Lancelot

by Gwen Rowley

  Nor did we, Elaine thought, remembering the days when Torre and Lavaine had returned empty-handed from the hunt and they had supped upon thin gruel and boiled turnips; the nights when she had lain awake, shivering in the darkness while her belly pinched and gnawed with hunger, worrying that tomorrow they would not eat at all.

  “Bran Fletcher took to poaching,” the reeve said in his flat, uninflected voice, “and now he’s hanged for it. Well, lady, Bran Fletcher’s family was a-starving. Nor were they the only ones. This year we look to our own plots first.”

  “But that is folly!” Elaine cried. “Corbenic can produce enough to feed us all, but only if we work together!”

  “Oh, are you going to pick stones with us, lady?” a woman shouted from the crowd, and amid the laughter, another voice took up the cry. “Will your brothers help with the plowing?”

  “Nay, not Sir Torre! He’s too busy swilling wine to come down to the fields!”

  “Aye, and too drunk to plow a straight furrow if he did!”

  “That’s all you know!” a woman’s voice cried shrilly, “drunk or sober, Sir Torre can plow a deeper furrow than any man amongst ye!” The woman, a slattern with a filthy coif, thrust out her hips amid a roar of laughter.

  Elaine’s face flamed with anger and mortification. She hadn’t realized Torre’s habits were so widely known, and had certainly not expected to learn of it like this.

  Will Reeve rounded on the crowd, scowling. “Hold yer tongues, fools! Lady, pay those ruffians no mind. We’ll get to the plowing, don’t you fear, only—”

  “Be damned to the plowing,” a rough voice shouted, “and be damned to you, Will Reeve! Where were they when Bran Fletcher’s childer were a-crying with hunger? Sitting up in the hall, that’s where they were, feasting while we starved.”

  “We were all hungry—” Elaine began.

  “Bran Fletcher never harmed no one, he only wanted to feed his bairns!” a woman cried.

  “And now he’s dead—”

  “Hanged for a thief!”

  “Go back to the keep!” a deep voice shouted. “Help your mad father dig up another passageway!”

  “Enough!” the reeve roared. “Get to your homes, go on—move, I say! Lady, you’d best go, as well,” he added, shooting her a frightened look. “I’ll deal with this rabble.”

  “I am not going anywhere,” Elaine said clearly. “Listen to me, all of you—”

  She stumbled as something struck her leg. Looking down, she saw mud spattering her skirt. The next clod fell to her side, missing her by inches, and a roar that was no longer laughing echoed across the empty fields.

  “Give us bread!”

  “We’re hungry, our children are hungry!”

  “We’ll not starve so you can eat!”

  With a sickening shock, Elaine realized that the situation had slipped out of her control. These people were not just a handful of hungry peasants, they had somehow transformed into a mob. I could die, she thought, and though the idea seemed unreal, she knew that it was true. Such things happened—not often, but they were not unknown. A pack of desperate peasants—and the villeins of Corbenic were nothing if not desperate—would be seized by a fever of madness, rise up and slay their overlords.

  These thoughts flashed through her mind in the time it took to measure the distance to her horse and realize she would never make it. So she did the only thing she could. She turned to face them, shoulders braced, her heart leaping to her throat when she saw how close they were.

  And then they were falling back, stumbling over one another, cursing in their haste. Elaine turned and found herself staring at the mighty haunches of a milk-white warhorse. Her gaze traveled upward, passing over a polished boot, pausing on the jeweled pommel of the broadsword strapped to the gleaming saddle, until at last she reached the face of the knight who had arrived at Corbenic just this morning. He wore a crimson cloak, very bright and fine, and the rings on his fingers flashed in the sunlight when he raised his hand.

  “Lady Elaine,” he said, his voice cutting through the silence. “Are you in need of assistance?”

  Smoothly, almost casually, he lowered his hand until it rested upon the pommel of his sword.

  Elaine looked at the villeins, marveling at the change a few seconds had wrought. What had been an angry mob had dwindled once again to a small group of very frightened peasants. At their head was Will, who had named himself reeve without the permission of his overlord. Now he stood, strangely shrunken, humbled in the presence of a knight.

  For a moment she was tempted to answer yes and bring the lot of them to justice. And yet . . . they belonged to Corbenic. They might not be much, but they were all she had, and to whip or brand them would hardly increase either their willingness to work or their ability to do so.

  Her eyes moved over the group, fastening on the few who were brave enough to hold their heads up, silently forcing them to acknowledge that their fates rested in her hands. Last of all, she looked at Will, and not until he had bent his head did she look up at the knight.

  “No,” she said. “I thank you, but there is no need to concern yourself. I was just having a discussion with our new reeve—” Will’s head raised with a snap “—about how quickly this field could be planted.” Her legs were oddly jerky as she turned and took a few steps toward her palfrey. “So we are agreed that you will begin at once, Master Reeve,” she said over her shoulder, “and tomorrow we shall expect you in the hall for supper to report upon your progress.”

  “Aye, m’lady,” Will said. “Tomorrow it is.”

  Elaine reached her palfrey and stood looking at it, praying that her shaking legs would serve to mount. She was aware of the knight moving toward her, but before he reached her side, one of the men slipped from the edge of the crowd and knelt in the mud, offering his knee as a step.

  She took it, remembering to thank the man when she was safely on her horse. “Master Reeve, one more thing,” she called. “Bid the shepherd choose one of his flock for slaughter and have Cook prepare a stew. Tell her it is by my order.” Her gaze swept the field once more. “Whoever works shall eat.”

  She turned toward the forest and cantered into the shelter of the trees. Only then was she aware that she was breathing in quick, gasping sobs.

  “Lady Elaine—”

  She dashed a sleeve across her eyes and forced herself to smile, slowing so the knight could pull up beside her. He had saved her, and she should be grateful, but the truth was she wished he’d go away. He was too handsome, too well-bred, too much for her to deal with at the moment. “You gave me quite a start back there,” she said brightly. “Wherever did you come from?”

  “I was in the practice yard with your brother Lavaine—”

  “Dressed like that?”

  The question popped out before she stopped to think. But he had thrown back his cloak, and she saw that he was clad in silk—pfellel silk, in fact, gossamer fine and so fabulously expensive that even Aunt Millicent could afford no more than a single scarf. The knight’s tunic was very simply cut, the thin fabric clinging to the hard breadth of his chest. His arms were corded with muscle, bare save for a silver band above his elbow. The gleaming metal was wrought in an intricate design of oak leaves, as was the silver embroidery about his high collar, the pattern repeated yet again in the silver belt slung low about his hips. She had thought him handsome before, but now she realized that such a common word fell far short of the mark.

  He glanced down at himself with a faint air of surprise, as though he had no idea what had prompted her question, then shrugged his broad shoulders as though what he wore was of no consequence at all.

  What was such a man as this doing at Corbenic? Could he possibly be real? No, there was some hidden flaw, there must be. Yes, he was handsome, obviously rich, brave and courteous, and possessed of an impeccable sense of timing. But any man who would ride into a practice yard with the entire worth of Corbenic upon his person could hardly be called sensible.

>   “What was going on before, out there in the field?”

  She repressed a shudder. “It was a bit awkward—our reeve is new, and not quite settled in, but I think we understand each other now.”

  He shot her a look so keen that she was forced to revise her estimation of his intelligence. “I think it was more than a bit awkward. Lady Elaine, why were you all alone? Surely that was a duty your steward should have undertaken.”

  “Yes, of course, but he has not been well.” Before he could reply, she went on quickly, “Whatever brought you out there in the first place?”

  “Your father asked your brother Lavaine to find you. I offered to undertake the task myself. And I am very glad I did.”

  So was she. Lavaine would never have handled the situation with such aplomb. He would have been terrified and so ashamed of his fear that anger would have been his only recourse. What would have happened next was something she could not bear to think upon.

  She tried to summon a smile for the knight, but her lips trembled so that she knew the effort was a failure. “Thank you,” she said, and to her horror, felt her eyes fill. Bad enough that she had acted as thoughtlessly as any damsel in a third-rate ballad, the ones she had always taken such pleasure in despising. To dissolve in tears before her rescuer would be the final humiliation.

  “It was nothing,” he answered, looking a bit alarmed at the threat of some awkward display of emotion. “Shall we go back to the hall? I know I would like a cup of wine, and I would be honored if you would share it with me.”

  Such a pretty little speech, she thought, so courteous and kind. “I know!” she said, smiling. “You must be Sir Gawain!”

  He started, looking as surprised as if she’d struck him. “I am not.”

  “I didn’t really think you were,” she said quickly, “it’s an expression. You know—as courteous as Sir Gawain.”

  “I see.”

  Whatever he saw, it did not seem to please him overmuch. For a moment she wondered if she’d stumbled upon the truth, but in the next breath dismissed the notion as absurd. Sir Gawain was said to be quite tall, with hair as fair as falling rain, while this knight was dark and not above the middle height.

  “We’re very partial to Sir Gawain in these parts,” she went on, speaking rapidly to cover her confusion, “and consider him the best of King Arthur’s knights.”

  She had surprised him yet again. He actually stopped his horse and turned to her. “The best?”

  “Well, leaving Sir Lancelot aside, but him we don’t regard.”

  The black brows rose another fraction of an inch. “You don’t? Why ever not?”

  “My brother Torre rode his first joust against Sir Lancelot. It was his last. Oh, I know such accidents befall a knight with no blame on either side. But later, as I waited by the surgeon’s tent, all the talk was of a remark Sir Lancelot had made, that he would as lief have stayed at home as waste his skill on such raw country lads.”

  The knight frowned, his dark eyes hooded as he stared down at the reins in his hands. “That was very wrong of him.”

  “Yes, it was terribly unkind. And most unjust. What happened was no fault of Torre’s, I assure you. Some fool left the gate ajar; a child ran onto the tourney field waving a kite, and his mount startled—”

  “That was your brother?” the knight interrupted. “I—I remember hearing of it.”

  “It was a bad fall,” Elaine went on. “His leg was shattered. He very nearly lost it—and would have done, if my woman Brisen had not stayed the surgeon’s hand.”

  “It is his shield I am to carry,” the knight said, the words not quite a question.

  “Yes. He is quite lame. It was such a disappointment—to all of us, of course, but especially to him. He was so promising, you see, he’d won all the local squire’s tournaments easily. And he was betrothed—well, promised—but after, her parents said—and now he’s so dreadfully unhappy.”

  What was the matter with her today? She had thought herself long past weeping over Torre, yet the knight was looking at her with such astonished pity that fresh tears stung her eyes. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine why I’m telling you all this. What were we talking about?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  She laughed shakily. “Oh, it was Sir Lancelot. A subject we generally avoid.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  They reached the edge of the forest, and the knight pulled up his charger, looking toward Corbenic with something almost like dread upon his face.

  “I—I grow weary of halls and company,” he said, “and this is such a pleasant wood. If you don’t mind, I would rather stay out here for a time.”

  Well, she could hardly blame him for that. Such dismal company as hers would put any man to flight.

  “I don’t mind in the least. There is the tower, you can hardly miss it from any part of the wood—and we dine at sunset. I’ll have your chamber readied.”

  “Wait,” he said. “Would you—’tis a pretty day for a ride, and I’m sure you know all the best paths. That is, if you would like to . . .”

  When he smiled, that strange dizziness came over her again. Was it possible . . . no, it couldn’t be. What could a man like this possibly see in her? She was nearly one and twenty, after all, far past her first youth, and if a month of regular meals had put a bit of flesh upon her bones, she did not delude herself that it had erased the damage done by years of near starvation. Yet he was looking at her as though he genuinely hoped she would accept. All at once her heart lifted, and it seemed anything was possible, anything at all, even that she might have caught the interest of a young and wealthy knight, and having caught it, could keep it for her own.

  “I would like to,” she said. “Come, we can water our horses by the river.”

  Chapter 9

  BENEATH the overhanging branches of the oaks, the river flowed through light and shadow, rippling in little eddies over glistening stones. When they reached the boathouse, Elaine halted and dismounted.

  “Here,” she said, “this is a good place.”

  They led the horses to the water and tethered them to a branch. The knight spread his cloak on a patch of soft earth while Elaine went to stand before the boathouse, a small thatched building with a few crocuses blooming beside the door. Elaine smiled a little to see them there, remembering Torre scoffing that they would never grow.

  “No one is at home?” the knight asked behind her.

  “It is deserted now,” she said, “since the Saxons left.”

  “The Saxons?”

  “They came when I was ten,” Elaine said, her eyes moving past the boathouse to a patch of mounded stone beyond. “We had no time to muster a defense, scarce time enough to flee from bonds or death. So we came here.” She gestured toward the door. “And here we dwelt for seven years.”

  “Had you no kin to go to? No friends to take you in?”

  “My father was injured,” she said. “A Saxon sword cleft his helm in twain. They left him for dead, but Torre—he was eleven then—stole out by night and bore him hither. Father was insensible for many days, and when he woke, he was—he was not himself. And then my mother—” She swallowed hard. “She miscarried. She and the babe both died.”

  “I’m sorry,” the knight said. He moved to stand beside her, and their fingers brushed. “I lost my mother, too. I was—fostered—from home when I was just a babe, and she died while I was gone. I cannot remember what she looked like, or her voice, or anything about her.”

  He looked so sad that Elaine was tempted to take his hand but did not quite dare to do it. “Can your father not tell you?”

  The knight shook his head. “He died soon after I was born. But come, sit down. You were telling me why you did not go to your kinfolk or friends.”

  “Father was slow to recover,” Elaine said, sitting down upon his cloak and drawing her legs beneath her. “My mother’s death—when he understood—he could not bring himself to leave her. We always meant to go on
e day, when Father was . . . stronger. But somehow the time was never right.”

  “I see,” the knight said so sympathetically that she had to take a long breath before she could go on, making her voice deliberately cheerful.

  “And then we were saved. Three years ago, King Arthur drove the Saxons out and restored us to our home. But it was not what it had been. The Saxon chieftan used Corbenic to house his warriors, and all they knew of managing villeins was how to beat them. Many ran off; those who remained kept out of sight, tending their own plots while the common lands lay fallow.”

  “Then I would think they would be grateful that their lord has returned,” the knight said.

  “We lost all but the land, and these three years have been . . . difficult,” she said with an inward smile at this understatement. “The forest has encroached upon the fields, and we lack the labor for the clearing. Each year we lose a little more, leaving less land to plant—and giving the villeins all the more excuse to tend to their own plots. It is what my father calls a downward spiral.”

  “What remedy does your father suggest?” the knight asked, leaning back upon one elbow.

  “To find the Holy Grail, of course. Then all will be well.” She smiled at his confusion. “The Holy Grail—the Sangreal—is the cup Our Lord used at the last supper. Legend has it that his foster father, Joseph of Arimathea, bore it hither after the crucifixion. My father had a vision of the Grail when the Saxons struck him down. He believes it is somewhere in Corbenic and cares for nothing but to see it with his living eyes. He is a very learned man,” she added, plucking at the new grass, “and a very good one.”

  “I’m sure he is.”

  A rather awkward silence fell, and Elaine cast about for some way to change the subject. “I’m sorry I have nothing to offer you—or, wait, I might at that.”

  She jumped up and went into the boathouse. The light from the open door lay in a rectangle upon the earthen floor, leaving the rest of the chamber in shadow. As her eyes adjusted, she made out four pallets, still neatly tucked against the walls. The single table was clothed in a thin film of dust.