Merlin's Mistake

by Robert Newman

  “Yes,” said Lianor. And going into her own room, she shut the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  For the third time Brian checked the saddle girth, and Gaillard turned and nuzzled him, then tossed his head and stamped his freshly shod hooves.

  “Easy,” said Brian soothingly. He glanced up at the sun. “It won’t be much longer.”

  Tertius, standing beside him in the innyard, looked up also. Though it had been almost midnight before they had seen to their horses and the pack mule and been shown to their own quarters by the sleepy innkeeper, they had been up at dawn, for they had had much to do. While the stableboy took Gaillard off to the blacksmith’s, Brian and Tertius went to the castle armory where the armorer had gone over Brian’s arms, examining his hauberk for worn or doubtful links and replacing the leather ties of his tilting helm. Shortly after that, Sir Amory, the seneschal, had come in. He did not say how he knew Brian was there nor did he ask any questions but, grim and for the most part silent, he had helped him select a new lance—a longer and heavier one than the one Brian had shattered in the town square on Midsummer Day.

  Again Brian looked up at the sun, which glowed dully in the winter sky like a worn penny.

  “Where is he?” he asked impatiently. “It is past noon.”

  “Not quite,” said Tertius. And, as if to confirm this, at that moment they again heard the harsh, rasping horn blast that had announced the Black Knight’s arrival exactly six months before.

  They turned, looking out through the arched opening of the innyard. Again there was the sound of horses’ hooves, the tramp of many feet, echoing in the narrow street, and the Black Knight and his captain rode past, followed by the ranks of men-at-arms. Seen thus, against the weathered walls of the houses opposite, the Black Knight loomed up like a dark shadow that was larger than a mortal man, the embodiment of night. And though he was only framed there in the archway for a moment, Brian felt the same clutch of dread he had felt when he faced him in the square.

  Then he was gone; they were all gone. Tertius turned back to him, searching his face, but Brian avoided his eyes. Acting as squire, Tertius picked up the tilting helm, put it on and laced it into place. He held Gaillard while Brian mounted, handed him his lance and the shield, which the armorer had painted for him early that morning and which no longer bore the Caercorbin arms but was now a bright, blood red. Then he mounted too.

  As Gaillard started out of the innyard, Tertius said, “There are many things that I could say to you, but there is only one that is important. Remember that you are not alone.”

  It was as if Tertius had been reading his mind, and Brian was glad that his face was hidden. For now that the day and the hour had come, it was this that he felt more than anything else: not so much fear of death as a sense that he was alone, more alone than he had ever been in his life. And nothing that Tertius or anyone else said could change that. Nevertheless he nodded and, with Tertius following close behind him, he rode out through the archway and up the street toward the great square.

  If anything, the square was more crowded now than it had been on Midsummer Day; the townsmen and those who had been coming in from the countryside all morning standing close-packed about its sides eight or ten deep. As before, the king was on his throne on the church steps with his daughters on either side of him. And as before, directly in front of him was the Black Knight, still and faceless on his huge black stallion, with his captain at his right hand and his men-at-arms behind him. This time, however, all eyes save that of the Black Knight were not on the king and the grim, dark rider, but on the street that led into the square. And when Brian appeared there was a faint sound from the huge throng, a sound that was half murmur and half deep-drawn sigh.

  When Gaillard saw the black charger, he tried to quicken his pace and Brian had to hold him hard fighting the bit, as they crossed the open space in the center of the square.

  “Who are you and what do you here?” asked the Black Knight’s captain.

  Brian inclined his head toward Tertius who was now at his side and it was he who answered.

  “I am Tertius of Bedegraine and this is Sir Brian of Caercorbin,” he said. “As to why we are here, you must surely know that.”

  “You are challenging the Black Knight?”

  This time Brian answered himself by nodding.

  “Sir Brian,” said the captain, accenting the title. “Are you not the squire who fought the Black Knight on Midsummer Day?”

  Again Brian nodded.

  “And you are now a knight?”

  “Yes,” said Tertius firmly. “He is now a knight.”

  “And has changed his blazon, too. Well, it does not matter. Squire or knight, red shield or not, the end will be the same. Take your place.”

  A moment longer Brian remained there. Now that he was close, he could see how the king had aged in the months since he had last been in Meliot: there were new lines on his face and his hair was more gray than black. He glanced at Alys, who was leaning forward, her eyes shining, then at Lianor. She was sitting still as a statue. And though her face was expressionless, it was pale and her eyes were as dark and troubled as her father’s. Brian looked deep into them. Then, raising his lance in salute, he turned Gaillard and sent him cantering across the square to the far end near the street by which he had entered.

  The Black Knight, holding his charger on a tight rein, was walking him to the opposite end of the square with the terrible, controlled slowness that Brian remembered so well. And as Brian waited for him to take his position, the helpless, lost feeling—the feeling that, despite the crowd, he was alone—came over him again. This, he sensed dimly, was one of the reasons that the Black Knight had so far been invincible. For besides his strength and skill, by his own inhuman detachment he was able to isolate his antagonist from everyone and everything else, draw him into the small dark world in which he lived and of which he was the unquestioned master.

  A chill came over Brian, a chill that had nothing to do with the bite of the wind. And feeling his strength, his very will, drain from him as sap retreats at the onset of winter, he looked around desperately for something—anything warm and human—that would restore him to the world of the living and to himself. He strained his eyes toward the church steps where he knew he would find what he needed. And suddenly, much nearer at hand, a face appeared in his narrow field of vision: the unexpected but familiar face of Long Hugh. He was leaning on his bow with Hob and Wat beside him and all their eyes were on him.

  Brian blinked, looked again. And now, as if he were looking through Tertius’s magic glass, other faces began appearing sharply and clearly out of the blur that was the crowd: the wild, dark face of Migbeg, and standing next to him, Diccon of the Holm with Amy on his shoulders and his wife, Nan, by his side. Again he blinked, peering through the slit of his helmet, and saw the hermit, his brown, wrinkled face sober. And beyond him, towering above Lamorna and everyone else in the crowd, Giles.

  “Brian …” said Tertius from somewhere behind him.

  He looked up. The Black Knight was in position on the far side of the square. And now, suddenly—no longer alone—the chill left him. And just as sensation had returned to his arm when Nimue’s serpent had gone from him, so he felt his strength come flooding back, doubled and redoubled. He sat up straighter in the saddle and Gaillard, as if sensing what had happened, neighed shrilly, straining to be off.

  The Black Knight’s captain, again acting as marshall, raised his sword, glancing from Brian to his master and holding them while a man could count to ten. Then he brought his sword down and, lance couched, Brian drove in his heels and sent Gaillard thundering forward over the cobbles of the square. The lance, longer than any he had ever used before, felt light as a willow wand, and he rode loosely, easily, red shield forward and ready. Then, as the Black Knight loomed up before him, he clamped his legs more tightly, gripped the spear with an iron grip and drove its point at the center of the dark shield. There was a sudden, doubl
e shock as both spears struck home and then, as a roar went up from the crowd, he was galloping on with no one before him.

  He reined Gaillard in, pulled him about. The Black Knight, lance shattered, lay on his back in the center of the square while his charger, wild-eyed and snorting, circled wide about him, shying away from those who tried to catch his dangling reins.

  Slowly, painfully, the Black Knight struggled to his feet. Brian rode back toward him.

  “Do you yield?” he asked.

  The Black Knight did not answer, but drew his sword and raised his shield, waiting. It was to be to the outrance, then, a fight to the finish. Tertius came cantering up as Brian dismounted.

  “Don’t, Brian,” he said. “You needn’t.”

  “I must,” said Brian. “Here.” And he held out his lance and Gaillard’s reins.

  “No,” said Tertius. “You have beaten him.”

  “Not until he yields,” said Brian. “Will you take these?”

  “No,” said Tertius again.

  Reversing his spear, Brian drove the point between two cobbles, tied the reins around it. Then, drawing Starflame, he strode toward the Black Knight.

  For a moment they faced one another, the Black Knight poised and still in an awful stillness. And perhaps because of that stillness, or perhaps because they were now closer to one another than they had ever been before, so close that Brian could see every ring in the mail of his hauberk, he was more menacing than he had been when he was mounted. Then the Black Knight struck, a sudden and mighty blow. Brian caught it on his shield, put it aside and struck in his turn. And, as the Black Knight fended it off and struck again, Brian knew that this was no Rufus: this was a strong, skilled and deadly swordsman.

  Somewhat taller than Brian, the Black Knight pressed his attack, cutting high and low and sometimes feining, thrusting with his point. Brian gave back before him, warding off and returning each stroke and circling to his left in the hope that he could get past the Black Knight’s guard. But the Black Knight turned with him, his shield always before him, his sword flashing in the sun. They fought thus for some time, the square ringing with the clash of steel. Then gradually, almost imperceptibly, the Black Knight’s blows began to come more slowly. And, though he was bleeding from several small wounds, Brian went over to the attack. Striking a great overhand blow, he drove the Black Knight’s shield back against him so that he staggered. And, as he recovered, raised his sword, Brian struck again, past the edge of his shield. The blow fell hard and true on the Black Knight’s helmet and again he staggered and this time went down. In an instant Brian was on him, Starflame’s point at his throat.

  “Now do you yield?” he asked.

  The Black Knight still did not answer, did not move. Sheathing his sword, Brian drew his dagger, cut the thongs of the Black Knight’s helmet and pulled it off.

  He was not sure what he expected; possibly a terrifying face, certainly a dark and evil one. But the face he saw was nothing like that. Though it was gaunt, drawn, and a deep scar cut across the high forehead and disappeared into the graying hair, it was a noble face with a firm chin and aquiline nose. The eyes, closed until now, opened slowly. They were shadowed, clouded, but blue as Brian’s own. Seeing Brian bending over him, the knight raised one hand weakly, either in surrender or to push the dagger aside. Brian looked at it, stiffened, then looked again. On one of the fingers was a gold ring: a heavy gold ring wrought in the likeness of a wivern holding his tail in his teeth.

  “Where got you that ring?” asked Brian.

  Still dazed, the fallen knight looked up at him blankly and did not answer.

  Rising, Brian sheathed his dagger, unlaced his own helmet, and tossed it aside. Sensing that the drama that was being played out before them was not yet ended, the huge crowd that filled the square was hushed, waiting. Striding over to the church steps, Brian said, “My Lady Lianor, may I have the ring I gave you last night?”

  “Ring?” Her face was inscrutable, her eyes dark, unfathomable. “I have no ring.”

  “Do you mean this one?” asked Alys, holding out her hand. Brian looked at the ring, at her, and then again at Lianor.

  “Yes,” he said. “And it please you …”

  Taking the ring from her, he returned to the Black Knight. He was still lying where Brian had left him, staring up at the wintery sky as if even that was strange, alien. Kneeling beside him, Brian slipped his arm under him and raised him. And as he did, as he held out the ring that was the twin of the one on the Black Knight’s finger, there was a sudden shriek from near the church steps.

  “Sir Owaine! Oh, my dear …!”

  Brian looked up as the Lady Leolie burst out of the crowd and ran toward them.

  “Mother!” he said. Then to Merlin who was following her, walking more slowly. “Did you …?”

  “Of course,” said Merlin. “I thought she should be here—for many reasons—so I brought her.”

  The Lady Leolie was kneeling now also.

  “My dear,” she said, her voice choked. “Don’t you know me?”

  Something was happening to the knight’s eyes. They were becoming clearer, brighter.

  “Of course I know you, Leolie,” he said. “But what do you here? Where is this place?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  He shook his head. “The last thing I remember is a melee near Ascalon. The Saracens had taken us by surprise and we were greatly outnumbered. Sir Guy, Sir Baldwin and Simon were with me …”

  “I think,” said Merlin, “that it is time for some explanations. You,” he said to the Black Knight’s captain, “tell us what you know.”

  “Yes, master,” said the captain. Then to the man Leolie now held cradled in her arms, “do you know me, Sir Knight?”

  The knight studied him, then said. “No. No. Something teases me as if I should, but … no.”

  “He knew me but an hour ago when I armed him,” said the captain somewhat sadly. “I am no surgeon, but I think he has been for many years reft of his wits and is now again as he was before he came to us.”

  “Came to you where and when?” said Merlin testily. “Tell the whole tale from the beginning.”

  “Yes, master,” said the captain again. “We were in the Holy Land, too, most of my men here and the two brothers, Sir Liam and Sir Dermot. We were on our way home to the North, but when we came here to Meliot, Sir Liam said, ‘This is a rich city. We have shed our blood on foreign soil and are going home empty-handed. Why should they not share what they have with us?’ So he hove at the ford, demanding toll of the merchants who would cross there.”

  King Galleron, Lianor, Alys and many others had now joined them.

  “This was in the reign of my father?” asked the king.

  “Yes, Sire,” said the captain. “He was the first Black Knight.”

  “The first?”

  The captain nodded. “He was killed by your father’s archers. We searched for his body afterward, found it some distance downstream. Sir Dermot put on his hauberk and helm, becoming the Black Knight in his stead, and rode into Meliot, demanding your father’s head.”

  “Then there were two Black Knights,” said Galleron. “I always suspected that. And this man here is …”

  “No, Sire,” said the captain. “For more than ten years Sir Dermot was the Black Knight and collected tribute from you, during which time we rebuilt the keep and made it stronger than ever. Then one day this knight here came riding through the forest. Sir Dermot challenged him, and they fought. It was a fierce battle, but in the end this knight killed him. He was badly wounded, however, so we took him into the keep. And when we tended him, we found that he was … strange.”

  “Strange how?” asked the Lady Leolie.

  “He did not seem to know who he was, where he had been or where he was going. It was probably because of this blow,” and he pointed to the scar on the knight’s forehead. “But since he was an even greater fighter than Sir Liam or Sir Dermot, we said to ourselves, ‘Why s
hould he not become the Black Knight?’ And so, twice a year, we armed him and, though at other times he was like a man walking in his sleep, once he had his weapons in his hand, he overcame everyone who faced him. Until today.”

  “Now do you remember?” asked Merlin.

  “No,” said the knight. “As I told you, the last thing I remember was the melee at Ascalon. The next was a knight, a young knight, who knelt beside me and showed me a ring.…”

  “My ring,” said the Lady Leolie, “the one you gave me and I gave him. And there he stands, your son—our son—Brian.”

  Though the music, the sound of laughter, was now louder than ever in the great hall, it was quiet in the close; quiet and dark.

  “I could not believe it at first,” said Brian. “That they were really there. Lamorna had said something about it, of course. But still it must have been Merlin’s doing, too.”

  She was not interested in such things now, but she nodded.

  “When did you first know?” she asked.

  “Who you were or how I felt about you?”

  “Both.”

  “I think I began feeling this way before we ever left Meliot.”

  “Liar!”

  “It’s true.”

  “You gave no sign of it.”

  “There was no time. It happened when I looked at you in the solar, the afternoon before we set out. But I didn’t realize it until later.”

  “When?”

  “When I found myself thinking about you more and more during our quest.”

  “And the other?”

  “When did I guess who you were? I’m not sure. Perhaps when I asked Tertius if it were possible that you were changing, and he looked at me as if I were a fool. Certainly later, in Nimue’s castle. Now you must tell me something. Why did you give your sister the ring?”

  “Because I wanted to be sure.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of how you really did feel—about both of us.”

  “And are you sure now?”

  “I think so.”

  “You only think so?”