Parsifal's Page (12 page)

Forty minutes later, their horses long since stabled and fed, the mistress of the castle came sweeping into the yard, dressed in a dazzling red gown. "Sir knight!" the lady trilled. "I am so sorry that you had to wait! My foolish women only just now told me that a knight had come to call, and I threw down my stitchery and came at once!" Piers rolled his eyes, but discreetly. As if anyone ever wore such a gown for a quiet day at home doing needlework.

"It is of no matter," Gawain said, bowing graciously. "To see such beauty would well reward even a much longer wait."

The lady blushed and tittered and said that she could see she'd have to watch herself with such a wickedly gallant knight and some other stuff like that. She introduced herself as the Lady Antigone, and then paused, clearly waiting for Gawain to give
his name in return, but Gawain only bowed again, said that he was enchanted, and asked if her name was Greek.

"Why, yes, it is! Fancy you recognizing that! I don't think I've ever known anyone else who knew that. I don't know what it means, of course, but my father named all his children after people in old books."

"Ah, a learned man, then?"

Lady Antigone hesitated, then nodded. "Well, yes, I suppose you would say that, but really you mustn't think ill of him. Why, he was so handsome and brave that no one would ever have suspected that he was bookish!"

Gawain continued smiling, but his smile seemed forced now. "You mistake me, my lady. I meant no disrespect. I understand that even King Arthur reads Greek."

Lady Antigone's lips parted in surprise. "You don't say! Well, it only goes to show that even the great ones have their peculiarities."

"Quite so," replied Gawain, sighing softly.

"Well, you'll find better entertainment in this house, I can assure you! Why, we'll have a great banquet tonight! Matilde, Gwen, show this knight and his boy with the charming hat to the best bed chambers to dress for dinner!"

And so, a few minutes later, Piers and Gawain found themselves alone in a well-furnished but dusty
bedroom. "Whew!" Gawain said. "No wonder they have few visitors here. What a gabble-monger! I suppose it's too late to slip out the back way."

Piers took off his scarlet hat, frowning slightly. Gawain and Terence wore such plain, simple clothes on the trail that Piers had begun to feel self-conscious about his bright headwear. To have the hat complimented by the overdressed Lady Antigone had only increased his doubts. He helped Gawain remove his armor.

"I wonder what I should do with my sword," Gawain mused. "I never know, when I'm dining at a stranger's home, if I should wear it to dinner as a precaution or trust in the laws of hospitality."

Piers did not reply. Two weeks ago, with Parsifal, he was full of advice, most of it wrong. This time he would venture no opinion. At last Gawain threw the sword on the bed. "I suppose I'm in no danger from Lady Prattles."

But when they at last went to dine with Lady Antigone, Piers was not so sure. There was more than one kind of danger after all, and Antigone was surely setting her own sort of traps for Gawain. The "great banquet" that she had promised turned out to be a cozy dinner for two in a candlelit parlor. There were two long chaises at the table, one on each side, but when Gawain sat in one, Lady Antigone joined him, sitting almost in his lap. As soon as the meal had been
served, she dismissed her two ladies in waiting and suggested that Gawain could send his boy away, too.

"Oh, I couldn't," Gawain replied promptly. "Piers is so useful that I would be lost without him. In fact, step closer, Piers."

Piers came nearer, while Lady Antigone pursed her lips pettishly. "May I serve your plate, sir knight? You know, it really is silly of me to keep saying 'sir knight.' What is your name?"

"What is a name anyway, my lady?" Gawain replied, edging away from her. "It is only a monument to one's ancestors. I prefer to be known by my deeds than by my name."

"Oh!" Lady Antigone purred. "A man of action."

Gawain stood abruptly and walked around the room. "Very nice parlor this is," he said.

"It is very comfortable, Sir Man of Action, but you do not appear to be relaxed. Come sit beside me and I will give you a morsel of food."

"I'm not all that hungry after all," Gawain said. "How about ... how about a game of chess?" He strode across the room to an old chess table by the window. The chessmen were large and looked heavy.

"That was my father's game," Lady Antigone said. "He tried to teach me, but I never liked it."

"Of course not," Gawain said resignedly. He walked back to the table, sitting on the chaise across
from his hostess. "Would you ... would you like some chicken?"

"Oh, sir knight," Lady Antigone said, lifting her chin to show off a very white throat, "I can't tell you how long I have waited for such a moment as this!"

"I can see why," Gawain said, taking a bite. "This chicken's excellent. Really, I must congratulate your cook. How does he get it so tender?"

"Oh, hang the chicken!"

"Is that how it's done?" Gawain asked. "I must tell my own cook to try that."

"I'm not talking about the chicken!" Lady Antigone exclaimed. "I'm talking about you and I!"

"You and
me,
" Gawain said. "Not you and
I
. Use the accusative case."

"I do not want to accuse you, O knight. I want to love you." She started around the table.

"Ah, then you'll want the optative, I think," Gawain replied, starting around the table the other way. "But I was never good at that one."

"Sir knight!" she said dramatically. "I love you! Kiss me!"

Gawain never had to reply, for at that moment a fully armed knight burst into the room waving a sword. "Has it come to this?" the knight bellowed. "Was it not enough that you killed my father, but now you must seduce my sister!"

"Virgil!" Lady Antigone shrieked. "What are you doing?"

"I have come for to slay this knight, for he is the man who slew my noble father Sir Kingrisin!"

"Daddy died of the ague!" Lady Antigone said.

"Nay, but this man is the murderer! Stand and fight!"

Gawain had moved to keep the table between him and the knight and now he spoke. "As you see, my friend, I am unarmed."

"So too was my father when he died!" the knight exclaimed.

"He's right, there," admitted Lady Antigone, nodding as if her brother had made a good point. "Daddy died in bed, you see."

"I am sorry that your father died," Gawain said steadily. "But I did not kill him. Nor have I seduced your sister."

Lady Antigone stepped in front of her brother and said, "There, see? Now be good and leave us alone."

"That shall I not, thou strumpet!" the knight shouted. He tried to push his sister out of his way, but she clung to his armored arm.

"Please, Virgil! I hate this place! I hate living here all alone with no visitors! Please don't ruin everything!" The knight, Sir Virgil, tried to shake his sister off, but she only clung more tightly to his arm, and for the next several moments the night was filled with
the shouting of the brother and shrieking of the sister. Gawain kept the table between himself and the fray.

Piers, ignored by the others, had slipped into the shadows by the window and now began to look desperately about for some weapon he could give Gawain. There was nothing. Then his eyes fell on the chessboard beside him, and he lifted one of the rooks. It was even heavier than he'd expected. Solid lead, he decided, weighing it in his hand. He took up the heaviest one he could find. The white king.

"This murderer has bewitched you, woman!" shouted the knight, in a frenzy. "And for that he must die!"

He swung his sword down on the table, which split into two halves, sending chicken fragments flying. The knight stepped over the rubble toward Gawain, and Piers threw the white king with all his might. It was a good shot, right at eye level, and might have even dented the knight's helm had it not bounced instead off of the Lady Antigone's forehead. She stopped screaming, made a sound sort of like "Gloop," and sat down heavily on the floor amid the splinters and bits of chicken.

"Sorry," Piers said. Lady Antigone closed her eyes and lay down peacefully.

"King to Queen Two," Gawain said.

The knight, who had stopped his advance momentarily, looked up from his sister's prone form and raised
his sword again. Piers began grabbing more men from the table and throwing them as fast as he could. Most missed, but a black bishop hit the knight full in the visor, and several pawns bounced off his armor. Gawain leaped backwards toward Piers and swept up the whole chess table in his hand, holding it like a shield. "Stay behind me," he hissed to Piers.

The knight charged, and Gawain parried the flashing sword with the table. A deep chip flew from the edge, but the table held. Again the knight attacked, and again Gawain warded off the blow, leaving the chessboard nicked a second time. "Piers," Gawain hissed. "See if there's a door behind that arras."

Piers nodded and ducked across the room. Behind him he heard the sound of another sword blow on the table, but he did not look back. He tore at the long, hanging drapes, which ripped entirely from their hangings and collapsed in a dust cloud at Piers's feet. There was no door behind it. Piers whirled about, still holding one end of the arras in his hand and saw Gawain deflect another sword stroke with his chess table shield.

"Get away while you can, Piers!" Gawain shouted, gesturing to the door they had come in, but Piers only looked about for something else to throw at the knight. Then Sir Virgil swung a mighty blow down onto the table shield and split it into two. Without hesitating, Gawain shifted his grip to the largest half and swung
it like a club into his foe. Sir Virgil took a quick step backwards, and Piers threw the arras over his head. Gawain, seeing Sir Virgil blinded by the drape, threw himself against the knight and knocked him sprawling on the floor.

Then the door burst open, and Waleis the Reeve entered, brandishing his own sword. "What's going on, Virgil?"

"This ... this knight killed father," the knight said hoarsely, through the folds of the arras.

"No, he didn't," Waleis snapped. The reeve stooped over his master and whipped the drape from his face. "Put that sword down at once! I promised this knight that he'd be safe here."

"I have to avenge father," the knight said brokenly, sitting up.

Waleis spoke in a milder tone, but still firmly. "Your father just died, Virgil. It's not this knight's fault, not your fault, not anybody's fault. Leave this knight alone."

Sir Virgil lowered his sword, then bowed his head and began to cry. Waleis jerked his head toward the door and said to Gawain, "I'll stay with him now. There's not much of him left, but we were boys together, and he's still my master."

Gawain nodded. He set down the split table and led Piers out the door and back down the hall to their bedchamber. Neither spoke until they had closed the
door behind them, and then Gawain said softly, "Poor Sir Virgil." He looked briefly at Piers. "You did well in there, Piers. Very well indeed. Pawn takes knight."

Piers carried those words with him to sleep.

The next morning they took their leave of the gruff Waleis and the very glum Lady Antigone, who was sporting a terrific goose-egg on her brow, and rode into the forest, where Terence was waiting for them. "I hope you've had a pleasant evening, Terence," Gawain said acidly.

"Why, yes, thank you," said Terence. "And you?"

"Splendid," Gawain muttered. "Very restful."

Terence glanced knowingly at his friend. "Whatever happened, you don't seem any the worse for wear."

Gawain snorted and favored Terence with a pithy account of the previous evening's goings-on. When the tale was done, Terence nodded approvingly at Piers. Gawain concluded his story, saying, "I suppose Sir Virgil is too fragile for the grief of this world."

"Grief is not confined to this world," Terence said.

"But enough of our story," Gawain said. "What have you been doing? Did you ever find where that uncanny feeling was coming from?"

Terence shook his head, but his face was calm. "No. We're being followed by someone from the Seelie Court, but whoever it is wasn't looking for me. I met no one, and by the time I gave up, it was late so
I simply made camp in the woods." When Terence mentioned the Seelie Court, Piers jumped and glanced quickly around them at the forest. All was still and calm. Terence continued. "Now I wonder why it is," he said musingly, "that our young companion did not ask me to explain what the Seelie Court is. Do you suppose he already knows, milord?"

Gawain grinned, but said nothing. Piers looked down, feeling almost guilty for not telling his friends about his encounter with the little sprite Ariel, but it was too private. After a moment, Terence looked at Gawain and said, "What about the quest, milord? Did you get any word of this elusive red knight?"

"No."

For the rest of the morning, they rode through forests so thick that they had to travel single-file. Piers purposely took the last position so that he could look about him unobtrusively for some sign of an Other Worldly messenger. He saw nothing, but the same sense of anticipation that he had felt the day before began to grow. At noon they stopped for a short rest and a meal, and while Piers built a fire Gawain and Terence disappeared into the woods.

"Piers!"

Piers jumped and whirled around. There, in the underbrush, was Ariel. Piers smiled joyously and hurried into the woods beside her. She greeted him with a smile and held out her hand. Piers did not hesitate, but
grasped it, noting with interest that her hand was as warm and solid as his own. He'd never thought about how a faery might feel. "Hello, Ariel," Piers said.

Ariel blushed. "I wasn't sure you'd remember my name," she said.

Piers could only stare at her—as if he'd ever gone an hour without wondering about her! For some reason that he could not quite put into words, he knew that he would never like or trust anyone else the way he did this little faery. It wasn't love—at least, it was nothing like the silly mixture of attraction and competition that he had seen in Malchance and Obie, and nothing at all like the repugnant hot and cold emotion that existed between Duke Orilus and Lady Jeschute—it was just that he liked her. "Of course I remember your name. I remember everything that you told me. Although," he added, "that's not saying much."