The Princess, the Crone, and the Dung-Cart Knight Read online

  Toward the middle of the afternoon, Jean said, "Knight coming toward us," and Sarah glanced up. She was having her turn on the horse and had been drowsing in the saddle, but this break in the monotony of travel was enough to stir her. Approaching them rapidly was a knight in gray armor, holding his helm in one hand and staring fixedly at them. Sarah's throat suddenly tightened.

  It was the knight of the fires.

  The old coldness encased her heart, with all its bite and bitterness—that still, deadening sense of numb hatred that had been her daily companion through all those months alone in the forest. She looked at the knight's face and saw it as it had appeared that frozen night, gloating victoriously in the orange light of his murders. Sarah's eyes grew hot and dry; her hand gripped the hilt of her sword.

  The knight was now near enough to speak, and he called out, "Are you a knight?"

  "I am," Jean replied.

  The knight smiled widely. "Good!" he declared, pointing at Ariel, who walked beside Sarah. "I'll take her!"

  Jean stopped walking at once, halting Sarah's mount with a hand on the bridle. "I beg your pardon?" he asked mildly.

  "You can keep the little one," the knight said. "I want that one."

  "These ladies are traveling under my protection," Jean said, his voice calm.

  The knight glanced at Jean and laughed. "Then you don't know the custom of the land?"

  "The custom of the land?" Jean repeated.

  "It is the custom of this land," the knight said, "that a lady who rides alone is to be regarded as sacred and may not be touched by any knight, but if she rides under a knight's protection, then anyone who can overcome that knight may take her for himself." He leered at Ariel and added, "I've been waiting a long time to find a lady worth—"

  "This is the custom of the land?" Jean asked contemptuously. "It is a vile custom."

  "By decree of King Bagdemagus himself."

  Jean frowned. "I am somewhat acquainted with Bagdemagus myself, and I do not believe that he would issue any such decree. Leave us alone."

  The knight drew his sword, and his eyes lit with something like the glee they had shown when he had killed Sarah's mother and Mordecai. "Not without my prize," he said. Then he charged.

  The knight carried no lance, but his charge on horseback against an unmounted knight put Sarah vividly in mind of Sir Meliagant's charge against Sir Kai. This charge turned out quite differently, though. Jean's sword appeared in his hand, as if by magic, and he parried the other knight's blade with one hand while reaching up and catching hold of the knight's armor with the other. A moment later, the knight was in a heap in the dust, having been pulled abruptly from the saddle.

  "Ariel, Sarah! Get back out of the way!" Jean shouted.

  Ariel hesitated, but Sarah did not. Slipping lightly from the saddle, she grabbed the bridle with one hand and Ariel's arm with the other and pulled Ariel and the horse roughly away from the scene of battle. "He can't fight well unless he knows we're out of reach," she explained as she tugged. Only when they were more than ten yards away did she stop and turn back to look.

  The knight of the fires had risen to his feet and was facing Jean warily. Jean stood straight, holding his sword almost nonchalantly at his side. He did not look to be on his guard, but his swift move to unhorse his opponent must have given the knight reason enough to be cautious. The knight struck—tentatively, Sarah thought, as if testing Jean's reflexes—and Jean parried the blow easily and resumed his casual, watching stance. The knight lunged, and Jean stepped aside and watched him stumble by him. Jean didn't even move his sword. Sarah scowled. Even she, with as little training in swordplay as she had, knew that Jean could have ended the battle there, with one sword stroke, as the knight had run past him.

  "Don't be noble! Kill him!" she muttered through clenched teeth.

  "What did you say?" Ariel asked, her eyes wide.

  "It's him," Sarah replied. "That's the knight who killed my mother."

  The knight whirled around and lashed out wildly. Jean parried that blow, then a second one. The knight slashed again, low this time, trying to cut Jean's unprotected legs from beneath him. Jean blocked the stroke, then struck his first blow of the fight, and the knight's sword flew from his hand, landing nearly ten feet from them.

  "Stop this at once," Jean commanded sternly. "I could have killed you four times already. Do you wish to die?"

  The knight did not reply, merely gripping his sword hand and grimacing in pain.

  "Do you yield now?" Jean asked. "And do you vow never more to pursue this foul custom?"

  The knight growled something unintelligible, then ran across the field to his sword, taking it up again. He charged, swinging wildly, and Jean, his face grim, neatly cut off the knight's hand at the wrist. Sarah watched as the severed member, still holding a sword, floated away from the knight's arm in a gentle arc, then bounced into the grass. Ariel gasped and looked away, as Jean called over his shoulder, "Bring a leather thong to me at once."

  Ariel didn't move, so Sarah pulled a length of leather from the mare's pack, then slung her own sword over her shoulder and walked to where Jean stood over the moaning knight.

  "You will not need your sword, Sarah," Jean said. He looked down at the knight and said, "Hold still. We will bind up your arm so you won't bleed to death. Sarah, I'll hold the knight down. You tie the thong around his wrist and tighten it until the blood stops. I'll show you how."

  Sarah stared, furious, and didn't move. Did he expect her to save this knight's life? Jean misunderstood her hesitation and said, "Try not to look at the blood."

  "Let him die," Sarah said and threw down the leather thong.

  Jean looked sharply at her face, then back at the knight. Driving his own sword into the ground beside him, he knelt over the fallen knight and began to twist the thong around the knight's stump. The gushing blood slowed, then stopped. Jean rose to his feet and stepped back behind the knight's feet. "I do not kill unless I must," Jean said. Sarah didn't know if he was talking to her or to the fallen knight; her eyes were fixed on the man's face. His eyes were glazed in pain, and his face was gray, but he was conscious.

  Sarah knelt beside his head and said softly, so that Jean would not hear, "Do you remember the night you murdered a woman and an old Jew?"

  The man stared at her, uncomprehending.

  "You burned them alive in a village called Milrick," she said. A red mist began to cloud Sarah's vision, and she fought to keep her voice steady. "It was in February."

  "Saint Valentine's Day," the knight whispered. "They were sorcerers."

  "They were not sorcerers." Sarah's voice barely made any noise at all.

  "The Templar said they had poisoned the well. He told me to kill them."

  "The Templar?" Sarah repeated.

  "They were Jews, anyway."

  Sarah leaned closer. "The woman was my mother," she said.

  The knight's eyes widened, and Sarah saw fear in them. Then the knight shoved Sarah backward, using his left hand. She fell against Jean, who stumbled momentarily, and by the time Sarah had recovered her balance, the knight had seized Jean's sword. He drew back his arm for a blow, and Sarah snatched her own sword from its scabbard, drawing it faster than she ever had before, and struck with all her might.

  Then it was over, and everything was still, but for the distant sound of a woodpecker tapping a cheerful rhythm on a dead tree.

  "Sacre ..." came Jean's whisper from beside her. He said no more but only stared at the scene at his feet.

  Sarah's stroke had cut cleanly through Jean's sword blade and then, without slowing, had cut off the knight's head. Sarah knelt and cleaned her blade on the grass, then sheathed it again. Her stomach was tight and she was slightly nauseated, but she felt no emotion: not sorrow, not horror, not triumph, not joy, not remorse.

  "Sarah?" came Ariel's voice from a few steps behind her. It was faint with shock and horror.

  Sarah did not reply. "I'm sorry about your sword, Jean,
" she said. "Perhaps you can use the knight's sword instead."

  "Sorry about my sword," Jean repeated slowly. "What about him? Are you sorry for him?"

  Sarah shook her head. "I think of it as the custom of the land," she said. Then she turned away from them both and started back toward the mare.

  VIII

  The Sword Bridge

  They returned to the road, but a grim silence had fallen over the companions. Ariel, whose bubbling laugh and merry chatter had lightened the journey to this point, was solemn and silent, and twice Sarah caught the faery watching her, wide-eyed. Both times Sarah met her gaze unflinchingly, and Ariel looked away. Even Jean was more silent than usual and gave Sarah occasional long, measured looks.

  Jean's disapproval was only to be expected, Sarah admitted to herself. Jean didn't know about the night of the fires and what the knight had done then. But Ariel's silence rankled. What had Ariel thought Sarah was going to do when she found the knight anyway? Scold him? Sarah shrugged and resolutely stopped looking at Ariel, concentrating instead on her own thoughts and feelings.

  These were muddled enough without worrying about Ariel's reaction, anyway. For months now Sarah had thought of little but vengeance, dreamed of the day when the knight of the fires should be punished. Now he was dead, by her own hand, and she felt no triumph, only a cold numbness. She should be rejoicing and gloating, as the knight had done over her mother and Mordecai, but she could not. She felt empty and incomplete, just as she had felt before killing the knight. Maybe, she thought, it was because her vengeance was incomplete.

  "What is a Templar?" she asked, speaking to no one in particular. Jean gave Sarah one of those unhurried looks but did not reply at once. "Well? What is it?" she demanded.

  "Some of the knights who went on crusades to the Holy Land call themselves Templars," Jean said at last. "They wear a white tunic over their armor, marked with a red cross, and they swear allegiance to no king but only, they say, to the Church."

  "Do you know where any Templars are?" she asked.

  "No. King Arthur does not welcome them in England—sometimes they feel that they are a law unto themselves—and he encourages them to go back to the Holy Land. Some sorts of holiness are most admirable from a great distance. But matters may be different now. As you know, I have been away from court many years." Jean looked away from Sarah, but he added, "May one ask why you wish to know?"

  "I heard the knight back in the field say the word," Sarah replied.

  "Yes, so did I," Jean said. "I did not hear what you said to him, however."

  Sarah did not reply, and after a moment Jean turned away and continued to walk in silence.

  By the time they made camp, Sarah was thoroughly sick of the journey, the silence, and above all the invisible barrier that had come between her and the others. They ate a silent dinner, and then Ariel curled up in her blankets and went to sleep. Sarah looked at her still form for a few minutes.

  "You mustn't blame her, you know," Jean said quietly.

  Sarah started slightly, then schooled her face into a noncommittal expression. "Blame her for what?" she asked.

  "She has never seen bloodlust in one so young as you," Jean said. "When she's older, she will no longer be surprised to find cruelty in anyone."

  "Cruelty!" Sarah exclaimed bitterly. "Ariel knows how much that knight deserved to be killed! She knows! That wasn't cruelty—it was justice!"

  Jean nodded soberly. "It usually is," he said. "Sleep well, Sarah." Then he rolled up in his own blankets, leaving Sarah staring alone into the coals.

  It was probably only a few minutes later when she heard a whisper of sound behind her, and she rose quickly but silently, sword in hand.

  "You are very quick with that sword, my dear," came a creaky voice. It was the old woman of the woods. "A good thing you are, too."

  Sarah let out her breath slowly, then gestured behind her. "They don't think so," she said.

  "They are fools, then," the crone said, dismissing Ariel and Jean with a careless wave. "You did well back there in the field. That knight who's with you was going to leave him alive, wasn't he?" Sarah nodded. "Fools," the crone repeated.

  "Were you watching?" Sarah asked, stepping closer to the old woman.

  "I am often watching you," she replied. "Tell me, dear, was the knight you killed awake when you got down beside him? Did you talk to him?"

  Sarah nodded. "I wanted him to know who I was."

  "Splendid!" the crone beamed, but her smile was not pleasant. There was no happiness in it, only a sort of angry satisfaction. Sarah wondered suddenly if that was how her own face had looked after she had killed the knight. "Did he say anything to you?" the old woman asked.

  "He said that he was only doing what the Templar told him to do," Sarah said.

  The crone's smile disappeared. "What Templar?" she asked.

  "He didn't say."

  The old woman scowled, then asked, "Did he say anything about a woman?"

  "A woman?"

  "A woman, perhaps a sorceress, who might have planned the villagers' attack."

  "No."

  "Then we shall have to ask this Templar when we find him," she said softly, and her voice—no longer the voice of an old woman—made Sarah's scalp prickle. The crone reached out and rested one hand on Sarah's shoulder. "Stay with the other two for now. You aren't far from the bridge to Logres. Wait for me there, and I shall make inquiries about a Templar."

  Then the old woman was gone, leaving only emptiness where she had been. After a moment, Sarah curled up in her blankets, taking in that emptiness with every cold breath.

  Ariel was silent the next day, too, but she no longer seemed horrified, only sad, and the time or two that Sarah saw Ariel watching her, the faery's eyes did not seem shocked, as they had the day before, but wistful. Once or twice, Sarah thought Ariel was going to speak, but she didn't. About midmorning they came to the Sword Bridge.

  There was no mistaking it: it was a long, bright, wicked-looking metal blade that stretched across a chasm so deep that the bottom was hidden by fog, or a low cloud. The sword faced up, so that anyone trying to walk across would have to step right on the sharpened edge.

  "The Sword Bridge," Jean said. He examined it for a moment. "It seems to be impossible. Perhaps there is another way across."

  Ariel shook her head. "I was told that there were only two ways into Logres: by the Underwater Bridge that Sir Gawain and Terence took, and this way."

  Jean nodded. "Let us see how sharp the edge is." He picked up a thick stick and, kneeling at the edge of the sheer cliff, ran it lightly along the blade. The blade cut the stick easily. Jean backed up. "Sharp enough," he said.

  Ariel, who had stepped up beside Jean, moaned suddenly, crumpled, and fell toward the abyss. Jean grabbed her quickly and pulled her away, but by the time he had caught her in his arms, she had gone completely limp. Jean laid her down in the grass, and after a moment her eyes flickered open. "What happened?" she asked.

  "You swooned," Jean said. "At the edge of the cliff. Did you feel faint before you stepped to the edge?"

  "I don't know," Ariel said haltingly.

  "Are you often made giddy by heights?" Jean asked. Ariel shook her head. "Have you ever had ... fits like this before?"

  Sarah could be silent no longer. "Don't be stupid, Jean." Ariel and Jean both looked at Sarah with surprise. "Look at her face, how pale it's gone. Haven't you seen that before?"

  "Ah," Jean said, understanding at once. "It's the enchantment, isn't it? The one that was at the Vavasour's castle."

  "But stronger," Sarah added. "Logres is protected by more than just a sharp bridge. Ariel can't go any farther."

  Ariel protested, arguing that her momentary weakness had just been a lingering ill effect of her sickness at the Vavasour's castle. Jean and Sarah didn't reply. They waited until her strength returned, as it did shortly, then walked with her to the cliff again. Again Ariel grew pale and for a second time she nearly fainted. "Sara
h's right. I can't go with you any longer," she said miserably.

  "Sarah will stay with you," Jean said.

  Sarah might have resisted Jean's assumption of authority, but since the crone had said to wait for her at the bridge anyway, she just nodded and glanced over her shoulder at the wide chasm. "Unless we figure out how to get across the bridge, none of us are going anywhere," she said practically.

  Jean's eyes followed Sarah's, then focused thoughtfully on the Sword Bridge. As soon as Ariel had recovered again, he went to the mare and began unloading the parts of his armor that he had tied there. "I shall have to cross the bridge from underneath," he said, "swinging hand over hand."

  "And how will you do that without cutting off your fingers?" Sarah asked, but she was already seeing his plan.

  "Like this," Jean said, putting two pieces of armor together to make a double layer of iron. They looked like leg plates—Sarah didn't know what they were called. "I'll put armor on my hands."

  "The sword won't cut armor, I suppose?" Ariel asked.

  "Eventually, it will. A strong blow with a sharp blade will cut through even a breastplate. That's why we wear chainmail beneath. This blade is certainly sharp enough, but it won't be striking at me. Here, let me test it, to see how many layers of armor I shall need."

  Jean rested the double layer of iron in the palm of his right hand and walked back to the edge of the cliff. There he knelt, placed the armor on the edge of the Sword Bridge, and pushed down. The sword cut cleanly through both layers of iron, as if they had been made of rotten cork wood, and Jean leaped back, blood welling from his hand. Sarah stared at the wound and, before the blood hid it, saw a flash of white bone. "Sacre—!" Jean exclaimed, his face registering more shock than pain.

  Ariel dressed Jean's cut palm, binding a cloth over the wound with two leather straps from the mare's tack. "What can be done?" the faery asked tremulously.