Gawain and Lady Green Page 14

  One-Eye ran across with a taper and lit all the table candles. Now the head swam in flickering light: dead eyes, useless tusks, foamed bristles, furious snarl.

  “More that way.” Lord Bright pointed at Gawain’s waiting stool. “Turn it that way, man! So it looks at its new owner.” One-Eye pointed the thick-slimed snout that way.

  “I’ll wager you’ve stuck a good count of boars in your time, Brother.” Bright clapped and rubbed gloved hands together. “Can’t find a Saxon, stick a boar, eh? Next best sport.” Gawain smiled but did not need to answer. Bright rushed on, “But you should have been there, this hunt!

  “He sat in his thicket, see, till the dogs came almost upon him. That’s what they say, I was farther back. Then he rushed out and off, all the dogs after, all the men after, till none of ’em could run a step more.

  “He comes to river-ford, steep bank. Backs himself into the bank.” Lord Bright acted the boar’s part, swinging from side to side and glaring, back against the table. “Paws the ground.” Lord Bright “pawed” the rush-strewn earth floor. “Snarls. Men stand all around. Don’t dare go for him.”

  The two black dogs left the fire to watch their master’s act. Heads cocked, ears twitched. Tails stiffened.

  “See, Sir, we know him. Done damage before now. Some of us bear old scars from those tusks.” He nodded respect to the candlelit head. “So they all wait for me.

  “Me, I ride up. Right quick I jump down. Draw dagger.” Lord Bright’s dagger rasped from sheath to fist. “Go for him.”

  A black dog uttered a sharp bark.

  “He runs into ford. Turns. Snarls.” Lord Bright snarled ferociously. Yellow teeth gleamed in black beard.

  Both dogs growled.

  “We close right there, Sir. In the water.

  “I come up, see where to strike. Here, Sir.” Bright jabbed a thumb into the base of his own burly throat. “Aim. Hit him to the hilt.” Bright stabbed the air.

  The black dogs sprang about, yelping.

  “When they butcher, they find his heart clear sundered. But that don’t stop him. Runs full tilt, clear across ford. Dogs catch him on bank. Worry him dead. Like he weren’t dead already.”

  Panting slightly, Lord Bright sheathed his dagger. Noticed the dogs. “Git!” They continued to spring and yelp. He gave them a quick hand signal. They stopped mid-bark. “Go!” Bright pointed to the fire pit; ears and tails low, both dogs instantly slunk there and sat down like statues.

  “Well, Sir!” Lord Bright turned snapping eyes to Gawain. “That’s my story.”

  Truly impressed, Gawain said politely, “My Lord, I only wish I had been with you.”

  “Ech, we know you need your rest! Got your own hunt coming up.”

  “Aye, my Lord.” A grim reminder. For a moment, hearing Lord Bright’s tale, Gawain had almost forgotten the Green Chapel, now only one day ahead.

  “So! You get my boar’s head, and welcome to it! But now, what of your take?”

  “My Lord?” Gawain’s newly sober mind reeled into a new thought-path.

  “I’m to get whatever you took here in my house. Remember?”

  Gawain paused to remember what, exactly, he had taken. Or had been given. “Aye, my Lord.” He stepped up to Lord Bright.

  Sober, he no longer feared much for foolish Lady Bright. Her husband must surely know her well. They might even be playing this game together, two cats with one mouse between them. Lord Bright would never do a guest actual, treacherous harm. But such a merry game would hardly besmirch his honor.

  Soberly, Gawain kissed Lord Bright’s sensitive, moist mouth; once, twice. And stepped back.

  “Hah!” As before, Bright wiped the kisses away on his glove. “Two of them, this time! I think you have the better of me, guest. With such trade you’ll soon be rich! Wife!” He roared, loud enough to be heard through the back door and bring thatch wisping down. “Wife! Dinner!”

  Watch this, Inner Mind whispered. Watch him eat with his gloves on. Why do you think he never takes them off?

  Doubtless his hands are deformed.

  Or sliced off by an enemy, and he has only hooks.

  Something like that. Hush. Here comes dinner.

  Even as Lord Bright plunked himself down, bloody gloved hands spread wide on the board, One-Eye advanced through the back door in a cloud of roast-meat steam.

  The departing hunt rushed rumbling away. Gawain came stark awake. Third hunt. Third morning. Tomorrow—God shield!

  Dread froze him where he lay, frosted his bowels, iced his eyes shut. Tomorrow I ride out with One-Eye to find the Green Chapel, and the Fey Green Knight who waits there, grinning, great green ax in hand. Tomorrow I feel that ax; and after that, nothing more. No thing, good or ill, forevermore, till Christ returns. God’s teeth! I’d best drink Lady Bright’s dizzy potion again. Better be half asleep than awake to this!

  Inner Mind whispered, Sir. Be you afraid?

  Gawain ground his teeth. For sure I am afraid! Knight I am, and of the Round Table, and King’s Companion; but Man I am also.

  Let it be so, Sir.

  Eh? What say?

  Let you be afraid. Fear is no sin.

  Right! Gawain opened clenched eyelids. God and Mary will not blame me.

  But fear is dishonorable in the world’s eyes.

  Fear that shows.

  For one more day, Sir, let show no sign of fear.

  Aye. No sign of fear.

  Can you do that, Sir?

  Gawain sat up in bed. He found his head wonderfully clear, his body rugged again, so quickly action-ready!

  I am Gawain, King’s Companion. For two cold moons I have ridden alone, eagerly hunting my death. I have battled, killed enemies, hunted boars three times bigger than Lord Bright’s. I have traveled in barbarous parts. I have lain with women…I have sinned.

  (Gawain knelt over sleeping Lady Green in the rain-cold cave. He took her knife.)

  I used it not! I left her alive.

  And asleep, and far from home.

  Not so far from home as myself!

  So you took the pony. And you lived to tell the tale, or one like it.

  I lived. Unhappily.

  You feel Dishonored.

  Worse.

  What can be worse than Dishonor?

  Loss. Loss can be even worse than that.

  The loss of…Come, Sir. On this third day we may as well be honest. The loss of…

  Love.

  You loved Lady Green.

  I love Lady Green.

  Who is most likely dead.

  Not…necessarily. She’s…strong.

  But you would never see her again, even if you lived.

  That was why I feared not the Green Knight…enough. Almost, I welcomed his weird challenge.

  You tired of life!

  I tired of lurking, hidden Dishonor. I tired of…loneliness.

  There, Sir. It’s all out at last. As a sick man finds health in vomiting, a sinner finds wholeness in confession, especially to himself.

  Ha. Ha-ha! Witty, are you!

  Bear witness. You do find wholeness. You see yourself clear.

  Aye. I see myself hardly worth my own mourning!

  Good. Let us now cease to mourn and mope.

  What shall we do, this last day?

  Act brave. Give the world a song, a story, it will never forget.

  By God! That shall we do!

  A cascade of new energy melted the ice of fear. Gawain fairly leaped out of bed and ripped aside the warm bed-curtains. His body met the winter morning with vigorous shivers and shudders, shaking off cold as a hound shakes off water. He found the chamber pot, and then “his” clothes. ( Tonight I must remind Lord Bright of my sword.)

  What can have happened to stubborn Lady Bright? She should be in here by now, cooing and rustling!

  Let us go find her, Sir. Give her a tale to tell the world, how Sir Gawain of the Round Table laughed away his last day of life.

  Let Merlin sing!

  Ga
wain flung the chamber door open.

  The shabby “hall” stretched away, empty and still. One-Eye must have labored here lately; fire leaped in the pit. Gawain went to stand in the warm and survey the poverty-frozen room.

  Daylight filtered down through smoke hole and thatch; also, occasional snowflakes.

  If this is not an enchanted oak grove, it’s the next thing to it. Can’t be much colder.

  Beside the sagging boar head on the table stood a tankard, doubtless full, waiting.

  Oh, no!

  In four long strides Gawain reached the table. His fist sent the tankard flying, drugged ale raining.

  No more of that! I am Gawain, Knight—

  Creak.

  Sir, beware!

  He swung about. Lord Bright’s forbidden private door drifted open.

  There like a tall, slender rosebush swayed Lady Bright, scarlet-gowned and green-girdled. In both square, bony hands she lifted her scarlet wimple high, about to lower it over head and shoulders. Once in place it would completely conceal the long, looped braid of rich red hair that now flamed like a painted saint’s halo about her head. For the first time Gawain saw her whole face, startlingly pale and thin; but, God! how well remembered!

  Lady Green did not expect to meet Gawain here in the hall. He was supposed to lie in drugged sleep behind blue-and-white-striped bed-curtains in the next chamber. She expected to settle and fasten her wimple, take up the tankard One-Eye had left on the table, and rustle through Gawain’s door, shutting the hasp with a half-audible snick.

  But here he stood, solidly erect in morning light, fully conscious gray eyes trained on her.

  She started like a doe, all trembly-stiff.

  Holy goddess, he knows me!

  Recognition widens his hard, gray eyes, now fully awake. Right hand leaps left to where sword should hang. Thank all Gods, I hid the sword away.

  But this is only his instant answer to surprise. Had he the sword there to hand, he would not draw it. Because he loves me. My love loves me.

  In his beloved eyes I see my own sorrow, my own loss and loneliness; all the grief I thought too heavy to bear, without the dark-shining shield of anger—he has known all that, too.

  His hands lift up, amazed. Astonishment lights his face like moonlight; then joy sweeps across like sunlight. He comes to me. Across the rush-strewn, snow-speckled hall he strides, arms wide, orange aura wide-aflame.

  Behind him, my Demon swirls like black smoke.

  Gawain, my own Sir Gawain of the Round Table, May King, strides upon me. My own arms lift and open without my will. I sway and fall into his arms.

  We clasp. We hug, embrace, teeter, reel. Wide and strong his chest, warm and hard his arms. I fold myself into him, nestle my face in the pulsing hollow of his throat. As a grouse creeps into grass and disappears like dappled shadow, so my soul creeps into his and folds her wings.

  Long later, I open my eyes.

  We sway beside the fire pit. Three stumbles more and we would fall in.

  The boar head has somehow left the table. It hangs now in air over Gawain’s right shoulder. I could reach up and touch it.

  Froth- and sweat-slimed, it grins wide and wider. Its tusks drip blood. Its slitted eyes open. It winks.

  Holy Gods, it is my Demon! The Demon who has lived in me, fed on my anger, fed my anger, while the sun wheeled once, and again half a year.

  That I should have harbored this horror, unseeing! Even as I nursed my sweet Dace and tended my Ynis! Even as I advised and healed my Folk and wove good spells for them. That this monstrous Evil should have lived in my aura! Merlin and Niviene saw it. Merry saw it. Granny saw it. Why did they not turn from me as from plague?

  I cry, “Go! Go, leave me!”

  Gawain’s arms loosen about me.

  “Not you, Love! Not you! I never meant you!” I hug him tighter, squeeze my eyes back shut. We reel again, away from the fire. Now I am conscious enough to steer us.

  When I look again we are backed against the table, wrapped closer together than mating serpents. The boar head sits once more on the table, safely dead.

  We roll, sink, and fall away. We land on hard, rush-strewn earth between fire and table. Panting, we loosen our grip. Both of us gasp the same silly words: “Dear…Love…Sweetheart…” We draw enough apart to look in each other’s faces. We laugh.

  Gawain sobers first. “Dear heart,” he murmurs, “forgive me.”

  Forgive? Forgive what?

  “I must have been crazed.”

  “You mean, the cave. The knife.”

  “The pony!” Tears run down weather-cracked cheeks into dark beard.

  Unbelieving, I finger away the tears. “You were crazed, Love. I had let you see the altar. The oaks. Your mind lost balance.” I stroke his face, comb his hair with my fingers, press his rough, worn hands in mine.

  Well I know this is all I will have of him, this last day. Gawain loves me. But Honor is his God, his pearl of price. Honor will never allow him to lie with the wife of his host and fellow-knight.

  Once I vowed I would lay his Honor in the dust. But there spoke my Demon.

  Now, if I can save his Honor, even his life, I will! How gladly I will!

  He murmurs, “You gave all for me…”

  “Forgive me, Love.”

  “I! Forgive you?”

  “Aye, Sweetheart. Before I loved you I chose you for a sacrifice.”

  (But not again! Not if I can prevent it.)

  “That was before. That was the way of your Tribe. Then you gave all to save me. That’s what I remember…You know, Love.” Gently, he unbraids my hair. “I have thought of you every moment since…”

  “Since you left me?”

  “No. I thought of nothing, then. I was like a wild thing on the moor, heading home to my den.”

  “With only my knife…I’ve heard the song.”

  “Aye. But when I reached Arthur’s Dun, when I came in sight of…civilization…then I thought of you. Every moment. From then till now. That’s what the song does not tell.”

  He kisses my hair. Stares in my face. “How could I have ever mistaken you for Lady Bright!”

  I giggle. “The punch of the ale, Sir. And look you—now I am thin.”

  He catches my wrist, feels up my arm. “Nothing but bone!”

  “You did not remember me so.”

  “How did this happen, Dear?”

  “By the worst mischance, our May King escaped. He was no volunteer. He escaped when he could, and the crops suffered.”

  “My Love! Oh, Love!” He clasps me to him. “But your Tribe blamed you not?”

  “No one ever knew, Sweet. Merry told them—you remember Merry?”

  “The Student Druid.”

  “Now, Druid Merry. He told them all you had taken me with you as a hostage.”

  “God be thanked! And Druid Merry be thanked!”

  “Gawain. Do you fear to die?”

  “Aye. I fear it.”

  “I have that which may help you.”

  “What can help me?”

  “Wait here. Do not move, Love.”

  “I cannot move, Love! Joy has rendered my bones for soup.”

  Gently I pull my hair from his hands, throw it back over my shoulder and scramble up.

  First I feed the fire with the logs One-Eye left. Gawain watches me from the floor, where his aura snaps and glows like another fire. Then I go out the back door, One-Eye’s door, into light-falling snow.

  We built no windows into this “hall.” Gawain knows nothing of what goes on out here. Our folk are silent, building fires, cooking, tending our ponies. He has never glimpsed the ponies, the ragged hounds that rushed out of here with horn and shout; or the Square Table men, whose faces he might remember…

  (Though he has not recognized One-Eye. Merry said he would not, said he was too proud to remember a knave’s face, seldom seen. Merry knows more of the southern world than I do.)

  Out here among huts, two fires waver in falling
snow. Enough snow lies on the ground already that Ynis is pulling Dace around on a little sledge, cushioned in furs. At sight of me he crows and holds out his arms.

  Ynis says crossly, “Hush! Shush! He’ll hear you!” She looks to me, surprised, and lifts back a lock of dark hair. I am supposed to be indoors, gnawing like a bright caterpillar at Gawain’s Honor and Pride.

  Quickly, gasping in the cold, I trot to the sledge. “Ynis, Dace is going now to meet his Daddy.” Baby-mumbling sweetly, I scoop Dace up out of his cushions. He shouts and grabs my hair in eager, fat fists. “Come you in later…long later…and take him back.” Cooing and crowing, Dace and I run for the door.

  “Ma! Maaah!”

  I whirl back a moment. “Shhhh!”

  Small and dark, Ynis stands lonely in falling snow. She looks like any cold and disappointed child—except that grown-up anger glows in her eyes.

  Ynis could upset the plan as easily as she could overturn the baby sledge. She could do it like a child, with a word; or like a witch, with a spell.

  “Ynis,” I tell her gently, “the May King is going to die.”

  She cocks her head.

  “He needs to know he leaves his seed here on earth. Understand?”

  She shrugs.

  “Understand, Witch Ynis! Nothing will change for us because the May King meets his son.”

  Slowly, Ynis nods. I wheel about and trot.

  Gawain sits where I left him. Floor-straws stick in his hair, his aura smolders. He watches us come with quiet, conscious eyes.

  I am glad he refused my ale! My brave love deserves this last, fully conscious day.

  I shut the door behind me, shut out cold and curiosity. I gather dignity like a robe and carry Dace gently past the fire to his father.

  I kneel down by Gawain. Dace presses his dark, curly head to my breast. He grips my hair and hears my heart beat. Safe, he stares almost calmly at this bearded, rugged troll. Dace has had but little contact with men.

  Father and son exchange stares.

  “Gawain,” I explain, “this is your son. His name is Dace.”

  Gawain’s lips move. He leans to Dace. Dace draws back into me.

  “Wait a moment. Slowly. Don’t frighten him.”

  “My…son.”

  “Your son.”

  Big, clear tears well in Gawain’s eyes and roll slowly down his cheeks. Once more I reach to wipe away tears! “My Dear, I thought you were a doughtier fellow!”