by Sarah Zettel
She looked to the door almost wistfully. Was that a frown from one of the black-bearded men? What manner of place was this?
“Of course, my lord Gawain,” she said with the air of someone who has reached a decision. “If you are finished …?”
He was, and, he found, glad to be so.
The day outside was fresh but damp. It had rained overnight, and the land was still given over to mud and mist. Still, the air was clean, and he could feel the sun despite the clouds. The fog would soon burn away and he would be able to see just where he was.
In the meantime, lady Ailla led him to the stables to see Pol and Gringolet. Having now seen the state of the hall, Gawain was worried about the conditions in which his horses had been housed. He needn’t have been. If anything, the stables were better made than the hall. They were certainly cleaner, and there were several lanky blood mares housed there with his horses. Gringolet greeted him cheerfully from a wide, roomy box filled with fresh straw, which Pol was munching with enthusiasm. Gawain checked the ankle beneath the poultice. It seemed tender, but not badly so. Pol only snorted with mild discomfort as Gawain probed the place. He rewrapped it and straightened up.
“I have great cause to thank my Lord Belinus,” he said as he straightened up and patted Pol’s back.
“My husband has a great admiration for fine horses,” she answered, her voice carefully neutral. “He would not have permitted two such as these to come to any harm.”
“He is a deep and complex man, your husband,” said Gawain, searching for an opening through which he might see his answers.
Ailla hung her head. “Not so. He is simple to understand, if one understands that he is of the oldest ways.”
He decided to take a small risk. “Are you far from home here, lady?”
“Farther than you know, Sir.” She straightened. “But come, I cannot be melancholy today while you are trying to regain your strength. Nor can I keep you out in the damp. The chill will only do you harm.”
Gawain insisted he felt quite well in the fresh air, but the lady would not be gainsaid and insisted he return to his little room. She sat beside him, but this time, Gawain noted, she left the door open. Every now and then, he saw a graceless, shadowed figure pass by in the corridor. The certainty grew in him that her lord was having her watched.
Suppressing a growl of frustration, Gawain leaned back against his pillows. He was far weaker from his brief stroll than he would have liked to admit. “So, my lady, what shall we speak of today?” Let you pick the topic with those suspicious eyes at your back.
“My lord Gawain will think me foolish.” A blush touched her cheeks. “But I would like to hear more of Camelot.”
“Not at all, my hostess.” But when will you speak of yourself? When will you help me, and help me to help you?
So Gawain entertained her with more of the merriest tales that he knew, gratified to hear her laugh and to see the light returning to her eyes. It was a shame that such a beauty need be so sad. He wondered what Risa would think of her, and what she would advise him to do to bring her situation some ease.
Something must have showed in his face with those thoughts, because the lady lowered her voice and asked, “Have you a lady love?”
Now it was his turn to lower his gaze. “I do.”
“And is she fair?”
“Most fair.”
“What makes you sad, my lord? Is she … have you lost her?” he could barely hear her, she whispered her question so softly.
Gawain lifted his head. She was afraid now, holding herself like a deer, thinking she might need to run, but not certain yet. “Yes, lady, I have lost her. I seek her now.”
Ailla’s face paled a little. “You said it was the Green Temple you sought. Is she there?”
“I do not know where she is.” Gawain’s heart twisted. He did not want to speak of this. But to remain silent was no way to draw out the lady in front of him, especially now that they stood so close to the goal. “What I seek at the Green Temple …” he shook his head. “Repentance, perhaps.”
She seemed genuinely surprised to hear this. “What can such a man as you have to repent?”
Despite his resolve to speak openly, Gawain found his throat closed around those words. “Do not ask me that, Lady Ailla,” he could only say. “The answer would take far too long to give.” That is not true, but to see my shame reflected in your eyes … I am that much of a coward.
“I think your lady must be very lucky.”
If you knew the truth you would not say so. “Oh?”
Her veil had fallen partway over her face, screening it from him. “Her lord seeks after her, he does not abandon her to her fate.”
Greatly daring, Gawain reached out and touched Ailla’s hand. For a moment, he smelled the perfume she anointed herself with. A rare and delicate scent for a rare and delicate lady. “And who has abandoned my lady?”
But that was pressing too far. She pulled back immediately, clutching the back of her hand where he had laid his fingertips. “If I cannot ask you of your repentance, I beg you do not ask me of my abandonment.”
Gawain bowed before her as deeply as he was able. “I ask your pardon.”
“No, my lord, I beg you forgive me. It has been so long since I have had anyone to talk to … I have forgotten how to guard my tongue.” She still held the place where he touched her. Did she wish to discourage the repetition of such a liberty, or did she not wish to let it go?
As gently as he could, Gawain said. “I should be very sorry if our talk caused you any worry or grief, my lady.” And that is nothing but the truth. God grant she believe. God grant she trust.
“You do not know how much happiness you have given me.”
“I would do more, if my lady would tell me how.”
She smiled in sad contemplation. “There is nothing that can be done for me. My fate is long sealed.”
“It is said that hope remains as long as there is life.”
“Not here. Not …” She stood abruptly. “No. I must not say anymore.”
“Why not? We are alone here.” I will see when any comes past that doorway. Please, lady, speak. Tell me how I can help Risa, and you.
“Because my lord will question you on your return, and you must give him what you yourself were given today.” Her fingers laced together in her nervousness and she looked over her shoulder toward the shadowed corridor, listening for breathing, looking for spies.
“That is a but a jest my lady,” but even as he said it, Gawain was not so certain. His bed covers were still stained with the boar’s blood from the day before.
“No. No jest my lord. It is in earnest, I assure you. He follows the oldest laws and will not shy away from them.”
Gawain felt the skin on his arms begin to prickle. “Do you say I am in danger here?”
“Not yet.” She rose. “Let me go, my lord, before I say any more.” She leaned over swiftly and kissed his cheek. “At least let me know I will not bring your downfall as well.”
And she was gone before he could ask any more. Gawain pressed his hand against his mouth so that his curses and frustration would not burst forth and be heard by whoever loitered out there still. So close. She was so close …
The answer was so close. That is what I meant. The answer was so close. Risa’s answer.
Gawain repeated that to himself until he could at last believe it. Suddenly he could not bear the idea of lying here in idleness and isolation. He got to his feet, forcing the weariness that came over him down and back. He had felt far worse. He could master this. He would find his answers and he would find Risa.
His stride was steady if slow when he gained the hall. The servitors in their shadows turned to regard him, but none made any duty or reverence, and none came forward to greet him. They only watched as he left by the hall’s single door.
The afternoon’s sun was still shining brightly as Gawain crossed the tiny, dusty yard. All around him, he could see nothing but rolli
ng meadowland that retreated rapidly into forest that climbed unbroken up the sides of the great hills looming on every side. He could see no cleared fields, no dwellings beyond the outbuildings of the hall. A woman toiled beneath a yoke of buckets filled with milk, her uncombed hair falling across her face. A man herded a pair of pigs out of the trees and back toward their pen.
It was then Gawain realized what he did not see.
There were no children. There was no boy helping with the pigs, no girl to carry another bucket of milk. No little ones running about the hall or the stables. No women with babies tied to their bosoms while they worked, no grandmothers hushing the infants balanced on their hips.
It was possible a hall, especially a small one such as this, might subsist on what could be gleaned from the forest. But how could there be no children? It was unnatural.
Gawain turned on his heel. He was in the center of some great riddle, its threads and hints stretching out on all sides of him. Did one of them lead to Risa? Which one would it be? And how could he hope to unravel it when the one he was bound to follow lead to death?
One thing was clear. He needed to leave this place, and quickly. He needed to find Ailla and persuade her to come with him.
But even as he thought that, he heard the sound of distant hoofbeats. Belinus, riding a bright bay horse, cantered across the untamed fields at the head of an unruly cluster of men on shaggy ponies. He saw Gawain standing out in the yard, for he raised his hand and urged his horse forward at even greater speed.
The hall’s door came open and its meager population scurried out to greet their master’s return. Ailla, of course, came with them. Gawain moved toward her, trying to catch her eye.
I know there is something very wrong here, he wanted to say. You can trust me. I will help you.
But she would not look at him. She rigidly focused all her attention on her returning lord.
As he drew closer, Gawain saw the results of the day’s hunt. A stag’s carcass had been tied to the rump of Belinus’s horse. Its rack had been torn free already, and its shorn head flopped ludicrously as the horse cantered forward.
“Ha!” exclaimed Belinus as he reined his horse up. “It is the young eagle! How are those wings now?”
Gawain bowed. “Ready to fly, my host, and I thank you.”
“Excellent!” He swung himself onto the ground. “Although I think my wife will be sorry to see it.” Businesslike, he undid the knot holding the carcass to the horse’s back. The stag slid to the ground, lying contorted there, its glassy eyes staring up at Gawain, its red-stained throat pointed to the sky as if offering itself up to the knife.
“There you are, Lord Gawain.” Belinus planted his hands on his hips “I had thought to have it for your board tomorrow, if you are still with us. Be that as it may, this is what I gained today. What of you?”
Gawain could not help but glance at Ailla. She had not gone forward to greet her lord, but stood with her head bowed and her hands folded. She did not look up, or give any other sign.
Very deliberately, Gawain walked forward and kissed Belinus on the cheek. “That is what I gained this day, my host.”
Belinus threw back his head and laughed. “And such a treasure too! You will think my wife a miser if this is all you receive in my hall!”
“I think your wife a fine and noble lady and a courteous hostess.”
“I would be most disappointed to find you thought otherwise, my lord.” He lingered over the last word, drawing it out, bringing to it the slightest hint of discourtesy. But then that moment was gone. “Come! Let us go into board.” And he strode into his dark hall. His men lifted the stag’s carcass and carried it in behind him, followed by the other dark and silent servants and his pale, modest wife.
Gawain had no choice but to follow.
It was nearly dark when Euberacon summoned Risa again. The pain still burned in all of Risa’s crabbed and contorted joints, made worse by the weariness that turned her blood to water.
This fortress of dreams and nightmares did have a kitchen and a scullery, and Euberacon had left her there, presided over by the woman, Nessa, who had laid the breakfast, and by a cheerful stump of a man named Drew, who took one look at Risa and declared that she should be left in the pen with the pigs.
“Well, if we don’t take her, who will??” chided the woman as Risa hunched before her. “Hands is hands. Let’s get to work then, girl.”
They could not possibly see the full horror of her. Euberacon’s spells apparently sheltered their minds from the words of the strangeness around them. They blinked very little this pair, and as she watched them, they sometimes moved around as if there was something in their way that they saw but she did not.
If it was true they did not see the fullness of her monstrosity, this fact won her no respite from the work heaped upon her. She drew water and scrubbed the floor, cleaned up after the dogs and plucked the birds the man brought back, after she had cleaned up from their slaughter.
She looked hard at them to see if they had been killed with an arrow. If there was a bow … her hands could still shoot, her eyes could still see.
No. Don’t think it. Bury it, bury it deep. Don’t let him hear. Don’t think how you know when he’s afraid. Not yet. Not yet.
But the bird’s necks had been snapped. Drew kept snares. She plucked furiously at the birds, quills cutting her fingers and their blood mixing with her own.
Now she hunched in front of Euberacon. She stank and she was covered in the filth of her work over the hideous form forced on her. She tried to still her mind, tried not to think, tried most of all not to hate. She tried not to see that in his hand he held a copper collar and that it was attached to a copper chain.
“Come here,” he ordered as if she were a recalcitrant hound, and as if she were that hound, she cringed even as she obeyed.
She knew what he meant to do. There could be only one thing. She tried to hold silent, but as he snapped the collar around her neck she heard a whimper come from her throat, and her malformed hand went instantly to the collar.
“Oh, no.” The sorcerer smiled. “No hand but mine removes that from you now.” There was a staple driven into the ground beside the fountain that she had not seen before. The other end of the chain had been attached there.
“Now,” he said. “We wait.”
It was almost past bearing. She tried to stand, to keep that much of her dignity, but the exhaustion and pain were too much, and she was forced to sit at his feet before she fell at them. Slowly, the darkness around them deepened. There was nothing to do but wait. Even the work in the scullery had been better. At least there was a task, something to occupy her body if not her mind. Now, there was nothing to do but feel the weight and the wrongness of her own body, to try not to hate, to try not to weep. She was hungry. She was thirsty. The edge of the copper collar slowly chafed and cut into her skin.
Bury it deep. Bury it all.
Slowly the sky turned to black. Slowly, the quarter moon rose over the fortress walls. As it did, Risa saw shadows moving in the courtyard. She blinked the tiny eyes she had been given, and looked again.
She saw her nightmare.
She saw the marble fortress and the gilt-roofed towers fade like morning’s mist. She saw the kitchen woman trudging across the rutted yard of mud and clay with her sieve in her hands, blank, silver orbs where her eyes should be. She saw the little boy, who she now knew kept the stables, sweeping frantically at the dirt with his pitiful twiggy broom and heard again the rush of the sea, saw Drew who snared the birds and kept the gardens, struggling up the stairs in his chains. Impossibly, over it all, she saw Euberacon perched on the sagging turret, and saw the demons flocking to him, waiting for him to fall.
And yet he still sat beside her, calm and regal in his chair.
But not so calm as he had been in the day, for now his hands scrabbled nervously at the chair arm.
Above, his image was afraid. Below, his body was afraid. He had said he did
not keep his life within him anymore. Was that his soul up there? Was that what the demons were waiting to take?
“What do you see?”
You do not see this? You can’t see this? “Nothing, Master,” she tried.
The blow he dealt her was casual, but it knocked her flat to the ground with its strength, making her ears ring and making her ragged teeth grate the inside of her cheek. “You lie.” He did not even give her time to pick herself up. “What do you see?”
Drew fell, tumbling down the stairs, breaking his body and his will. Nessa wept as her water ran onto the ground.
The demons circled around Euberacon, gloating, goading, tempting, and he swayed and he was afraid. Two more demons sat on the rim of the fountain and laughed, jeering at the specters, and at their kin, enjoying all the games.
“Nightmares,” whispered Risa. Her own chain rattled as her spindly arms pushed her back into a sitting position.
“Tell me.”
Risa shook. He cannot see. Not at night. Not everything you can see. “I see you,” she said. She tasted her own blood as she spoke. Her voice shook, her hands shook, her whole crooked body was wracked with tremors. “I see you perched on a ruinous tower with demons all around you. They are waiting for you to fall. I see two more demons sitting on the fountain, watching all that occurs.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes, Master.” He’ll hear. He’ll hear the lie. He’ll hear my heart pounding. He’ll do something worse. He’ll find something worse than this. The cook was heading back to her kitchen now, weeping copious tears. The man lay still and broken in his chains. The little boy swept on, tears rolling down his sunken cheeks.
Euberacon nodded judiciously. His fingers still scratched nervously at the chair arms. He still knew his fears. Good. Good. “Kerra was right. You have sharp eyes.” He stood. “You may keep watch here tonight. Perhaps tomorrow you may return to your room, we will see how pleasant you are when the sun rises.”
