Authors: Ron Miller
The Iron Tempest (17 page)
“Fair knight!” Angelica called, fearing that the creature would awaken from its coma before the stranger gave up his efforts to kill it. “Let me loose first!”
Rashid saw the logic of this argument and, leaving the stunned orc unslain for the moment, he ran to the pillar and, with a single blow of Balisard, set the woman free. Lifting her to the back of the waiting Papillon, who was no less anxious than Angelica to leave the island, he climbed into the saddle ahead of her. As Papillon mounted into the clouds and away from the evil island its monster, Rashid glanced back at the pale, golden woman whose arms were wound tightly around his waist and imagined he saw a thousand grateful kisses promised in her eyes. Angelica had no need of Alcina’s magic.
His original intention upon leaving Alcina’s island had been to beat a path directly to where Bradamant waited, but he instead brought Papillon down on a broad, level beach in Brittany. Carrying his new companion to a grove of heavy, ancient oaks he set her down in the shade next to where a spring gushed from between the massive roots, its clear waters meandering across the smooth sand toward the sea. He tied Papillon to a low limb—and having one steed folding its wings he was now at liberty to allow another to spread its even wider. Seeing the swooning princess lying on her mossy bed, like an ivory idol in its velvet box, he could hardly restrain himself from climbing onto his new mount. He would have, too, then and there, but for his armor. Never before had he realized how complicated were its fastenings, nor how many. With hasty fingers he plucked and pulled at the strings and thongs only managing to make the knots tighter and the buckles even more adamant. For every strap he succeeded in undoing, there seemed to be two more. It had never seemed to take this long before.
Although a rein will easily restrain a charging horse, seldom will reason so readily slow a lover’s ardor once it has sniffed the scent of lust. Just as the smell of honey will lure a bear from its path, nothing will induce it to stop. Certainly there was no hope that reason would stop Rashid’s intention of taking advantage of the luminous princess who reclined there naked in the solitary grotto. Every thought of Bradamant was gone, and this time he hadn’t the excuse of a sorceress’ hex. Even if her memory was as fresh as ever he’d be a fool (so he rationalized) not to take advantage of the present situation—a situation even austere Xenocrates could hardly have resisted.
His shield, sword and lance lying scattered at his feet, Rashid stared dumbly at the princess, who smiled back at him sleepily and with no little amusement. He redoubled his clumsy efforts to shed himself of his armor, red and perspiring and humiliated under the insouciant gaze of his captive. Those lingering eyes seemed to make his fingers fatter and clumsier than ever.
Angelica, for her part, was as amused as she was relieved. The man was certainly handsome and virile-looking enough—and was certainly a more appealing specimen than Sacripant had been, let alone (she shuddered) the disgusting hermit—but she was in no mood for fooling around, let alone the effort it would take to rid herself of him afterwards. Glancing down from the struggling knight, she allowed her gaze to drift appreciatively up her ivory prolongations until, surprised, it stopped at the ring that gleamed on the index finger of her left hand. She had completely forgotten about it. Now she not only remembered it, she recognized it. She was very familiar with this particular piece of jewelry (though in what manner and what adventures
that
entailed are hardly pertinent here). Suffice to say that the ring had once belonged to her father. Seeing it again on her own hand filled her with such astonishment and joy that at first she thought she must be either dreaming or hallucinating. Slowly and carefully raising her hand to her mouth, she drew the ring off with her small, sharp teeth. At the very moment it rested beneath her tongue, she vanished from sight as completely as the sun passing behind a cloud.
Rashid, completely taken aback, up to his knees in a pile of armor, simply stood there, slack-jawed with astonishment. Then he lost his temper.
“Ungrateful wench!” he cried, leaping toward the mossy bower. “Is this the way you thank me? I gave that ring to you, but now you prefer to steal it! Why not take Papillon too? And my shield and sword, while you’re at it! Oh, my princess, I’ll give you myself, too, to do with what you will, if you’ll only not hide yourself from me!”
While he shouted, he groped the air like a child playing blind man’s bluff. But Angelica was already well away and at a good clip, too, all things considered.
Rashid felt like such a fool.
CHAPTER FIVE
In which Bradamant does her Duty, learns more of her Destiny and falls prey to a Magician’s sly Trick
Charlemagne was astonished to see Bradamant appear, phantom-like, at his court. He did not ask her where she had been, but instead engulfed her in his huge arms as though she were a long-lost child; the golden-maned giant was the only person who could make Bradamant feel physically small—the effect was something like that of a cheetah in the unlikely embrace of a lion—a sensation she would have disliked had it been caused by anyone else.
The great man towered more than a foot above the warrioress’ head—that is, something more than seven feet from the floor [this height has been confirmed by later historians, who based their estimates on the measure of Charlemagne’s feet—which they fervently assert were of remarkable length; he no doubt inherited these from his mother, the suggestively-named Bertha of the Big Feet]. When he was angry one would swear that his broad, ruddy face emitted flames like a fanned coal. His hair was brown and flowed in heavy waves over his shoulders and his enormous beard was innocent of the barber’s shears. Although he was nearly as big in circumference as he was tall, he bore the proportion well, as a mountain does. Bradamant had seen him with her own eyes devour at one sitting a quarter of mutton, an entire goose, a ham and a peacock. Suprisingly, given this, he drank wine temperately, habitually taking it mixed with a little water. His strength was prodigious. He had often entertained his godchild, when she was a little girl, by straightening horseshoes with his bare hands, after which he presented them to her as gifts. Bradamant still possessed every one of them, which she treasured as much as a miser does his gold or a priest his relics. He could lift her, in full armor, at arm’s length; he could split a fully-armored warhorse in half with a single blow of his sword. He had the compassion of a Titus, the judgement of a Solomon, the piety of a Joseph, the magnificence of a Sardanapalus and the wisdom of an Aesop. But two qualities he valued above all others: that when he spoke he meant what he said, and when others spoke to him he listened.
When it came to heroes, Bradamant could wish for no one better.
The emperor’s discretion was a source of infinite frustration for his court, any member of which would have given two quarts of his or her soul to have learned anything substantive about the rumors linking Bradamant and the famed Saracen knight, Rashid. However, the great man, who had heard the same rumors, did not inquire and no one had either the courage or the lack of wisdom to confront the warrioress with questions concerning such private matters.
The tide had turned, the emperor explained, so far as the siege of Paris was concerned, and therefore he regretfully had no real use there for Bradamant. But Marseilles, the city whose protection Charlemagne had entrusted to her and which duty she had so callously abandoned, was in dire straits and, without intervention, would soon fall to the Moors. Bradamant, in a fury of remorse, swore to amend her great error without further delay and promised to set out for the beleagured city within the hour.
She made the long journey in a week, undelayed by any incident she was incapable of handling or particularly worthy of mention, to find that the emperor had scarcely overstated the truth. The pagan invaders had overrun Languedoc and Provence, pillaging every village and hamlet with unimpeded impunity. The southern sky looked like a distant forest with a thousand columns of smoke blending into an opaque, dun canopy. As she rode toward the city the evidence of Saracen cruelty grew by every mile, with every burned-out hut, every bloated body, every desecrated church or monastery. Her face grew set and grim. This devastation, she knew too well, was the price paid for her pursuit of Rashid.
The people of Marseilles were delighted to see their heroine and surprised and embarassed her by evidencing not an iota of resentment at her desertion. This unexpected, unearned generosity made her even more resolved to make amends, guilt being the powerful force it is.
Her first duty, as she saw it, was to take stock of the remaining defenses of Marseilles, such as they were. Being both a shrewd and capable leader, when she put her mind to it, it was not long before she had gathered a small force around her, which seemed to grow logarithmically, every man anxious to follow his white-armored champion.
It was not overlong before she and her makeshift army were daily wreaking vengeance upon the Moors. And, as Rashid’s return became ever more overdue, she exercised her frustration and anger upon her hapless enemy, laying waste about her with a savagery which awed and frightened even her own men. It never once crossed her mind to consider how Rashid might feel about her devastation of his comrades.
For each day that passed without word from Melissa, Bradamant grew more sullen and aloof, obsessed with the conviction that Rashid was lost to her after all. Her anxiety was too great to be assuaged by daily battles with the pagan hosts; it erupted like a suppurating wound, infecting all around her.
One night, while Bradamant tossed and turned fitfully on her cot, crying and whimpering as she fought her terrible dreams, her tent was suddenly illuminated by a familiar firefly light. She opened her eyes and saw that the sorceress had at last returned, but that she had returned alone. She not only felt her heart crack, she could hear it disintegrate, vaporizing like a Prince Rupert’s drop. Her head fell back lifelessly as she uttered a groan that lacerated even Melissa’s own rather more obdurate heart.
“Oh, my dear Bradamant!” she cried, hurrying to her side and taking one pale, limp hand in her own. “All is not lost! Rashid is alive and well and far from the coils of that serpent Alcina!”
“Then where is he? Has he forgotten me, then?”
“No! Of course not!”
“Then why isn’t he here?”
“I told you that I couldn’t carry him here by magic. Once free, he had to make his own way. But he has his hippogryph—”
“Papillon.”
“Yes, Papillon. He has Papillon to carry him.”
“Then what happened? Where is he?”
“Atalante.”
“
Atalante
? He’s still alive?”
“Oh, yes indeed.”
“ What has he done now?”
“Trapped Rashid by turning his love for you against him.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Rashid was on his way here, as quickly as he could go, and had already crossed the western ocean and was well past the borders of Frankland when he heard a tremendous noise beneath him. Landing to investigate, he discovered that a prodigious fight was taking place between two formidable knights. One of them was a horrible-looking giant, the other was a slim figure clad in gleaming white armor who was avoiding the two-handed blows of the monster’s club as deftly as a dancer. The giant’s flanks ran red from the dozen cuts he’d received from his opponent’s blade, though, giant-like, the wounds seemed not to bother him overmuch. Rashid saw that the knight’s horse lay dead nearby. At first he didn’t interfere. The white knight seemed in no immediate danger, so it would’ve been an impertinence to have taken sides without an invitation or an honorable excuse. Suddenly, the nimble knight slipped on a patch of moss, the giant stepped forward, raised his massive club and brought it down on the other’s head with a ringing blow that by all rights ought to have smashed the skull like a melon. The knight was stretched flat under this tremendous impact. The giant took the sword from the lifeless hand and, pulling off his victim’s helmet, prepared to administer the
coup de grâce
. As soon as Rashid saw the knight’s face he cried out in surprise.”
“Who was it?”
“You.”
“Pardon?”
“The unconscious knight in the white armor bore your countenance, down to the last hair and eyelash.”
“Maybe so, but it wasn’t me.”
“I know that, of course, but Rashid had no way of knowing it. With an anguished cry, he leaped from Papillon while it was still twenty feet above the glade and challenged the giant even before his feet struck the ground. The latter, not at all prepared for another fight, threw the false Bradamant over his shoulder and took to his heels. Rashid, abandoning Papillon as useless in the dense woods, pursued on foot. Eventually, the giant came to a château and disappeared into it, with Rashid hot behind him. Once your lover crossed the threshold, he was trapped.”
“Trapped? How? Is he imprisoned in some dungeon?”
“Not at all. Every door is wide open. He could walk out any time.”
“Then what’s keeping him there?”
“His love for you. He has every reason to believe that you’re somewhere in that castle, and he’s not going to leave without you. He’s searched every room, every nook and every cranny, without finding you (of course, since we know perfectly well that you’ve never been there), but always, no matter where he is, he can hear your voice from somewhere else, in the next room, through a wall, outside a window, around a corner.”
“This is some of Atalante’s magic, I suppose?”
“Of course. Just as it was Atalante who’d been disguised as you.”
“A disgusting thought,” Bradamant said as she rose from her cot and paced the tent, her hands clasped tightly behind her back, her chin sunk onto her steel-clad breast. Her face was livid with fury.
“I really resent this,” she growled. “I really do. What an abominable, despicable tactic! The damned impertinence of imitating
me!
If he wants so badly to be a woman I’d be more than happy to accomodate his wish. My God, I was a fool to have spared him!”
She stopped pacing, turned and faced the sorceress, who blanched beneath the basilisk glare of the enraged warrioress. “Where is this new prison? Obviously the only way to save Rashid is for him to actually find me.”
“I can’t argue with you about that.”
“Then it’s settled. We leave in the morning and you’ll guide me.”
The next morning, hours before dawn, Bradamant gave orders to her second-in-command sufficient to keep the Saracens harried for the week she expected to be gone—for Melissa assured her that Atalante’s castle was not at all far away.
The two women rode together and were well on their way by the time the first chord of the sun’s disk appeared above the horizon.
“When you first come near the castle,” said Melissa, “it will seem that Rashid has come out to meet you. Don’t be deceived. It’ll be only Atalante disguised. He’ll use his magic to make it appear as though Rashid is being overpowered by an attacker—the same ruse he used to trap Rashid—with the idea that you’ll rush to your love’s rescue and thereby fall into the magician’s trap. Both you would then be in his power.”
“Better there with Rashid than here without him.”
“No! You’re wrong! You’d never see him again, nor anyone else, I suspect. Atalante traps every knight and lady who passes his way with a similar trick. He greets them in the guise of whomever or whatever they most desire, whether it be girl, boy, man, woman, lady, knight, page, friend, brother, sister—sometimes it takes food, gold or animals—it doesn’t matter. The upshot is that they’re lured into the castle and there they remain, forever searching for their heart’s desire. Atalante, of course, makes certain that their hopes and desires never abate, are never discouraged by so much as a jot, so his victims never once think of abandoning their hopeless quests and leaving.”
“I don’t think he could deceive
me.”
“Don’t be a fool, Bradamant, or you’ll be as lost as the others. Once you fall into his power, there’ll be nothing I can do for you.”
“Nevertheless . . .”
“No, Bradamant. Don’t even think it. If you’re to defeat this wizard, then take heed: even though every sense insists that you’re looking into the living, breathing face of Rashid himself, and he’s begging you for help,
don’t believe it—
doing so for even a single instant would be fatal! As soon as he approaches you,
slay him without hesitation
. Harden your heart and remember that it’s only a simalucrum that you’re destroying, a lifeless illusion, not your lover.”
“It won’t be easy.”
“No, it won’t. Make your resolution now, brave Bradamant, before we even get near this evil place. The greatest test of your courage is facing you: to seemingly kill your dear Rashid. But your eyes, bewitched by Atalante, will be lying to you.”
“I’ll never save Rashid by being fainthearted.”
“That’s right.”
“Then I shall
not
be fainthearted.”
“I’m delighted to hear that. And I hope you’re right.”
Having made the resolution to slay the tormenter of both herself and Rashid, to Bradamant’s mind the deed was as good as done. She followed Melissa without the slightest notice of the landscape and road. Whether they were passing farmland or forest, plain or hill, village or city was of not the least concern nor interest.
Melissa saw that her companion was becoming overwrought and that long before they reached Atalante’s castle Bradamant would attain such a fever pitch of excitement there would be every danger that she would forget the sorceress’ injunctions. And if that happened, there would be nothing she could do to save her.
“Do you remember, Bradamant,” Melissa asked, in an effort to distract the girl, “when Merlin told you something of your illustrious progeny?”
“Of course.”
“He only told you of the great men. Haven’t you been curious about your female descendants?”
“Certainly. I’ve wondered about who they may be many times. Will they be brave, beautiful, virtuous?”
“Well, I can tell you something about a few of them, if you’d care to listen.”
“I’d be most grateful! To tell you the truth, I need something to take my mind away from Rashid. The journey seems to be taking longer with every mile we go, as though we’re going backwards with each step. My head’s spinning, my lady, and I’m afraid I’ll go mad long before we reach our goal. Then what good will I be to Rashid?”
“I’m glad to hear you realize that.”
“Oh, I do, I do. Just as I know that I’m obsessed with him. But what good does the knowledge of that obsession do me? My head still whirls and my heart still rattles like a drum.”
