brother," she said, "and I go to do what I must. I thank you deeply. Good night."

  Jory turned to glare at Geoffrey. "If you harm my sister, I shall never rest till I have slain you!"

  "You are a man of honor," Geoffrey returned, "and worthy to be a knight."

  Jory only glared at him a second longer, then turned on his heel and strode away.

  The woods were silent for a minute.

  Then Gregory stirred and said, "You should sleep now, both of you. There will be a long ride tomorrow." Quicksilver looked up with a frown. "When will you rest?"

  "I do even now," Gregory assured her, "for my vigil gives me as much rest as your slumber. Nay, fair ladygood night."

  "He speaks truth." Geoffrey lay down again. "I have seen him stay awake in this fashion every night for a week, and at the end be as well rested as though he had slept the whole sennight." Then, more softly, "I thank you for your compassion, lady."

  "I am not a lady!" she snapped.

  "Do you still maintain that?" Geoffrey sighed. "Ah, well, then I must suffer it. Good night to you, fairest of the fair."

  "And to you, unfair and inequitous," she returned—but she did lie down again. On her own side of the fire. "And I may be a gentlewoman, but I am not a lady!"

  Geoffrey sighed again, and called out, "What did Emerson say to it, Gregory?"

  " 'What you are, stands over you the while,' " Gregory quoted, " 'and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.' "

  Geoffrey nodded, satisfied. "Haunt my dreams, fair one. Good night."

  The next morning, Geoffrey took Gregory aside and asked, "What do you make of her, brother?"

  Gregory frowned, musing. "To speak objectively..."

  "Can you speak in any other way?"

  Gregory smiled, almost affectionately. "Well, then, to speak objectively and judiciously, I would say that she is brave, capable, and worthy—but is also gentle and sensitive. Moreover, she is a very beautiful woman with a soul that is so dynamic as to shatter the hardest of hearts."

  "Was mine so hard, then?"

  "Nay, nor was hers. She can be rash and hot-tempered, aye, but she is also compassionate and tender."

  "With all my hopes, perhaps," Geoffrey said softly. "All indeed." Gregory nerved himself up to speak plainly to his older brother, since that was the only sort of talk he really understood. "Clearly and to the point, then, brother—I would say she is the finest woman of our generation that I have ever met."

  "Of our generation?" Geoffrey smiled. "And who is the best woman of any, pray?"

  "Why, our mother, of course." Gregory smiled, eyes twinkling. "And I am sure that someone once told Father what I now tell you—you are already ensnared."

  "That much, I know."

  "Then if you do not bind her to you while you can, you will live to regret it, and curse the fact that you do." Geoffrey nodded, his gaze locked on Gregory's. "You advise me to hold fast to her, then."

  "Aye, and let no one take her from you."

  "Including the Crown's justice?" Geoffrey frowned. "What should I do, then? Turn bandit?"

  "You are seriously considering that, are you not?" Gregory gave him a penetrating glance that made even Geoffrey brace himself—but it faded into musing, and Gregory said slowly, "It would be much better if you could shield her from the Queen's justice, and turn her to the King's service."

  Geoffrey smiled. "One might say that you have it the wrong way around."

  "One might," Gregory agreed, "if they did not know Queen Catharine and King Tuan."

  CHAPTER 13

  They hadn't been riding for more than half an hour before an elf popped up on a low-hanging branch in front of them. "Warlock's sons!"

  Geoffrey reined in. "Hail, Wee One."

  The elf dropped down onto Fess's head. He froze, round-eyed, then sprang back up onto the branch. "Faugh! Cold Iron!"

  Quicksilver swung about to stare.

  "I am not." Geoffrey held up an arm.

  "Nor I," Quicksilver said quickly. She held up an arm, too. "Speak to me, Old Thing!"

  The elf glanced at her, then smiled and sprang down onto her horse's head. The mare went rigid, but before she could bolt or rear, the elf started murmuring soothing words in some forgotten language—forgotten by humans, at least, but the horse seemed to understand it well enough. She swivelled an ear toward the elf, listening, then began to relax. He stroked her head with a diminutive hand, coaxing, soothing, and she settled placidly. Quicksilver stared. "You are magical."

  The elf smiled. "We have ever had sway over dumb beasts."

  Quicksilver smiled, too. "Is th
at why Sir Geoffrey hearkens to you?"

  Geoffrey looked up in mock indignation. "Here, now! Who but lately feared the Wee Folk?"

  "Only because I had rarely seen them," Quicksilver said complacently, "and never closely, nor to speak with."

  "But seen them you had." Geoffrey turned, frowning. "How is it you did not tell me that the bandit chieftain was a woman, back in Runnymede, Wee One?"

  "It did not signify." The elf shrugged. "Male or female, what matter? She was their chief."

  "I assure you, it mattered to me," Geoffrey said drily. "How is it you now choose to ride with her, then?"

  "Walk," the elf told the mare; then, as they began to move again, he told Geoffrey, "She is prettier than thou art."

  Quicksilver smothered a giggle.

  Geoffey tried to look injured. "If you have no kinder words than that, you had better state your business, and quickly."

  "Mortal folk are so impatient," the elf sighed. "Well, then, brusque one, know that a witch hath lately begun to use her magic to gain power over the peasants of her parish. She hath affrighted the Count of the district, and doth even now raise forces to go up against the shire-reeve."

  "Why, even as I did!" Quicksilver turned to frown at Geoffrey. "Do not expect me to aid you in this!"

  "I think thou wilt," the elf countered, "for she doth not use her power for the people's good, but rather for their oppression. They mocked and spurned her for many years, seest thou, and she doth seek revenge."

  Quicksilver sat up straight in surprise, then frowned. "Perhaps..."

  "How now, brother?" Gregory asked. "Do you make a habit of setting such matters to rights?"

  Quicksilver turned to stare. How was it that Geoffrey's own brother did not know? Could he really be that indifferent to what went on about him?

  "I am a knight-errant out of idealism and boredom," Geoffrey told him. "Surely, Wee One. I shall undertake to show this witch the error of her ways. But you did say she gathers forces? A band of warriors?"

  "Aye—first a bodyguard, but it has grown so numerous that it verges upon becoming an army."