The Iron Tempest (21 page)
Authors: Ron Miller
“Why a year and a day?” interrupted Bradamant.
“I have no idea.”
“Let her finish,” said Rashid. “We don’t have any time to waste.”
“Yes, well,” said the woman, “anyway, they promised to remain in the castle for a year and a day, as I said, jousting with every knight who passed that way, confiscating their arms and, if ladies accompanied them, confiscating their garments. This odious promise the knights had to swear, much to their annoyance, since Pinabelo promised to execute them otherwise.”
“They’re formidable jousters,” said Bradamant, “if their reputations are justified, and I can imagine that few have passed by them unscathed.”
“None have.”
“Bradamant,” said Rashid, not liking the enthusiastic gleam he detected in her eyes and having no idea of the vendetta, both personal and familial, the girl had against Pinabelo, “I think that our mission is a little too urgent to waste time combating Pinabel’s knights, even as much as I’d like to deal with that foul coward myself. Even if we won, which I have no doubt we would, an hour would be longer than we can spare. As it is, that poor young man may be burnt to death before we arrive.”
“What lies in our power to do,” she replied loftily, “we will do. The rest is up to God. This combat will demonstrate to this maiden how capable we are of rescuing her unjustly condemned hero.”
And before the amazed Rashid could respond, or the handmaid object that she was, in fact, already quite convinced of their ability, she wheeled his horse and rode off down the shorter road. Rashid tightened his lips with annoyance and followed. Ahead of him Bradamant chewed at her lower lip fretfully, desperately trying to justify this detour with her conscience.
They had not gone three miles before arriving in the environs of Pinabel’s castle. A broad stream cascading over piles of rounded boulders thundered between the trio and the stonghold and only a rough timber drawbridge, now lowered, offered any way across. Bradamant noted with revulsion that both sides of the bridge were already decorated with armor and lady’s dresses and her already formidable contempt and loathing for Count Pinabel increased to a white heat. What little thought remained of her original mission was forgotten in the fury that rekindled in her breast, like a blast of air in a blacksmith’s forge.
As the knights approached the bridge, a watchman in the keep began frantically ringing a gong. As soon as it sounded, an elderly man wobbled from the gatehouse at the far end of the bridge, shouting, “Wait! Wait where you are!”
Seeing no reason not to, they waited until the ancient one reached the near side of the span, wheezing like a leaky bellows.
“Why are we waiting?” asked Rashid.
“There’s a toll to pay!”
“Toll? Well, tell us how much and we’ll pay it. We’re in a hurry.”
“It’s not that simple. There are rules I must explain to you.” He went on to expostulate what Bradamant and Rashid already knew perfectly well.
“Only one knight, drawn by lot,” he concluded, “will first come out to challenge you. If the fight appears to be going against him, the other three are then free to come to his aid. Seeing what champions they are individually, you can only imagine what they must be like working together. You may as well deposit your arms here and strip that damsel of her clothing and save yourself a great deal of pain and trouble. Arms and clothing can be found anywhere—life is irreplaceable.”
“That’s enough, old man!” cried Bradamant. “We know all about Count Pinabel and his ridiculous law. If I’m half as competent as I know I am, then I’ve no fear of losing either my armor or my clothing—for you can see from my sex that your master’s rule puts me in double jeopardy. So far all I’ve heard are vague threats. We’ve told you we’re in a hurry. Let’s get this charade over with so we can be on our way. We’ve dallied here too long already.”
“So be it,” replied the old man, shaking his head. “Here’s your first man coming just now.”
As he spoke, a knight came riding from the gate, full tilt for the drawbridge. Over his armor he wore a red surcoat decorated with white flowers.
“That’s Samsonet,” Bradamant said, recognizing the arms. “Let me have him,” she continued, seeing Rashid helping the handmaiden down, “please, as a favor.”
Rashid ignored her and spurred his horse forward. Bradamant had unfortunately allowed him to carry her lance. It was a formidable weapon—two palm’s width thick at the rest and fifteen feet long—and made of oak as hard as iron and gilded its entire length. Its sharp tip was covered with steel. Bradamant thought it looked as though it would pierce an anvil as easily as it would a man’s body, which in fact it would. As she watched Rashid heft it into place she decided that she could at least not fault the count in arming his champions adequately: Samsonet, she saw, had half a dozen similar lances ready at hand.
As Rashid maneuvered himself into position on the near side of the drawbridge, Bradamant saw a number of other figures coming from the castle gate. One of them she recognized as Pinabel, and her hackles rose at the sight of him and whatever remnants of the promise she had made to succor the princess’ lover evaporated before the blaze of her fury. The others were obviously servants standing ready to collect the armor and clothing of the losers. At an open window above the gate appeared a hideous object that may have been a poorly-conceived Hallowe’en pumpkin, but was in fact Pinabel’s wife, who was shrieking orders to the people below in a kind of strangled bray. As fascinatingly awful as this sight was, Bradamant could hardly tear her hateful gaze away from the count long enough to watch the joust, which was just beginning.
Rashid and Samsonet spurred their great horses simultaneously and it was as though a storm had burst; the earth shook like the rocks beneath a cataract.
The knights met at the center of the bridge, which almost leaped from its abutments at the impact. Rashid’s shield, which he kept covered since he did not want to use it to unfair advantage, resisted Samsonet’s lance like adamant; the weapon burst like a rotten log into a thousand splinters . Rashid’s lance, however, pierced the other’s shield as though it had been made of paper, striking the knight behind it with the force of an express locomotive. Samsonet flew from his saddle like a ragdoll, pinwheeling into the parapet of the bridge, the heavy timbers of which shattered as though they had been hit by a bomb.
The watchman in the tower struck a mournful bell at the unhorsing of the first of Pinabel’s champions. According to their contract the remaining three knights ought to have immediately taken on Rashid together; instead, they milled about in confusion and dismay, obviously unwilling to commit the unchivalrous act of ganging up three to one against a fellow knight, yet impelled to do so by their pact with the evil count.
Relieved at seeing Rashid safely through the danger of the first encounter, Bradamant let her attention wander. As her lover returned to his starting place and the other knights milled about, relunctantly arming themselves, she saw that Pinabel, crossing the bridge alone, was approaching her. She felt herself quivering like a starved dog and was surprised, and a little horrified, to find a low growl rumbling deep in her throat.
He was, she saw, riding the very horse he had stolen from her so long ago.
Justice
, she thought,
has a very fine touch at irony. Now we’ll see if his sin hasn’t brought him to the spot where it’ll be repaid with interest!
Bradamant spurred her horse; not toward the villain, but around him to cut off his retreat. Bradamant had no idea what might have induced him to leave the protection of his sycophants—perhaps he was so confident of victory that he had planned to negotiate surrender with her while Rashid was still combating his champions. Pinabel, still unaware of the identity of the second knight, obviously had no idea what she was doing and merely kept his distance and watched with a puzzled, half angry expression. He realized that his retreat was being cut off, but what danger could there be? This knight was armed only with a sword and Pinabel had three of the most puissant warriors in Frankland at his immediate bidding. Besides, he was, he thought, protected by chivalry and the rules of his game: the knights’ quarrel was with one another, not with him.
“What are you doing?” he said to her, testily. “My rules insist you must fight only my champions. I’ve come only to discuss the details of your surrender.”
“Don’t you recognize me?”
“Should I?”
“I would think so.”
“Then your conceit outdoes your rashness.”
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
“No.”
“You should,” she replied, pulling off her helmet. At the sight of Bradamant’s face, the count gave a kind of sickly bleat, perhaps as a conscientious vegetarian might if a rare steak were to be unexpectedly placed in front of him. Bradamant’s sword sang as she pulled it from its sheath and at that spine-congealing sound Pinabel turned and fled. He shrieked for help, but his three remaining paladins, all now busy with Rashid, ignored him. It was no part of their oath to protect the count and they certainly did not owe him any loyalty. So, screaming and crying, Count Pinabel disappeared into the forest with the berserk Bradamant hot at his heels.
As much as he twisted back and forth on the winding trail he could not shake his deadly Nemesis. He could feel the hot breath of her horse steaming at his back. Every time the path straightened for even a few yards she pulled alongside, heedless of the massive branches that flew past her head, avoiding being brained only by scant inches and sheer luck, her flailing sword striking sparks from her enemy’s black armor, sending chips of enamel flying like bright ashes.
Finally, reaching a small clearing, Bradamant came beside the panicked count and threw herself from her saddle, grasping him around his shoulders, carrying him to the earth with a sonorous crash. Stunned as much as the girl, but with the strength of panic behind him, Pinabel threw her from him and ran—Bradamant hot on his heels—to where his horse waited patiently. He grasped the hilt of his sword, drew it from its sheath and turned only just in time to ward off the first blow from Bradamant’s weapon, which was so violent that it nearly knocked him from his feet as splinters of steel stung his face. Seeing her this close was itself nearly enough to make the man throw down his sword and get the terrible thing over and done with. It was as though he were confronted by a red-faced demon, its lips pulled back from clenched teeth, its wild, burning eyes surrounded by a streaming aureole of molten bronze like the hair of a portentous comet.
The blows that fell upon him seemed to come from a dozen weapons and the clamor echoed and reechoed until the woods themselves groaned in sympathy. Pinabel was driven back a pace, then five paces, then to his knees, blood streaming from a hundred different wounds. The emerald grass for ten paces around was splattered with red with Pinabel a dark nucleus in the widening circle of crimson. He begged and screamed and cried for mercy, but these shrieks and their echoes were the only allies he could summon; the berserk warrioress might as well have been deaf for all the good they did him.
Bradamant had the long hilt of her sword grasped in both hands and she hacked at the fallen knight as though she were chopping firewood. Her white armor was drenched with his blood, it ran from her face and matted her hair; she had to cling tightly to keep the wet sword hilt from turning in her hands.
When she was finished there was little of Count Pinabel that could not have been held in the palm of one hand and, though she was exhausted and disgusted with the mess she had made of herself, Bradamant considered it work well done. She wiped her face with the back of one hand and went to where the count’s horse waited. There she found his cloak, which she used to clean her sword and as much of her armor as she could. She then took the reins of the stolen animal and led it to where Rabican stood.
Without a backward glance, leaving only the shocked forest as silent witness to her vengeance, Bradamant rode back into the woods the way she had come. Or so she thought.
CHAPTER SEVEN
In Which Bradamant meets a confused Princess and finds refuge, but not much Solace, among the Brothers of God
Bradamant, mounted on Rabican and with the other horse in tow, only looked forward to rejoining Rashid, whom she was certain had by now dealt with the remaining three knights. They could then go on to save the princess’ lover before continuing their journey to Vallambrosa and Rashid’s baptism.
She had only stopped long enough to wash her face and hair in the first brook she came to—staring grimly at the swirling streams of red until the very last of the wicked count had dissolved and swept away by the clean, impartial liquid.
With little else on her mind than these pleasant thoughts, it did not occur to her for some time that she had been riding too long and too far. She looked around, noticing her surroundings for the first time. It was true: she had been plunging deeper into the forest. Shaking her head with annoyance, she recalled having passed a fork in the path some miles back. “Idiot,” she said. “That must be where I went wrong. I’d better daydream a little less and pay more attention to where I’m going.”
Turning around, she found, after a few minutes, the place where the trail bifurcated. The other path seemed so obviously correct she could hardly believe she had overlooked it.
I must really keep my wits about me!
she thought, more amused than angry with herself, and took the new way, confident now that Rashid waited only a few minutes ahead.
The path became steep and winding, and the forest deeper and blacker—the great roots engulfing like the jealous arms of a miser the enormous blocks of mossy stone that impeded the ever-narrowing trail. The atmosphere grew dim, dank and chilly.
This isn’t right
. She hadn’t passed through anything like this while pursuing the count. The trail then, as best as she could recall, had been broad and level, and it had not taken more than a minute or two to reach the clearing where she had obliterated the unfortunate villain. Still more annoyed than concerned, though she felt the first pinprick of worry, she let the horses rest, grazing on some ferns, while she considered what to do. The present trail, though tortuous, was tending downhill, which gave her some hope that it would eventually join a larger road in the valley, and whichever direction she chose to go on that, she would surely run into someone who could tell her where she was or who perhaps even knew the way to Vallambrosa.
Feeling better for having made a decision, Bradamant continued on downhill, confident that she’d soon reach a larger highway which in turn would lead her to Rashid.
Her mood was still high even when hours later the sky began to purple with twilight and there still had been no sign of another road. Through the trees a crescent moon, as thin as an eyelash, was settling toward the horizon. She thought it looked like a supercilious grin and wondered what it found so amusing.
There seemed to be nothing for it but to camp for the night. What little moon there was would be gone in a few minutes and the darkness in the forest was already nearly impenetrable. As impatient as she was she was not so foolish as to not realize she’d have little hope of returning to Rashid if she broke her leg or neck tumbling down some invisible ravine. So, with a sigh, she climbed from Rabican—who, she knew, had no need to be restrained and would, in addition, look after his equine companion without need for her intervention—and searched out a place to sleep. This proved to be a kind of hollow, like a shell or cradle, formed by the curving arms of two huge roots, filled with moss and fragrant pine needles. She fell onto her back and, crossing her arms behind her head, looked up at the patches of indigo sky that glowed dimly within the dead black silhouettes of the treetops like orphan galaxies in the starless void. Here and there she spotted familiar stars: Beta, the baleful eye of Draco; Vega; Arcturus in Boötes; Alkaid and Alioth in the tail of the Bear and the glittering crown of Borealis.
What a fool I was to have put my grudge against Pinabel ahead of my better judgment! Why didn’t I look where I was going? Where were my eyes and my wits? She
threw an arm over her face and let the building tempest burst in a storm of sighs and tears.
She did not sleep, but instead impatiently watched the stars wheel overhead, the Great Bear swinging in its heavy arc like the ponderous hand of a clock, waiting for the first lightening of dawn. Eventually the east took on a muted color, like the reflection of a candle in a pewter bowl; she climbed from her bed, found the horses grazing lazily nearby and continued on down into the valley.
The sun had not yet appeared above the high surrounding hills and the air was still chill and misty when Bradamant crossed a rustic bridge that spanned a roaring stream and found that her path ended at a road on the far side. She hesitated only a moment—there was nothing to indicate the superiority of one direction over the other—before turning, for no particular reason, to the right.
The shady, muddy road, which followed the stream, was deserted. For hours, Bradamant saw no one but was nevertheless confident that someone or someplace was certain to show up eventually—roads, after all, were meant to go
somewhere
. She allowed herself to drift into a reverie in which she dreamed pleasantly of the coming reunion, and the time when she could at last guiltlessly consummate her love.
By the time the sun finally appeared above the crest of the flanking hills, the dank air had grown warm and muggy; the direct heat of its rays quickly made the atmosphere oppressive. For all of her anxiousness, Bradamant could not resist pausing for a rest when she spied a grassy bank shaded by a willowy bower. Five minutes’ refreshment, she told herself, would do her much good for little cost in time. Climbing stiffly down from Rabican—who, as usual, was left to his own devices; she knew the intelligent animal would not fail to come when she called—Bradamant stretched out on the resilient moss and, lulled by the sultry air and the soft muttering of the stream, and contrary to her every intention, was soon fast asleep.
She had not
thought
that she had slept, so that it seemed a little magical when she opened her eyes and saw a beautiful princess standing before her. Oddly, it was
then
, when she was in fact wide awake, that Bradamant imagined that she was asleep and dreaming. Though
why
she should be dreaming about a diminutive ebony-haired child with olive eyes and a face like an ivory darning-egg, she could not begin to guess. Bradamant said nothing but her expression must have been eloquent for the girl’s enormous eyes grew even larger and she put a hand to her mouth and said, “Oh!”.
“Who are you?” asked Bradamant.
“Oh, kind and beautiful knight, if it pleases you, I am Fiordispina.”
Fiordispina? Why did that unusual name seem so oddly familiar? “My name is Bradamant,” she replied, politely, rising to her feet and brushing leaves from her armor. It seemed to be late afternoon, she noticed with some annoyance, and the valley was filled with a golden haze. She had wasted far too much time. The girl standing before her was not quite the child she had first assumed—she was perhaps sixteen or seventeen; it was her diminutive size that had been misleading: she came scarcely to Bradamant’s shoulder. Her calf-length dress had been tied above her knees, exposing high boots made of fine kid. She carried a small bow—scarcely more than a toy, especially compared to the six-foot ash longbows that Bradamant was accustomed to pulling; a quiver of arrows hung at her back and a little coiled hunting horn from her belt. The entire outfit looked new and unused and so toy-like as to be vaguely unreal. She looked very much like someone on their way to a fancy-dress ball costumed as a modern Diana.
“Are you hungry?” the girl bubbled eagerly. “The lodge is not terribly far from here and you’d be welcome to have a meal there!”
“What are you doing out here all by yourself?”
“Me? I was hunting with my people, but we can forget about
them
. I know a short cut back home.”
Well
, thought Bradamant,
why not?
She needed to eat sometime and perhaps someone at this lodge would have news of Rashid or could set her on the right way for the abbey at Vallambrosa. She gathered her horses and followed the girl on foot. They crossed the stream at a shallow ford where a dozen large, flat rocks had been placed for stepping-stones. Fiordispina skipped across lightly and waited for Bradamant, slowed by her animals and armor and not by nature particularly nimble, to catch up. On the other side was a narrow trail, barely a track, like an animal runway.
“This will take us through the woods,” explained the girl. “The château is just on the other side of the hill.”
“Just lead the way and I’ll follow.”
Bradamant, seeing the forest closing around her, hoped that she was not about to become lost again. Her guide struck her as being neither over-bright nor especially worldly.
As soon as the trail entered the trees it began to climb steeply. The girl danced ahead of Bradamant like a wood nymph, but the burdened knight was soon chuffing like a blacksmith’s forge and her horses, clambering up the slopes, slipped and fumbled in cascades of crumbling shale. Behind her she heard the normally sanguine Rabican snort with exasperation. After fifteen or twenty minutes of this, Bradamant found herself on a kind of small plateau, where Fiordispina waited patiently, sitting on a rustic bench.
“You certainly are slow. Would you like to rest a moment?” she suggested.
“Just for a moment,” agreed Bradamant, sitting on the same bench, a few feet from the girl. She pulled a ragged cloth from her sleeve and mopped at her face.
“Oh, sir knight!” the latter cried, leaping to her feet. “You are overheated!”
“It’s nothing.”
The girl took a dainty covrechef from a bosom that quivered like a stage-struck blanc mange and, leaning over Bradamant, began gently dabbing at her brow. “There,” she said, “isn’t that better?”
“Yes, thank you,” Bradamant replied with forced courtesy--she had never much liked being touched by strangers.
“And your hair, it’s all out of place!” Fiordispina ran her fingers through the knight’s untidy locks, smoothing them to the skull. “What lovely hair you have!” exclaimed Fiordispina. “It looks like bronze but if I close my eyes it feels like silk or—or Sir Muffkins de la PooPoo.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“My persian cat. Oh my! Your eyes look so wonderful when you frown that way! And your eyebrows look like, like—yes, they look just like scissors! They’re as dark as iron and all anglely and pointy! How strange their color looks with your hair! Isn’t it odd to have red hair and dark brows? And your eyes, even in the shade they throw sparks like flints!”
Bradamant had no idea what to make of this extraordinary speech, but it made her feel distinctly uncomfortable. She took Fiordispina’s hands in her own and removed them from her head. The little hands were feverish and they shivered like naked mice. A shudder run through the girl’s body and she gave a little moan.
“Is something the matter? Are you all right?”
“Oh, sir knight, I am not!”
“What’s wrong then? Are you ill?”
“Yes, I
am
sick—sick at heart!”
Bradamant did not particularly want to hear about the girl’s lovelife; she was in no mood to sympathize with the maudlin details of some mawkish teenage romance. She would have been prepared to deal with virtually any other difficulty in fair exchange for being set on the right road for Vallambrosa, and perhaps a meal, for there were few difficulties she believed she could not resolve with her sword. And any problem that can be resolved with the sword can be resolved quickly. But an affair of the heart—she had neither the time nor the inclination to play matchmaker for a lovelorn child. Nor, if she but truly knew it, the experience. She had erotocoronary difficulties of her own to worry about. Nevertheless, an innate and irrepressible goodness added to a long-ingrained habitual chivalry compelled her to ask, “What is the problem?” as she cursed herself for having to speak the words.
“It’s my father,” replied the girl. “He won’t allow me to have a lover.”
“Any lover, or someone in particular?”
“There’s always someone particular, but he’s basically against them all, on principle.”
“Well, there’s always a way, if you’re determined enough.”
“You don’t understand, sir knight. How can I attract lovers when my father burns them all?”
“
Burns?
”
“Yes. Where other girls have scrapbooks full of tender memories, sweet souvenirs of their
amours
—delicate mementoes like pressed flowers or sonnets—what do I have? Little boxes of charcoal.”
“Tell me—could your father be the Emir Marsilius?”
“Yes, he could! He is! However did you know that?”
This is an interesting development
, thought Bradamant, with some consternation. She recalled, with a guilty pang, the handsome youth that she and Rashid had sworn to succor: had she selfishly abandoned him to the dreadful fate this girl described?
“Has your father done this recently, Princess?”
“Oh yes! Just yesterday afternoon, as a matter of fact. It was dreadful. It was all I could do to watch.”
“I’m so sorry,” Bradamant said with heartfelt solemnity and a sincerity the deepness of which was utterly lost on the princess . . . yet deep in the back of her mind was the very tiny and ungenerous suspicion that perhaps the boy was better off.
“Oh, it’s all right. I think I’m over it now.”
“Over it? He was your lover, was he not?”
“He was my
lover
, but I didn’t
love
him, if you follow me.”
“I believe so.”
“Father’s so
cruel!
He won’t let me have anything I really want. If he keeps torturing and burning every boy who only wants to sleep with me, why, how will I ever find someone who’ll want to
marry
me?”
“I can see that you have a problem.”
“I certainly do! Or at least I did,” she added, with a coy blush and downturned eyes. Bradamant waited, not certain what the girl was getting at.