The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf Page 9

  "Did you meet Squire Terence?" Lynet asked, beginning to understand.

  "Ay. I was almost to your castle when I came on him, sitting atop a horse as cool as you please, waiting for me. Seemed to know what I was doing, where I was going, everything he needed to know. Uncanny, I call it. He took me to a shed in the woods, where we left our horses, then led me to a spot where we could see the Red Knight's camp and your castle on the other side.

  "Well, we waited there a bit, watching the camp from the trees. Once a huge old wolf found us, looked right at me and licked its lips, but Terence told it to take itself off, and off it went." Roger shook his head wonderingly. "Finally at dusk, Terence said it was time—something about its being a time for good magic when it was halfway between light and dark—and we walked out of the forest as bold as you please."

  Roger paused. "You may not believe this, but it's so. We walked right through that camp, not three feet from a whole pack of soldiers. They were close enough to smell, and they weren't any bouquet of flowers, let me tell you. We walked right up the hill to your gate, where the portcullis lifted and let me in. I walked inside, and Terence was gone. Like I say, I wouldn't have believed it myself—"

  "I believe you," Lynet said quietly. They sat in thoughtful silence for a moment. Then Lynet asked, "What happened then?"

  "Well, I found your sister. I say, Lynet, are you sure you two are related?"

  "She's much prettier than I am, I know—"

  Roger snorted. "Not in any way that matters!"

  Lynet felt herself blushing and was glad of the darkness. "What happened?" she asked.

  "I told her the whole story, how you'd risked your life to bring back a knight to help her, and all she could do was wish you'd brought Gawain or Lancelot or somebody really famous. She even asked if you could go back and try again for a better knight."

  Lynet sighed. "Sounds like Lyonesse. What did you say?"

  Roger grinned sheepishly. "I told her that those knights had very high standards and that they wouldn't rescue her unless she were prettier."

  "You didn't!" Lynet gasped. "What did she do?"

  "She changed color, a bit like the Pink Knight, and gave me a nasty look. You know," he added pensively, "I don't think she likes me above half."

  Lynet clucked in mock sympathy. "You couldn't have said anything more likely to get under her skin."

  "Well, that's what I thought, too," Roger replied, gratified. "Anyway, I told her what you thought, that Beaumains is really some famous knight in disguise. It was enough to get her interested. She said that if that's true, then she'll let him rescue her."

  "She didn't say that!" Lynet exclaimed. "Even Lyonesse—"

  "S'truth!" said Roger. "She told me to come on back and give you her permission to bring him on. Then she sent me out."

  "In the dark? Didn't she even let you stay the night?"

  "She didn't mention it, and to say truth I wasn't in any hurry to stay myself. I thought maybe that magic would still be working, and I could slip back through the camp as easily as I did the first time."

  "Did you?"

  Roger shook his head. "If I had, I'd have been here two weeks ago. No, I was captured almost before I'd gone ten yards."

  "I wonder why Terence helped you in, then didn't help you out," Lynet said, frowning.

  "I thought about that a good bit myself," Roger admitted. "But I don't know. I can't even explain why the Other Worlders do what they do; I'll never figure out why they don't do what they don't." He paused. "Does that make sense?"

  "No. So you were held captive for two weeks."

  "Ay. Old Red Lands heard that I'd been taken coming out of the castle, and he brought me in to ask what they were thinking inside. I was to be an informer, you see. So I told him that Lyonesse was secretly in love with him and talked about him all the time—"

  "Roger!"

  "I think I told you once: I lie a lot. Anyway, it worked. He kept me alive so that every day or so he could bring me in and I could tell him all the wonderful things that your sister says about him. He'd sit and chuckle and wipe his nose on his hand and scratch himself, and I'd tell him how she thought he was the picture of the knightly courtier and so on."

  Lynet made a face. "Sounds horrible. How did you get away?"

  "Well, finally, I couldn't take it anymore, and I figured he'd kill me when my imagination ran out anyway, so when he brought me in, I told him I'd been lying to him, that I was really from Camelot, and that a great knight was coming to fight him. I told him about Beau's fights with those two knockheads at the river, and the knights with all the different colors. He seems convinced that Beau must be Gawain or Lancelot, too. He yelled at me a bit, told me what he'd do to Beau, you remember, then told three of his soldiers to take me out and hang me in the woods."

  "How did you escape? Did Terence help you?"

  Roger shook his head. "Nay, but the story's almost as odd. We passed a woodcutter in the forest, a hairy fellow in rough clothes. He heard the soldiers talking about what they meant to do and told them to let me go. They laughed at him, and one of them tried to poke the fellow with his spear. Well, you never saw anything like what happened next. This scruffy peasant just took the spear away from the soldier, bashed all three of them about for a bit, then sent them running back to camp as if they had bears after them. Then the chap broke the spear, tossed it aside, and sent me on my way. He wasn't even breathing hard." Roger paused, staring at the fire. "Anyway, after that it was easy. I found the shed where my horse was and came back here."

  "Where do you suppose this woodcutter came from?" asked Lynet.

  "I didn't ask, being too busy saying thank you," Roger replied.

  The next morning, true to his vow, Beaumains suited up and prepared to go. Sir Persant made a speech that no one listened to, and the half-witted Violet sobbed and wailed. Lynet was still worried that Beaumains was not completely healed, but she was not sorry to leave their host and his daughter. Just before they mounted up and rode off, Lynet stepped forward and said, "Sir Persant, we thank you for your hospitality. You have been very good to us. But now, if I may presume on your good nature, I have one last request."

  "Whatever you like!" Sir Persant bellowed.

  "Before Beaumains engages this mighty opponent, it seems to me that he deserves to be knighted. Would you bestow this honor on him?"

  "With all my heart!" Sir Persant declared. He drew his sword, ready to lay it on Beaumains's shoulders, but Beaumains held up his hand.

  For a moment, no one moved, then Roger said, "You'd better go ahead and tell them, Beau."

  "Very well," Beaumains said. "Then let it be known that I have been a knight for more than a year. I was made so by none other than the greatest of all knights, Sir Lancelot du Lac."

  VIII. The Knight of the Red Lands

  "So, I was right!" Lynet murmured to Roger as they rode toward the Castle Perle. "He really is a knight! He's been in disguise all this time!"

  "Ay, my lady," Roger said.

  Lynet turned toward the dwarf with narrowed eyes. "And you've known it all along?"

  Roger nodded.

  "How did you know?"

  "I'm very clever."

  "Roger, I'm serious. How could you know without ever saying a word?"

  "I'm clever and discreet."

  "But when I suggested it, you said it sounded loony," Lynet pointed out.

  "And so it is!" Roger said, with feeling. "Just because it happens to be true doesn't make it less crack-brained!"

  "He's not crack-brained," Lynet said automatically, her mind already leaping ahead. "If you knew he was a knight, do you also know his real name?"

  Roger was silent, and for a moment Lynet thought he wouldn't answer, but at last he said, "Ay, my lady."

  "What is it?" Lynet asked eagerly, glancing once over her shoulder at the lagging Beaumains.

  Roger shook his head. "If a man doesn't want his name known, I can respect that. I'm not on the gab. Nor, for that mat
ter, is Kai."

  Distracted by the shift in subject, Lynet asked, "Sir Kai?"

  "I think Kai's recognized him, too. Doesn't miss much, our Kai. Think about it. From what I hear, Kai was the one who gave him the name Beaumains, which kept everyone from asking his real name. Kai was the one who convinced the king to let him stay, and when Beau volunteered to go with you, Kai was the one who convinced Arthur to let him go and who brought him armor."

  It made a sort of sense, but Lynet shook her head. "If Sir Kai knew that he was a knight, why did he mock him so? That wasn't very nice."

  "That's just Kai's notion of humor. And remember, Kai was paid back for his mockery."

  Lynet said. "True. Beaumains did unhorse Sir Kai, didn't he? And Sir Kai is a great knight."

  "Ay, my lady."

  Lynet thought for a moment. "You've seen both of them, Roger. What are Beaumains's chances with the Knight of the Red Lands?"

  "If Beau were whole, I'd say they were good. With that wound in his shoulder, it's a bit trickier, isn't it?" Lynet bit her lip apprehensively, and Roger said gently, "Nay, lass, don't take it so. He'll have his work cut out for him, but he's better than anyone suspects."

  Lynet spoke little for the next few hours, thinking about the ordeal that awaited Beaumains and wondering how she would feel if he were to be killed. It was one thing to want an unspecified knight to challenge their enemy, but it was quite another when that knight had a face—a very handsome face—and had been her companion in one way or another for weeks. She wondered, with a start, if she were in love. She decided not to think about the question, but for the first time she was able to sympathize with those who were.

  They neared the castle. Lynet began to recognize places where she used to ride in the days before the Red Knight's siege. Suddenly Roger edged his horse in front of hers and stopped. "Don't look, my lady!" he said sharply.

  Of course Lynet looked. About thirty yards ahead of them, hanging limply from a tree, was a man. A few ravens sat on his head and shoulders. She looked away quickly. "Roger?"

  "It's what Red Lands does with the knights he kills," Roger said quietly. "They're hanging all around the forest."

  Lynet took several deep breaths and felt calmer. "But I didn't see any bodies hanging when I left," she said.

  "You left at night, didn't you?"

  Lynet nodded and shuddered, realizing that she may have passed beneath any number of those hanging corpses in the dark. Beaumains caught up to them and stared at the body. Roger explained the Red Knight's practice to him, and Beaumains spoke the obvious. "Truly," he said. "He may well be a good knight, but he useth shameful customs."

  They rode on, past that dead knight and a half-dozen others, before at last they came out of the forest. Lynet looked across the fields to the Red Knight's siege camp and, beyond the camp, her home, the Castle Perle.

  "The Castle Perilous!" Beaumains said, excitement in his voice.

  "Yes, well, something like that," Lynet muttered. She had forgotten that she had changed the name back at Camelot as a part of her misguided secrecy.

  "Are you ready, lad?" asked Roger suddenly. "We've been seen."

  In the siege camp, soldiers and servants were pointing at the newcomers. Beaumains carefully checked his armor, loosened his sword in its scabbard, and raised in challenge a lance he had brought from Sir Persant's camp. More of the Red Knight's servants scurried about, and Lynet saw them readying a horse. Last of all, she saw the Knight of the Red Lands himself, donning his armor outside the largest of the tents.

  The three travelers rode together up to the Red Knight's tent, almost in the shadow of the great tower of the castle. Lynet couldn't help glancing up the wall. There was Lyonesse, watching from a window.

  "For what purpose come ye to this land?" Red Lands growled.

  "Be thou the Knight of the Red Lands?" Beaumains asked punctiliously.

  "I am."

  "Then I take leave to call thee a most foul recreant knight, to so persecute a fair lady and so shamefully to treat those knights thou defeatest."

  "Think well on those hanging knights," the Red Knight said with a sneer. "Soon you too will adorn the trees of the forest."

  "Don't you mean just one tree?" asked Roger. "I mean, he's only one knight, after all. You're very imprecise about these matters, you know."

  The Red Knight noticed Roger for the first time. "You!" he exclaimed.

  Roger grinned. "In the flesh. I've brought my knight to you, after all, Red Britches. You remember? The one who just might be Sir Lancelot?"

  The Red Knight looked back at Beaumains, a new wariness in his face. "You are the one who defeated the four brethren? And Sir Garard and Sir Arnold of the River?"

  "The two chaps at the ford," Roger explained.

  "I am," declared Beaumains.

  "Then know that I fear thee not! Though thou be Sir Lancelot himself, I shall trample thee under my feet!"

  A faint moaning noise emanated from the castle. Lynet recognized it at once as one of her sister's affectations of womanly distress. Sure enough, Lyonesse was leaning out of the castle window, carefully showing her lovely profile to anyone who cared to notice. They all turned to look, and Beaumains made a strangled sound in his throat. His eyes widened, and his jaw dropped.

  "Look away from her!" the Red Knight snapped. "She is my lady!"

  "Never have I seen such loveliness," Beaumains whispered, still gazing at Lyonesse.

  "She's mine, I say!"

  "Nay," Beaumains replied breathlessly. His face wore a fierce determination. "She will be mine! For this perfect woman alone will I love all the days of my life. For her I have done many strong battles, and for her sake will I defeat thee!"

  Lynet grew cold and still inside. She forced herself to keep her face empty, but when she looked up at her beautiful sister, so frail in appearance but once again victorious, Lynet burned with a hatred that shocked her. At that moment she gladly would have murdered Lyonesse.

  A quiet voice beside her said, "I'm sorry, lass."

  There was nothing to say. She wanted to act bright and cheerful, but Roger knew better. She raised her chin and smiled.

  "That's the dandy, Lynet. As I've said before, I believe you could brazen your way through anything." He leaned forward in his saddle and took her mare's reins. "Come this way, lass. They're about to fight." He led her to one side, while Beaumains and the Red Knight took their places.

  Lynet did not remember much of the fight, though she saw every move that Lyonesse made in the window. She was vaguely aware that the knights unhorsed each other with lances, then fought with swords, but beyond that she saw little that happened on the field. From the tower window, Lyonesse watched the battle eagerly, licking her lips occasionally, like a cat. For several minutes Lynet truly hated her sister, but hatred was not natural for Lynet, and at last it ebbed, leaving behind only the ache of despair.

  "Hit him, stupid!" muttered Roger, watching the battle beside her. "Don't just stand there, nodcock! If you're going to fight, fight!" He swore bitterly under his breath.

  "What is it, Roger?" Lynet asked, forcing her eyes away from her sister.

  "He's favoring his left side. I'm afraid the wound may have broken open again." He grunted and added, "Not that I care whether the son of a—whether our dim boy gets bashed about a bit, but we need him to win, or the Red Knight will kill us too."

  Lynet had not thought of that. She watched the battle more closely. Roger was right: Beaumains was losing ground. His shield, which was hacked almost in pieces anyway, hung limply at his left side. Only by truly brilliant swordplay, parrying each blow perfectly, was Beaumains surviving the Red Knight's attacks. Suddenly, Beaumains lunged forward, twisting his body to avoid a blow and thrusting with his own sword at the same time. The Red Knight swung his sword and missed, then seemed to freeze. Beaumains's sword had gone into a gap in the Red Knight's armor and was buried deep in the Red Knight's side. Beaumains withdrew his sword, and with a final mighty blow n
eatly sliced his enemy's head from his shoulders.

  Roger urged his horse forward, and Lynet followed. As they drew near, Lynet could hear her sister's voice.

  "It was well fought, O knight," she said.

  "If I fought well, my lady, it was because I fought for thee, the most beautiful lady in the world," Beaumains gasped. "I offer myself to thee, forever, and I beg thee to open thy gate and receive my heart within!"

  Roger made a rude noise. "Disgusting!" he said.

  "Ah, now that is a different matter," said Lyonesse. "For before my beloved father's death, I promised him that I would marry no lowborn knight, be he ever so great a fighter."

  "That's a lie, Lyon!" Lynet said with a gasp. "You never—"

  "It was between Papa and me, sister!" Lyonesse said, squinting fiercely at Lynet. She turned back to Beaumains. "What is thy name, O knight?"

  "That I cannot say," Beaumains said, dejected. "Sir Kai called me upon scorn Beaumains, but more than that I cannot reveal. I too have taken a vow."

  Lyonesse shrugged. "Then I cannot let you in. Thank you for your help, but I must not allow unknown feet to enter these gates."

  Outraged, Lynet cried, "Poppycock, Lyon! This knight has just risked his life for you!"

  "I said thank you, didn't I?" Lyonesse replied pettishly. "If he loves me, why won't he tell me his name, then? That's all I ask."

  "What do you expect him to do now, then?" demanded Lynet.

  "Ride away, I suppose," Lyonesse answered.

  "I go then, because thou sayest so," Beaumains answered, despair in his voice. "But know, my lady, that I have never loved any woman before, nor shall I ever love another woman but thee."

  Lynet felt Beaumains's words like tiny darts in her heart, and Lyonesse simpered coquettishly from her window. Roger urged his horse forward and nudged Beaumains, none too gently, with his mount's shoulder. "Come on, you blithering ass, let's go. She doesn't want you."