The Ballad of Sir Dinadan (3 page)

"Oh, my dear!" Lady Miriam cried, her eyes glowing, "I was so worried! Have you been injured?"

"No, my lady. I am stronger now than I've ever been."

"And what of Sir Edmund?" Sir Annui asked ironically. "Is he stronger than ever, too?"

Dinadan smiled, as an idea came to him. "It was a fight that long shall be retold," he said, lapsing almost unconsciously into the learned cadences of a troubadour. "He smote the trees, and acorns showered forth; the earth and rocks and still I stood my ground. Fleet-footed Edmund, his strength like ten men's might, drew out his sword to cleave me to the heart—"

"How did he smite the deuced trees if he hadn't drawn his sword yet, child?" Sir Annui asked.

Dinadan ignored him. "But faster e'en than he, I gripped my blade!" And then Dinadan, with a dramatic flourish, drew his sword. He meant to place the point at Sir Annui's throat, taking him off guard. After that, the plan was a bit hazier. He had a vague idea of forcing Sir Annui to admit his villainy and promise to return to whatever land he had come from. As it turned out, though, when he drew his sword, it knocked over the one lamp that illuminated the dim interior, and they were plunged into darkness. Dinadan saw a movement and heard the unmistakable sound of a sword being unsheathed. Blindly, he raised his own sword in an instinctive defensive movement.

He never completed the motion. His sword stopped sharply, caught on something, before he could get it fully raised. Panicked, Dinadan jerked on the sword, and it came free. There was no sound. As Dinadan's eyes grew gradually accustomed to the gloom, he could make out the very distinctive figure of Lady Miriam, but he saw no sign of Sir Annui. Lady Miriam stooped, picked up the fallen lamp, and blew gently on the still glowing wick. It caught, and in the growing light, Dinadan saw the knight's form at his feet. It seemed that the thing that his sword had caught on had been Sir Annui's throat. He was unquestionably dead.

Lady Miriam looked calmly at her dead co-conspirator for a moment, then lifted liquid eyes to Dinadan. "Oh, thank you, my love!" she said breathlessly. "I cannot tell you how that hateful man has tyrannized me and threatened me—with a fate worse than death! But now you've rescued me, and I am yours."

She stepped close, her hand fluttering to her breast in a very feminine motion. Dinadan saw the light flash on the blade of a tiny dagger, and he lurched backwards. Lady Miriam, her expression suddenly hard and cruel, leaped after him, but her foot caught on Sir Annui's body, and she fell face down. Dinadan backed away, out of reach of the dagger, but she didn't move. She gave a low moan, but still Dinadan stayed well clear. After a long time, reflecting that the armor on his legs ought to give him some protection, Dinadan stepped close enough to turn her over with his foot. She had fallen on her own dagger, which still protruded from her breast. Blood was already pooled on the ground where she had lain. Dinadan pulled the dagger out and threw it aside, looking curiously at the lovely face at his feet.

Her eyelids flickered, and her lips moved. Dinadan realized that she was trying to say something, and stirred by respect for her sex, or perhaps just for someone who was dying, he leaned close to catch her last words.

"Oh ... bugger it," she said. Then she died.

Dinadan told the guards that Lady Miriam and Sir Annui were in counsel and, saddling his mare, left the camp. Once he was away, he took up his rebec and strummed it gently. Sir Edmund had invited him to tell a tale at Gracemoor, and now he had a good one.

Dinadan rolled over, stretched, rubbed his eyes, and sat up in the grass. The warm sun that had been so pleasant at noon, after a satisfying lunch, had grown a bit too hot and had awakened him from his nap. Dinadan drank from his water bag, then picked up the rebec, ran the bow pensively over the strings, and sang.

"Then saw the maiden how her lover fell,
With mortal wound by Dinadan's sharp sword,
And, swooning nearly, crumpled by his side.
Then Miriam prayed unto the gracious Lord

"To take her soul from her in that same breath.
Then from a chain she bared a cruel knife
Held it before her virginal, pure breast
And with a mighty plunge closed off her life..."

"No, deuce it," Dinadan muttered. "Not 'closed off.'"

It was the hardest part of his new poem, the dramatic death of the beautiful Lady Miriam, who, upon seeing her dastardly lover Sir Annui die at the hands of the noble Sir Dinadan, took her own life rather than continue without her true love. It wasn't exactly what had happened, of course, but a tragic suicide made a much more satisfying conclusion to "The Noble Tale of Sir Dinadan" than Lady Miriam's tripping over Sir Annui's corpse and falling on her own blade. Of course, it had not been easy to rewrite the facts to make Lady Miriam a tragic heroine. Dinadan could not think of Lady Miriam without shame and anger. But a tragic heroine made for a better story, so Dinadan had memorialized his enemy as a beautiful victim of love, and for his own relief and amusement had written a spiteful poem about women in general.

The "Noble Tale" had been well received when he sang it to Sir Edmund Grace and his neighbors, even though the poem was then still in very rough form. He had worked on it off and on for the two weeks he had stayed at Gracemoor, and polished the language considerably, but there were still parts that needed work.

He set aside the rebec and loaded his gear onto the horses, being careful to disguise his armor with a thick blanket. It was less complicated to be a wandering gentleman than a questing knight, who might be expected to fight someone. Since leaving Sir Edmund, he had been having a splendid time traveling incognito. He had ridden alone through the forest, singing to himself, had kept company for a while with a troupe of actors, had eaten simple meals with peasant families, and had carefully avoided every female he could.

When he finished loading, Dinadan mounted and rode off. Before long, he came upon a well-beaten road, upon which a line of carts and oxen and country people with bundles marched. Interested, Dinadan rode alongside a thick-set farmer who had a basket of chickens on his shoulder. "Here now, fellow, what's to do?"

The farmer looked up at him, a bit apprehensively, but when he had looked into Dinadan's face, his own expression relaxed. "Market day in T'village."

Dinadan smiled widely. "Market day! Sounds fun! What do you do?"

The farmer now gazed at Dinadan with amazement. "'Aven't you been to a market day? I did think you was a minstrel, what with your tune-box there. You ain't a knight, are you?"

Dinadan laughed easily. "Do I look like a knight?"

"Nay. I thought you might be, at first, when I seed you with them two flash 'orses, but then I looked at you and knew you wasn't. Too friendly like. But then, ain't you a minstrel?"

Dinadan hesitated, then said, "Yes, I am, but I'm only starting out. I've never been to a market day. What should I do?"

The man seemed to accept this explanation and was happy to describe the event at length, especially after Dinadan told him to heave the basket of chickens onto his spare horse and gave him a drink from his water bag. The farmer recommended that Dinadan take a place near an alehouse and begin singing. "That's where we all go after we sell our wares," the man said confidingly. "And when we gets there, we all 'as a bit of coin. I've tossed a few coppers to minstrels myself, but only if they suit me, mind you. A bad minstrel starves even faster than a bad farmer."

Dinadan actually had plenty of money, having taken from his home everything of value that he could easily carry, but he was struck with a sudden desire to see if he was a good enough minstrel to make his own way in the world. It was a challenge, the first he had ever cared enough about to accept.

They rode into the village, which seemed not to have a name but to be called universally just "T'village," and Dinadan located the alehouse at once. It was a large building on the square where a man in bright clothing was already playing a rebec and telling a tale. Disappointed that he had been beaten to the best spot, but nevertheless intensely interested, Dinadan tied his horses to a tree at the far edge of the square and took his own rebec over to the alehouse to listen.

The minstrel was terrible. He played only three or four different notes on his instrument, and after watching him for a few minutes Dinadan felt sure that those notes were all the musician knew. The tale that was being told was one that Dinadan had heard more than once from Thomas the Rhymer, about how Sir Gawain and Sir Tor had chased a white hart and a white hound into a forest filled with dark adventures. This minstrel told the tale wretchedly, all in a gruff, tuneless, sing-song, monotone that grated on Dinadan's nerves. A portly man in a spattered butcher's apron snorted nearby. "I've heard better," he commented, to no one in particular.

"Oh, he's not so bad as all that," a woodsman beside him replied. "Remember that spindle-shanked chap who only knew two bleeding songs, and both of them little love ditties?"

"Ay," the butcher said. "That fellow could play his instrument, though. This one's hacking at it like a sawyer at a board. Don't see myself giving more than a penny for this business."

Unable to restrain himself, Dinadan said, "Don't give him a groat! He's awful! He's butchering that song worse than you'd butcher a hog!"

Unfortunately this outburst, spoken too loudly to begin with, came just as the minstrel had finished his song and was taking a bow to the silent crowd. Dinadan's voice carried well, and it was clear that most of those present heard. The minstrel flushed and looked about for the speaker. Embarrassed but defiant, Dinadan met his eyes.

"And why," the minstrel said angrily, "would you be taking bread from my mouth, child? Is it that you think you could do better?"

It had not occurred to Dinadan until that moment that his disparaging remark, intended merely as a criticism of the man's artistry, might also hurt the man's livelihood. He reddened with sudden shame. It was too easy for a nobleman with a full money pouch to be scornful. Dinadan lifted his chin. "I could, friend, but I did not mean you harm." He swung his own rebec off his shoulder and gently pushed his way forward through the crowd. "I shall make you a bargain. I shall sing to this crowd, and you shall have all the money that I take in, save only enough to buy us both a pint at this alehouse. Is that fair enough?"

The crowd laughingly called its approval, and the minstrel nodded curtly, folded his arms and prepared to listen. Dinadan tested the strings on his rebec, carefully tightened one, then cleared his throat. "Today, for your entertainment, dear lords and ladies—"

The crowd laughed again, and Dinadan grinned. They were with him. He could feel their interest and attention. He looked out over the faces of the market-goers, and he knew as if by magic exactly what they were thinking, how they were feeling, and what exactly he should do to make this wonderful, mystical connection stronger and stronger. It was the most exhilarating feeling he had ever known, and he continued almost without conscious thought: "The Noble Tale of Sir Dinadan, a great knight from the land of the fens."

"Never heard of him," called out a burly, disheveled fellow with a red nose.

"Never heard of him?" Dinadan replied immediately. "Impossible! And you with the look of a royal courtier, too!"

The crowd roared with delight, and even the red-nosed man grinned appreciatively. Dinadan strummed his rebec, waiting for the laughter to fade, and then began immediately on his new song. The magical sense of connection between him and his audience grew, and he began to improvise on the spot, adding new lines to almost every episode and two new stanzas describing the beauty of the doomed Lady Miriam. The marketplace grew quiet, and the crowd grew larger. Even a man on horseback passing through the square reined in to listen. When Dinadan described Sir Annui's evil plan to use Lady Miriam to steal land, there were growls of disapproval; when he sang of Sir Dinadan's mighty battle with the villain, men leaned forward intently and boys acted out battles with imaginary foes; and when he concluded with Lady Miriam's death, women (and some men) dabbed their eyes and sniffled. He finished with a long, quavering note from the rebec, then bowed his head.

The crowd roared its approval, and copper and silver coins flew toward him from every side. Dinadan grinned delightedly at the applause, drinking it in like brandy, his heart full and his head light. The minstrel whom he had replaced stepped forward, awe and respect in his eyes as he clutched Dinadan's hand. "Beg pardon, sir, for doubting you."

Dinadan grinned and waved at the coins. "Help yourself, friend."

The man did, scrabbling eagerly in the dust, and when he had collected every penny, he looked up at Dinadan and said, "I'm not forgetting our bargain, sir. I'll buy you that pint now."

The minstrel was not the only one who wanted to buy Dinadan a drink, but even better than the ale was the mutton chop and bread that the tavern owner gave him. Men gathered around him, talking in knowledgeable tones about the new hero, Sir Dinadan, and comparing him to various knights of great renown, including Sir Tristram. Dinadan enjoyed it all immensely. As he finished his meal, the alehouse grew suddenly quieter, and Dinadan looked up to see a tall young man in chain mail standing at the door. Dinadan recognized him as the man on horseback who had stopped to listen. The man saw Dinadan and strode across the room to join him.

"You tell a rare tale," the young man said. "Especially for one so young."

"Thank you," Dinadan said.

"What is your name?" the man asked.

Dinadan hesitated. It had not occurred to him until that moment that it might be awkward to introduce himself as Sir Dinadan. He chose at random the name of his father's steward. "My name is Stearnes."

The young man sat down at Dinadan's table. "How comes it that one so gifted as you is not at a king's court?"