The Quest of the Fair Unknown (15 page)

"Maybe that's the solution," Sir Bors said in a low voice. "Maybe I should be killed. Then Sir Erskine keeps his life and I keep my honor."

"That's a terrible idea!" Beaufils said. "You're daft."

"He is, isn't he?" Sir Erskine said, lowering his sword. "Look here, fellow. I respect the fact that you made a promise and want to keep it. But I don't want to fight you anymore."

Sir Bors lowered his sword. "Why not? Are you afraid?"

"It's just that my mother taught me to be kind to idiots," Sir Erskine retorted.

"You'll pay for that insult!"

Sir Erskine lifted his head high but kept his arms at his side. "Go ahead, then. Hit me. I won't stop you."

"You won't?" Sir Bors asked. He lowered his own sword. "I can't hit you while you're just standing like that!"

"Let me guess," Beaufils said. "You would lose your honor if you did?"

"That's right."

"I figured there'd be a rule about that," Beaufils said. "You know what I think? I think you have too many rules."

"So you think I should hit him?" Sir Bors demanded.

"No," Beaufils replied patiently. "I think you should go tell Lady Orgille that you've changed your mind and you're not going to keep your silly promise after all. Then I think you ought to ride away with Ellyn and me on your own horse, which we brought with us."

Sir Bors stood very still, his sword arm limp at his side. Then he took a deep breath and said, "All right, blast you both. All right."

Sir Bors was morose and silent again as they rode away from Orgille Hall, and Beaufils was beginning to wonder if there was some way that he and Ellyn could part from their moody friend. His fierce gloom cast a shadow over what would otherwise have been a splendid day for a ride, and squelched all conversation. Beaufils and Ellyn hadn't even felt able to tell him that his brother Lionel was all right, and Sir Bors hadn't asked.

Sir Bors was probably ruminating on his painful interview with Lady Orgille. As Beaufils had suggested, he had walked to the foot of the wall from which the lady and her court were watching the battle and called up that he was not going to kill Sir Erskine for her after all. Then Sir Bors had stood stoically beneath the wall while Lady Orgille had called him a villain and a coward and a great many other things, mostly involving words that Beaufils didn't know. Sir Bors had made no answer, but when at last the storm of abuse had ended, Lady Orgille having exhausted either her voice or her vocabulary, Sir Bors had simply bowed once more, mounted his horse, and ridden away. Now, an hour later, he still had not spoken.

Beaufils was starting to feel bored and had just about decided to begin talking normally to Ellyn again regardless of Sir Bors's scowls when they came to an austere cottage in the midst of a small, cleared area. Beaufils heard Ellyn sigh. "A hermit," she said softly.

From the hut came a thin man with a long neck. He was wearing the plain brown robe that seemed to be the standard uniform of holy men, although Beaufils noticed that this particular robe looked as if it was much more comfortable than others he had seen. Sir Bors brightened at the approach of the hermit. "A holy man!" he breathed thankfully.

The hermit looked aloofly at the three travelers. "Am I to have no peace in which to meditate?" he asked querulously.

"Father," Sir Bors said, nearly throwing himself from his horse. "I need to confess."

"You sound like that Galahad fellow," the hermit complained. "Wouldn't even let me finish my supper, he was in such a blazing hurry to confess, just as if he'd committed every mortal sin in the book, which he hadn't. Then that other fellow, earlier today, nearly kicking the door in asking for food, though I'd like to know where he thought I'd get food. Some people think that all we holy men do with our lives is store up food to hand over to every jackanapes that wanders by. Why not? What else does a hermit have to do? Let me tell you, it takes nearly all my time just to keep up with my prayers. And the wood isn't chopped, and the roof needs work, too. Well? Are you going to confess or just grovel?"

Beaufils and Ellyn exchanged glances at this speech, but Sir Bors evidently saw nothing amiss and plunged at once into a full description of the recent events in his life, starting with his foolish vow to Lady Orgille, continuing through his leaving Lionel to his tormentors, and concluding with his breaking his promise and riding away. Listening to this account, Beaufils wasn't sure which of these events Sir Bors regarded as sins and which he did not. Maybe he was hoping the hermit would tell him. When he was done, the holy man gazed silently at Sir Bors, a speculative light in his eyes. "Please, Father," Sir Bors said, sinking to his knees, "give me my penance—anything!"

"You want penance?" the hermit grumbled. "How about going away and leaving me alone?"

Sir Bors hesitated. "That's not much, is it? Shouldn't you make me do more? After all, I left my own brother to die."

"Er, Sir Bors," Beaufils began, "about Sir Lionel—"

But Sir Bors pressed on. "I heard once about a knight who had to wear a hair shirt under his armor for years as a penance, just like a hermit. Or rather, I mean ... is that a hair shirt you're wearing?"

"I can't wear hair shirts!" the hermit snapped. "I have sensitive skin! You want penance? Fine! Go cut some wood for me!"

Sir Bors bowed his head obediently. "Yes, Father. And will that be all?"

The hermit suddenly looked thoughtful. "Er, no, that's not all," he said slowly. "Dear me, no. You
have
been very bad, haven't you? I shall have to pray about this. Yes, I have it! Sir Bors, you must renounce your arms for the space of one, no,
two
years, and must assume the humiliation of being a servant! Right here, so that I—your Father Confessor—can keep an eye on your soul's health. You must cut wood and carry water and keep a garden and hunt wild game—all to humble your soul, that you might be spared from this most horrible sin."

Sir Bors looked up slowly at the hermit's face, his own expression a mixture of grief and doubt. "So to cleanse my soul I need to become your slave for two years?"

"It's not like that," the hermit said hastily. "It will be a trial to me, as well. I daresay you'll disturb my life of meditation awfully with all that work."

Gravel crunched from the far side of the little clearing, and Beaufils looked up to see the swiftly striding figure of Sir Lionel himself. He crossed the yard in a flash, then drew back his ironclad foot and kicked Sir Bors with great force in the part of his hindquarters without armor, launching him forward into the hermit's legs.

"Ouch!" shouted Sir Bors, whirling around. "Who the devil ... Lionel?"

"Who'd you think, you stupid sod!"

"I thought you were dead!"

"If I'm not, it's no thanks to you," Sir Lionel retorted wrathfully. "Here, let's see if I feel like a ghost, shall we?" He kicked at his brother again, but Sir Bors scrambled backward on his hands and feet, and only received a glancing blow.

"Lionel, listen to me!"

"Go ahead," Sir Lionel said, striding forward. "I'll kick you a bit while I listen, shall I?" He got another solid kick in, but this time his armored foot only clanked harmlessly against the iron cuisse on his brother's left thigh.

"I was wrong!" Sir Bors shouted. He was still on his back, but he had raised himself up on his hands and feet and was scuttling backward, his bottom hanging beneath him, where it would be difficult to kick. "I should have helped you!"

"Oh? And you think this is a new idea to me?" Sir Lionel snapped, circling his brother, looking for an opening. "Guess what? I
always
thought you should have helped me, you blithering block!"

"Dash it, Lionel, I said I was wrong, didn't I?" Sir Lionel kicked him again, but again he missed the soft spot he was aiming for. "You always did fight dirty!" Sir Bors said.

"At least I fight," Sir Lionel rapped back, chasing his brother's beetling retreat.

While all this was going on, the hermit had picked himself up and dusted off his cloak. Now, staring furiously at Sir Lionel, he stepped between the brothers. "Stop!" he declared. "This man is my servant."

Sir Bors looked up from his bottom-defending crouch and said, "No, I'm not. This is my brother, the one I thought I'd killed."

The hermit looked sharply disappointed at this, but didn't give up. "No, it isn't!" he said. "It's ... it's an apparition! A fiend from hell who has taken your brother's shape! Fiends can do that, you know."

Both knights stared at the hermit for a second; then Sir Bors rolled his eyes and said, "Shut up, you old poop."

Now Sir Lionel gaped at his brother. "Bors? Did you just call a religious man a ... a poop?"

"Well, he
is!
" Bors said defensively. "You should have heard the twaddle he was trying to sell me before you came, trying to make me do his work for him."

"Oh, I don't deny his poopness," Sir Lionel said. "I'm just surprised to hear
you
admit it."

The hermit still stood between the brothers, towering over the crawling Sir Bors. Now he raised his arms in the air and said in a fierce voice, "Both of you are in grave danger at this moment."

Sir Lionel lifted one finger and poked the hermit in the chest. The holy man stepped backward, tripped over Sir Bors, and sat hard in the dirt. Sir Lionel extended his hand to his brother and said, "Why don't you get up, Bors? You look a proper ass crawling about like that."

Sir Bors took his brother's hand and, grinning, stood. Beaufils smiled. He'd never seen someone forgive his brother, but it was worth watching.

Unfortunately, the hermit was less impressed. Shaking with fury, he rose to his feet. "It needed only this!" he rapped out. "No food in the larder, no wood for the fire, leaks in the roof, and chinks around the windows. Villagers dropping by day and night with their problems—'Oh Mr. Hermit! Won't you tell me what to do with my rotten little boy?' As if I
cared!
" The hermit's voice was growing shrill. "And now I've been assaulted by a knight!"

"Assaulted?" repeated Sir Lionel.

"Assaulted, I tell you!"

"All I did was poke you in the chest." Sir Lionel glanced at Beaufils and Ellyn. "Do
you
think I assaulted him?"

"Well," Beaufils said thoughtfully, "he
does
have sensitive skin."

Ellyn began to giggle, and the hermit shrieked, "Now you're laughing at me! That's it! I'm done! Let somebody else have this hermitage, and see how they like it!" Struggling out of his hermit's robe, he threw it angrily on the ground and stomped down the trail away from the hut, wearing nothing but his linen underdrawers.

"Does this mean he's not holy anymore?" Beaufils asked.

"He's as holy as he ever was," Ellyn replied.

They camped that night at the now deserted hermitage, while Sir Bors and Ellyn tended to the cuts on Sir Lionel's back. Sir Bors and Sir Lionel had clearly forgot ten their differences, and Beaufils enjoyed watching their banter and good-natured squabbling. Sir Bors was still the serious one, and Sir Lionel still the carefree one, and Beaufils reflected that he liked both of them more when the other was around than he did when they were alone.

Everything seemed to have worked out nicely for his two friends, but Sir Bors had one more test to face. Late that evening, after they had all been asleep for hours, a faint sound woke Beaufils. Ellyn was sleeping inside the hermitage, and Sir Lionel had stretched out at the far side of the clearing, but Beaufils and Sir Bors were sleeping in the yard before the hut, not far from the path, and Beaufils heard the unmistakable sound of a horse drawing near. He rose silently and slipped into the darkest shadows just before the horse entered the clearing.

The horse stopped, and Beaufils could make out the black outline of its rider against the gray sky: it was a woman. Sir Bors stirred, then sat up in his blankets. "Who's there?" he said in a husky whisper.

The rider sighed mournfully and said, "A poor destitute woman who has been cast from her childhood home and left to roam the darkness, prey to every danger that awaits a friendless female."

"I know that voice," Sir Bors said slowly. "Lady Orgille?"

"Sir Bors?"

"So Erskine kicked you out of the castle, did he? I thought he would."

Lady Orgille dropped from the saddle, walked over to where the knight lay, and knelt beside his prone form. "It was horrible!" she said, her voice cracking. "That man threw me from my home, giving me nothing."

"Looks like he gave you a horse, at least," commented Sir Bors, who was edging away from Lady Orgille.

She leaned closer. "But I would have left the castle anyway, dear Sir Bors," she said. "When you rode away this afternoon, I watched you go and my heart broke in my bosom, and I knew that I would never be happy without you and your love. That's why I'm here. I've come looking for you."

"Have you, then?" Sir Bors said. His voice was flat.

"Could you ... could you ever forgive me and take me back? I could ask no greater happiness than to ride at your side, to care for you, to sleep in the warmth of your presence, to—"

She got no further. Sir Bors rose abruptly and nearly dragged Lady Orgille by the wrist back to her horse. "Get up," he said.

"Sir Bors!"

Setting both hands on Lady Orgille's waist, Sir Bors practically threw her up into the saddle. "Off you go."

"Sir Bors, don't you ... don't you think I'm beautiful?"

Sir Bors looked at her in the moonlight for a second. "No," he said at last. "You only look like it. Now get out of here, you viper." Then Sir Bors slapped Lady Orgille's horse in the haunches, startling it into a gallop. He watched until the horse's shadow had been swallowed up by the larger darkness and the last echo of its hooves had died away, then returned to his blankets and rolled up in them. Beaufils watched from the shadows, grinning.

"Damn, that felt good," Sir Bors muttered as he went back to sleep.

"You know what bothers me?" Ellyn asked suddenly. She and Beaufils had separated from Sir Bors and Lionel that morning and for the past several hours had been riding over a dry plain in companionable silence, both lost in their own thoughts.