The Killing Sword

brought the sword I wear.’

  ‘I am that one indeed,’ she said. She laid him down and covered him with the coverlets. Then she took up his mantle and wrapped it about her nakedness and passed out of that chamber. Through the dark cold halls of the castle she went, down the stone steps into the feasting hall. She came and sat there in her lord’s throne with her knees clasped close to her breasts. She stared into the dying embers of the fire.

  Her hounds came and sniffed at the strange man’s smell that was upon her fingers, and licked at them.

  Late in the night a light gleamed up the steps and the lord descended. He sat by her in the lady’s chair, holding up the candle and regarding her.

  ‘Is it done yet,’ he asked, ‘are you done with him?’

  ‘Yes, dear husband,’ she answered. She gave him her hand and he kissed it as though it did not reek of Balyn’s sweat.

  ‘And is that the Sword he bears, that the Lady of Avalon worked for you?’

  ‘It is the sword of my paramour the King of the Dales and Lakes. And it shall prove Balyn’s doom, alas.’ She reached down and stroked her lord’s white beard. ‘Husband,’ she said, ‘do not grieve that I have betrayed you so many times. For this was part of our compact as you know.’

  ‘Every knight who has wandered to this castle has halsed you in his bed, and gone to joust upon the Island in the lake. But is this man the last of them?’

  She drew him up beside her on the great throne and nestled in his arm. ‘I deem indeed he will prove the last of them, for he wears the cursed Sword with the pommel Lady Lille fashioned for this end. And Balyn is the greatest knight of the courts of fourteen kings, as I proved before all the knights of King Ryons and King Arthur both. And if he cannot slay the Red Knight, that is my worst enemy that is on earth and abides now within the Tower of Adventure upon the Isle below, then no knight ever will or can. But with the cursed Sword how can so worshipful a man fail?’

  ‘It is a hard doom to put upon a man, that you have put upon the Knight of Two Swords,’ said the lord of the castle. ‘And I feel pity for him, even though he lay with you this night and put that sweet sweat upon your lip.’

  For this she kissed him and told him, ‘But with you I know the nearest thing to peace my heart has known since my one true love was slain by the Red Knight. In all these years torment has ridden me as if I were its palfrey and my one aim and end has been that knight’s destruction. Many foul deeds have I performed in seeking it, and few gave me any taste but bitter. But your love, my dear husband, has not been bitter.’

  ‘So you say,’ the lord answered her.

  Soon he was sleeping as aged men do, with fits and starts. She held him and stroked the scant hairs upon his head and stared into the fire. And when first light stole in through the upper windows she beckoned to one of her women who came, and together they bundled the old man into his bed.

  The damsel of the sword then took her child and gave it to suck. And her milk for the babe was soft and warm and sweet. Then she gave the child to the nurse and let herself be dressed in fine raiment. And she took down a shield that hung on the wall of her chamber and took it to one of her knights.

  And that knight bore the shield down into the yard where Balyn made ready to fight the Red Knight on the Island in the lake.

  ‘Sir,’ said the knight, ‘it seems your shield is not good. I will lend you a better, take it I pray you.’

  And so Balyn took the shield that was unknown and left his own and so rode unto the island and put him and his horse in a great boat.

  And when he rode on the water he saw something that flashed and swam alongside like a pale fish. But when he took his horse off that boat onto the shore, he found a damsel rising out of the water. She was all in white.

  She kissed him and said, ‘I have no great cause to love you, Balyn the Wild. For you smote off the head of my sovereign lady, the Lady of the Lake. And yet my heart grieves at the cruel fate that closes now fast about you. Why did you give up your shield? For by your shield you should have been known. It is a great pity of you as ever was of knight, for of your prowess and hardiness you have no fellow alive.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Balyn, ‘that ever I came within this country. But I may not turn now again for shame. And what adventure shall fall to me, be it life be it death, I will take the adventure that shall come to me.’

  And the white lady bade him farewell, and she went back down into the water and wriggled under the waves like an eel. But Balyn looked to his armor, and saw that he was well armed and ready. He knelt on one knee and put his hand to the ground, and took up a fistful of the clay of the island’s body.

  ‘O you Devils of the dark,’ he said, ‘you have given and now you take. But let this adventure be the end of my pains and punishments, I pray you, for I doubt I can endure them more.’

  And he would have prayed, but there were no words for prayer in his heart. By this he was gladdened, for it meant that day would be the last. And he looked to die in combat as beseemed a goodly knight. But he did not know what pains awaited him.

  So he blessed him and mounted upon his horse and rode into the island.

  XVII. The Last Trial

  THEN BEFORE HIM Balyn saw come riding out of a stone tower a knight and his horse all of red trappings, and himself in the same color. And the red knight seemed twice Balyn’s height, and his horse twice the stature of Balyn’s horse. For that was the weird of that island.

  The Red Knight hailed him and Balyn answered.

  ‘Will you fight,’ asked the Red Knight. ‘For I know of no knight that comes to this Island but to fight.’

  And Balyn answered him courteously and said, ‘Sir, it seems that you have done a great wrong to the lady that bides in the castle. So I am here as the lady of the castle has bidden me, as her defender and avenger.’

  ‘Your voice is hoarse, and I may hardly tell what you say,’ said the Red Knight. ‘But I know that lady is the foulest and lewdest lady in the land, and if you are her slave then I will gladly fight you to the death.’

  And so they braced their spears and came marvelously fast together, and they smote each other’s shields. But their onset was so great that it bore down horse and man, and both lay senseless on the ground.

  Balyn was weary of travail, and he held still to let the other come at him and slay him if he could.

  So the Red Knight was the first that rose on foot. He drew his sword and went toward Balyn. And Balyn stood to face him, and the Red Knight struck at him.

  Balyn put up his shield, but the stroke crashed through his shield and helm.

  Then Balyn’s wrath woke in him, and he struck back with that unhappy Sword and well nigh had felled the Red Knight.

  And so they fought there together till their breath failed.

  Then Balyn looked up to the castle and saw the stand full of ladies. The lord of the castle walked not up there, but the lady and her gentlewomen leaned over the stones and gaped at the battle. And Balyn was minded of his old vow to her, when he had won the enchanted Sword from her, that he would do all he could to right her wrong.

  So he went to battle again with the Red Knight, and they wounded each other dolefully.

  And then they breathed at times, and went back into battle, and breathed again, so that all the ground where they fought was blood red.

  And in the end they had smitten each other seven great wounds so that the least of them might have been the death of the mightiest giant in this world.

  ‘Yield you,’ said the Red Knight.

  ‘While the lady of the castle watches,’ answered Balyn, ‘I will not yield. And yet I hope for no life after this.’ But more he couldn’t say, for his throat was raw from the bitter milk of the breasts of the Naked Damsel, that was the lady of the castle.

  So they went to battle again and fought so marvelously that the gentlewomen on the castle walls withdrew from sight of all that blood shedding. But the lady of the castle abided, and watched each wound and cut. By then
their hauberks were burst and broken open, so that they were naked on every side.

  At last the Red Knight withdrew him a little and laid him down.

  Then said Balyn the Wild, ‘What knight are you? For before now I never found a knight that matched me.’

  ‘My name is,’ said the Red Knight, ‘Balan, brother unto the good knight Balyn.’

  ‘Alas,’ said Balyn, ‘that ever I should see this day. I am that same knight.’ He knew at last his brother’s voice and stance in battle. And therewith he fell back in a swoon.

  Then Balan went on all four feet and hands and put off the helm of his brother. Even so he might not know him by the visage, it was so hewn and bloody.

  ‘Are you my brother indeed?’ he asked.

  But Balyn opened his eyes and said, ‘O Balan my brother, you have slain me and I you, wherefore all the wide world shall speak of us both.’

  ‘Alas,’ said Balan, ‘that ever I saw this day that through mishap I might not know you. For I saw well your two swords, but because you had another shield I deemed you had been another knight.’

  ‘Alas,’ said Balyn, ‘all that was put upon me by an unhappy knight in the castle. For he caused me to leave my own shield to both our destructions. And if I might live I would destroy that castle for ill customs.’

  ‘That were well done,’ said Balan. ‘For I had never grace to depart from them since that I came hither. For here it happened that I slew the knight that kept this Island, and since then I might never