“Then we will go to Carbonek,” came a flat voice from the doorway.
Both men turned to see the Lady Lorna Maeve, as terrible as the Queen of Norgales in her midnight gown, her usually wild hair plastered to her head by the rain. Evidently, she had left the servants behind.
“I will go as Sir Balin’s paramour.”
Balin felt himself blush and looked away.
“My lady,” said Count Oduin, pausing, perhaps to gather his thoughts into tactful speech, “do not burden this knight unduly. His task ahead is hard enough.”
“No,” Balin said hastily, half-rising from his seat. “My lady, you could never be a burden. That is… I would be honored if you would accompany me.”
He sat down just as hurriedly, feeling foolish.
“How shall we induce Sir Garlon to accept Balin’s challenge and leave Carbonek?” Count Oduin said. “By all accounts, he’s a rascal without honor.”
“We will appeal to King Pellam,” said Balin. “If he is a righteous king as you say, and we accuse his brother publicly before all his guests, he can’t refuse us justice.”
Count Oduin scratched the side of his face, musing.
“Can you beat him, Sir Balin?”
“A skulker who attacks unseen and from behind? If I keep a weather eye for him, I can’t fail.”
“Don’t dig his grave yet,” said Count Oduin. “Lystenoyse is ringed by evil country, and you have nothing to look forward to at the journey’s end but combat with a treacherous foe.”
“No knight who is false can stand against one who is true, even with all the power of hell at his back.”
“Amen!” said Count Oduin, slapping the table. “Very well. I will outfit for the journey, and send word ahead that I am attending. I shall have to find some present for the baby…”
“Don’t name us,” said Lorna Maeve.
“Or if you must, give the name Sir Ballantyne,” said Balin.
Count Oduin rose.
“And his blood. We must carry away some of his blood to cure my son.”
Lorna Maeve held up something, a conical piece of steel. The pointed tip of Herlews’ lance.
“When he falls, I have sworn to sink my Herlews’ lance in Garlon’s body. Your son shall have his cure, Count Oduin.”
Count Oduin looked nervously to Balin, then nodded to her.
“It is three days to Lystenoyse, and no easy journey. We’ll depart in the morning.”
Count Oduin touched Balin’s shoulder and departed.
Balin rose, too, and found Lorna Maeve still standing in the doorway.
“My lady,” he said, lips trembling even to address her. “I will avenge your Herlews.”
“Honorable challenge or no,” she said impassively. It was an edict, not a question, and he shivered inwardly, love-struck even by her mercilessness. “Swear.” It was almost a command.
He touched his closed fist to his own breast and bowed his head.
“I swear it.”
When he looked again, she had gone without even a rustle of her skirts.
CHAPTER NINE
The rain ceased at last, as if God approved of Balin’s latest undertaking.
Count Oduin procured a chest of gold for the baby Helizabel, and they set out from Castle Meliot, the nobleman with four of his servants, Balin, and Lorna Maeve on a black palfrey. She had insisted upon the dour mount, as she had cast aside her mourning clothes to pose as Balin’s lady.
They rode throughout the day, and it was a surpassingly sunny and pleasant country. The fauna and beasts they saw along the way seemed to rejoice on the first clear, bright day after such a long rain. Sparrows circled them, wending even through their horses’ legs as they rode, and squirrels chased each other up and down the trees.
Though Lorna Maeve’s expression was morose and listless, Balin could not help but see her as a human culmination of the natural beauty all around. Though her heart had passed into darkness with the death of Herlews, her arrival in Balin’s life had dispersed the clouds that had gathered around his own mood. Oduin was right. He was desperate to win her.
“You put your heart in a broken container, my friend,” the Count advised candidly as they rode behind. “The Lady Lorna Maeve loved Sir Herlews with all that she was. His death has emptied her.”
Balin wouldn’t be dissuaded. “Tell me about her, sir. Tell me about how she was. I can see the remnants of her. They’re like the tracks of a deer in new snow.”
Count Oduin shook his head.
“She was a lively lass, when she and her knight first came to my keep. Her blood is of the Summer Country. Avalon. It’s where she learned her healing arts. The ladies of that land are always full of life, and they fill their lives with love.”
“You do not decry them, as a Christian?” Balin asked.
“Jesus did not shun the tax collector or the harlot. Who am I?” Oduin said with a shrug.
Balin did not wholly agree with this, and yet his feeling for Lorna Maeve denied him any argument.
Oduin went on, “When she was with Herlews, it was as if…as if the sun and moon had come together. They would sing old songs, and in their hearts, in their eyes, they were like the couples in them. It’s the happiest thing, when two such lovers meet, and it is the saddest tragedy when they are parted so.”
“Do you think?” Balin ventured, watching her. “Do you think she could be healed? Could she be made to love again?”
“Love comes, Balin. It grows, but gradually,” Oduin said sadly. “It can’t be made or hurried, any more than you or I can force a tree to grow.”
But it could be coaxed. It could be nurtured. Balin resolved then to plant a seed.
He urged his horse beside hers. She was not watching the road, allowing the black horse to carry her. Her attention was on the lance-tip of Herlews, resting in the nest of her cupped hands before her like a baby bird of iron.
“How fare you, my lady?” Balin asked.
She glanced up at him, as though she had been dreaming.
“That is, do you have need of anything?” he pressed.
She smirked and looked at him with a disbelief that cut him. He felt a fool.
“Water?” he said hurriedly. “Are you thirsty?”
“No,” she said.
“This is beautiful country to go riding in,” Balin said. “There were woods like these around my mother’s cabin. The trees were so green in the summer…” His words failed him and he struggled to bring to mind something that should bring her back from the dark, to his side. “My brother and I used to climb the apple tree on the hill just to sit and look over it all. The breeze moved the meadow grass like waves,”
The analogy pleased him.
She turned to him.
“Apple tree?”
“My mother planted it.”
“She was of Avalon?”
He wondered how she had guessed that. He found himself in a strange place, wanting her to speak, but not wanting her to ask more.
“She was, in her youth, before she married my father.”
“He was Christian?”
“And a knight, yes.”
“Like my Herlews,” she said. “The sisters told me he would prove false, but he never broke an oath to me, except when he died,” she murmured.
She was back in her sorrow.
Balin fell back, hunching in his saddle a little, feeling as far from her as Lucifer from heaven.
***
A few hours from dusk they sighted a great growth of forest stretching out like a thick drab green fog and run through with wisps of murky white mist. The winding road disappeared into it, and a few miles to the west, Balin saw a bare hill pushing up through the dense canopy, the black spire of an old keep fighting to escape its growing confines.
“That is Carteloise Forest,” said Count Oduin. “On the other side lies Lystenoyse. I told you Pellam’s kingdom was bordered by an evil land. There is an old curse upon Carteloise. At its heart is Aspetta Ventura, th
e Castle of the Leprous Lady. We must spend the night here, well away, and traverse the forest tomorrow.”
“Who is this Leprous Lady?” Balin asked, as they dismounted.
“I know no specifics,” Count Oduin admitted. “I don’t even know if such a lady resides there. I know only that the forest should not be traveled by night, and the keep is to be avoided.”
As the servants unpacked the camp gear, Lorna Maeve stood watching the sun descend over the forest and stared long at the lonesome stone tower.
The pavilions raised, the servants cooked supper, and still she sat atop her horse. The moon had risen, casting silver light on the edge of the tower.
Balin brought her food to her. As he approached, he heard her murmur:
“White as the face of the moon,
You traverse the wasted land
bringing pestilence to all you meet.”
“My lady?” he asked tentatively. “It’s getting cold.”
She did not stir, but for the night breeze passing through her wild hair.
He cleared his throat.
“Why do you stare so at that place?”
“I do not know,” she said absently, as if waking from a dream. She looked about, as if surprised to see darkness. He offered his hand, but she let herself down, and he took the bridle instead and offered her a dish of stew.
“I’m not very hungry,” she said.
“May I walk you to your pavilion?”
She gathered her skirts and placed two fingers on his offered elbow.
As they walked to the silken tent, she spoke softly, “You saw Herlews die.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Did he…did he speak? I know that he named his assassin.”
Balin swallowed. She sought some comfort about her lover’s demise. Some final word, maybe. There had been nothing, but she didn’t know that.
“He named his assassin,” Balin affirmed, “and he asked that I continue his quest. And that I bring him to you. He told me how I would know you.”
She said nothing.
They skirted the firelight and headed for her tent. The light within made the blue silk glow like a paper lantern.
“He described me your face. The aspect of your eyes and your hair,” said Balin carefully. He could not stop himself, though something urged restraint. “He said that of the earthly things which he would yearn for, he would miss your embrace the most. Above the excitement of the hunt, and the glories of the quest, there rose your sweet face before his fading gaze. Your name was the last thing to issue from his lips. ‘Lorna Maeve,’ he said. ‘Sweet summer spirit. I love you.’ And so he passed.”
He praised the darkness that hid his coloring face. He could never have dared to speak without it.
At his side, he sensed her stiffen, and her fingers, two points of unbearable warmth and closeness on his arm, retracted as if burnt.
“Those aren’t his words,” she said.
She turned on him, and he saw the furious flash of her eyes in the light from her tent.
“If he’d had more life,” Balin said lamely, “he would have said them.”
“Have you no honor, sir, to assail me so? My love lies fresh in his grave. The dust hasn't yet settled on his face.”
Balin thought to deny. But how could he? He had bumbled into stupid deceit, like some sweaty lothario, and now he curled like a snail under her outrage.
“Forgive me!” he stammered.
She would have none of it. “Would you have me as your lover?”
Now the blood pulsed behind his eyes, and he felt as if his head would burst. This was nothing he could cut his way out of.
“Please, my lady. I know that…I have no tongue…”
“You don’t? Your tongue was quite evident but a moment ago.”
Her voice was shrill, and some of the servants at the fire looked over.
“Please, I sought only to comfort you.”
“I know well what comfort you offer.” She spat, pulling open the tent flap. She started to go in, then spun on him. “Is that why you took on Herlews’ quest? Did you hope to bed me? Do you love me? Speak!”
That angered him. He didn’t like being belittled or having his intentions called into question. He was hurt and struck back, flinging down the iron dish of stew with a crash that made Count Oduin jump up from the fire.
“No! I am a knight of the Round Table. My heart is for my king and quest. There is little room in my heart for else.”
Her blazing eyes grew half-lidded. “My Herlews had room for the whole world in his heart.”
Balin’s teeth jammed together, and he drove his fingers into his palms. He wanted to hit something. Herlews again. He was like a saint to her.
He turned away with an inarticulate snarl and stomped out into the darkness. There was a thick copse of trees a few hundred yards distant, and he made for it. He stumbled over something in the dark, cursed, and let his momentum hurl him into a ragged run.
He heard Count Oduin call his name, but he didn’t stop.
He drew his swords and when he reached the trees, he attacked them with fury, hacking down saplings and dulling his blades in a mute and frenzied tantrum. His assault took him through the stand of trees to the other side, where, panting, he drove both weapons into the ground, sank to his knees, and sobbed his frustration.
The world was an abominable disappointment. He had been reared on fairytales, weaned on the belief that God was in His heaven insuring the deliverance of the just and the punishment of the wicked; that battle lines were clearly drawn between good and evil, and he could be a shining champion of the former, assured victory by the law of the universe.
Yet here was this woman who, like his mother, should represent to him all that Gallet had warned him against, and she had unmanned him as easily as a low branch checking him from a horse. There was Arthur, the personification of his highest ideals, guided by the machinations of lurking sorcerers and harboring some darkness he did not have the intelligence to decipher or even the veracity to believe. His brother, who by the stories, should have been his merry companion throughout every grand adventure, was a brooding murderer given over to black moods and bitter pessimism What was he himself, when he looked beneath the veneer of knighthood he sought so hard to build and maintain?
Wasn’t he just a brute? Wasn’t he the savage they all said he was? What ideal dwelled in his heart? It was no abode of honor and truth and faith. Wasn’t his heart a ramshackle home for envy and lust and violent, frustrated rage?
All this pounded in his angry brain, until the chirping of the night insects was lost in the rush of blood in his ears.
He glanced up through the tangle of his fingers and hair. On the blade of the Adventurous Sword, above the two hearts of Lanceor and Colombe, there was now an etching of tall tower against the full moon, or perhaps the noon sun. A knight was falling end over end from its highest window.
Good, he thought. Let that be my fate. And let it come quickly.
He almost didn’t hear her scream.
It was Lorna Maeve.
And there was more: the shriek of Oduin’s maid, the angry yells of men, and the exclamations of horses.
He ran back through the trees. It was an easy, clear path, he had cut, but he still managed to catch his foot on a limb he had himself severed, and bowled over into the grass.
Picking himself up, he saw the far off light of the campfire and the black shapes of men on horseback circling it like demons.
He saw Lorna Maeve’s tent pulled down, saw thrashing figures pulled over the saddles of the riders. There were five or six strangers.
They galloped away in the direction of the forest, the screams of their prisoners diminishing with the thunder of their hooves.
One remained behind, sawing the hobbles from the horses with a dagger.
Balin ran across the meadow for the fire.
The last of the assailants wore armor and a long head of black hair. He turned and straightened
as Balin came out of the dark, but he did no more than get both feet under him before the Adventurous Sword sent his head spinning into the campfire.
His body crashed down with a clatter.
Balin stood in the shambles of the camp. The three male servants had been killed, but the maid, Lorna Maeve, and Count Oduin had been taken. For ransom, or for some other sinister purpose? He checked Count Oduin’s tent. The small chest of gold for Pellam’s daughter was still there. They were not robbers, then.
Whoever they were, there was no doubt they were bound for the keep at the middle of the forest.
He had to pursue, though it was black night.
He saddled Ironprow, freed his armor, and hastily began to don it.
He was halfway through the laborious process when he heard hoof beats on the road.
The raiders returning for their missing comrade? He shook off his unfastened greaves and leapt into Ironprow’s saddle.
There were three armored riders, and they came not from the direction the others had gone, but from the southern road.
One stopped short at the sight of Balin, and the other two slowed, but drew their swords.
“Sir Peryn! Sir Garnysh!” called the one who had stopped. “Do not draw!”
“He is one of them!” yelled one of the others.
“He’s not,” the unarmed knight insisted, reaching for the shield hanging on his saddle.
Balin tensed, ready to fight should one of them charge.
“How do you know?” demanded the other.
“I think I know my own brother,” said the third, and he held up his shield for Balin to see the charge of the two boars.
CHAPTER TEN
“Brulen,” Balin said in disbelief, peering at the shield. Then, because the last time they’d seen each other, the sword of Rience had cleaved Brulen’s shield in two, he asked warily, “Is it really you?”
In a few moments, his helmet was off. It was indeed Brulen, unless some goblin of this evil land had taken his form. Though his shield had been replaced, there was still the rent in his right-hand vambrace, where Rience’s sword had lodged.
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