Gawain (28 page)

He did not notice he was not alone until he nearly collided with the warhorse in his path.

“Good day, sir!” he cried, springing back and touching his brow in an instinctive gesture of respect.

“Good day,” the knight replied. He wore no mail, but a hauberk of leather, and a round cap studded with iron sat upon his graying hair. “Where are you bound in such a hurry?”

“To Camelot.”

Launfal grinned, relishing the musical sound of the word upon his lips.

“What is your business there?”

“To see the king.”

“The king?” The knight laughed. “And do you think the king receives every chance-come beggar to his door?”

Launfal’s smile was not so easy now, but he held on to it with all his might. “Indeed I do not,” he said with such courtesy as he could muster. “But I dare to hope he will see me.”

“Why should he? What is your name?”

“My name is my own, good sir,” he answered, lifting his chin and shaking his tangled hair back from his face. “Though I will render it gladly to any man who gives me his.”

“What’s this?” The knight nudged his steed closer, leaning down from his saddle to peer closely into Launfal’s face. “You are insolent, boy.”

Launfal held his ground. “I am no boy, sir, but a man, and what I ask of you is no more than my right.”

“Your
what
?” The knight laid a mailed fist upon the hilt of his sword.

“My right,” Launfal answered stoutly. “Courtesy demands that—”

“Who are you?” the knight cut in. “From whence do you come? Speak out, boy, and smartly.”

“I have told you once I am no boy,” Launfal replied evenly. “My father was a noble knight, and I his only son. For that, if nothing else, I will thank you to address me as befits—”

“Let me see your hand.”

“My—?”

“Your
hand
. No, not that one, the left. Hold it up—palm toward me, if you please.”

Caught between bewilderment and affront, Launfal obeyed. The knight drew his sword.

“What—?” Launfal began, but before he could say more, he was flat on his belly with the knight’s blade whistling over his head. “Stop! Sir, what are you doing? You have no cause—”

But apparently the knight did not need a cause.
He must be mad,
Launfal thought, rolling as a spear buried itself in the moss beside him.

“Wait!” he cried, leaping to his feet. He glanced wildly about the wood, hoping against hope that someone— anyone—would appear and call a halt to this insanity. But the wood stretched empty to either side, and a moment later, he was diving behind a boulder as the knight’s sword sparked against the stone.

“Sir, wait!” he cried again. “We have no quarrel, there is no reason—”

The knight halted, notched blade lifted. “Your name,” he cried. “What is it?”

Dear God, is that all the man wanted? He must be mad in truth. “Launfal!” he cried. “I am Launfal, son of Rogier of Penhelm, lately of—”

“I know where you come from,” the knight snarled, and Launfal sprang back as the blade swept by, bare inches from his belly. “Just as I know where you are bound—and why, you scurrilous dog!”

“You—you mistake—” Launfal gasped, but the knight was done with conversation. Launfal was twisting, stumbling, dodging behind trees, and though half of him was tempted to burst out laughing at the ridiculous sight they must make, a mounted knight chasing an unarmed man through the wood, the other half was grimly intent upon survival.

Had they been in the open, Launfal would have had no chance at all. It was the trees that saved him, the thin silver trunks and whipping branches that he kept between him and the warhorse, his desperation driving him to unimagined feats of agility. At first he continued to cry out, but soon he had no breath to spare for questions and no desire left to ask them. When he fell, his cheek against a jagged stone, he blinked the tears of pain from his eyes and, looking up, saw the knight towering above him, one arm drawn back to throw the dagger glinting in his fist. Launfal seized the stone, wrested it from the earth, and flung it with all his strength.

It struck the knight on the brow, and though the blow was glancing, the surprise of it sent him reeling back so sharply that his mount, startled by the sudden shift of weight, reared, iron-shod hoofs beating the air. The knight went over backward and landed with a thud upon the moss. His mount pranced nervously, then halted, trembling, beside the prone form of his master.

Launfal scrambled to his feet, breathing hard, a second stone ready in his hand, but the knight lay unmoving. After an age had passed, Launfal forced himself to approach the fallen man.

“Sir?”

The sound of his own voice startled him so much that he jumped, and something between a sob and a laugh burst from his lips. “Sir?” he said again, not knowing why he bothered. The man obviously could not hear him.
If you had any sense, you would take to your heels,
Launfal told himself . . . and yet he could not leave this poor madman lying unconscious in the forest, prey to any sort of beast.

I’ll get him on his horse,
he thought and went down on his knees, slipping his hands beneath the man’s arms and lifting—and it was then he saw the dagger’s hilt protruding from the knight’s back. With a low cry, Launfal laid him carefully on his side and drew the dagger forth, staring in dismay at the blood seeping from the wound.

And it was thus that the knight’s companions found him.

GAHERIS arrived rather breathless in the hall, where Arthur and his queen were breaking their fast.

“Sire, have you seen Gawain?” Gaheris asked.

“He left me a quarter of an hour since,” Arthur replied. “To meet you in the practice yard.”

“He did not come,” Gaheris said.

The two exchanged a glance, and Arthur half rose from his seat. Guinevere looked at him questioningly. “Sir Gawain must have been delayed,” she said. “My lord, do sit down, you have not finished, and I did want to talk to you—”

“No, I—I have no appetite,” Arthur said and when Guinevere’s puzzled frown deepened, he remembered that he had only just declared himself half famished after his vigil in the chapel. “That is, I—I will eat this as I walk,” he said, seizing a slice of bread. “I shall attend you and the queen of Orkney later this morning,” he promised, noticing her hurt expression with only a small part of his mind as he hurried from the hall.

“COME out,” Gawain said.

“No, I don’t think so. Why don’t you go off and do whatever it is you do,” Aislyn said from behind the screen. “Come back at sunset.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gawain said, smothering a laugh. “It’s not as though I’ve never seen Dame Ragnelle before!”

“But it’s different now.”

“No, it’s not. I want to talk to you.”

“Talk then,” she retorted. “I can hear you fine from here.”

ARTHUR and Gaheris hesitated outside the door to Gawain’s chamber. “Perhaps it would have been better to send a page to him,” Arthur said. “I do not want to alarm the witch.”

Gaheris gnawed his lower lip. “Aye, you are right. Let us—”

The sound of Gawain’s laughter came from within. “Sire,” Gaheris said, “it is not my habit to listen at doors . . .”

“Nor mine,” Arthur said.

Their eyes met briefly, then broke away to peruse the hallway.

“But this once . . .” Gaheris began.

“Do it,” Arthur ordered tersely, and Gaheris put his ear to the door.

“Well?” Arthur said after a moment, alarmed at the expression on Gaheris’s face. “What do you hear?”

“Oh, sire—”

Arthur leaned forward and laid his head against the wood, where a voice that sounded like Gawain’s was clearly audible.

“Now, stop being foolish and come sit on my knee. That’s better. It seems an age since I have seen you. I thought about you all last night.”

“Did you?”

That was Dame Ragnelle; her harsh croak was unmistakable, even when lowered to a sickening coo.

“I could scarce keep my mind on anything I did.” It was definitely Gawain, much as Arthur longed to deny it. “Come, love, don’t turn away—”

Gaheris and Arthur exchanged looks of horror.

“Oh, God,” Gawain groaned, half laughing, “I don’t know how I can wait until tonight.”

Arthur leapt back, his stomach heaving. Gaheris followed suit, his face a shade of delicate green as he pressed the back of one hand against his mouth. But when Arthur raised a fist to pound upon the door, Gaheris caught him by the wrist.

“No,” he mouthed, jerking his head down the passageway. “Wait.”

Arthur followed him some distance down the corridor.

“This is far worse than I suspected,” Gaheris whispered. “I fear for Gawain if we confront her in his presence.”

“You are right.” Arthur looked toward the door. “Oh, Gaheris, don’t think badly of your brother. The fault is mine. I should never have allowed—”

“You did not know what she was, no more than Gawain did. But all will be well once he is free of her. You must send again to the duchess of Cornwall—”

“I have already done so.”

“Then we
must
keep them apart until she arrives. Sire, do you keep Gawain by you, and we shall post a guard outside the door.”

LAUNFAL half fell into the windowless chamber, propelled by a hard shove at the small of his back.

“But I told you—it was an accident.”

“You can tell the king himself—when he has time for you,” one of the knights replied.

“At least unbind me. For pity’s sake—”

“Pity? You dare—” Mailed hands pushed him against the wall. He hit it awkwardly with his shoulder and went down hard upon his knees. “I’ll give you pity—the same pity you showed Marrek!” the knight shouted, drawing back his foot.

“Peace, Kay,” a cool voice cut in. “He’s just a lad, and he hasn’t even been tried yet, let alone condemned.”

Launfal knew that voice—it was the one that had stopped the others from slaying him out of hand back in the forest. Now its owner drew off his helm and went down upon one knee, taking the dagger from his belt. “Relax, lad, I’m not going to slit your weasand. Just turn so I can get to these—”

“Dinadan, don’t!” the other—Sir Kay, Launfal thought— protested.

“Why not?” Sir Dinadan stood and sheathed his dagger. “He’s no danger here to anyone save himself.”

“At least put him in the cell,” Sir Kay said, gesturing toward an iron cage, barely visible among the shadows.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Kay, what do you think he’ll do, dig through solid rock with his bare hands? We’ll bolt the door and post a guard.”

Launfal stood, rubbing his wrists where the ropes had cut into them. “Thank you, sir,” he said with a bow. “I shall never forget your courtesy.”

Sir Dinadan nodded, his eyes cool and watchful. “Let us hope you have a long life in which to remember it. But if you are guilty, I’ll be the first in line to watch you die.”

Die? Was he to die? No, it was impossible—and yet Launfal knew that it was not. He had as little control over his life as a piece upon a game board, moved hither and yon by some unseen hand. He had known that since he was a child, when his life was a frail thread like to snap at any moment, and as a child, he had accepted it. Later, he had pushed the knowledge aside, but now he knew how foolish he had been.

But to die like this—for nothing! It was unendurable . . . and yet, was it not somehow fitting that his death would be as futile as his entire life had been?

“Don’t look like that,” Sir Dinadan said. “The king is a fair man, he will hear you out.”

Launfal nodded, but he did not allow himself to hope. He had hoped too often in the past. Better not to think at all, to simply accept whatever happened next without complaint.

He slid down the wall, wrapped his arms around his shins and laid his brow on his bent knees. He heard the knights departing and thought himself alone until a voice broke the heavy silence.

“Lad.” Launfal lifted his head to see Sir Dinadan leaning against the doorpost, arms folded across his chest. “Do you have a name?”

“It is Launfal.”

“Launfal, then. Why did you do it? Really? Were you hungry?”

“I told you,” Launfal said wearily. “He attacked me; I attempted to defend myself. His horse threw him and he fell on his dagger.”

Sir Dinadan made a low sound of disbelief. “Marrek? He hasn’t attacked anyone since Uther Pendragon’s day. You’d do better to leave that part out when you tell your tale to the king.”

“I cannot say other than the truth.”

Dinadan raised one brow. “Why did you stay, then? Why did you not run once he was down?”

“Leave him insensible in the forest with the wolves and vermin? Would
you
have done that?”

“No. I would not leave any knight—even an enemy—in such a case.”

“Well, then—”

“But I am a knight of Camelot.”

Launfal’s face flamed. “While I am nobody, and perforce a stranger to all honor?”

“I meant,” Dinadan said coolly, “that I would have no need to run from the outcome of any challenge. Were I in your situation—” He shrugged. “I daresay I would have taken to my heels.”

Launfal shook his head. “You wouldn’t have.”

“Lad, any boyish dreams of chivalry I might have cherished were beaten out of me long before they could do me any harm. If you want to survive, you’ll have to learn to—” He broke off with a curt laugh. “I’ll save the lecture; you have enough to bear. Is there anyone who should know where you are? Family? Friends?”

Launfal shook his head. “No. There is no one. Only—is Sir Gawain at court?”

“You know Gawain? Why did you not say so at once?”

“I don’t. Not really. But we did meet, long ago—not that I expect him to remember, but . . .”