The Savage Knight (Malory's Knights of Albion)

by Paul Lewis

  When she was done she stood over him, then crouched down to take a closer look. Dodinal regarded her in return. Her hair was raven, her face thin, with high cheekbones and eyes of cornflower blue. She was, he concluded, rather beautiful.

  “Y-you,” he croaked. He licked his parched lips and tried again but his throat was too tight. You’re the boy’s mother, was what he wanted to say. The woman nodded, either anticipating the question or merely offering a gesture of reassurance. Then she reached out and took one of his hands in both of hers. Her skin was soft and cool. A tingle ran down Dodinal’s spine; it had been a long time since he last felt a woman’s touch.

  “Try not to speak. You were badly hurt. The fever has broken but it will have left you weak. Lay still. I will bring you something to drink.”

  She left him. Dodinal closed his eyes. He cast his senses beyond the walls that enclosed him, seeing hounds and a pair each of oxen, sheep, pigs and chickens.3 Dodinal wondered how many people lived here, and how long they could survive if the storm did not lift soon.

  The feast of Christmas was months past and Candlemas had been and gone. Spring should have arrived weeks ago. Dodinal had set out from Camelot in late winter, expecting the weather to have improved before he reached the borderlands, but he had been wrong. He could hear the wind gusting outside, and feel it rattle the walls.

  The woman returned holding a steaming beaker. Dodinal’s nose wrinkled at the foul smell. Worse than gone-off meat. When she raised it to his lips, his stomach rebelled. He shook his head firmly.

  “Drink,” she said. “You’ve been drinking it for the last three days, only you weren’t aware of it. Took me long enough to spoon it into your mouth as well. Come on, it’ll do you good.”

  He hesitated, certain that anything that gave off such a noxious stench could do him nothing but harm, but the pain radiating from his mauled leg eventually convinced him it might be wise to do as he were told. He nodded reluctantly, and the woman pressed the beaker to his mouth and tilted it. Dodinal almost gagged as the warm liquid flowed over his lips. It tasted like water drawn from a stagnant pond that animals had wallowed and pissed in.

  He had to fight back the urge to retch up every mouthful he swallowed. “Are you trying to poison me?” he gasped, once he had forced the last of it down. The words rasped painfully in his throat. Yet no sooner had he spoken than a warmth spread out from his belly, banishing the aches and pains from his body.

  “Don’t be such a baby. It was just a simple infusion, nothing in it that would hurt you. Meadowsweet and yarrow and comfrey. Some mugwort too, and agrimony. All good for healing.”

  Dodinal studied her, intrigued. It did not sound simple to him. “You’re a healer?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. I just… when I was a girl I used to watch my mother. I learned without realising it.”

  Dodinal sensed she was uncomfortable with the question.

  She lowered her gaze and eased back the furs covering him. “Now I need to take a look at the wound. I think the worst of the infection has gone, but I have to be certain.”

  It was the knight’s turn to feel discomfort. He tensed, not liking the idea of her hand on his thigh. He cleared his throat to object, but she shushed him. “It’s a bit late to be embarrassed,” she said. “Seeing as I’ve already washed the blood away, cleaned and stitched the wound and covered it with a poultice. And changed the poultice several times.”

  With a heavy sigh, Dodinal tried to relax. She was right, of course, although that did not make him feel any less mortified as her cool fingers began to untie the cloth that held the poultice in place. It was only then he realised the lightweight clothes he wore were not his own, which meant the woman had stripped and dressed him too.

  He almost groaned aloud.

  “You have a name?” she asked.

  “Dodinal. And you?”

  “Rhiannon.”4 He liked the way she said it, with the R rolling so that the name flowed like water from her lips.

  “Dodinal. That’s a strange name. Not from around here?”

  “No,” he answered softly, almost to himself. “No, I’m a long way from home. Where are my clothes? My belongings?”

  “Your clothes were a mess. They are being cleaned and repaired. I don’t know about any belongings. I’ve not seen anything, but I will ask later. Now keep still. This will hurt a little.” She peeled the cloth away. Dodinal tensed, wincing. It hurt a great deal.

  “Looks good,” Rhiannon said, nodding. “The infection is completely clear. It was bad, already starting to putrefy. You were lucky they found you when they did, else you would not have lasted the night. If the infection hadn’t got you, the cold would have. I’ve never known a winter like it.”

  “The boy. He’s your son.” It was a statement, not a question. The child was the image of his mother.

  “Yes,” she said, with a smile that was as much sadness as love. “Owain. My only child. He wandered off. Put on some of his grandfather’s clothes when no one was looking and left. He’s never done anything like it before. If you hadn’t come along…” She broke off and quickly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Well, Owain told me what you did. How you fought. You saved his life.”

  “And now you have saved mine,” Dodinal answered, a little more gruffly than he had intended. He was a man who was never at ease listening to others when they spoke from the heart. Sometimes he wondered if that was because his own had died along with his parents. For years after that terrible night, all he had felt was hate, a seething rage that had consumed him like wildfire. Even now, many years later, the hate smouldered deep within him. Perhaps these days he needed a little more provocation to bring forth the flames, but it was there all the same. “A life for a life. We’re even.”

  She did not answer. Her fingers tenderly probed the skin around the wound. Dodinal flinched. He had not looked, but could picture the torn flesh and the bruising that surrounded it. He had been hurt many times, but always in battle; clean wounds that had healed quickly. This one was different. Perhaps it never would heal properly.

  No matter. His quest would continue regardless.

  “Where is the boy now?”

  “Asleep. He scarcely left your side for three days. In the end I had to force him into bed. He was just about dead on his feet.”

  Dodinal remembered something else. “You say he told you what happened. Yet in the woods he made no sound, not even when the wolves attacked. I assumed he was incapable of speech.”

  “He speaks only to me. Owain is not like other children. They all think he’s strange, and even though he’s my son and I love him, I suppose in his way he is. Sometimes I wonder…”

  “Yes?”

  She hesitated. Then, brusquely: “Nothing. He has his health and that’s all that matters. I’m going to put a fresh poultice on the wound. The infection has cleared, but the skin is still swollen. I have some already made up so I might as well use it.”

  Dodinal noted how deftly she steered the subject away from her son but did not pursue it. “Could you bring me some water?”

  “Of course.”

  She took the empty beaker away, returning shortly with the water and a wooden bowl. The liquid was stale and tepid, but it tasted as sweet as Camelot’s finest mead as it flowed down his parched throat.

  The poultice was like warm mud as Rhiannon gently spread it over his skin. It stank to high heaven,5 the reek even worse than the infusion he had drunk. While she worked on him, Dodinal looked around to try to gain a measure of his surroundings. The fire burned bright enough in its pit to show four walls around him and a thatched roof above his head. Snowflakes swirled in through the smoke-hole, melting in the rising heat. Beyond it lay nothing but darkness. He was not in the corner of a larger building, as he had supposed. Rhiannon and her son appeared to have the place to themselves.

  He wanted to know the whereabouts of his clothes, his sword, his shield, his pack. But as he was going nowhere just yet, the que
stions were not pressing. They could wait until his throat had recovered.

  Dodinal wondered about the boy’s father, who was nowhere to be seen and whose name had not been mentioned. Again he decided against asking. It was none of his business and, besides, as soon as he was strong enough, he would be on his way. There was no reason for him to get involved in these people’s affairs.

  “There,” Rhiannon said as she wrapped the cloth around his leg and tied it. “You should be back on your feet in a day or two.”

  He nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Idris has asked to see you, when you feel up to it.”

  “Idris?”

  “Our brehyrion.”6

  “Brehe – ?”

  Rhiannon smiled at the attempt. “In days long gone it meant ‘chieftain,’ if that is easier for you.”

  Dodinal nodded. Many of the settlements in the borderlands had been founded long ago by the fractured remnants of the great tribes that once ruled these lands. Some traditions remained. Land and leadership were handed down from father to son, their lineages long forgotten, lost in the mists of time.

  Rhiannon said, “You don’t remember him?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “It was Idris who found you in the woods. I’m not surprised you don’t remember, you were far gone by the time they carried you back here. The fever had taken hold. You called out several times while you slept.”

  “What did I say?”

  “Nothing I could understand.”

  Dodinal was relieved to hear it. He did not want Rhiannon or her people to know who he was or why he was wandering the forest alone during the hardest winter in memory. He swallowed the last of the water. The burning in his throat had eased.

  “So why does this Idris not come to see me?”

  “Oh, he wanted to. But I told him he had to wait until you are strong enough to go to him. He always listens to me.”

  The mischievous smile that flitted across her face suggested a closer bond between Rhiannon and Idris than that of healer and chieftain. Perhaps he was the boy’s father.

  “I’ll fetch more water,” she said. “Are you hungry?”

  He had not been, but no sooner had she asked than his stomach growled and saliva flooded his mouth. “Yes.”

  “Then I will bring you something to eat, too. The better rested you are, the sooner you will be up and about.”

  With that she was gone. Dodinal heard a door open, and an icy blast of wind made the fire gutter and dance before the door was slammed shut. There was nothing he could do other than stare at the ceiling and listen to the whistling of the wind as it found the gaps in the walls and insinuated itself under the thatched roof. The weather was showing no sign of improving.

  He was alone with his thoughts for only a few minutes, before the door clattered open and Rhiannon hurried in, puffing in the cold. She held a cloth-covered wooden bowl with both hands and had to back into the door to close it against the raging gale.

  The moment she stepped inside, Dodinal smelled the food. The aroma was far more pleasant than the foul infusion she had persuaded him to drink. His mouth watered and he licked his lips hungrily. He did not care what was in the bowl; he would eat it regardless.

  “I’ve brought you some cawl.” Another unfamiliar word. She removed the cloth and handed him the bowl and spoon. “Here. We don’t have much to share, but it’s better than nothing.”

  Dodinal thanked her and set about eating. The cawl was a stew of meat and vegetables in a watery broth. The meat, cured and dried to last through winter, had softened somewhat during cooking but still required a lot of determined chewing. The vegetables were tender, so he ate them first to silence the grumbling in his belly. When they were gone he turned to the meat, chewing and chewing until he could swallow without choking, drinking the broth directly from the bowl to wash it down. Finally he was done. His stomach, while not full, had at least ceased its gurgling protests.

  “I don’t think I have ever seen anyone eat so fast.”

  Dodinal started. He had been so intent on devouring the meal that he had become oblivious to Rhiannon’s presence.

  “Forgive my lack of manners. I was ravenous.”

  “Of course you were.” She took the bowl from him. “You haven’t eaten for three days. I wish I could bring you more, but that was all we could spare. Food is scarce. Our men have been out, but there is no game to be found.”

  Dodinal nodded agreement. There was game aplenty further to the south, but no hunting party could endure these conditions to search for it. Even fit and rested, Dodinal might have struggled. The senses that attuned him to nature offered him no protection against the elements. As one at home in the forest, he was no stranger to extreme weather, but the snow had fallen and the freezing winds had blown for far longer than usual this year. It had become a challenge even for him. Had he not encountered the boy, he would still be wandering the forest, struggling from shelter to makeshift shelter, his supply of dried meat dwindling with no prey to supplement it. His odds for survival would have diminished with each passing day.

  “I’ll leave you now.” Rhiannon gathered up the bowl and spoon, leaving the beaker at his side. “Seeing as the fever has broken, there is no longer a need for me to be here. I’ll stay with Owain.”

  “Where is he?”

  “With Idris. He hardly left your side. Slept now and then, but not for long, and wouldn’t listen to me when I sent him to his bed. But he listens to his grandfather, which is why I took him there.”

  So Idris was either Rhiannon’s father or her absent husband’s.

  It occurred to him that Rhiannon, too, would have had little sleep while she tended to him. No wonder her skin was so pale, her face so drawn. It was not just because her people were having to eke out the last of their food. “Thank you. For all you have done for me.”

  She waved his words away. “I’ll put some more wood on the fire. It will burn until morning, and I will be back to tend to it then. Don’t even think about getting up to do it yourself. I don’t want those stitches pulling and coming undone, understand?”

  Dodinal smiled at her persistence. “As long as you promise not to give me any more of that hellish infusion.”

  Her response was a look of mock indignation. “That hellish infusion, as you call it, helped break the fever.”

  “I think I preferred the fever.”

  “Yes, well, you certainly sound as if you’re on the mend. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Once she had gone, Dodinal sighed and stared up at the roof. For someone who was never fully at ease in the company of others he felt oddly alone. There was something about Rhiannon that intrigued him. Not her healing skills, although he was certainly grateful for them. Something else, something that remained stubbornly elusive.

  Eventually he got it. Rhiannon had seemed entirely relaxed in his company. More often than not people found his very appearance intimidating. He was taller and broader than most men and he kept his hair and beard long and unkempt. He looked and fought like a savage, hence the nickname his fellow knights had given him. Dodinal frowned. Fellow knights? They had nothing in common, other than a title bestowed by King Arthur and a duty they had sworn to uphold.

  Women and children, many men too, gave him a wide berth when they saw him restlessly prowling the halls and corridors of Camelot, even when he had left his sword in his chambers. Word had reached him that he had a reputation for sudden, unprovoked violence, but that was not true. He fought only in battle or in self-defence, and would never knowingly harm an innocent. But it was a reputation he was not inclined to dispel, as it meant people tended to leave him alone. Dodinal had never been one for small talk.

  Rhiannon was different. Granted, he was weak from fever and unable to stand and so hardly presented a threat. That he had saved her son’s life would also have helped. Even so, she had not once recoiled from him or flinched at the sight of his battle-scarred face. She had looked at him as if he were no different fro
m any other man.

  That felt strange. But not unpleasant.

  They had something in common too. Their skills might be completely different but they were both derived from an understanding of the natural world. She had learned from her mother, he from his father.

  Dodinal shifted uncomfortably on the mattress, wincing as the stitches tightened. He had not wanted complications, yet here he was, feeling the first stirrings of interest in a woman he hardly knew. That was not advisable. He resolved to leave the moment he could, weather be damned. The quest could not be abandoned.

  And yet…

  Sleep was a long time coming that night.

  3Small medieval villages often slaughtered most of their animals in November, drying and salting the meat for the cold months, to save on grain. Breeding pairs were kept in barns over the winter.

  4“Ryannon” in the manuscript. In the Mabinogion, Rhiannon is the widow of Pwyll, and mother of the hero Pryderi; when Pryderi is born, the infant is lost by her ladies-in-waiting, and eventually recovered and restored to his mother by Teyrnon. References like these support the argument that Malory had access to the Mabinogion, or to an earlier source document, when he wrote the Second Book.

  5Medieval poultices often included animal dung and other foul-smelling substances, in the belief that the odor would “drive away” illnesses.

  6“Bregirran,” in the manuscript. Brehyrion is Old Welsh for “chieftain.”

  FOUR

  The fire was burning low by the time dawn approached, but Rhiannon returned early, ushering in the boy Owain, who held a bowl with both hands. She stamped her boots on the floor to shake off the snow and then took the bowl from her son. Their clothes and hair were flecked with white that melted into glistening dewdrops.

  “Put some wood on the fire,” she told Owain, before coming to Dodinal’s side, helping to ease him into a sitting position before handing him the bowl. He thanked her. His stomach had felt empty for several hours, and its rumblings had kept him awake.