“My God! You mean to say he’s had this to think of every day for a year?”
“I just want you to know what this man — Gawain is his name — has done. He’s had to come looking for me, spending a couple of rough months in the process, and — How would you have acted, for instance?”
“Shucks, that’s easy. If I saw by the way people looked at me that they thought I was yellow if I didn’t go, I’d have just hid out somewhere, then come back grumbling because I couldn’t locate you.”
“I might do the same thing,” he admitted. “I wish I knew, but I hope I don’t have to find out. Yet I happen to know that Gawain has reached the vicinity and has actually asked to be guided here.”
“Maybe he’ll get cold feet at the last minute,” I suggested.
“It eases our complacence to see our cowardice shared, doesn’t it?” He was silent a moment, then he shrugged. “However, my information is that he hasn’t so much as sought sympathy by telling why he’s on his way here.”
He spoke with such admiration that I got up the courage to expostulate with him. “If you think so much of the guy, why are you going to kill him?”
“I’m not; but having been carried this far, the test can’t be left inconclusive.” He took the axe from me and examined it. “You nicked the edge, biting through that tough neck of mine. Come on and help me get it sharpened.”
Still unwilling to refuse the commands of anyone so formidable, I followed him. Vaulting with his axe, he made the brook in one jump, but I was glad to find stepping stones. On the other side he climbed up to the great rocks I had noticed the night before. Several were so placed as to form a cave, which opened out comfortably once we had passed the narrow entrance. It was evidently used as a tool shed for the chapel, and, among other utensils, it sheltered an outsize grindstone.
“See if there’s any water in that old tankard,” my companion said, as he plumped himself in the saddle.
“You mean this can? It’s nearly full.”
“All right, wet the stone down — oh, more than that; never mind if your hands are cold — then start turning easily. No, don’t put the water down. Keep dribbling it as you turn.”
At first he didn’t exert much pressure; but when he did, that axe yelled like a saw cutting steel. The rocks made a fine sounding board, and whenever he lifted the weapon I could hear the echoes bouncing around the crags framing that sorry hollow. The racket was so loud that I heard nothing else, but the green bird held his axe up with one hand and with the other motioned me to stop grinding.
“If anybody here wants anything of me,” a voice was loudly announcing, “he must speak up now or never.”
“Wait a minute,” my companion roared, “and you’ll get what’s coming to you right enough! Now faster,” he whispered to me; and the din became louder and more sinister than ever.
A man of weapons could not have failed to interpret the sounds. I recognized that I was accessory to an assault on the nerves of an already overburdened man. At the same time I had begun to share the green fellow’s fascination with the problem of how much Gawain could take. While the latter couldn’t see us, above him and in the dimness of the cave, the upper half of his body was visible to me whenever I looked up from wetting the wheel I was cranking.
Gawain was in full armor like Calidore. After a while, though, he swung his shield back out of the way behind him, took off his helmet, and tossed it on the ground. The way he did it convinced me. With a similar gesture I threw the can of water from me, and stopped grinding.
“You’ve got to do more than make noise if you’re going to buffalo him,” I said, as I straightened.
The green man nodded, yet he hesitated. “Did you ever have anything so good you were afraid to use it for fear it wasn’t as wonderful as you thought it was?”
“No,” I said, “but if you’re worried about that fellow, five gets you ten he won’t back down.”
He patted me on the shoulder. “I hope you’re right, and if you are, we’ll all go over to my place and enjoy ourselves.”
While I was trying to think of a noncommittal response, he left me. Watching, I saw Gawain bend over, bracing his knees, in the literal position of sticking his neck out to have it chopped. The green fellow was talking a blue streak, but the noise of the brook prevented me from hearing him. Besides, I had just remembered something.
That cave, as I had noticed when we entered it, had a back entrance, and now I jumped to see what was beyond it. A path came down from the slope above the cave, and at that point switched off to parallel the brook on its downhill run. It was all I needed to see. I didn’t go slow either. That big, green lug had done me no harm, so far, but I preferred company I could deal with on more even terms.
I had been chilled through when I started, but exercise was not the only thing which warmed me up. A couple of hours of steady descent took me into a milder zone and out from under the clouds. Frost had turned the leaves, but the temperature was that of Indian summer. Forgetting my problems, I loafed along, soaking up the soft warmth.
Had I been hurrying, I would have made too much noise treading the dry leaves carpeting the path, to hear small sounds. As it was, this one just reached me. I took a few more steps before I remembered what it reminded me of, then I halted. Not seeing anything, I was about to go on when it was repeated. Leaving the trail, I commenced peering behind trees.
She was crumpled behind a rotting deadfall, so wrapped in her grief that she didn’t hear me. I watched her while she shivered with a few more squeaky little sobs. I couldn’t stand it if I stayed, and I couldn’t quite make myself leave. I coughed.
She lay very still. Next she looked up, then she jumped up. What she saw as we assayed one another I don’t know, but my findings can be itemized. For a second I could have sworn she was Rosalette, before I realized her features were quite different. At the same time the impression of a resemblance remained. The other thing I saw was the source of her despond. She had been pregnant for some months.
If any man could help her, it was the one who had helped to get her in that condition. Wishing I had minded my own business, I was fumbling for an exit line when she spoke.
“What do you want?” she demanded, backing away.
“I was just passing by and happened to hear you,” I mumbled, “and I thought maybe you were in trouble.”
As soon as I had said that, I wished I had kept still. She turned as red as the frost-bit maple leaves above her.
“Well, you can just go away, because I’m not in trouble at all.”
“That’s swell,” I said, trying to look as if I believed her.
“I’m not!” she insisted. “Married women have babies, too, you know; and I’m married — that is, I would be. O-oh!”
She had started to cry again when she turned to run. I would have let her go, but she tripped over a root and fell. I was worried when I picked her up, but no apparent damage was done.
“Thank you, sir,” she said. “I always forget I can’t run any more. Let me sit down here. Just the wind knocked out of me, I reckon.”
I seated myself on the fallen tree beside her. “Hadn’t you better go home?”
Still breathing heavily, she shook her head. “I wouldn’t have the courage to come back,” she said at length.
She still hadn’t given me a chance to leave her, but I hadn’t given up trying. “It’ll begin to get cold again in a few hours, and it’ll be bad for you here.”
“I don’t care whether I die,” she declared, “if I don’t have Tamlane.”
It struck me she was a little out of her head. “If you go on home,” I coaxed, “your boy friend will know where to look for you, but you won’t find him traipsing around these woods.”
“But he was in these woods. I saw him this morning, and — ” Reading my glance of pity, she straightened. “It’s not like you think,” she cried. “He would so marry me, but he’s under a spell.”
“I thought I’d heard them all lo
ng ago,” I remarked, but she didn’t notice the dryness in my voice.
Taking a handkerchief from the bosom of her blouse, she wiped her eyes and tried to smile. “Of course, I’ll get him back tonight and everything will be wonderful.”
“Then what’s the fuss?”
Her chin began to tremble again. “It’s just that I’m so scared to go there alone. They’re all enchanters and wizards; and anything could happen, though Tamlane says all I’ve got to do is to hold on to him.”
“Enchanters, eh?” I saw that I had been doing Tamlane wrong. “And just what have you got to do?”
“Intercept them at Miles Cross at midnight tonight,” she whispered, looking as if she was already facing the ordeal. “My baby’s got to have his father.”
If she hadn’t reminded me so forcibly of Rosalette, I wouldn’t have said anything. But she did, and I don’t believe she was any older. It seemed a hard thing that such a girl should have to go scrabbling among wizards for a husband, with nobody to back up her play. Before I knew it I had put my foot in it up to the hip.
“Look, kid;” I told her, “if you can’t find anybody else to go with you tonight, you can count on me.”
20
Meetings at Miles Cross
JANET, as she told me her name was, was so grateful for my offer that I was moved to take further care of her. I therefore sent her home to get as much rest as possible. When she was gone, I found a likely spot to bivouac and stretched out myself in preparation for being up a good part of the night.
I felt very virtuous, and, now that I had time to think of it, there was a practical side to the business. That girl and her fiance didn’t know it yet, but one of them was going to have a guest before morning rolled around. Then when I was rested they could orient me. Or they might even know just how to get to the Oracle.
Satisfaction with my plans did not long survive my waking, however. The sinking sun was allowing the Warlocks to assert a character that hadn’t been obvious at mid-day. When I went to gather wood I couldn’t shake off the impression that some of the trees were stalking me. Walking about was like being “it” in the old child’s game. When I stopped and turned, those trees froze and faced me down. When I moseyed on, they came cat-footing after. By marking a few, I proved to myself that it wasn’t so — and it didn’t help a bit. Once the imagination is convinced, reason might as well take the afternoon off and go to the ball game.
That was but one facet of an atmosphere which was swiftly giving me the willies. If the trees didn’t actually move, it is certain that they looked unpleasant. The knots in them were like so many malevolent eyes. I could feel them boring into my back as I huddled by my fire, grumpily eating. Then I couldn’t decide which was worse: when I heard strange noises, or when there was a silence like something — unimaginable but never my friend — holding its breath. In addition there was the jaunt to Miles Cross to think about. I thought about it.
A hundred yards away in the restless dark was the trail. I could find it by following the little stream by which I was camped, but on general principles I had hidden my fire so that no one using the path could see it. To get down to cases: if I stayed put, Janet couldn’t find me and ask me to make good on my promise.
The fulfillment of that promise no longer enticed me. It entailed leaving my fire and following the trail a mile or so to the little clearing where Janet was to meet me. Thence she would guide me to Miles Cross. The good sized moon which was due made this practicable, but I could think of nothing that made it desirable.
My altruism had died of a chill long before it got full dark. If I had had any personal interest in the girl, I would have had some impelling motive. As things stood, I couldn’t see why I had been idiot enough to volunteer in the first place. Once before, in the instance of Rosalette, I had been moved to try to help a girl; but the case had differed. My motives had been largely generous, yet they had had just enough of an erotic flavor to make them taste good. If I had expected no return, either emotionally or sexually, the possibility had not been excluded. In the case of Janet there had been nothing to gain or that I wanted to gain. I had simply got up a head of steam and chugged off into the misty waters of idealism without a port in mind or a cargo to bring back.
I had a better cause for unhappiness. The mysterious quality of the woods boxed me in just outside the nook of light and comparative safety I had made for myself. What I had contracted to do was not only to leave my haven, but to challenge beings who were of a piece with the power daunting me.
So far, then, I had no reason for going to meet the girl, and an excellent reason for not doing so. As a supporting factor there was the knowledge that I could shrug off my poltroonery in private. Janet would know I had welched, but as I wouldn’t see her again, she couldn’t make me uncomfortable. The uncaught louse is only half a louse; and besides, I could justify myself when you came down to it. I had made a foolish decision on impulse and had changed my mind upon mature reflection. If I felt a little bad about it, that was my just punishment for making a fool of myself by talking out of turn.
During the next few hours I laboriously worked the problem over a dozen times, always with the same results. Each time the answer would leave me satisfied — but only for a few minutes. Then I would begin again. Finally the rising of the moon interrupted me in mid-monotony. By and by it wrought all the changes in the night of which it is capable, but that wasn’t why I watched it. When it soared past a certain point it would be too late for me to do other than to stay where I was.
Well before it gained that crucial mark I sighed wearily, cursed Gawain, and rose. What had come between me and the comforts of rationalization was the recollection of that man taking off his helmet and throwing it on the ground at the conclusion of a long search for peril. If he could do that where death had been promised him, I could take a chance when I hadn’t been so much as grazed by the direct threat of harm.
Yet if I was attempting to match Gawain in his determination to keep his word, it cannot be said that I even tried to match his boldness of bearing. The moon made it easy to follow the trail, but it did not cheer me. The light had the quality of fog in that I couldn’t be sure that anything suspended in it was fixed or moving. And places which the light avoided were as black and living as the entrances to giant rat holes.
Only one thing actually materialized from this matrix of possibilities. Picking my way over a boggy spot, I had my eyes on the ground. When I raised them a man was about to cross the trail a few yards in front of me. Hearing me, he stopped. Seeing him, I did likewise. Although I felt like retreating when he turned to approach me, I stood my ground. A second later I was staring back at him as he peered at me with the eye which didn’t have a patch on it. The shadow thrown by the brim of a slouch hat made his other features indeterminate. A long cape blurred the lines of his figure, too, but he was a tall fellow with good shoulders. Upon each of them sat a huge crow.
“You’re not the man I want,” he announced at length, “but I wish you’d do me a favor.”
“Glad to,” I said, meaning I was glad our relations were amicable.
“My own hair wouldn’t show up so well,” he proceeded, “but a strand from that silver lock of yours would be just the thing.” Without further ceremony he yanked one of my white hairs out by the root. Next he slipped a long sword out from among the folds of his cloak. “I have been working on Tyrfing,” he said, “and I think he’s ready; but I want to be sure.”
It was impossible for me to discern the weapon’s twin edges, but he gave the impression of being able to when he ran that singleton eye up and down the blade. I looked at it, too, because I couldn’t help it. The steel sucked up the moonglow. When the fellow twisted it from side to side, it seemed as if he was examining a bar of cold light.
“Here’s for a trial,” the man muttered. Opening one hand at shoulder height, he let my strand of silver hair fall. Gravity was gentle with it, and, glowing like a tiny cylinder of neon, it sank unh
urriedly to where the sword waited at hip level. There it broke in two, and the crows gave a hoarse cheer.
“He is ready,” the man murmured. “Now to find the hand for him.” The sword went into the cape again. He himself stepped into the shadows and was gone.
I on my part could not go on for a second. All terrors have death for their last name, and in the person who had just left me I had recognized the embodiment of my fears.
The clearing, as it turned out, was not far ahead, and yet I had worked up a sweat when I got there. Waiting was harder than moving, although it gave me a chance to control my breathing before Janet arrived. Much as I wanted company, I was careful to inspect the company this part of Broceliande had to offer. She was within a few feet of me before I was sure enough to step out of hiding.
“Hi, there!” I said, so glad to see her that I sounded almost hearty.
She gave a shriek, then clutched my arm. She had been traveling faster than anyone in her condition should, and had trouble making it when she spoke.
“I think — I would have died — if you — hadn’t been here. But, of course — I was sure — you would be.”
“You were, were you?”
“Oh, yes. Anybody who would — deliberately camp out in the forest — wouldn’t be afraid — of what’s here at night.”
As it dawned on me that she thought I was taking this business in my stride, I couldn’t decide whether to be flattered or indignant. She would never know how much I had gone through on her account.
“Well,” I said, “I may not be afraid, but if any of those enchanters start chasing us, don’t make the mistake of getting in my way. Where do we go from here?”
It developed that just past the clearing, down the way she had come, there was an old road. It was so overgrown with bracken that you could see it no more than you could feel it with your feet, but by keeping your eyes a few yards ahead you could follow it. I broke trail, making it reasonably easy for her to come after me, but I couldn’t fend off the dew which soon soaked her dress as well as my breeches. Our progress was uphill, but zigzagging softened what would otherwise have been a sharp gradient. We must have walked nearly a mile to ascend a knoll a few hundred feet high.