The Knight With Two Swords

by Edward M. Erdelac

  “Do I hear jealousy in your voice, Merlin?” Viviane laughed, and her voice was a melodious trill.

  Surely there was some, and he hated that she could detect it. But there was more. Merlin did not care for this Lancelot overly. He had never been a part of Merlin’s vision for Arthur, and until he left the Isle of Avalon, its magic kept the boy from appearing in his prognostications. He was an unknown factor. Merlin had no notion of the qualities of this man. He had heard he was a very accomplished knight, but what of his heart? He was brave, but was he humble? He was fair, but was he true?

  Merlin had looked into his parentage. He was of good stock, the son of the late King Ban of Benwick, descended from Bron, the first keeper of Joseph of Arimathea’s Holy Grail. That was how he had discovered the purpose of Lile’s choosing this boy. She had hoped not only to introduce a knight loyal to Avalon to Arthur, but also to marry the traditions of the crucified god and the Goddess in the person of Lancelot. That was why Merlin had not done more than raise questions and not objections. It was a worthy notion, complementary to his own plan for Arthur, and not dependent on the already notoriously volatile knights of Orkney.

  But Viviane’s influence made him question the Lancelot scheme all over again. She was certainly no mother figure to the boy, and he wondered by her candid looks what else she might have taught him.

  “Your silence answers both my questions,” Viviane said. “Is it still in the hands of Sir Balin The Savage then? Was he not immolated by the Siege Perilous as you planned?”

  “It will be returned in time,” Merlin assured her.

  “Why you do not simply destroy this knight personally is beyond my ken.”

  “It’s the location of the Gwenn Mantle which concerns me more,” said Merlin, changing the subject.

  “Yes, I agree. Nimue shall answer for her crimes against the sisterhood,” Viviane said coldly.

  “You will not deal with her too harshly, I trust?”

  “How should thieves of her stature be treated, Merlin?”

  “She was distraught. She acted out of a broken heart. And,” Merlin said, hesitating to add, but finally deciding, “her dreams were influenced by the Queen of Norgales.”

  Viviane looked at him sharply.

  “Influenced? To what extent?”

  “I do not believe she is aware. I think if she were made aware, she would repent her actions and work to rectify them.”

  “If she has befuddled you, Merlin…”

  “I assure you she has not,” Merlin chuckled.

  “Don’t be too sure of yourself, Cambion,” Viviane said. “You are half man, and some might argue, not the better half, either. Find her and find the Gwenn Mantle.”

  Merlin bowed slightly and turned away, taking an apple from the golden dish beside her seat.

  “What if she returns the Gwenn Mantle to the treasure room herself?” he asked, biting into the golden fruit.

  Viviane thought for a moment.

  “I will take it as a gesture of repentance and consider it when I pass judgment, but it must be soon. Goddess knows what mayhem she will enact with it. Already the sword is doing its work to unravel its bearer. We shall be fortunate if Sir Balin doesn’t take half of Albion with him.”

  “What do you mean? What work has the sword done?”

  Viviane looked up at him, frowning.

  “Have you not been keeping your weather eye on Sir Balin, Merlin?”

  “I left him in Camelot. I went seeking Nimue, and when I heard of your elevation, I came straight here. Why? The last I knew, he used the sword to best King Rience and win the day for Arthur at Carhaix.”

  “Fly to Carteloise Forest at the edge of Lystenoyse and see for yourself,” said Viviane.

  Merlin wheeled and stormed from her presence, intent on doing just that.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sir Lanceor’s blow had marred Balin’s shield, leaving a jagged slash that joined the two boars upon the charge, cutting them through the middle. He had decided he would not seek its repair. It was a mark of his shame, and he further debased his crest by using the point of the shield as a spade to dig the graves of Lanceor and Colombe.

  Long hours he worked gouging their beds beside the road, stripped to his braies, toiling and scraping in the earth like a goblin.

  He lay Lanceor to his rest first, and then Colombe beside him, and when he had finished covering them, knelt between the two grave mounds and prayed fervently and quietly for forgiveness, from them both, from God.

  By midday, clouds had gathered and halved the dim forest light, so that all was bathed in appropriate gloom and flecks of cold rain spat upon his bare back like the derision of the angels.

  He set about lashing sticks together to make crosses and hung Lanceor’s shield from his so that all would know him. He puzzled over how to mark the grave of Colombe, and it was in this attitude that the column of nobles, knights, and attendants riding south discovered him, filthy and stripped to the waist with his ratty beard like a wild man’s.

  Above them flapped a banner bearing Azure, a lion passant, or, on a chief argent three Cornish choughs.

  “Is this the man?” demanded a barrel-chested, thick bearded noble in a blue and white cape with a gold circlet upon his head.

  Balin stood slowly, as from the crowd of knights, Lanceor’s squire pushed forward. He had been cleaned, probably fed, and now he nodded deliberately.

  “Sir Balin The Savage,” said the king.

  Balin bowed his head, rankling under that nom de plume.

  “I am, sire. Who is it addresses me?”

  “Wretch, do you not know the golden lion and beckets of the King of Cornwall?”

  This was Mark, then, the newly crowned son of Idres. Balin knew something of his reputation. He had heard in his squire days that he was a cruel poltroon who had murdered his brother out of petty jealousy of the latter’s glory at arms.

  “I did not know your charge, sire. Forgive my ignorance and the state of my appearance.”

  “This boy tells me you are a murderer. That you slew a prince of Hibernia and his lady both. And here I find you burying the evidence, rash, and blood-soaked villain that you are.”

  “The boy’s grief and rage have made his tongue false,” Balin said evenly. He looked up into the glaring eyes of the squire and the boy looked away. “Sir Lanceor challenged me in fair contest and by ill fortune I dealt him a mortal blow. Colombe, distraught, fell upon his sword. I was only giving them their due Christian burial.”

  Mark sneered and kicked his horse, riding over to tower above Balin.

  “Yet they would have no need of such arrangements but for you.”

  He pointed to the body of the murdered knight lying nearby, swaddled in tabard and blanket.

  “And who is this? Another victim of your ill fortune?”

  “His own, rather. I do not know this knight’s name. He was slain while under my protection, by an invisible rider. I am bearing his body at his request to Castle Meliot.”

  Mark’s booming laughter drowned out the last of Balin’s words, as he looked back at his company.

  “An invisible rider?” he repeated. “Tell me, Sir Balin, does this invisible attacker manifest only when the moon is full? Is his appearance preceded by the onset of headaches? Did he slay these young lovers also?” He roared the last, down at Balin.

  “By God’s blood, I told you, sire, what transpired here,” Balin said through his teeth, feeling his anger rise to match his shame. “Of this knight’s death, I am blameless. Yet of this young pair I have admitted freely my culpability. In an unknightly rage I faced Sir Lanceor, and my wrath guided my hand to bloodshed. Colombe’s words cut me worse than had she taken her lover’s sword to my unworthy hide. ‘Two hearts in one body,’ she said. ‘And one heart. And one soul,’ she said, ere she ended herself.”

  He stammered the last and put his face in his hands to hide his overwhelming emotion.

  There was a ruckus from the train, and two knigh
ts separated from the company. They were both of them black skinned, one in the armor of a knight of Albion, the other in a familiar eastern hauberk, bearing a curved sword and a white turban upon his head.

  The latter was Sir Safir, and part of Balin’s downtrodden heart swelled to see his comrade. Yet his face was rigid and cold as stone, only the pathways of tears on his dark cheeks marking any emotion.

  “Your majesty, I do beseech you to temper your judgment of this knight,” said Safir, his voice strained. He did not look directly at Balin.

  Mark turned, very nearly rearing like an enraged lion.

  “On what grounds?” he demanded.

  “He is a good man,” said Safir, though by his flat affect he seemed to be struggling to say so. “There is no lying in him. I will vouch for his veracity, as will the knights of Camelot and their king.”

  “And I will vouch for my brother’s judge of character,” said the knight beside him, older, and bearded, and yet bearing no small resemblance to Safir.

  “Do you stake your honor on this man, Sir Segwarides?” Mark asked the elder of the two.

  “It is the word of a distraught boy over a knight’s,” said Segwarides, riding over. “As to this man,” he said, indicating the dead knight. “Sir Balin, will you permit me to view the body? It may be that I know him, as I have been a guest of Castle Meliot.”

  Balin nodded wordlessly, brushing at his own leaky eyes. He had not only never been to Meliot, he had never heard of it before.

  “Please, sir.”

  Segwarides handed his reins to his brother and dismounted. He knelt over the body and parted the wrappings about the face, then crossed himself, said a short, quiet prayer, and stood again.

  “He is Sir Herlews le Berbeus,” Segwarides announced. “One of the knights of Count Oduin, the lord of Castle Meliot.”

  “Are you certain?” said Mark.

  “I am, sire,” said Segwarides. “I saw your nephew Allisander unhorse him once during a contest at La Beale Regard.”

  Mark frowned and regarded Balin once more.

  “A knight who would bear a man all the way to Castle Meliot to fulfil his dying wish would hardly murder another knight and his lady and take the time to inter them and mark their graves.” He looked back at the squire, who had hung his head. “Truthfulness is the first step to knighthood, boy.”

  Mark dismounted and genuflected between the graves. He prayed for a few moments in silence, and Sir Balin wondered if perhaps the stories he had heard of Mark of Cornwall were untrue.

  When the King rose, his eyes were red and he brushed at them with the back of his hand.

  “The truth you tell touches me deeply, Sir Balin,” he murmured. “The devotion of this Colombe to her prince is much to be admired. We are on the way to Camelot to see Arthur wedded. I will report this unfortunate affair, and when I return, I will build a tomb befitting these lovers.”

  Balin’s lip trembled and he bowed to Mark. On a whim, he took the King’s hand and kissed it.

  “True love and fidelity are rare treasures,” said Mark absently. “They should be guarded, and housed accordingly.”

  Then he raised a benevolent hand and turning his horse south rode on alone without another word.

  The train galloped behind to catch up.

  Segwarides hung back and pulled his horse alongside his younger brother. The two spoke whispered words and touched foreheads, and Balin pined once more for Brulen. Then Segwarides said to Balin, “Follow the Itchen River for five days and you will come to Meliot, Sir Balin.”

  “I am indebted to you, sir,” Balin said.

  “God go with you,” said Segwarides and fell in with Mark’s train.

  Safir, still shedding silent tears, waited in the road.

  “It’s good to see you, Safir,” said Balin.

  “With all my heart, Balin,” Safir said, trembling, fresh tears spilling down his chin. “I do wish I could say the same.”

  “Faith, my friend,” Balin murmured. “Have I hurt you also in some way?”

  “To the quick, Balin,” Safir groaned. “To the marrow of my bones. Remember, I was raised in the court of Colombe’s father. We were playmates. She was as dear to me as my own sister.”

  Balin remembered. The court of King Anguish.

  Balin stared up at Safir, miserably. He opened his hands. He had no words.

  “You bear two swords now,” Safir said, observing the weapons hung on Ironprow’s saddle.

  Balin looked back at them, dropping his arms to his side. He felt as if something deep in the earth pulled him, and it was a struggle just to stand. He wanted to lie down and rest with Lanceor and Colombe.

  “A knight bears his shield to defend love and virtue,” said Safir sadly. “A knight with two swords can hold no shield. He can only attack and slay.”

  Safir gave him no chance to reply, but spurred his horse and raced after the clatter and rumble of King Mark’s company.

  Which was well and good, as Balin had none to give.

  He watched his one-time friend disappear, and stood alone in the forest road for some time, until the light rain which had been flecking the ground grew into a deluge that made the leaves patter and dance on their boughs and that lashed his skin with an icy sting.

  He stood a long while, until his trousers were plastered to his shivering legs, his hair hung from his bowed skull, and the chill of his skin equaled the cold that had settled in his heart.

  The rain hid his grief.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Balin rode well into the night through the rainy forest, trusting his course to Ironprow. The horse seemed to sense its master’s melancholy and share it. Its head hung low. The horse of Sir Herlews plopped behind in the muddy road with its sorrowful burden.

  He did not hurry. There was no eagerness in him to be quit of the dark forest road. Let it go on forever.

  The whisper of the rain in the brush and trees was like the gossip of the departed. The ghosts of Colombe and Lanceor walked with him, and Lot, too, and Segurant. A legion of disapproving spirits and saints shook their heads at him in passing, and the rain was the murmur of their condemnation.

  He deserved it. He had never felt so low. He wished almost that God would put that invisible knight in his path. Let death come unseen and snatch this joyless existence from his tired bones.

  But this was the curse he had taken upon himself. His career was a wave, just as the maiden had warned him it would be, and he was buffeted upon it like a castaway in an oarless boat. Crests and troughs. Crests and troughs. Slave to the wind, like a weathervane cock. He felt as though he scrambled for new purpose, yet his overall life had none.

  The rain did not stop for five days.

  He followed the course of the clear Itchen, a wide chalk stream bordered with lush wild watercress, its surface diamond clear down to the flint gravel bottom, where brook lamprey wriggled like the serpent in Preudom’s painting, heedless of the raindrops rippling the shimmering surface.

  Families of otters cavorted playfully. Silver mailed graylings swam with spotted brown trout, and he saw a shaggy hart raise its black muzzle dripping from the water at the sound of Ironprow’s snorting, and watch him pass before returning to its refreshment.

  The countryside was verdant and lush, the earth black and rich-smelling, no doubt teeming with nightcrawlers.

  Yet alongside this busy watery thoroughfare across this populous animal kingdom, Balin had never felt so alone.

  He felt as apart from the company of men as he did from animals. The loss of Safir’s friendship had gutted him. No comrade would welcome him in Arthur’s hall, no aged father waited to embrace him in a warm cottage, and there was no elderly mother’s lap to lay his head in. No maiden’s either. No children to clutch his legs and beg him to stay awhile longer. No brother to ask after his health and prospects.

  The myriad rain drops, each one somehow heavier on his drooping shoulders than the last, two weary horses, and a corpse were his only const
ant companions.

  He shivered in his intermittent sleep, jolted awake again and again by dreams of the dead, cut, bleeding, burning, screaming his name.

  On the fifth day, Balin came alone in sight of Castle Meliot, which was a small, modest keep of dark stone with a high wall and swollen moat.

  The rain renewed its vigor, a slashing downpour punctuated by deep thunder over which he had to bellow several times before a figure wrapped in a heavy cloak appeared on the battlements and called down, “Who are you?”

  “Sir Balin of the Round Table! I bring word of the fate of Sir Herlews le Berbeus!”

  The faceless figure on the battlement peered down at him from the depths of its hood, then disappeared.

  After a few moments, there was a rumbling and the heavy oak drawbridge lowered on clanking chains and settled into the mud at his feet.

  A portcullis raised jerkily, and Balin dismounted and led the horses across and beneath the arch of the sallyport. The oasis of dryness was a shock to his waterlogged body. He had been so long exposed to the rain that he had lost a sense of self, become indistinguishable from the torrent. Exiting the incessant storm, he was like a shapeless thing forced to assume form, a fetal being divorced of its amnion, born anew into an arid, material world.

  He looked into the small, gray courtyard, and the same figure who had spoken to him on the wall stepped forward with a raised lantern. Her hood had fallen back, and he saw that she was a portly, rough-handed woman, likely a chambermaid.

  There was a flash of lightning and accompanying roar of thunder, and above it all, from a high window of the keep, a tortuous scream echoed down to Balin’s ear, raising his hairs so that he gripped his sword.

  “What was that?” Balin demanded. “What goes on here?”

  The maid bowed her head in excuse.

  “It is for the Count to say, sir.”

  Across the gray courtyard, the door to the keep opened and a man stormed across the distance, clutching an otter fur robe to his shoulders.

  He was an older man, with a full gray beard, sparse hair on his head, and vigorous black, angry eyebrows.

  “What is this? Who calls at this hour?”