One Good Knight (15 page)

He sat on one side of the fire, with his blankets neatly unfolded and his saddle and saddlebags arranged at one end of them. He was still in his armor, which was a bit unnerving. She sat on the other side, having made a pile of pine needles under her blanket to pad out its meager comfort.
Now what? You'd think he would see the wisdom of letting me come with him by now.

“I suppose you must be the Princess,” he said suddenly, making her startle. “What with those people in Acadian Guard uniforms hiding things in the rocks in that valley. Glad they did. I needed those weapons.”

No, really, you don't have to thank us,
she thought sarcastically.

“So?” she said, when he didn't add anything.

“So it doesn't change anything. Actually, it makes things worse, Traditionally speaking. If you're a Princess, you
have
to fall in love with the Champion who rescues you.” He sounded so arrogant, and so sure of himself, that she was mightily tempted to slap him. “I told you, I've got no use for a female, and especially not a Princess. I'm a virgin knight—”

She started to giggle, and he glared at her. “That does
not
mean what you are thinking!” he spluttered.

“I know what it means, I'm not an ignoramus!” she countered. “It means you've just been knighted, probably just been made a Champion, too, and you're on your first Quest. Traditionally speaking, you will never be at your strongest, purest or most powerful unless you are working with a Godmother or someone equally powerful.”

“Which is why the last thing I need is a moony female!” He was shouting again. “I just don't need to be distracted right now!”

“And what makes you think I'm a ‘moony' female?” she demanded.

He just shook his head, threw the twig he'd been stripping the bark from into the fire, and lay down.

She stared at him in amazement. “You're not going to sleep like that—”

“It's more comfortable than what you're wearing,” he said, closing his eyes. “Dwarven-forged and dwarven-enchanted with protections,
and
with comfort-magic put on it precisely so I
can
sleep in it. A Champion needs to be able to leap up from sleep into instant combat. Our Chapter-Head is Champion of and married to a Godmother. She takes care of us, she does.”

“Which is how you know about The Tradition,” she mused aloud. “Most people go their whole lives never even hearing of it.”

He just grunted, and turned on his side to face the forest.

Idiot. Handsome idiot, but—

She suddenly recognized the tug of The Tradition in her last thought, and countered it fiercely.
And I do not need to have to housebreak an arrogant pup!

To occupy herself, she filled her little clay cook-pot full of dried peas and water, and buried it in the hot ashes and coals. By morning—if the books she had read were correct—she would have something
edible there. She thought about refusing to share it, then shook her head. That he was rude and insufferable didn't give her the right to be the same.
Champions come from all classes. He's probably just a peasant, and doesn't even realize how rude he's being. It's ignorance. He'll learn.

But he wouldn't, if she didn't give him a good example.

With one eye warily on him to make sure he didn't roll back over and get offended, she pulled the chemise down off her shoulders and daubed the ointment on them, then did the same for her maltreated thighs. Then, with the discarded outer sleeves of the gown wadded up to form a marginally comfortable pillow, she rolled herself in blanket and cloak, and put her back to the fire—

Which was the last thing she remembered until dawn, when a crow yelling in her ear woke her.

The pea soup, or pea porridge, or whatever it was, turned out to be edible. Not what she would have called more than that, but it was hot and filling and (so her books had told her) cheap. It needed salt; fortunately, she had bartered for some. There was a variation with lentils, too, if she recalled correctly….

“Needs sage. And thyme. And basil,” said the knight, who at least hadn't rejected her offering, nor made a rude remark about it. “Garlic wouldn't go amiss, either.”

She squashed flat several of the sarcastic comments she wanted to make. “You can cook?” was all she said.

“Champions have to. Mostly, we're off in the wilderness alone, or with a squire, and generally we're the ones who have to teach the squires how to cook when they first come along with us. Unless
they're professional squires,” he added thoughtfully. “There are some who just don't want to become Champions—they prefer being the support for the Champions. You should see them—off on a Quest with a pack-mule, and you never have to think about anything, because whatever you want, you know they'll have it on that mule. So yes, I can cook.”

She felt crestfallen. “I'm sorry, I didn't know to ask for herbs, I only remembered that you can make this pea porridge from a book I read, so all I bartered for was the bag of peas.”

He raised his head and looked at her in blank astonishment. When he wasn't scowling, he had nice eyes.

“You mean, you've never cooked anything before?”

“Princesses don't, usually,” she reminded him dryly. “I just tried the simplest thing I could remember, bar sticking meat on a spit over the fire. I can probably manage that, too.”

“Huh. You're either extraordinarily lucky, or you have an extraordinary memory for what you've read.” He shook his head. “All right. You've impressed me. You haven't whined, you haven't complained more than you've a right to, you've done your share, and you've tried things you've never done. If you'd burned it, would you have eaten it?”

She made a face. “No,” she admitted.

“And you're honest….” But then the scowl came back. “But I still do
not
want you falling in love with me.”

She flushed, and anger smoldered inside. “I know about The Tradition, too! And I don't intend to fall in love with you! If you were the last man on earth, I still wouldn't want to fall in love with you! Look—knight—”

“My name is George,” he interrupted her.

“Right, George then—I had an idea when I was waking up.” She had awakened with a lovely golden haze over her thoughts, out of dreams full of sinking into the knight's tender embrace, then had realized where the dreams and the euphoria had come from, and fiercely driven that moony feeling away. “I went over every possible thing I could do to make it hard for The Tradition to muck with us. I thought, ‘I'll dress myself up like a boy and be his squire,' then I remembered three plays and at least as many minstrel-ballads that have a girl doing that to get
close
to her knight. Then I thought, ‘We'll each swear true love to someone else!' then I realized that if it wasn't true, it would do nothing, and if it was, well, we might just as well ask for a forest spirit to come along with a handful of love-in-idleness or a love potion to slip into us, because there are ballads, tales, plays and an entire school of farce founded on that plot. But then I thought of the one thing we could do to thwart it.” She smiled tightly in triumph. “We have to swear to be blood-siblings.”

“Whaaat?” he spluttered, taken completely by surprise.

“If we swear to be blood-siblings, there is
nothing
in tale or song or anything else that The Tradition can get hold of to force us to fall in love,” she pointed out. “The only time siblings fall in love with each other, Traditionally speaking, is when they don't know they are brother and sister. And in fact, devoted siblings rescue each other from peril all the time in tales. So?”

He reached up with one finger and scratched his head just above his ear. “It sounds reasonable. It's got the benefit of being logical.”

“Good.” She had been cleaning her knife in the fire, and now she took the sharp blade and sliced it shallowly across her palm. As the blood welled up, George did the same with his dagger, and they slapped their palms together.

“Blood is mingled. Sibs forever,” she said, using the simplest version of the oath. With The Tradition, the simpler, the better. Simplicity made it strong and hard to unbind.

“Blood is mingled. Sibs forever,” George agreed.

And both of them raised their heads at the same time, like horses scenting something odd, as there was a sensation of something silently popping, and the release of pressure they hadn't been aware of until it was gone.

They blinked at each other. “Was that what I think it was?” she asked, cautiously.

George shook his head. “Don't know. I'm not a magician, and I never had The Tradition trying to force a path on me before. I hope so, though. I—”

Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by a huge shadow passing overhead. They both froze. Andie felt her heart pounding, and clapped both hands over her chest in a vain attempt to muffle the sound of it. Fear washed over her, and she fought off dizziness.

But the dragon didn't seem to notice them. It just kept right on in the direction it had been heading, which was roughly the direction they were going. They watched until it passed out of sight, and gradually Andie's fear ebbed.

“Do you think it's going out to hunt, or—” The sight of the beast had made her mouth unbearably dry and her knees still felt weak.

“It's going in roughly the same direction it was yesterday. That's good enough for me,” George stated. Then he glanced over at her. “You're kind of low on supplies, and you have gold. Why didn't you barter for more?”

“Because I didn't want to arouse suspicion,” she sighed, rolling up her blanket. “But—” She paused. She had been intending to go to Merrha's village without telling him, but now that didn't seem fair. “One of my friends, the one that arranged for all those things to be hidden around the valley, will probably have figured out I got away. Her home village is half a day in our direction, and I'm sure she has told someone there that I'm coming. She could have sent a runner, or she could have paid for a heliograph. Either way, a message would get to her relatives long before we could. I can barter for a lot more
there and know that no one is going to betray me. If you don't mind stopping.”

He gave a one-shouldered shrug, then something that was almost a smile. “I'll tell you what to get when it comes to food. I only have enough for myself, and it's all journey-bread anyway. I have to admit I wouldn't mind cooking something a bit different, and—” he coughed “—I thought you'd slow me down, but now that I've seen this countryside, it's going to take me longer to hunt this beast down than I thought anyway, and you're something of a guide, I suppose. Can you exchange some of that gold for real money too?”

“Probably. Would that be safer?” Then she shook her head. “No, don't answer that, obviously it would be safer. And I'll get a donkey to ride, or a mule, so I really, truly won't slow you down.”

He nodded. “All right. You're along until we find the dragon and I get rid of it. After that—well, we'll see.”

 

Oh dear,
Andie thought, looking down on the village in the valley below them.
I'm not sure I'm as prepared for all this wandering around in the wilderness as I thought I was.
From here, it was clear that Kiros Rocky Springs was nothing like Ethanos, and in her mind's eye, she had somehow pictured something a lot bigger. Oh, Merrha had said it was a tiny little place, but Andie hadn't visualized it correctly. It was, in fact, little more than a cluster of houses around a well. There was no marketplace, just a village square with the well in the middle, where (Merrha had
mentioned now and again) a market was held once a week, and since it was empty, that day was not today.

How could anyone ever get word here that I was coming?
she wondered, feeling her heart sink. All her confidence evaporated, and with it went any expectation that she would be able to get what she needed here.

She steeled herself against the disappointment, and straightened her back. No matter what, she was not going to give Sir George any excuse to be rid of her. She would buy what she could, and do without what she couldn't.

They made their way down the track; there was still a long way to go before they actually reached the village, and if Merrha had gotten word there, the sight of a weary maiden with a fully armored knight in foreign-looking gear was surely more than enough to tell them who she was.

They passed a couple of farms on their way down into the valley, and from each of them, Andie had spotted a child running off toward the cluster of houses in the distance. When she and the knight entered the village square she was nearly faint with relief, when they were intercepted by a matronly looking woman with gray hair and a strong family resemblance to both Merrha and Iris.

“Are you Merrha's friend out of Ethanos?” the woman asked, with a glance aside at her companion.

“Yes, and this is my
brother,
the errant knight Sir George,” she replied, telling what was the truth, just not all of it. “As you said, my friend Merrha of Kiros
Rocky Springs sent me here. I hope we can get supplies to continue our journey.”

“We've been expecting you,” the woman replied with a smile. “Please, follow me.”

A thousand blessings on Merrha. A hundred thousand. I don't know how she did it—and I don't care.

After only a day and a half outside of the Palace, Andie was woefully aware of just how unprepared she was to
be
outside. A few weeks ago, if you had asked her if she could go off on a journey like this one, she would have confidently said that she could. Now—well, now she knew very well that without George, she'd be absolutely helpless.

Their guide took them out of the village itself, to yet another farm on the farther side. George sat warily on his horse, keeping a sharp watch on both of them through the slits in his helmet. He still hadn't said anything, but at this point, she really didn't want him to. Let him think she was more in charge than she really was. But when they reached the farmhouse, he finally spoke.

“If I may water my horse—?”

For answer, the woman whistled sharply, and a curly-haired boy poked his head out of a cow-shed.

“Timon! Bring the knight some hay for his horse, then come to the house and I'll give you something for him to eat,” she said.

“You don't—” George began.

The woman laughed. “Oh, Knight, you'll be paying for it, rest assured! We won't fleece your
sister, but she doesn't expect to get anything for free from us.”

“Not a bit,” Andie replied, feeling herself relax at last. This, she understood, and finally she was in her element. The wealth of Ethanos was built on trade. She was the daughter of a long line of merchant-kings. She would have felt uneasy about being given anything, especially from people as so far from wealthy as the folk of Kiros Rocky Springs were. But a good, sharp bargain—that was different.

It might not make George comfortable, but she was on her home ground, now. Before the elevation in her status, she had slipped out of the Palace and gone down to the marketplaces of Ethanos countless times. There, when she'd had money, she had learned to haggle just like any other child of the city. Now she settled down at the kitchen table in the immaculately clean farmhouse, with her list and a glass of coarse, resinous wine at one side, feeling more at ease than she had in days.

“Now, understand, I can't supply what you need by myself,” the woman said, sitting down across from Andie. “I'll be acting as factor for my neighbors, and as we make bargains, anything I can't sell you, I will send one of my children after. They know only that my cousin Merrha has sent travelers from the city who need supplies and didn't want to be fleeced by sharpers in the big-city markets.”

Andie nodded. “I don't have actual coins,” she began.

In answer, the woman got up, went to the cupboard and brought out a tiny scale and a bag of barley grains. “It won't be the first time I've been factor for bargains with a mercenary or mustered-out Guard,” she said simply. “We're the last big village before the mountains.”

When she was done, and the bargain was concluded, they were well into the afternoon. Each time they concluded the bargaining for a particular piece of merchandise, and the links of chain were weighed out, the woman either had a child bring the article out and set it beside George and his horse, or she sent one with the gold off to the neighbor for whom she had acted as agent, and within a short time, the child would return with precisely what had been requested.

Last of all, when the matter of a mount for Andie had been settled, came a tiny little girl riding a mule. That was when George put his oar in.

“I'll look at this creature, if you don't mind,” he said, and without waiting for permission, lifted the tot out of the simple riding-pad, and began a thorough inspection of the beast.

Andie was going to protest—then thought better of it. After all, what did she know about horses and mules? Merrha's cousin wouldn't cheat her, but what about the unknown neighbor? She watched as George looked in the mule's mouth, inspected its eyes and the insides of its long ears, then felt each of its legs, picking up the foot for a complete inspection of each hoof.

When he finished, he stood up, and patted the mule's shoulder with one armored hand. “Older, but not elderly.” That was directed at the woman, who nodded.

“A sturdy fellow, if you expect endurance rather than speed, and don't overload him. Good tempered—my youngest can handle him.” The woman patted the mule herself, and it flicked an ear at her. “My neighbor breeds good donkeys and mules, but this is one he's kept, waiting for someone a little out of the ordinary to take him—someone we know will be kind to him. If I were going on a long journey, he's the mount I'd pick.”