Knights of the Round Table 03 - Gawain

by Gawain (lit)

  “As strongly as I could.” Arthur rubbed absently at his jaw. “But he pled his—or should I say her—case with equal strength. What Dame Ragnelle did was unwise, and certainly inopportune, but worth banishment? I think not.”

  “What she has done to my brother merits that,” Gaheris argued. “She has obviously enspelled him.”

  “We have no proof of that. Even his defense of her to Sir Gudrun was understandable.”

  “In any other man, perhaps, but in Gawain? After the effort he put into this treaty, would he really toss it all aside so lightly? And you know as well as I how he feels about sorcery, yet he admitted she is a witch as though ’twere naught.”

  “True, but . . . the more I reflect on it, the more I doubt my judgment. It is only that I am so very fond of Gawain—” He sighed. “But I fear I mishandled this badly.”

  “No, sire!” Gaheris protested. “You could not!”

  Arthur laughed shortly. “Of course I could! And it would not be the first time, either. I should have been honest with him, Gaheris. Even if he has been enspelled, it was wrong to deceive him.”

  “You meant it for his good. Once she is gone, he will understand that. When is she leaving?”

  “I saw him this morning,” Arthur said, “and he asked for a day or two to make a suitable arrangement for her.”

  Gaheris frowned. “I do not like this.”

  “Nor do I. But I can hardly deny him such a reasonable request. I have given him two days, and I shall take care to keep him from her. Today, he will attend me and tonight, I have bidden all my companions to keep watch with me in the chapel in honor of St. John’s feast.”

  “And tomorrow?” Gaheris asked.

  Arthur sighed. “The guests will be arriving; it should be no trouble to keep him busy until nightfall and then there is the feast. God send that Morgana will be here by that time, but whether or no, Dame Ragnelle will be gone the next morning.”

  Chapter 30

  LAUNFAL stopped dead in the road when he saw the spires of Camelot rising above the treetops, scarcely aware of the people jostling him as they pushed by on their way to market. There was the Pendragon banner, gold and crimson against the blazingly blue sky. It was real, all real, and he was nearly there. He laughed aloud, drawing a few suspicious glances from the crowd, but the tradesmen streaming down the road were far too intent upon their own concerns to pay such a ragged stranger any mind.

  And he was far too happy to care what they made of him. Nearly there, he thought, unconsciously flexing the fingers of his left hand. The skin across his palm was still very tender, but the pain which had been nearly unendurable for the first few days had subsided to a dull ache, easily ignored as he strode quickly toward the distant castle. The road grew more crowded as he climbed the hill, and when he reached the crest, he saw the market spread below. The scent of roasting meat hit him like a blow; his empty belly collapsed in upon itself and his mouth filled with water, but his gaze was riveted to the road beyond, rising on a gentle slope to the open gates of Camelot.

  A laden donkey nudged him in the back, sending him staggering into a woman with a basket balanced on one brawny shoulder. “Geroff!” she shouted, fetching him a clout, and he barely stopped himself from measuring his length upon the dusty path.

  Impatient with the crowd, he turned off the road and into the wood, enjoying the cool shadows cast by slender birches. The way was easy here, the ground carpeted in springing moss and starred with bluebells. He began to whistle as he leapt lightly over a merry little brook, matching his steps to the rhythm of the tune, keeping an eye out for roots and rocks that might trip him up.

  He did not notice he was not alone until he nearly collided with the warhorse in his path.

  “Good day, sir!” he cried, springing back and touching his brow in an instinctive gesture of respect.

  “Good day,” the knight replied. He wore no mail, but a hauberk of leather, and a round cap studded with iron sat upon his graying hair. “Where are you bound in such a hurry?”

  “To Camelot.”

  Launfal grinned, relishing the musical sound of the word upon his lips.

  “What is your business there?”

  “To see the king.”

  “The king?” The knight laughed. “And do you think the king receives every chance-come beggar to his door?”

  Launfal’s smile was not so easy now, but he held on to it with all his might. “Indeed I do not,” he said with such courtesy as he could muster. “But I dare to hope he will see me.”

  “Why should he? What is your name?”

  “My name is my own, good sir,” he answered, lifting his chin and shaking his tangled hair back from his face. “Though I will render it gladly to any man who gives me his.”

  “What’s this?” The knight nudged his steed closer, leaning down from his saddle to peer closely into Launfal’s face. “You are insolent, boy.”

  Launfal held his ground. “I am no boy, sir, but a man, and what I ask of you is no more than my right.”

  “Your what?” The knight laid a mailed fist upon the hilt of his sword.

  “My right,” Launfal answered stoutly. “Courtesy demands that—”

  “Who are you?” the knight cut in. “From whence do you come? Speak out, boy, and smartly.”

  “I have told you once I am no boy,” Launfal replied evenly. “My father was a noble knight, and I his only son. For that, if nothing else, I will thank you to address me as befits—”

  “Let me see your hand.”

  “My—?”

  “Your hand. No, not that one, the left. Hold it up—palm toward me, if you please.”

  Caught between bewilderment and affront, Launfal obeyed. The knight drew his sword.

  “What—?” Launfal began, but before he could say more, he was flat on his belly with the knight’s blade whistling over his head. “Stop! Sir, what are you doing? You have no cause—”

  But apparently the knight did not need a cause. He must be mad, Launfal thought, rolling as a spear buried itself in the moss beside him.

  “Wait!” he cried, leaping to his feet. He glanced wildly about the wood, hoping against hope that someone— anyone—would appear and call a halt to this insanity. But the wood stretched empty to either side, and a moment later, he was diving behind a boulder as the knight’s sword sparked against the stone.

  “Sir, wait!” he cried again. “We have no quarrel, there is no reason—”

  The knight halted, notched blade lifted. “Your name,” he cried. “What is it?”

  Dear God, is that all the man wanted? He must be mad in truth. “Launfal!” he cried. “I am Launfal, son of Rogier of Penhelm, lately of—”

  “I know where you come from,” the knight snarled, and Launfal sprang back as the blade swept by, bare inches from his belly. “Just as I know where you are bound—and why, you scurrilous dog!”

  “You—you mistake—” Launfal gasped, but the knight was done with conversation. Launfal was twisting, stumbling, dodging behind trees, and though half of him was tempted to burst out laughing at the ridiculous sight they must make, a mounted knight chasing an unarmed man through the wood, the other half was grimly intent upon survival.

  Had they been in the open, Launfal would have had no chance at all. It was the trees that saved him, the thin silver trunks and whipping branches that he kept between him and the warhorse, his desperation driving him to unimagined feats of agility. At first he continued to cry out, but soon he had no breath to spare for questions and no desire left to ask them. When he fell, his cheek against a jagged stone, he blinked the tears of pain from his eyes and, looking up, saw the knight towering above him, one arm drawn back to throw the dagger glinting in his fist. Launfal seized the stone, wrested it from the earth, and flung it with all his strength.

  It struck the knight on the brow, and though the blow was glancing, the surprise of it sent him reeling back so sharply that his mount, startled by the sudden shift of weight, reared,
iron-shod hoofs beating the air. The knight went over backward and landed with a thud upon the moss. His mount pranced nervously, then halted, trembling, beside the prone form of his master.

  Launfal scrambled to his feet, breathing hard, a second stone ready in his hand, but the knight lay unmoving. After an age had passed, Launfal forced himself to approach the fallen man.

  “Sir?”

  The sound of his own voice startled him so much that he jumped, and something between a sob and a laugh burst from his lips. “Sir?” he said again, not knowing why he bothered. The man obviously could not hear him. If you had any sense, you would take to your heels, Launfal told himself . . . and yet he could not leave this poor madman lying unconscious in the forest, prey to any sort of beast.

  I’ll get him on his horse, he thought and went down on his knees, slipping his hands beneath the man’s arms and lifting—and it was then he saw the dagger’s hilt protruding from the knight’s back. With a low cry, Launfal laid him carefully on his side and drew the dagger forth, staring in dismay at the blood seeping from the wound.

  And it was thus that the knight’s companions found him.

  Chapter 31

  GAHERIS arrived rather breathless in the hall, where Arthur and his queen were breaking their fast.

  “Sire, have you seen Gawain?” Gaheris asked.

  “He left me a quarter of an hour since,” Arthur replied. “To meet you in the practice yard.”

  “He did not come,” Gaheris said.

  The two exchanged a glance, and Arthur half rose from his seat. Guinevere looked at him questioningly. “Sir Gawain must have been delayed,” she said. “My lord, do sit down, you have not finished, and I did want to talk to you—”

  “No, I—I have no appetite,” Arthur said and when Guinevere’s puzzled frown deepened, he remembered that he had only just declared himself half famished after his vigil in the chapel. “That is, I—I will eat this as I walk,” he said, seizing a slice of bread. “I shall attend you and the queen of Orkney later this morning,” he promised, noticing her hurt expression with only a small part of his mind as he hurried from the hall.

  “COME out,” Gawain said.

  “No, I don’t think so. Why don’t you go off and do whatever it is you do,” Aislyn said from behind the screen. “Come back at sunset.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Gawain said, smothering a laugh. “It’s not as though I’ve never seen Dame Ragnelle before!”

  “But it’s different now.”

  “No, it’s not. I want to talk to you.”

  “Talk then,” she retorted. “I can hear you fine from here.”

  ARTHUR and Gaheris hesitated outside the door to Gawain’s chamber. “Perhaps it would have been better to send a page to him,” Arthur said. “I do not want to alarm the witch.”

  Gaheris gnawed his lower lip. “Aye, you are right. Let us—”

  The sound of Gawain’s laughter came from within. “Sire,” Gaheris said, “it is not my habit to listen at doors . . .”

  “Nor mine,” Arthur said.

  Their eyes met briefly, then broke away to peruse the hallway.

  “But this once . . .” Gaheris began.

  “Do it,” Arthur ordered tersely, and Gaheris put his ear to the door.

  “Well?” Arthur said after a moment, alarmed at the expression on Gaheris’s face. “What do you hear?”

  “Oh, sire—”

  Arthur leaned forward and laid his head against the wood, where a voice that sounded like Gawain’s was clearly audible.

  “Now, stop being foolish and come sit on my knee. That’s better. It seems an age since I have seen you. I thought about you all last night.”

  “Did you?”

  That was Dame Ragnelle; her harsh croak was unmistakable, even when lowered to a sickening coo.

  “I could scarce keep my mind on anything I did.” It was definitely Gawain, much as Arthur longed to deny it. “Come, love, don’t turn away—”

  Gaheris and Arthur exchanged looks of horror.

  “Oh, God,” Gawain groaned, half laughing, “I don’t know how I can wait until tonight.”

  Arthur leapt back, his stomach heaving. Gaheris followed suit, his face a shade of delicate green as he pressed the back of one hand against his mouth. But when Arthur raised a fist to pound upon the door, Gaheris caught him by the wrist.

  “No,” he mouthed, jerking his head down the passageway. “Wait.”

  Arthur followed him some distance down the corridor.

  “This is far worse than I suspected,” Gaheris whispered. “I fear for Gawain if we confront her in his presence.”

  “You are right.” Arthur looked toward the door. “Oh, Gaheris, don’t think badly of your brother. The fault is mine. I should never have allowed—”

  “You did not know what she was, no more than Gawain did. But all will be well once he is free of her. You must send again to the duchess of Cornwall—”

  “I have already done so.”

  “Then we must keep them apart until she arrives. Sire, do you keep Gawain by you, and we shall post a guard outside the door.”

  Chapter 32

  LAUNFAL half fell into the windowless chamber, propelled by a hard shove at the small of his back.

  “But I told you—it was an accident.”

  “You can tell the king himself—when he has time for you,” one of the knights replied.

  “At least unbind me. For pity’s sake—”

  “Pity? You dare—” Mailed hands pushed him against the wall. He hit it awkwardly with his shoulder and went down hard upon his knees. “I’ll give you pity—the same pity you showed Marrek!” the knight shouted, drawing back his foot.

  “Peace, Kay,” a cool voice cut in. “He’s just a lad, and he hasn’t even been tried yet, let alone condemned.”

  Launfal knew that voice—it was the one that had stopped the others from slaying him out of hand back in the forest. Now its owner drew off his helm and went down upon one knee, taking the dagger from his belt. “Relax, lad, I’m not going to slit your weasand. Just turn so I can get to these—”

  “Dinadan, don’t!” the other—Sir Kay, Launfal thought— protested.

  “Why not?” Sir Dinadan stood and sheathed his dagger. “He’s no danger here to anyone save himself.”

  “At least put him in the cell,” Sir Kay said, gesturing toward an iron cage, barely visible among the shadows.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Kay, what do you think he’ll do, dig through solid rock with his bare hands? We’ll bolt the door and post a guard.”

  Launfal stood, rubbing his wrists where the ropes had cut into them. “Thank you, sir,” he said with a bow. “I shall never forget your courtesy.”

  Sir Dinadan nodded, his eyes cool and watchful. “Let us hope you have a long life in which to remember it. But if you are guilty, I’ll be the first in line to watch you die.”

  Die? Was he to die? No, it was impossible—and yet Launfal knew that it was not. He had as little control over his life as a piece upon a game board, moved hither and yon by some unseen hand. He had known that since he was a child, when his life was a frail thread like to snap at any moment, and as a child, he had accepted it. Later, he had pushed the knowledge aside, but now he knew how foolish he had been.