The Buried Giant (33 page)

Beatrice started to speak, but Axl said over her quickly: “I’m sorry, child. We wish we could help you, but to climb higher into these hills is now beyond us. We’re elderly, and as you see, weary from days of hard travel. We’ve no choice but to hurry on our way before further misfortune takes us.”

“But, sir, it was God himself sent you to us! And it’s but a short stroll, and not even a steep path from here.”

“Dear child,” Axl said, “our hearts go out to you, and we’ll raise help at the next village. But we’re too weak to do what you ask, and surely others will pass this way soon, happy to take the goat for you. It’s beyond us old ones, but we’ll pray for your parents’ return and that God will keep you safe always.”

“Don’t go, elders! It wasn’t our fault the ogre was poisoned.”

Taking his wife’s arm, Axl led her away from the children. He did not look back until they had passed the goat’s pen, and then he saw the children still standing there, three abreast, watching silently, the towering cliffs behind them. Axl waved encouragingly, but something like shame—and perhaps the trace of some distant
memory, a memory of another such departure—made him increase his pace.

But before they had gone far—the marshy ground had started to descend and the valleys to open before them—Beatrice tugged his arm to slow them.

“I didn’t wish to talk across you before those children, husband,” she said. “But is it really beyond us to do as they ask?”

“They’re in no immediate peril, princess, and we have our own worries. How goes your pain now?”

“My pain’s no worse. Axl, look how those children stand as we left them, watching as we grow ever smaller in their sight. Can’t we at least pause beside this stone and talk further on it? Let’s not hasten away carelessly.”

“Don’t look back to them, princess, for you only taunt their hopes. We’ll not go back to their goat, but down into this valley, a fire and what food kind strangers may give us.”

“But think on what it is they ask, Axl.” Beatrice had now brought them to a halt. “Will a chance like this ever come our way again? Think on it! We stumble to this spot so near Querig’s lair. And these children offer a poisonous goat by which even the two of us, old and weak though we are, might bring down the she-dragon! Think on it, Axl! If Querig falls, the mist will fast begin to clear. Who’s to say those children aren’t right and God himself didn’t bring us this way?”

Axl remained silent for a moment, fighting the urge to look back towards the stone cottage. “There’s no telling that goat will bring any harm at all to Querig,” he said eventually. “A hapless ogre’s one thing. This she-dragon’s a creature to scatter an army. And can it be wise for two elderly fools like us to wander so near her lair?”

“We’re not to face her, Axl, only to tether the goat and flee. It may be days before Querig comes to the spot, and we’ll by then be
safe at our son’s village. Axl, don’t we want returned to us our memories of this long life lived together? Or will we become like strangers met one night in a shelter? Come, husband, say we’ll turn back and do as those children bid us.”

So here they were, climbing still higher, the winds growing stronger. For the moment, the twin rocks provided good shelter, but they could not stay like this for ever. Axl wondered yet again if he had been foolish to give in.

“Princess,” he said eventually. “Suppose we really do this thing. Suppose God allows us to succeed, and we bring down the she-dragon. I’d like you then to promise me something.”

She was sitting close beside him now, though her eyes were still on the distance and the line of tiny figures.

“What is it you ask, Axl?”

“It’s simply this, princess. Should Querig really die and the mist begin to clear. Should memories return, and among them of times I disappointed you. Or yet of dark deeds I may once have done to make you look at me and see no longer the man you do now. Promise me this at least. Promise, princess, you’ll not forget what you feel in your heart for me at this moment. For what good’s a memory’s returning from the mist if it’s only to push away another? Will you promise me, princess? Promise to keep what you feel for me this moment always in your heart, no matter what you see once the mist’s gone.”

“I’ll promise it, Axl, and no hardship to do so.”

“Words can’t tell how it comforts me to hear you say it, princess.”

“A queer mood you’re in, Axl. But who knows how much further it is till the giant’s cairn? Let’s not spend any more time sitting between these great stones. Those children were anxious when we left, and they’ll be awaiting our return.”

Gawain’s Second Reverie

This cursed wind. Is this a storm before us? Horace will mind neither wind nor rain, only that a stranger sits astride him now and not his old master. “Just a weary woman,” I tell him, “with greater need of the saddle than me. So carry her in good grace.” Yet why is she here at all? Does Master Axl not see how frail she grows? Has he lost his mind to bring her to these unforgiving heights? But she presses on as determined as he, and nothing I say will turn them back. So I stagger here on foot, a hand on Horace’s bridle, heaving this rusty coat. “Did we not always serve ladies with courtesy?” I murmur to Horace. “Would we ride on, leaving this good couple tugging at their goat?”

I saw them first as small figures far below and took them for those others. “See down there, Horace,” I said then. “Already they’ve found each other. Already they come, and as though that fellow took no wounds at all from Brennus.”

And Horace looked my way thoughtfully, as though to ask, “Then, Gawain, will this be the last time we climb this bleak slope together?” And I gave no reply but to stroke gently his neck, though I thought to myself, “That warrior’s young and a terrible fellow. Yet
I may have the beating of him, who’s to say? I saw something even as he brought down Brennus’s man. Another would not see it, yet I did. A small opening on the left for a canny foe.”

But what would Arthur have me do now? His shadow still falls across the land and engulfs me. Would he have me crouch like a beast awaiting its prey? Yet where to hide on these bare slopes? Will the wind alone conceal a man? Or should I perch on some precipice and hurl down a boulder at them? Hardly the way for a knight of Arthur. I would rather show myself openly, greet him, try once more a little diplomacy. “Turn back, sir. You endanger not just yourself and your innocent companion, but all the good folk of this country. Leave Querig to one who knows her ways. You see me even now on my way to slay her.” But such pleas were ignored before. Why would he hear me now he is come so close, and the bitten boy to guide him to her very door? Was I a fool to rescue that boy? Yet the abbot appals me so, and I know God will thank me for what I did.

“They come as surely as they have a chart,” I said to Horace. “So where shall we wait? Where shall we face them?”

The copse. I remembered it then. Strange how the trees grow so lush there, when the wind sweeps all around so bare. The copse will provide covering for a knight and his horse. I will not pounce like a bandit, yet why show myself a good hour before the encounter?

So I put a little spur on Horace, though it hardly makes an impression on him now, and we crossed the high edge of the land, neither rising nor falling, battered all the way by the wind. We were both thankful to reach those trees, even if they grow so strangely one wonders if Merlin himself cast a spell here. What a fellow was Master Merlin! I thought once he had placed a spell on Death himself, yet even Merlin has taken his path now. Is it heaven or hell he makes his home? Master Axl may believe Merlin a servant of the devil, yet his powers were often enough spent in ways to make God smile. And let it not be said he was without courage. Many times he showed himself
to the falling arrows and wild axes alongside us. These may well be Merlin’s woods, and made for this very purpose: that I may some day shelter here to await the one who would undo our great work of that day. Two of us five fell to the she-dragon, yet Master Merlin stood beside us, moving calmly within the sweep of Querig’s tail, for how else could his work be done?

The woods were hushed and peaceful when Horace and I reached them. Even a bird or two singing in the trees, and if the branches stirred wildly, down below was as a calm spring’s day where at last an old man’s thoughts may drift from one ear to the other without tossing in a tempest! It must be several years now since Horace and I were last in these woods. Weeds have grown monstrous here, a nettle rightly the spread of a small child’s palm stands large enough to wrap around a man twice over. I left Horace at a gentle spot to chew on what he could, and wandered a while beneath the sheltering leaves. Why should I not rest here, leaning on this good oak? And when in time they come to this place, as they surely will, he and I will face each other as fellow warriors.

I pushed through the giant nettles—is it for this I have worn this creaking metal? To defend my shins from these feathery stings?—until I reached the clearing and the pond, the grey sky above it peeping through. Around its rim, three great trees, yet each one cracked at the waist and fallen forward into the water. Surely they stood proudly when we were last here. Did lightning strike them? Or did they in weary old age long for the pond’s succour, always so near where they grew, yet beyond reach? They drink all they wish now, and mountain birds nest in their broken spines. Will it be at such a spot I meet the Saxon? If he defeats me I may have life left to crawl to the water. I would not tumble in, even if the ice would admit me, for it would be no pleasure to grow bloated beneath this armour, and what chance Horace, missing his master, will come tip-toeing through the gnarled roots and drag out my remains? Yet I’ve seen
comrades in battle yearn for water as they lie with their wounds, and watched yet others crawl to the edge of a river or lake, even though they double their agonies to do so. Is there some great secret known only to dying men? My old comrade, Master Buel, longed for water that day, as he lay on the red clay of that mountain. There’s water here left in my gourd, I told him, but no, he demands a lake or river. But we’re far from any such thing, I say. “Curse you, Gawain,” he cries. “My last wish, will you not grant it, and we comrades through many bold battles?” “But this she-dragon’s all but parted you in two,” I tell him. “If I must carry you to water, I’ll have to go under this summer sun, a separate part of you under each arm before we reach any such place.” But he says to me, “My heart will welcome death only when you lay me down beside water, Gawain, where I hear its gentle lapping as my eyes close.” He demands this, and cares not whether our errand is well done, or if his life is given at a good price. Only when I reach down to raise him does he ask: “Who else survives?” And I tell him Master Millus is fallen, yet three of us still stand, and Master Merlin too. And still he asks not if the errand is well finished, but talks of lakes and rivers, and now even of the sea, and it is all I can do to remember this is my old comrade, and a brave one, chosen like me by Arthur for this great task, even as a battle rages down in the valley. Does he forget his duty? I lift him, and he cries out to the heavens, and only then understands the cost even of a few small steps, and there we are, atop a red mountain in the summer heat, an hour’s journey even on horseback to the river. And as I lower him he talks now only of the sea. His eyes blind now, when I sprinkle water on his face from my gourd, he thanks me the way I suppose in his mind’s eye he stands upon a shore. “Was it sword or axe finished me?” he asks, and I say, “What do you talk of, comrade? It’s the she-dragon’s tail met you, but our task’s done and you depart with pride and honour.” “The she-dragon,” he says. “What’s become of the she-dragon?” “All but one of the spears rest in her flank,” I say,
“and now she sleeps.” Yet he forgets the errand again, and talks of the sea, and of a boat he knew as a small boy when his father took him far from the shore on a kind evening.

When my own time comes, will I too long for the sea? I think I will be content enough with the soil. And I will not demand the exact spot, but let it be within this country Horace and I have spent the years roaming contentedly. Those dark widows of earlier would cackle to hear me, and hasten to remind me with what I may share my plot of earth. “Foolish knight! You above all need choose your resting place well, or find yourself a neighbour to the very ones you slaughtered!” Did they not make some such jest even as they threw mud at Horace’s rump? How dare they! Were they there? Can it be this woman now rides in my saddle would say as much if she could hear my thoughts? She talked of slaughtered babes down in that foul-aired tunnel, even as I delivered her from the monks’ black plans. How dare she? And now she sits in my saddle, astride my dear battlehorse, and who knows how many more journeys are left to Horace and me?

For a while we thought this might be our last, but I had mistaken this good couple for those others, and a while longer we travel in peace. Yet even as I lead Horace by the bridle, I must glance back, for surely they are coming, even if we go well ahead. Master Axl walks beside me, his goat forbidding him a steady step. Does he guess why I look back so often? “Sir Gawain, were we not comrades once?” I heard him ask it early this morning as we came out of the tunnel, and I told him to find a boat to go downstream. Yet here he is, still in the mountains, his good wife beside him. I will not meet his eye. Age cloaks us both, as the grass and weeds cloak the fields where we once fought and slaughtered. What is it you seek, sir? What is this goat you bring?