For Camelot's Honor (25 page)

The day dimmed around them. Geraint and Elen sat in the chairs they were given ate their fill with the rest, setting by worry and questions both to satisfy the basic needs of self and soul. Elen fed Calonnau meats from the tip of her knife. The hawk snapped and tore at them, eating without relish.

Slowly, the feast was worn down to crumbs and bones. The pitchers were drained, and the folk around were eased with the repleatness that came with satisfying hunger nursed to long. They lolled on their benches in the dim light, holding each other, coming and going from houses, slowly, happily.

Hopefully.

Adev drained his noggin of beer a final time and wiped the foam from his tangled beard. Geraint, sensing opportunity, leaned forward. “Father Adev, I ask you as one who means only friendship to you and yours — what is it you fear in this place?”

Adev started, and the wariness leapt back to its place in his eyes. “You must know. You met … you fought one of them.”

“Even so,” agreed Geraint. “But all I know is that we met was a man in a grey cloak with a brand on his forehead.”

Adev's eyes shifted left, then right.
“Gwerin Llwyd,”
he whispered.

Geraint cocked his head toward Elen. “Grey men,” she told him.

“What are they?”

But Adev turned his face and would not say.

Elen tried another route. She spread more butter on a last slice of bread, tore it in two and laid one half before her host. “Adev, you speak the tongue of the West Lands as we use it in Pont Cymryd.”

Adev's mouth moved, repeating the cantrev name soundlessly, savoring it. “We belonged once to Llanthoney, in the Black Mountains.”

Llanthoney?
Now it was Elen's turn to stare. She'd heard … it was years ago. Her father had still been alive, and she'd been shooed out of the hall before she could hear the whole of the story from the solemn messenger, but she'd eavesdropped on plenty of gossip in the following days. Llanthoney had vanished. There'd been a battle. They must have been burned out by the men of Honddu, folk said, but there was no ash, no sign of fire … and no one had ever heard more tidings of them. The good neighbors were blamed, but Mother did not believe this. It remained a mystery, and became a ghost story for a time, and then faded away altogether.

Elen said none of this. “How came you to be here?” she asked instead, trying to keep her voice as mild as if she were asking of the conditions of the road ahead.

Adev shook his head. “I may not say. It will … some things are heard farther than others, Lady.”

Elen nodded. She did not press, but her anger deepened. These were her cousins chained and cowed here. Geraint's face had gone hard. He felt it too. He was a king's son and a king's nephew. He knew the responsibilities of blood and birth at least as well as she did.

Adev looked from one of them to the other. He looked to his empty cup and the bread that lay before him untouched. Elen could not read all the emotions that flickered across his face, but she felt he reached deep within himself, past even the place that remembered courtesy. Trying, perhaps to remember friendship, or loyalty.

Or courage.

“We were at war with our neighbors,” he said. “They had killed Cadugan. He was the son of our chief, Cadog. Blood demanded we fight, but we were too few. We were going to be overrun. We were set to flee our homes.

“Then a stranger came. He told us he could save us all, if we would but swear our fealty to him. Our chief was dead. We feared not death,” he said quickly, firmly and Geraint nodded his agreement and understanding. “Never clean death, but to be bound in service … the shame … we took counsel and we agreed we would swear fealty to the stranger, if he would save us.”

Elen shivered at this. She too could understand what had driven these people to make such a choice. Oh, yes, she could understand it well.

“We thought he would lead us in war,” Adev went on, his voice growing heavy with memory and regret. “But he did not. Instead, he rode seven times around our homes, crying out in some tongue none of us could understand. We all fell into a deep sleep. When we woke … we were here, and safe we were, from all things save our new king.” These last words were spoken with a bitterness that ran bone deep.

Geraint said nothing. Elen said nothing. Adev pushed the bread away from him. “He keeps …”

Before Adev could say more, a shout rang out from the fields.

“They're coming! They're coming!”

Adev shot to his feet, his face suddenly and deathly grey. A man was running in from the field. In the distance behind him, Elen could make out a group of riders on horseback. She counted five total, but at this distance could make out few details beyond shining armor, grey cloaks, and one black horse leading four greys.

The indolence and contentment of a moment before was gone. Everyone was on their feet now. Parents snatched up children and ran into their rude houses. Husbands and wives clutched each other. An old woman began to weep, an oddly birdlike noise. All stared at the board and the remains of the feast in horror, wondering what they had done.

Adev gripped the table edge as if hoping to draw strength from it. “Get you gone,” he whispered to Elen and Geraint. “I will meet them.”

Geraint did not waste his breath on refusals. He put the helmet back on his head and picked up his captured spear. Elen reclaimed her gauntlet, loosened Calonnau's jesses and set the complaining hawk on her wrist. She also took the knife from where it lay on the table and returned it to the sheath at her side.

Adev saw all this and it seemed to move him beyond words. He swallowed hard and turned his face toward the riders, but even as he did, Elen thought she saw shame in his eyes

For a thing you have done, or a thing you will do? I wish I could ask, for it might mean our lives.
She found a moment to wonder at her own calm as she thought this.

The riders came closer. Four of them were large and bullish men, dressed and armed as the others Elen and Geraint had met were, with shirts of scaled armor, silver guards on their wrists and boots of grey leather on their feet and grey cloaks over they shoulders. Two of them wore half-helms as the one they'd captured and lost had done. Two others wore full helms that covered their faces and had been decorated with horns and such lines as gave the wearers the appearance of demons approaching in the light of day. The steel was chased with silver, and Elen could see the design was of runes on the masks like tattoos on skin, but she could read none of them. Cold and fearsome, they came on steadily.

At their head rode a dwarf. This was not a little man, like Tor who lived at the edge of the village and worked as hard as any man twice his height, nor yet was he like the fools who sometimes came with the minstrels to play at the summer's fair and were astounding in their mastery of music and jugglery. This was a mean and apeish creature. His head was topped with tangled black hair and a black beard covered his jutting jaw. He held a black whip in his hairy hand. His clothes too were black, except for the cap on his head which was a dull, rusty red.

At the sight of the dwarf, Adev's nerve failed him. He fell to his knees as if he'd been struck. Geraint planted his feet firmly, at the width of his shoulders. His hand shifted on the shaft of his spear, readying for what might come, but making no openly threatening move.

The dwarf reined up his black horse. The soldiers, clearly Adev's Grey Men, halted behind him. They and their horses stood absolutely still. The two with faces she could see had them set in hard and contemptuous lines. Of the others, she could make out nothing at all. They might have been twins for all the difference between them she could see. What their was of men was hidden behind the identical armor and the false demon's faces.

The dwarf's gaze swept from Adev to the villagers huddled like sheep behind him and came to rest on her and Geraint. His glittering black eyes looked more like a bird's than a man's. Calonnau screamed, high and sudden, and launched herself from Elen's wrist. Elen lost control of the jesses, and the bird soared into the sky, coming to land in the branches of the chestnut tree, shrieking with anger, but even more with fear.

The dwarf chuckled.

“Welcome!” he said, leaning on the edge of his saddle. His voice boomed strangely loud and deep for so small a creature. Elen could not name him a man. She almost expected to see he cast no shadow on the ground. His shadow was there, however, black and solid in the waning evening sun, no different from hers. He was flesh, whatever else he might be. “Welcome my lord Geraint! Welcome my lady Elen!”

So much for hiding our names.

“My lord king has been waiting for you,” the dwarf went on. “Right glad he was to hear you had come safe to his lands and found hospitality already among his people!” He grinned at Adev and his fellows. The old man's shoulders slumped in defeat.

It was Geraint who replied. “Adev thought us sent from his lord king. He treated us only as he should. When he learned we were strangers, he refused to give us what was his lord's. All you see here,” he gestured toward the board, “is the working and gift of my lady and none of theirs.”

“But of course, my lord!” said the dwarf expansively. “Adev and all here,” he beamed with a sharp-edged benevolence on all assembled, “know their place well. They would have done nothing else.”

“Please …” Adev blurted out the word.

“Adev,” said the dwarf quietly. “It is not your time to speak.”

Adev fell silent at once, and bowed his head, but Elen saw something in his old eyes that had not been there before. Anger.

The dwarf tapped his whip restlessly against his thigh. “Now, Sir Geraint, Lady Elen. My king bids you come to his hall, where there is room and cheer fitting for guests of your rank.”

“We are anxious to accept that hospitality which is freely given.” Geraint's voice was mild, but he watched that whip, and watched it carefully. “But I fear that darkness is coming on and we may not reach your king before nightfall.”

The dwarf grinned at them. “You may well fear, Sir Geraint, but our king does not. It pleases him for you to ride with us, and to know that you and your good lady will reach him before the night does.”

The sun was just at the horizon. In moments, it would begin its final descent. There was no hall on any hill that they could see.

“Who is your king?” asked Elen bluntly. This false courtesy wore on her. It reminded her too much of Urien standing before her mother, and of Morgaine in the goatherd's cottage. It was another illusion and she'd had her stomach full of all such.

But the dwarf only grinned at her. “He is himself, as you will see.”

“Why will you not name him?”

“Because I do not choose to, my lady. You will come with us now.” This last was spoken sternly. It seemed this creature too had had enough. He made a small gesture with one finger. One of the Grey Men, the one on the dwarf's left hand, nudged his horse so it walked forward, just a few steps, just so its shadow fell across the way before Elen.

Geraint also stepped forward, so he stood just in front of her. No challenge entered in his manner or voice, there was just that small change of place. “Perhaps it would be best if you rode ahead to announce our coming. My lady is mightily fatigued from the last day's travel and needs rest.”

The dwarf's hand curled more tightly around his whip. The tapping was loud, like an angry heartbeat, and as insistent. “She shall have rest when she reaches the hall of my king.”

Geraint held his place, and his courtesy. “We will follow in due course, you may be sure.”

“But I may not be.” The tapping whip stilled, and the dwarf leaned forward, his bird's eyes narrowed to slits. “You will come with us, Sir Geraint. We will accept no other answer or action.”

Before Geraint could make his answer, Adev spoke. “Please, lord,” he said. The words were nothing more than a throaty whisper at first, but they gained in strength as he went on. “Please, lord, we have made them guests here. We have shared bread and board. Let us keep them this night. You know we will not fail the king …”

“Do I know that?” smiled the dwarf. He folded his arms on his knee. His oddly delicate fingers rolled the little whip back and forth. “So anxious are you for guests, Adev. So ready to feed the hungry …” He paused, and cocked his head, considering. “My horse is hungry.” The dwarf jumped down from his saddle, landing neat and square on both feet. The point of his red hood barely came up to Geraint's shoulder. “Indeed, I believe we are all here hungry. Will you feed us?” A mocking querellousness overcame his voice, and behind him, two of the riders smiled.

Adev swayed on his knees, and Elen thought for a moment he would fall. “Lord please!” He stretched out his work-worn hands. “It is only …”

“You knew we were coming,” interrupted Geraint. Why did you not meet us alone on the road?”

“Because it was our master's wish to know how Adev and these others would comport themselves when you came. He is not pleased at all,” the dwarf pursed his lips and shook his head, “that he would have fed you when his majesty's true servants were going hungry. Very hungry, Adev,” the dwarf went on. “I believe I cannot restrain him in his hunger.” The dwarf touched the black horse's side, and it whisked around, more kitten than horse, and trotted to the edge of the field of grain, the grain that would surely pay the tributes this king demanded, that would feed the village in the winter. Someone screamed, a sound muffled fast by hands. A child wailed high and afraid. Adev closed his eyes.

The black horse began to eat. It moved like thought, like a dream. Where it had been, the grain was gone, leaving only stubble behind.

The villagers watched open mouthed in horror. Two of the grey men, the ones horned like demons, dismounted from their horses.

“So very hungry,” said the dwarf again.

The grey horses joined the black, tearing up great chunks of grain, swallowing them down, each move clear, and yet devouring all with a speed that no mortal steed could have matched.

Nor was that the end, the two grey men in full helmets marched swiftly, smoothly into the village, to the sacks and barrels and piles of food that lay left from the offering Geraint and Elen had refused. They leaned their spears against the chestnut tree, and they too began to eat. They ate like famine made flesh. They ate like the dreams of gluttony. They swallowed apples, cheeses, loaves of bread whole, they lifted barrels of beer as if they were wooden cups and drank them down.

“No,” whispered Adev. “No. The king … we cannot pay …”

Their fellows in the half-helms stood beside their master, their arms folded across their chests, and they laughed.

It was enough. It was too much. It was beyond cruelty. And still the creatures ate and ate and their companions laughed.

Calonnau screamed from her place at the top of the tree, and below her Elen cried out. “Stop this! They did nothing! They gave us nothing!”

“But they would have,” said the dwarf quietly, folding his own arms in satisfaction. “Oh yes, my lord is most displeased.”

Geraint looked from the dwarf and his mirthful guard, to the villagers in their huddle, to Elen. She thought she understood the calculations passing swiftly through his mind. He saw the spears on the ground and the swords in their sheaths. He saw those used to torturing the cowed and broken, who had forgotten what man stood beside them now.

“Stop this,” he said. “Or I will stop it.”

The dwarf turned to him with raised black brows and mocking smile on his lips. Geraint gave him no warning. In a single deadly move, he whipped the shaft of his spear around and brought it crashing down on the dwarf's whip hand. Elen ducked in and caught up the whip as if fell. The people screamed and they scattered. The dwarf screamed, but already Geraint had his arm around the other's thick neck, dragging him backwards and off his feet, his spear up and ready.

“Stop!” Geraint roared. “Or your captain dies!”

The two men, the half-helmed ones closest, jumped back, hands reaching for swords. Around them men and women fled their homes, crying, screaming, weeping to the gods to save them, save them, save them!

“One more move and he dies,” said Geraint in his certain, steady voice. “One more.”

The demons froze in place, curved over their thieving feast still, watching him with their hidden eyes. Elen would not have believed living men could stand so still. They ignored the panic all around them, and stood still as stones.

In Geraint's arms the dwarf hung with his feet dangling, menace gone, for a moment looking nothing but small and ridiculous caught up but the much larger man.

“You think we are an enemy to fight like any other?” his voice was merry, almost gleeful. “Show him!”

Elen went cold. Slowly, making certain Geraint saw every move, the first of the demon-helmed men reached up. He plucked off his helmet, and he cast it aside. For a moment, Elen's bewildered eyes thought his head was bald, or grey haired. Then she saw it was the bare and mottled bone of his skull. There was only flesh left withered and wrinkled around his jaw, and his teeth bared by his withered lips were ragged and yellow. His eyes were rheumy and clouded with death that should have laid him down long ago. Yet he stood. He too was marked as his living counterpart hand been. The brand had burned into the bone.

Terror sent Elen reeling backward. The dwarf laughed, shaking hard in Geraint's embrace. “Do you think any of us care for your spear? Take him!”

The nearest man clapped hand to sword, and Geraint threw his spear, but the man dodged, and the weapon struck the earth harmlessly. The other raised his sword, but Geraint had twisted and drawn his own with the same motion that threw the spear, and now held his blade to the dwarf's throat. The touch of the steel seemed to make the creature go limp as a babe and no more orders came from him.

Perhaps you should fear us after all,
thought Elen wildly.

Half Helm was frozen where he was, but behind him, the one still in his demon helmet lifted his head and gave a shrill whistle. Hoofbeats sounded from behind. The horses were coming in from the ravaged fields.

Elen recovered herself and reached out with her will. Calonnau screamed and she fought, and she hungered, and she dove.