Legacy: Arthurian Saga (17 page)

The gate thudded shut behind the
convoy, and I heard the locks drive home.

There was a path, faintly discernible,
leading off eastward along the edge of the ditch. When I looked
that way I saw that, some way off, so far that they must mark some
kind of settlement or farm well beyond the limits of the town, more
lights showed.

I turned along the path at a trot,
chewing at my chunk of barley bread as I went.

The lights turned out to belong to a
fair-sized house whose buildings enclosed a courtyard. The house
itself, two stories high, made one wall of the yard, which was
bounded on the other three sides by single-story buildings --
baths, servants' quarters, stables, bakehouse -- the whole
enclosure high-walled and showing only a few slit windows well
beyond my reach. There was an arched gateway, and beside this in an
iron bracket set at the height of a man's reach, a torch
spluttered, sulky with damp pitch. There were more lights inside
the yard, but I could hear no movement or voices. The gate, of
course, was shut fast.

Not that I would have dared go in that
way, to meet some summary fate at the porter's hands. I skirted the
wall, looking hopefully for a way to climb in. The third window was
the bakehouse; the smells were hours old, and cold, but still would
have sent me swarming up the wall, save that the window was a bare
slit which would not have admitted even me.

The next was a stable, and the next
also...I could smell the horse-smells and beast-smells mingling,
and the sweetness of dried grass. Then the house, with no windows
at all facing outwards. The bathhouse, the same. And back to the
gate.

A chain clanged suddenly, and within a
few feet of me, just inside the gate, a big dog gave tongue like a
bell. I believe I jumped back a full pace, then flattened myself
against the wall as I heard a door open somewhere close. There was
a pause, while the dog growled and someone listened, then a man's
voice said something curt, and the door shut. The dog grumbled to
itself for a bit, snuffling at the foot of the gate, then dragged
its chain back to the kennel, and I heard it settling again into
its straw.

There was obviously no way in to find
shelter. I stood for a while, trying to think, with my back pressed
to the cold wall that still seemed warmer than the icy air. I was
shaking so violently now with the cold that I felt as if my very
bones were chattering. I was sure I had been right to leave the
ship, and not to trust myself to the troops' mercy, but now I began
to wonder if I dared knock at the gate and beg for shelter. I would
get rough shrift as a beggar, I knew, but if I stayed out here I
might well die of cold before morning.

Then I saw, just beyond the
torchlight's reach, the low black shape of a building that must be
a cattle shed or shippon, some twenty paces away and at the corner
of a field surrounded by low banks crowned with thorn bushes. I
could hear cattle moving there. At least there would be their
warmth to share, and if I could force my chattering teeth through
it, I still had a heel of barley bread.

I had taken a pace away from the wall,
moving, I could have sworn, without a sound, when the dog came out
of his kennel with a rush and a rattle, and set up his infernal
baying again. This time the house door opened immediately, and I
heard a man's step in the yard. He was coming towards the gate. I
heard the rasp of metal as he drew some weapon. I was just turning
to run when I heard, clear and sharp on the frosty air, what the
dog had heard. The sound of hoofs, full gallop, coming this
way.

Quick as a shadow, I ran across the
open ground towards the shed. Beside it a gap in the bank made a
gateway, which had been blocked with a dead thorn-tree. I shoved
through this, then crept -- as quietly as I could, not to disturb
the beasts -- to crouch in the shed doorway, out of sight of the
house gate.

The shed was only a small, roughly
built shelter, with walls not much more than man-height, thatched
over, and crowded with beasts. These seemed to be young bullocks
for the most part, too thronged to lie down, but seemingly content
enough with each other's warmth, and some dry fodder to chew over.
A rough plank across the doorway made a barrier to keep them in.
Outside, the field stretched empty in the starlight, grey with
frost, and bounded with its low banks ridged with those hunched and
crippled bushes. In the center of the field was one of the standing
stones.

Inside the gateway, I heard the man
speak to silence the dog. The sound of hoofs swelled, hammering up
the iron track, then suddenly the rider was on us, sweeping out of
the dark and pulling his horse up with a scream of metal on stone
and a flurry of gravel and frozen turf, and the thud of the beast's
hoofs right up against the wood of the gate. The man inside shouted
something, a question, and the rider answered him even in the act
of flinging himself down from the saddle.

"Of course it is. Open up, will
you?"

I heard the door grate as it was
dragged open, then the two men talking, but apart from a word here
and there, could not distinguish what they said. It seemed, from
the movement of the light, that the porter (or whoever had come to
the gate) had lifted the torch down from its socket. Moreover, the
light was moving this way, and both men with it, leading the
horse.

I heard the rider say, impatiently:
"Oh, yes, it'll be well enough here. If it comes to that, it will
suit me to have a quick getaway. There's fodder there?"

"Aye, sir. I put the young beasts out
here to make room for the horses."

"There's a crowd, then?" The voice was
young, clear, a little harsh, but that might only be cold and
arrogance combined. A patrician voice, careless as the horsemanship
that had all but brought the horse down on its haunches in front of
the gate.

"A fair number," said the porter.
"Mind now, sir, it's through this gap. If you'll let me go first
with the light..."

"I can see," said the young man
irritably, "if you don't shove the torch right in my face. Hold up,
you." This to the horse as it pecked at a stone.

"You'd best let me go first, sir.
There's a thorn bush across the gap to keep them in. If you'll
stand clear a minute, I'll shift it."

I had already melted out of the shed
doorway and round the corner, where the rough wall met the field
embankment. There were turfs stacked here, and a pile of brushwood
and dried bracken that I supposed were winter bedding. I crouched
down behind the stack.

I heard the thorn-tree being lifted
and flung aside. "There, sir, bring him through. There's not much
room, but if you're sure you'd as soon leave him out here
--"

"I said it would do. Shift the plank
and get him in. Hurry, man, I'm late."

"If you leave him with me now, sir,
I'll unsaddle for you."

"No need. He'll be well enough for an
hour or two. Just loosen the girth. I suppose I'd better throw my
cloak over him. Gods, it's cold...Get the bridle off, will you? I'm
getting in out of this..."

I heard him stride away, spurs
clinking. The plank went back into place, and then the thorn-tree.
As the porter hurried after him I caught something that sounded
like, "And let me in at the back, where the father won't see
me."

The big gate shut behind them. The
chain rattled, but the dog stayed silent. I heard the men's steps
crossing the yard, then the house door shut on them.

3

Even if I had dared to risk the
torchlight and the dog, to scramble over the bank behind me and run
the twenty paces to the gate, there would have been no need. The
god had done his part; he had sent me warmth and, I discovered,
food.

No sooner had the gate shut than I was
back inside the shippon, whispering reassurance to the horse as I
reached to rob him of the cloak. He was not sweating much; he must
have galloped only the mile or so from the town, and in that shed
among the crowded beasts he could take no harm from cold; in any
case, my need came before his, and I had to have that cloak. It was
an officer's cloak, thick, soft, and good. As I laid hold of it I
found, to my excitement, that my lord had left me not only his
cloak, but a full saddle-bag as well. I stretched up, tiptoe, and
felt inside.

A leather flask, which I shook. It was
almost full. Wine, certainly; that young man would never carry
water. A napkin with biscuits in it, and raisins, and some strips
of dried meat.

The beasts jostled, dribbling, and
puffed their warm breath at me. The long cloak had slipped to trail
a corner in the dirt under their hoofs. I snatched it up, clutched
the flask and food to me, and slipped out under the barrier. The
pile of brushwood in the corner outside was clean, but I would
hardly have cared if it had been a dung-heap. I burrowed into it,
wrapped myself warmly in the soft woolen folds, and steadily ate
and drank my way through everything the god had sent me.

Whatever happened, I must not sleep.
Unfortunately it seemed that the young man would not be here for
more than an hour or two; but this with the bonus of food should be
time enough to warm me so that I might bed down in comfort till
daylight. I would hear movement from the house in time to slip back
to the shed and throw the cloak into place. My lord would hardly be
likely to notice that his marching rations had gone from his
saddle-bag.

I drank some more wine. It was amazing
how even the stale ends of the barley bread tasted the better for
it. It was good stuff, potent and sweet, and tasting of raisins. It
ran warm into my body, till the rigid joints loosened and melted
and stopped their shaking, and I could curl up warm and relaxed in
my dark nest, with the bracken pulled right up over me to shut out
the cold.

I must have slept a little. What woke
me I have no idea; there was no sound. Even the beasts in the shed
were still.

It seemed darker, so that I wondered
if it were almost dawn, when the stars fade. But when I parted the
bracken and peered out I saw they were still there, burning white
in the black sky.

The strange thing was, it was warmer.
Some wind had risen, and had brought cloud with it, scudding drifts
that raced high overhead, then scattered and wisped away so that
shadow and starlight broke one after the other like waves across
the frost-grey fields and still landscape, where the thistles and
stiff winter grasses seemed to flow like water, or like a cornfield
under the wind. There was no sound of the wind blowing.

Above the flying veils of cloud the
stars were brilliant, studding a black dome. The warmth and my
curled posture in the dark must (I thought) have made me dream of
security, of Galapas and the crystal globe where I had lain curled,
and watched the light. Now the brilliant arch of stars above me was
like the curved roof of the cave with the light flashing off the
crystals, and the passing shadows flying, chased by the fire. You
could see points of red and sapphire, and one star steady, beaming
gold. Then the silent wind blew another shadow across the sky with
light behind it, and the thorn trees shivered, and the shadow of
the standing stone.

I must be buried too deep and snug in
my bed to hear the rustle of the wind through grass and thorn. Nor
did I hear the young man pushing his way through the barrier that
the porter had replaced across the gap in the bank. For, suddenly,
with no warning, he was there, a tall figure striding across the
field, as shadowy and quiet as the wind.

I shrank, like a snail into its shell.
Too late now to run and replace the cloak. All I could hope was
that he would assume the thief had fled, and not search too near.
But he did not approach the shed. He was making straight across the
field, away from me. Then I saw, half in, half out of the shadow of
the standing stone, the white animal grazing. His horse must have
broken loose. The gods alone knew what it found to eat in that
winter field, but I could see it, ghostly in the distance, the
white beast grazing beside the standing stone. And it must have
rubbed the girth till it snapped; its saddle, too, was
gone.

At least in the time he would take to
catch it, I should be able to get away...or better still, drop the
cloak near the shed, where he would think it had slid from the
horse's back, and then get back to my warm nest till he had gone.
He could only blame the porter for the animal's escape; and justly;
I had not touched the bar across the doorway. I raised myself
cautiously, watching my chance.

The grazing animal had lifted its head
to watch the man's approach. A cloud swept across the stars,
blackening the field. Light ran after the shadow across the frost.
It struck the standing stone. I saw that I had been wrong; it was
not the horse. Nor -- my next thought -- could it be one of the
young beasts from the shed. This was a bull, a massive white bull,
full-grown, with a royal spread of horns and a neck like a
thunder-cloud. It lowered its head till the dewlap brushed the
ground, and pawed once, twice.

The young man paused. I saw him now,
clearly, as the shadow lifted. He was tall and strongly built, and
his hair looked bleached in the starlight. He wore some sort of
foreign dress -- trousers cross-bound with thongs below a tunic
girded low on the hips, and a high loose cap. Under this the fair
hair blew round his face like rays. There was a rope in his hand,
held loosely, its coils brushing the frost. His cloak flew in the
wind; a short cloak, of some dark color I could not make
out.