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  It was over in a second. The two rode toward each other, and the nameless youth popped Parsifal very neatly from his horse. Parsifal landed with a crash, then sat up. "So that's how it's done," he said softly.

  "I'm terribly sorry!" the youth cried, leaping from his horse. "Are you all right?"

  "Yes, thank you," Parsifal said. "You did that very well. May I ask, are you known as a good jouster?"

  The young man hesitated, but then he answered. "No, sir. I'm the worst jouster in the county. I must have just been lucky."

  "I shall have to practice," Parsifal said thoughtfully. "It is more difficult than I would have thought." He stood and held out his hand to the youth. "Thank you very much for your lesson."

  The youth shook Parsifal's hand and then, with wonder on his face, watched as Piers and Parsifal rode away. Piers felt a vague uneasiness. It was true that Parsifal looked splendid in his refurbished armor and new trappings, but he had not looked so very fine on his back in the dust. To avoid future embarrassments, Parsifal would just have to stay away from jousting, he concluded.

  They continued west, toward Cornwall, passing through a few settled lands, but where he could, Parsifal always seemed to choose paths that led into the darkest, most forbidding, forests. On the third day, riding through dense shrubbery, they pushed through a thicket and came into a small clearing where an unkempt man was working with an axe. As soon as they were in sight, the woodcutter stopped his work and looked at them suspiciously.

  "How do you do?" Parsifal asked, inclining his head in a polite bow that Piers thought was probably not necessary when greeting a dirty peasant like this. "I hope you are well today."

  The woodcutter's severe expression lightened, and he replied, "I am quite well, I thank you. And I return your good wishes." Piers was startled at the man's cultured speech, which even had a trace of a French accent.

  "I am looking for great deeds to do," Parsifal said, trotting closer. "But I have not found any at all."

  "I am afraid that all the great deeds in these environs were done last year. I am so sorry to disappoint you." The woodcutter's voice had a touch of amusement in it.

  "It is very frustrating," Parsifal commented. "King Arthur said I had to do great deeds, but he did not say where to find them."

  "King Arthur sent you to do great deeds?" the woodcutter asked. "It was not kind of him."

  "Why not?" Parsifal asked. Then, glancing guiltily at Piers, he added, "If it is not impertinent of me to ask a question."

  "No, my friend, but it might be impertinent of me to answer," the woodcutter said softly. "I wish you well." He turned back to his wood chopping. Parsifal did not move. Watching his face, Piers could tell that he dearly wanted to ask the woodcutter what he meant, but was afraid to ask any more questions. At last the man looked up from his work. "Is there something else?" he asked.

  Parsifal chose his words with care. "I do not mind if you are impertinent, if you would like to explain what you meant." Parsifal glanced defiantly at Piers. "It was not a question," he added.

  The woodcutter shrugged. "I only meant that I have never seen a knight who seemed to me less likely to achieve great deeds. Except possibly Griflet," he added as an afterthought. "You hold your lance wrong. You're wearing your sword on the wrong side and too high to reach easily. Any decent fighter could take your weapons away from you in a trice."

  Piers felt a deep indignation growing inside. It was bad enough to be unhorsed by a young knight, but it was worse to be laughed at by a yokel. "You forget your place, my man," Piers said to the woodcutter in a tight voice.

  "As you say," the woodcutter replied. "Again, I wish you well."

  Again, Parsifal did not move. "Could you take my weapons away from me?" he asked the woodcutter. The yokel paused, then nodded. "Show me," Parsifal said, dismounting.

  The man shrugged. "Very well. Draw your sword and attack me."

  "But I do not wish to hurt you. The sword is very sharp."

  The woodcutter laughed. "You won't hurt me," he said.

  Parsifal drew his sword, with some difficulty, and swung it at the man. He missed. One moment the man was there; the next he had slipped easily away.

  "Try again."

  Parsifal tried again. This time the woodcutter deflected the sword with a careless motion of his axe, reached inside Parsifal's guard, and flipped his visor down. Parsifal laughed and said, "How did you do that?"

  The man only smiled. The next time Parsifal attacked, his sword buried itself in the dirt at the man's feet, and the woodcutter reached in and plucked off one of the silk bannerets that Sir Gurnemains had tied so carefully to Parsifal's armor. Then he took another. In five minutes, every cloth token had been ripped away and lay in the dust. Parsifal had not come even close to touching the woodcutter. Finally, with a lightning twist inside one of Parsifal's ponderous swings, a sharp blow from the blunt side of the axe on Parsifal's fingers, the woodcutter plucked Parsifal's sword from his grasp.

  "There," he said softly. "It was not so—" The woodcutter stopped abruptly, feeling the sword. "Mordieu," he whispered. He flashed right and left with the sword, and Piers thought for a frantic moment that the woodcutter was going to kill them both, but then the man lowered the point. "Never have I held such a blade. It is merveilleux! With such a blade, I could..."

  Holding his numbed hand, Parsifal watched the woodcutter's rapt features. "Will you teach me to use it well, sir?" Parsifal asked meekly.

  The woodcutter hesitated. "It will take one such as you a long time to learn," he said. "How can I do that? I have my labor."

  "I will help you cut your wood in the morning. Together we can finish quickly. Then you can teach me. Please, sir."

  Aghast but helpless, Piers watched the scruffy yokel consider Parsifal's surprising request. To Piers's dismay, the woodcutter nodded. "For the sake of this sword, I will teach you."

  Parsifal grinned widely. "Thank you, sir. My name is Parsifal."

  "I am Jean le Forestier. We rise an hour before dawn."

  At dawn the next day, Piers was riding toward the nearest village, where there was a blacksmith. The woodcutter had given Piers a few copper coins and had instructed him to buy an axe. Jean le Forestier was already at work, and Parsifal had gone hunting. Piers had lain awake for what seemed hours the night before, wondering how long they would have to stay in this wretched hovel, and now he was sleepy and surly.

  A full hour later, he came to the village where Jean had directed him. It took him no time to locate the blacksmith's shop, but when he looked at it, he wrinkled his nose in disgust. His father's shop had been so much more efficient. He told the sooty smith what he needed, and the man brought out a shiny axe with a new handle. Piers glanced at it carelessly and started to pay, but then stopped. "What's this?" he asked. He looked more closely at the blade, "Here, man, what sort of chicanery is this? Do you call this steel?"

  The smith gaped at him, but immediately launched into a whining protest. "But, young master, it is the very best I have! Do you see that shine?"

  "Ay," Piers said with a sniff. "And I see that flaw there, too. This has been mended, and by someone who didn't know his business either. 'Twould break after two blows, I daresay."

  The smith scowled, but he did not argue. Instead he went back inside and brought out another axe. This was not so shiny as the first, but when Piers examined it carefully, desperately trying to recall everything his father had ever said about blades and axes, he found no defects. "Right, then. 'Twill do. Sharpen it, and I'll be off."

  "But, young master, it could not be any sharper! Look at that edge!"

  Piers laughed. The one skill that his father had ever truly complimented him on was his touch with a whetstone. "Show me your stone, man," Piers said. He dismounted and took the axe inside. It was a poor whetstone, but Piers could make do. Minutes later he held up the axe for the smith's examination. "Now, my man, try to be more honest in thy dealings or my master'll come back and shave thy bottom with th
is edge."

  The smith reverently ran his finger along the blade and nodded. Piers paid for the axe and left, feeling an odd sense of accomplishment.

  Thus began another three months of training, months that were as tedious to Piers as the months at Sir Gurnemains's had been to Parsifal. Every morning the two men took their axes to the woods and worked side by side until noon. Then, after a luncheon, Jean would begin Parsifal's training. At first they worked on swordplay, using stout wooden cudgels. Jean showed Parsifal the most basic moves and drilled him incessantly on these, but when the shadows grew long and it came near time to stop, Jean le Forestier would show Parsifal some more elaborate trick.

  Considering the matter, Piers decided that this rough woodsman must have been squire to a great knight at one time. It was sad to think of someone falling so far in station, but it must surely have been Jean's fault. Probably he had been turned off for some crime or even for being too coarse. Perhaps Jean's master had demanded that Jean shave once in a while, Piers reflected.

  As a matter of pride, Piers saw to it that even in this desolate and lonely clearing his master always had the appearance of a knight. He shaved Parsifal often and trimmed his hair at least once a week. He even offered to give the woodcutter a shave once, but to his relief Jean rejected the suggestion. Except for these few personal tasks and for occasionally sharpening the men's axes with Jean's small hand-held whetstone, Piers had little to do and was usually bored.

  After a month of working with cudgels, Jean le Forestier disappeared into the forest one afternoon and returned with a sword, still crusted with clay from having been buried, and a shield. It was just as Piers had thought. The man had been a squire but he had stolen his master's arms and had had to flee. Now Jean and Parsifal sparred with real swords, and although Piers had little interest in swordplay and did not watch closely, it soon became clear to him that Parsifal was as quick a learner as ever. Even Jean began to bestow some grudging praise on Parsifal. "You may someday deserve that sword of yours yet," he said gruffly one evening. "Tomorrow we shall work on jousting."

  Piers began taking walks in the woods during the long afternoons of weaponry. He had never spent much time in the forests near his home, but now he found that he enjoyed their cool solitude. It was a pleasant sensation, he reflected, to be alone while surrounded by a thousand living things.

  The leaves began to change colors, and Piers realized that winter was approaching. Parsifal would have to finish his training and do some great deeds quickly if they were to spend the cold months at King Arthur's Camelot, which Piers assumed every knight did. He was pondering this one afternoon when he heard the soft, continuous sound of falling water. Since Piers walked this way often and had never heard this sound before, he went to investigate.

  Not fifty yards from Piers's usual path was a waterfall, one that had certainly not been there the day before, and in the shallow pool at the foot of the fall, a girl knelt and washed her hair. Piers hid behind a fallen tree that was covered with ivy and mistletoe and watched. The girl looked to be about his age. Her skin was fair, and she wore a simple white shift, but her hair was as black as pitch. Over the muted roar of the waterfall, Piers could hear brief musical strains as the girl sang to herself. The water where the girl knelt still came only up to her waist, and it was so clear that he could see her legs curled beneath her and even saw a fish swim by. The girl bent forward and dipped her head and hair all the way underwater. Then she straightened up swiftly, throwing her long hair in a smooth arc over her head and onto her back, revealing her face.

  Piers had never seen a lovelier face, a pale oval set with two brilliant sapphires. He gasped, and the girl stood quickly, staring about her. Wearing his red hat, Piers was not difficult to find, and the girl uttered a faint shriek and backed away toward the waterfall.

  "Please, don't go!" Piers heard himself saying. "I'm sorry I frightened you."

  The girl hesitated, and for a long moment she looked into Piers's eyes. Her brow furrowed slightly, and she cocked her head to one side, but then she shook herself and ran through the falling water and disappeared. Piers scrambled over the fallen tree and ran around the pool to the side of the waterfall to look behind the veil of water. There was nothing there but rock.

  And the next day there was no waterfall either. Piers sat in the clearing where the day before a beautiful girl had splashed in a crystal pool, and he tried to remember everything he had ever heard about the faeries. It was not much. The only faeries he had ever cared to hear stories about were the ones who helped knights on their quests, like the Lady of the Lake in some of the tales. Once, when he was very young, he had had a terrible nightmare about tiny sprites dancing about his bed and calling for him to get up and play, but then in the dream his father had appeared and sent the little people away with a word, and his mother had held him close and crooned softly to him until he felt better. Beyond these vague impressions of the faery world, he knew nothing.

  Every day he returned to the spot of the vanished waterfall, hoping to find it again. After a few weeks, the details of the encounter seemed vague and formless, like his old nightmare, and he would have begun to believe that he had imagined it but for his vivid memory of the girl.

  "I know I saw you," he said to the emptiness around him. "I'll never forget that. You were like something I had seen before, or had always wanted to see, but I just didn't know it." There was no answer but the chattering of a squirrel, and Piers returned to the hut of Jean le Forestier.

  At dinner that night, Jean said, "It is time for you to go, Parsifal."

  "Am I ready?" Parsifal asked. "You are still a far better swordsman and jouster than I. I could learn much more from you."

  Jean nodded. "Yes, you could, but I have taught you enough to fight well. Now you must learn the rest by fighting different knights. No one who has fought against only one opponent can be truly skilled, for he has learned only one man's tricks and habits. You must go."

  "I shall be beaten easily, I'm afraid," Parsifal said.

  "No." Jean's whiskers twitched. "You may be beaten, but not easily. You are strong, you are faster than anyone I have ever trained, and you never make the same mistake twice. Someday you shall be famous. And besides, no one else—save only Arthur and one other—has a sword like yours. Yes, my dear friend, you are ready."

  Parsifal nodded. "We shall leave in the morning."

  Piers heard this exchange with mixed feelings. While he had been longing to depart almost since the moment they arrived, he suddenly realized that he did not want to leave the waterfall. When dinner was over, and Jean and Parsifal were stretched out before the fire, Piers slipped away and crept back into the woods for one last visit. The woods seemed different in the dark, but he had made the journey so many times that he had no trouble finding his way, and as he came near he was rewarded with the gentle sound of water. The waterfall was back. His heart pounding, he crept close to the waterfall, to the very edge of the pond, and gazed searchingly into the water.

  The night was cold, and the spray from the fall wet him to the skin. Soon he was shivering uncontrollably, but still he stayed. He might have no other chance to see the girl again. Then, before his astonished eyes, the waterfall sank slowly into the ground. The grassy meadow bubbled like soup in a kettle and swallowed it. In a moment, it was gone and only his soaked clothing showed that it had ever been. Sadly, Piers turned and started to walk away.

  "Please," said a quiet voice, "do not turn around."

  Piers halted. "Who are you?" he whispered.

  "My name is Ariel."

  "Are you ... the one I saw before?"

  "Yes."

  "What ... I mean, who are you?"

  "I am like you. But I live in another world, in the Seelie Court."

  "The Seelie Court? Is that the court of the faeries?"

  "It is. I have been permitted to see you again because I have a message for you."

  "For me?"

  "And for your master. Ride t
o water, Piers. Follow the water."

  "What does that mean?"

  There was no answer. Ariel was gone.

  IV. The Queen of Belrepeire

  Piers and Parsifal rode northward, and just like before, Parsifal made no effort to spare the horses. As always, Piers rode in his correct subservient position, behind his master, but he began to wish he hadn't insisted on it quite so forcefully. It would make the long days in the saddle a little less tedious if they could talk. But, although Piers was often sore from riding, at least he was never hungry. Every night, Parsifal would go hunting, and he never returned empty-handed.

  On the second day they left the forests behind and began to ride in more settled lands, and on the fifth day they came to a castle. Parsifal stopped his horse, and Piers decided to forget decorum this time and rode up beside him. Parsifal greeted him with a smile, then turned his attention to the castle. "It seems deserted."

  "There aren't any flags, even," Piers said, nodding. "No one is home."

  "Let's go in and look. Maybe it's a great deed." They started forward, but before they had gone ten yards, there was a flurry of movement at the windows and on the walls, and a line of seven knights on gaunt horses came riding out toward them.

  "How do you do?" Parsifal said, when the knights were close enough to hear. "I hope you are well today."

  The knight in the middle said abruptly, "Go away."

  Parsifal frowned, then said simply, "But I've done nothing to you."

  The knight replied. "Nor shall you. We are seven and you are two. Leave now or be slain."

  Piers caught his breath and began to edge his horse backwards, but Parsifal only put on his helm and said, "No."

  "Psst!" Piers hissed. "I don't think there are any great deeds in that castle. Why don't we try somewhere else?"