IGMS Issue 2 (16 page)

"He's awake," said the monk to someone outside Osbert's view. "Be still, young man. That you are alive is a miracle, though you have some burns on your body from the fire."

Osbert tried to speak, but at first could not find a voice in his dry throat. Finally he managed to whisper, "Where am I?"

"The infirmary at Tewksbury Abbey. Be still."

"Where is the apothecary?"

The monk shook his head. "He must have been consumed by the fire. We did not find his body."

Osbert found it hard to believe the apothecary was truly dead. "And my paintings?"

"They are destroyed. The entire building burned to ashes; there is nothing left. But you must rest. Go back to sleep."

Propped up on his bed in the infirmary, Osbert drank the broth that was supposed to restore his strength. It was no use, he knew - his strength was gone because he had given up most of his soul, not because of his injuries.

The one real comfort he had was that Amelia still lived, and was said to be recovering slowly. At least her death was not on his conscience.

The old monk arrived and sat on a stool by Osbert's bed. "I have something for you." He reached into a sack and brought out the saltcellar.

Osbert nearly spilled his broth. "Where did you get that?" he whispered.

"You were clutching it when we found you. It is a symbol of the miracle that saved you."

Saved? He could not be saved. "What do you mean?"

"After the fire burned out, no one thought anybody could have survived. But then you were found in the midst of the ashes, still alive, with a pile of salt on your chest and this saltcellar in your hand." The monk smiled. "I know salt is a preservative, but I didn't think it had quite so much power."

"That salt had magical properties." For what evil fate had the Salt of Judas saved him?

The monk laughed. "It is but ordinary salt." He opened up the saltcellar, dipped his finger in, and dabbed some crystals on his tongue. "See?"

Osbert held his breath for a moment, but nothing happened to the monk. "It cannot be. I saw it. The apothecary . . ."

The monk raised an eyebrow. "The apothecary claimed it was magical salt? I had my suspicions the man was a fraud."

"He was no fraud. At least, not the way you think." What purpose was there in hiding the truth? Osbert felt as if a burden lifted from his shoulders as he quietly began to tell the monk what he had done.

"So I tried to release Amelia's soul by burning the paintings with the magical fire, and that's the last thing I remember before I awoke after the fire," Osbert finished.

During Osbert's narration, the monk had not interrupted, although he had frowned at several points. Now the monk leaned forward and stared into Osbert's eyes. After a few seconds, he said, "You do not appear to be either a madman or a liar, and I cannot see why you would concoct such a tale. I believe you."

"Thank you." It was a relief to be believed. Osbert looked at the saltcellar still gripped in the monk's hands. "But I still don't understand why the Salt of Judas didn't burn you when you touched it. What happened to the curse?"

The monk looked up to the ceiling of the infirmary. Osbert followed his gaze, but he could see nothing.

The monk looked back down to Osbert. "The salt lost its savour through an act of betrayal. Perhaps it took an act of sacrifice to let it be salted again."

The canvas before him was nearly complete. The image of Tewkesbury Abbey was ethereal, wreathed in morning mist, though the actual mist had vanished hours ago. Osbert paused as he carefully considered where to add a little more shadow.

"You paint very well," said a voice over his shoulder.

He knew before turning that it was Amelia. She had recently begun taking walks again as she had recovered from her illness, and he had seen her every few days over the past month. But this was the first time she had spoken to him.

"Thank you, Miss." He turned back to the canvas.

"Perhaps one day you could paint a portrait of me," Amelia said.

"I only paint landscapes."

It was late evening on a sultry summer's day when three riders appeared at the edge of the woods on the road southwest of Tintagel castle. The sentries did not see them riding up the muddy track that led from Beronsglade. The knights merely appeared, just as the sun dipped below the sea, as if they'd coalesced from mist near a line of beech trees.

The manner of their appearance did not seem odd, on that day of oddities. The tide was very low, and the whole ocean lay as placid as a mountain pool. To the castle's residents, who were used to the constant pounding of the surf upon the craggy rocks outside the castle walls, the silence seemed thunderous. Even the gulls had given up their incessant screeching and now huddled low on the rocks, making an easy dinner of cockles and green kelp crabs.

All around the castle, the air was somber. Smoke from cooking fires and from the candlers hung in a blue haze all about Tintagel's four towers. The air seemed leaden.

So it was that the sentries, when they spotted the three knights, frowned and studied the men's unfamiliar garb. The leader of the trio wore a fantastical helm shaped like a dragon's head, and his enameled mail glimmered red like a dragon's scales. He rode a huge black destrier, and as for the device on his shield, he carried only blank iron strapped to a pack on a palfrey.

Beside him rode a big fellow in oiled ringmail, while the third knight wore nothing but a cuirass of boiled leather, yet carried himself with a calmness and certainty that made him more frightening than if he rode at the head of a Saxon horde.

"'Tis Uther Pendragon!" one of the boys at the castle walls cried at first. The lad hefted his halberd as if he would take a swing, but stepped back in fright.

Pendragon was of course the guards' worst nightmare. At the Easter feast, King Uther Pendragon had made advances on the Duke Gorlois's wife, the Lady Igraine. He had courted her in her husband's company with all the grace and courtesy of a bull trying to mount a heifer. At last the duke felt constrained to flee the king's presence. The king demanded that Gorlois return with his wife, but Gorlois knew that if he ever set foot in the king's palace again, he'd lose his head. So he locked his wife safely in Tintagel, began fortifying his castles, and prayed that he could hire enough Irish mercenaries to back him before the king could bring him down.

Last anyone had heard, Duke Gorlois was holed like a badger at his fortress in Dimilioc, where Uther Pendragon had laid siege. It was said that Pendragon had employed Welsh miners as sappers, vowing to dig down the castle walls and skin Gorlois for his pelt within forty days.

So when the lad atop the castle wall thought he saw Pendragon, immediately someone raised a horn and began to blow wildly, calling for reinforcements, though none would likely be needed. Tintagel was a small keep, situated by the sea on a pile of rocks that could only be reached over a narrow causeway. It was said that three men could hold it from an army of any size, and no fewer than a two dozen guards now manned the wall.

The captain of the guard, a stout old knight named Sir Ventias who could no longer ride due to a game leg, squinted through the smoke that clung around the castle. Something seemed afoul. He knew fat king Pendragon's features well, and as he peered through the gloom and the smoke that burned his eyes, he saw immediately that it was not Pendragon on the mount. It was a young man with a flaxen beard and a hatchet face.

Ventias squinted, trying to pierce the haze until he felt sure: it was Duke Gorlois. He rode in company with his true friend Sir Jordans and the stout knight Sir Brastias.

Ventias smiled. "Tell the duchess that her husband is home."

The celebration that night was remarkable. The duke's pennant was hoisted on the wall, and everywhere the people made merry. Sir Brastias himself told the miraculous tale of their escape - how they had spied Pendragon leave the siege and the duke had issued out from the castle with his knights. After a brief battle, Gorlois had broken Pendragon's lines and had hurried toward Tintagel, only to discover Pendragon himself a few miles up the road, frolicking with some maiden in a pool. Since King Pendragon was naked and unarmed, it became an easy matter to capture the lecher, both arms and armor, and force his surrender.

Thus Gorlois rode home in Pendragon's suit of mail.

So it was that the celebration began at Tintagel. Suckling pigs were spitted and cooked over a bonfire in the lower bailey, while every lad who had a hand with the pipe or the tambor made music as best he could. New ale flowed into mugs like golden honey. Young squires fought mock combats to impress their lord and entertain the audience. And everywhere the people began to dance.

But Duke Gorlois could not relish it. Instead, he went to his great hall before the festivities began and gazed upon his glorious young bride with a sultry stare. He never even took his seat at the head of the table. Instead, he studied her for less than a minute before he grabbed one of her breasts as if it were a third hand and began to lead her to the bedchamber.