Continued from the previous chapter, here.

𝔗he two men–one clad in a green so dark as to be nearly black, the other in mail–soon came to a larger village than that they had left. There, they were able to find horses that were broken to the saddle, and they rode thence to a small town. The distinction lay, really, in the fact that it boasted a cooper, a miller, a blacksmith, and tanner. It also had a bridge over a smallish river–not one that could not be forded, but it was far easier to ride dryshod than to put up with soaked clothing and horses irritated from carrying riders clad in it.

There was also a minor lord–or the home of one, rather. When the green-clad and mail-clad man approached it, they were greeted by a young woman in rough homespun. She curtsied deeply when she saw them; the mail bespoke a warrior, deference to whom by the unarmed is usually prudent, and the green-clad man’s attire was rich and fine, such that he was assumed to be a mighty lord in his own right. And so she addressed them, saying “Milord, Sir Knight, please do come in and be welcome. The lady of the home has bidden me show all courtesy to those of rank and esteem, and so you seem to me to be. Therefore, please do come you in, and eat, and drink, and take your ease. The lady shall attend upon you presently, I am certain.”

The green-clad man gave a perfunctory nod and swept past the young woman. The mail-clad man was more courteous, saying “God’s peace be upon this place and all within! But tell me, who is the lady of this house, and who the lord, and whither has the lord gone?”

“Oh, Sir Knight, as to the last, I am sure that you know, for I am certain that you did yourself stand in the battle between the two kings that was not long ago. It is thence that the lord of this house went, called once more to fight for the king to whom he had sworn, although he was in the fullness of age and past it. Sir Gwion was he called, and long had he been the lord of this land, given title to it after good and diligent service with the old king. And the Lady Maelis is his wife, wedded to him eight years gone, now, and their one child a daughter in the convent until she should be wedded, herself.”

“Thank you” replied the mail-clad man, and he went inside in the wake of the green-clad. He found the latter seared high at the table in what seemed the primary hall of the house, eating good bread with butter and honey and drinking wine. A place was set a seat below him on the same side, and the mail-clad man seated himself there at the green-clad man’s gesture. As he did, the latter said “Had the servingwoman anything of worth to note?”

The mail-clad man nodded. “Sir Gwion, an older man, is–was, probably–lord of this house. Maelis is his wife and here. They have a daughter who dwells in a convent until she is to be wedded.”

“Ah.” The green-clad man returned to his meal. Around a mouthful of bread, he said “Did you know Gwion?”

The mail-clad man, himself eating, said “No. But there were many arrayed, as I know you saw–at least, there were until the fighting began, and with each moment there were fewer present. It is possible that I was to fight alongside him, but I recall no man so named as Gwion.”

“I am saddened to hear that I will hear no news of my husband” came another voice, a woman’s voice, low but clear with youth. And its owner proceeded to the table where the green-clad man still sat and from which the mail-clad man stood, asking “Are you the Lady Maelis, then?”

She nodded as she approached a seat at the right hand of the obvious lord’s chair. Its back was not so high as the high seat, but it was still higher than any of the others at the table. Indeed, where the mail-clad man sat had no back at all. The green-clad man slowly rose to his feet and sketched something like a bow. “Milady” he said, somewhat flatly, and he looked at her openly. The mail-clad man, for his part, bowed deeply and remained bowed long. “God’s peace upon you” he said.

“And on you, as well,” she replied as she seated herself. The men sat shortly after, and the green-clad man resumed eating as Maelis asked “Since you know no man named Sir Gwion, I shall not ask you after my lord husband, although I worry that you are come from the battle but he is not come back to me. But then, you also say that you were to fight alongside him, perhaps. Shall I take it to mean that you did not fight against the young king?”

The mail-clad man nodded. “It is as you say. I did not fight against the young king.”

The green-clad man interjected. “He fulfilled the word of God, instead, if it is your concern that he has turned recreant. And in doing so, he found himself in mortal peril, from which I delivered him. So now he follows me, blessed to that task and the fulfillment of it. So you may be at ease, Lady Maelis, that your husband did not fall because he was surrounded by cowards who betrayed him. If fall he did, it was bravely, and it is no shame to him–and it should not be sorrow to you if he did, for is it not a worthy thing to die in defense of lord and land, or of friends?”

“Yet it were better had he lived and returned to his land and those who have loved him these years long.” Maelis gave a clipped reply, and the mail-clad man sighed deeply.

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Continued from the previous post, here.

ℑt was not long before the two men–one clad in a green so dark it was nearly black, the other, following behind, in mail and–happened across one of the many villages that dotted Logres. There was no shortage of such places, small gatherings of farmers centered around a water-driven mill and a small chapel, with perhaps one or two craftspeople in the mix and occasional visits from itinerant traders or knights going about their lords’ business. It was for the last that the men were taken–and rightly, for though they were both afoot, the mail-clad man was clearly a knight, and the green-clad seemed somehow…greater. Certainly, they attracted attention; the children of the village stopped and stared, as had the farmers in their fields and the craftsmen in their shops, and the village priest–a rotund young man in plain robes–came out of the chapel to greet them, saying “God’s peace on you!” as they drew near.

The green-clad man gave a small snort of laughter at the welcome, but he nonetheless advanced. “Thank you for the kind words, Brother. And how fare you on this day?”

“Well, God be praised! We were worried when we saw so many men ride through, all in armor and shining, but they passed us by with little comment. They drank the beer that we had, and they ate of what food we had, and many of them heard Mass with me. Never, indeed, have I preached to so many at once, but they were reverential–even as the knights should be! And I see that you have such a man with you, too! How went the work to which you were bound, Sir Knight?”

The mail-clad man, hearing himself addressed, started a bit. “It went otherwise than might be hoped, Father.”

The green-clad man interjected. “He was struck and struck back, although neither he nor his foe slew the other. And I healed him of his wound.”

The priest smiled. “Then it is a good thing you have done for the kingdom, strengthening the knights that they might do as they are sworn! And you, Sir Knight, must do much to repay the debt you owe to the man who has saved you! For is it not in such a way that knights are bound, to give to them from whom they receive? I have never heard that the knights of Logres who would be of good worship act otherwise.”

The mail-clad man bowed his head. “It is as you say, Father. And I pray you will bless me, that I may the more fully walk with the Lord in doing so.”

“Of course, Sir Knight!” Then the priest made the knight to follow him into the chapel, and he made him to kneel. And when he had knelt and stood his sword before him, placing his hands upon it and bowing his head, the priest did pray mightily, calling for the Lord Jesus to watch over his steps and guide his hand, that he could in due time repay that he owed and would need no rest from it. And all this the green-clad man heard, and he smiled in his heart, for he knew that the priest could not but speak truly–and more than he could know.

When the priest had finished and the mail-clad man had stood again, the green-clad man suggested that they eat. The priest agreed to this, and he hosted them in his own small parsonage, where there was much of ale and much of good brown bread, and there was butter and honey to spread upon it. And when the priest had given thanks and the mail-clad man, and they had supped, then the priest asked the other two whither they were bound. “For I have seen no knights save you return, and I cannot help but think that there are not so many roads back to the throne as that, that the knights may have gone another way than that from which they came.”

The mail-clad man began to answer, but the green-clad one stopped him, saying “Neither he nor I saw how all departed, but it is the case that we saw many leave the fields of battle, and they left by the dolorous way. They may well sit in feasts and glory, but they do not in the halls that they left before coming here.”

The priest bowed his head. “Then I shall pray for their souls, and my congregation shall do the same, and by our prayers perhaps we will ease their times in purgation and speed their entry into the greatest halls where the greatest king sits.”

The mail-clad man said “God send it so,” and the priest nodded thereto. And the next morning, after they had slept and the mail-clad man had heard Mass–“Where is your green-clad companion?” “I know not, God help me.”–the man in green and the man in mail bade the priest and the village and its people farewell. “For methinks matters will be much changed in days to come, with so many now gone away that once were here. Look that you be ready for the changes that will come,” said the green-clad man.

“Can you not stay here?” asked the priest. “For if things will be as you say they will, then a fighting man of faith would find much to do, and a healer would have a home and happy.”

The mail-clad man looked to the green-clad, and the latter said “That may not be, for we must be elsewhere. Or I must away, and the knight must with me–as you yourself said and blessed him that he might do the more fully and strongly.”

“So I did, so I did. And since you will not stay, then to you I say, God be with you and make both straight and easy the paths before you, now and in all the days of your lives!”

“Thank you, Father,” said the mail-clad man, and he followed the green-clad man away from the village, walking towards the rising sun.

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And ſoo they mette as theyr poyntemente was & ſo they were agreyd & accorded thorouly / And wyn was ſette and they dranke / Ryght ſoo came an adder oute of a lytel hethe buſſhe & hyt ſtonge a knyght on the foot / & when the knyght felte hym ſtongen he looked doun and ſawe the adder / & than he drewe his ſwerde to ſtrike the adder / & thought of none other harme / And whan the hooſt on bothe partyes ſaw that ſwerde drawen than they blewe beamous trumpetes and hornes and ſhouted grymly And ſo bothe hooſtes dreſſed hem to gyders…

~Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur

𝔗he din rose of horns blowing and drums rolling, of horses neighing and pawing at the ground, of knights of Logres calling to their squires for spears and swords and the last pieces of armor that they had hoped not to have to don. Two crowned kings raced back to their own armies–formerly one army–seeking the protection of the men that they led, and the eyes that were not on the last tasks of arming and drawing up for battle were riveted upon them. They did not see a single man, sword still in hand and mail upon his shoulders, staggering back from the line that was rapidly forming. He had been on its edge, close enough for the glint of his steel to be seen when he had swung it both too early and too late, and now he limped away. With each step, his leg dragged more and more. His knee began to buckle under him, accepting less and less of the weight of bone and sinew and muscle and the steel they held with each jerking motion.

At last, his leg would bear him no longer. His vision began to blur, and the man lowered himself down to rest against a tree-trunk, looking on as two ribbons of steel and bright cloth merged and became one, dying itself red and cutting itself away. The screams of horses meeting the points of spears and the edges of swords, the bellows of a few men trying in vain to make sense of the melee, calls of horns beginning and ending abruptly reached him–as did another sound, that of the rustling of leaves as a weight settled down beside him.

“It is a rather splendid thing, isn’t it?”

The mail-clad man turned his head, doing so with some difficulty. Beside him sat a slender man, clad in a dark green that bordered on black, a neatly trimmed dark beard and moustache hiding his cheeks and chin and upper lip from view; his head was bald and pale, and his eyebrows were dark and bushy. They loomed over dark eyes that looked out over the shrinking armies and growing piles of bodies on the field nearby, smiling at the increasing murder that formed above them as crows came, called by the clangor of conflict.

The mail-clad man rasped out “Who are you?”

The green-clad man glanced at the other, moving his eyes but not his head. “Strange that you should ask me that. Should not a knight announce himself when he comes into another’s lands and home?”

The mail-clad man nodded weakly. “You have the right of it, truly.” He coughed.

The other man smiled. “But I do know who you are. You are the man who broke the truce. You have made what would have been a tense but stable truce between two into,” and he waved his hand at the battle that still raged on. “You have brought about the end of Logres. And I thank you for it.”

The mail-clad man coughed again, hacking out the word “Why?”

“Why did you do it? For that, you will have to seek elsewhere.”

“No.” More coughing. “Why–why do–you thank–me?”

“Know you not why? Ah, but the adder! The venom is having its effect on you, certainly.” The green-clad man leaned in. “And I have a cure for it, if you would have it. I know your kind do not abstain from such things. Do not many of your fellowship–former members, most of them, now–wear a green girdle? Do they not for that the king’s nephew or brother–it is hard to know which, anymore–took up once?”

The mail-clad man nodded again. “It is…as you say.”

A smile from the green-clad man. “Will you then accept my aid? Will you do as was done before, and act to save yourself from what has befallen you?”

Another nod.

“I am pleased to hear it.” The green-clad man held a small clay bottle. “Drink of this, then. It will end the work of the poison in you.”

Hands shaking, the mail-clad man reached for the botte. The green-clad man took the stopper from it, and the mail-clad man drank. After a halting swallow, he took another, more strongly. A third, and he set the bottle down. “It tastes as water.”

The green-clad man shrugged. “It is not wine, and it is not meant to be. Now, come away. Your battle is not there. Already, with one stroke of the sword, you have slain as few before you have. It is a worthy deed for a knight, is it not? To fell all the fellowship of Logres–save only a handful, perhaps. Who can claim the same? And how many have tried to do so?” He stood and offered his hand to the mail-clad man.

The latter took it, and he came to his feet with seemingly little effort. “That was a powerful medicine, friend. You must be a mighty physician.”

Another shrug. “I have my ways. And you and I must be on them.”

The mail-clad man shook his head. “I cannot.” He gestured at the fight that still continued, although with far fewer than had begun it. “I must go to them. I am sworn to my king.”

“Nothing you can do will save him.”

“Then I will avenge him.”

“It will do him no good. Nor you. But you have accepted my aid in the hour of your utmost need. Will you demur now? Will you throw away that which you have bought from me? Think you that you can do so? No. You will come with me, and we will leave these to do as they must.”

“Again, I say that I will not away hence.”

“Yet, again, I say that you will.” The green-clad man stared at the mail-clad, and the latter met his gaze. The dark eyes seemed to widen, dilating past where the irises should be, past even the lids, opening into abyssal, fuliginous pools. “You will come with me.”

The mail-clad man found that he could not resist. As the green-clad man walked away, the mail-clad man followed. Behind them, the battle raged on, dwindling in size as fewer still stood to fight.

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