The Squire's Quest (15 page)

"Poor old Acoriondes," Dinadan said, grinning at their friend. "I suppose he's acting as a sort of watchdog up there."

Terence nodded abstractedly. He suspected that Acoriondes had arranged to sit where he could catch Alis when he eventually passed out, but the regent showed no sign of succumbing to his wine. Quite the opposite, he seemed almost lively. He chattered happily to everyone within earshot, regardless of whether that person spoke Greek, and toward his new wife behaved in a markedly affectionate fashion. Fenice, for her part, ignored her new husband, leaning toward him only so as to look around him at Cligés, on the regent's other hand.

"You know something, don't you?" Dinadan asked Terence suddenly.

"Eh? Know something about what?"

"I've been watching you. Alis is up there making a prize ass of himself over this chit that he never wanted to marry to begin with, and you don't even seem surprised. What's going on?" Terence hesitated, but only for a second. He explained what the nurse Thessala had told him about the Elixir of Good Dreams. Dinadan whistled. "I wonder what the old fellow's been dreaming," he said.

"That's puzzling me, too," Terence admitted. "Whatever it was, it's reconciled him to this horrible marriage."

Together, Terence and Dinadan watched Alis as he babbled to Fenice, whose eyes remained locked on Cligés's. Cligés raised a glass of wine in a silent toast to his uncle's bride. Fenice toasted Cligés in response. When their glasses touched, directly over Alis's plate, it was like a caress. Alis smiled joyfully and snatched up his own glass to join their toast, but by the time he was ready, the other two were already drinking, their eyes still fixed on each other.

"And will his dreams reconcile him to that sort of business?" Dinadan murmured.

Terence shook his head. It didn't seem likely.

With the second course, which was some sort of meat boiled in smelly cabbage, the banquet entertainment began. A lone minstrel with a lute appeared, positioned himself in the center of the hall, and bowed to the newlyweds. Terence glanced at Dinadan, expecting to see him sit up with interest, but the knight's eyes showed only weariness. "What is it?" Terence said.

"I know this fellow," Dinadan said. "He's a French
trouvère
named Kyot. He sings the most appalling rot, and the worst of it is that he sings it beautifully."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll see ... or, maybe you won't. He sings in French. Thank God for that."

The minstrel strummed his lute, then bowed again. He had a singularly graceful bow.
"Mes seigneurs, "
he began,
"et mesdames, je chanterai le lai du
Chevalier à la Charrette."

Terence had enough French to understand most of this, but he leaned toward Dinadan and asked, "He's going to sing about the knight of the
what?
What's a
charrette?"

"Cart," replied Dinadan.

Kyot got no further for a moment. The Emperor Karl snorted with disgust and called out a surly question to a courtier. ("He wants to know what ass invited a minstrel who doesn't speak either German or Greek," Dinadan translated.) Alis clapped his hands politely, then reached up and took Fenice's hand in his. Fenice looked at it with patent distaste, then smiled across the regent to Cligés. Cligés cleared his throat and spoke in French.
"M'sieu le chanteur, "
he stammered. "La
. .. la fille qui a mariée aujourd'hui ... ne comprends ... ne te comprends pas. Parle-toi Anglais?"

"But yes," Kyot replied. "I can sing in the English as well. It is well, because the song I sing is a song of King Arthur, the Prince of Chivalry, and of the greatest of all his
chevaliers,
the French Lancelot du Lac."

"The knight of the cart?" Terence repeated slowly.

"He speaks English," Dinadan said. "I didn't know that. But what good will that do? No one here understands English, either."

"Except for Cligés and Fenice," Terence said.

"It is a song of the deepest love that man may know for a woman," Kyot said, "for as a man is greater than other men, so is his love greater than the love of others. And there is no love so great as the eternal love of Lancelot for his heart and life—Queen Guinevere!"

Terence culled his memory of Gawain's vocabulary and uttered a few choice words.

"This is what I meant by appalling rot," Dinadan whispered. "It's that 'courtly love' rubbish I told you about, which says that pure love can only be found outside of marriage."

For more than an hour, Kyot sang and played and told the story of how Queen Guinevere had been captured by the evil knight Sir Meliagant, then rescued by Sir Lancelot. Having been a part of that rescue himself, along with Gawain, Terence was able to recognize the occasional accurate detail, but for the most part was horrified by the way Kyot twisted the story to his own ends. Gawain, who had nearly died from the wounds he received on that quest, was accorded only a cursory mention, while Sarah—who Terence believed was the true hero of the rescue—did not appear in the tale at all. But worst of all was the minstrel's casual glorification of Lancelot's supposed adulterous affair with the queen, even though Lancelot and Guinevere's brief romance had ended years before. The Emperor Karl, along with most of the company, had given up on the story, which was no more comprehensible to them in English than it would have been in French. Most were devoting themselves to their meals and chatting among themselves. But Cligés and Fenice sat enraptured, listening to every word. Terence found himself wishing for some interruption to put an end to the story.

Terence got his wish. As Kyot was describing a tournament in which Lancelot was permitting every knight to unhorse him so as to prove his love to Guinevere—it was a bit muddled here—the doors of the banquet hall burst open and a tall knight with a graying beard stalked into the room, followed by a company of knights in German armor. Gray Beard shoved Kyot roughly out of his way, sending him sprawling.

"Bravo! Do it again!" murmured Dinadan.

Gray Beard began to speak, in a ringing voice, and the emperor rose haughtily to his feet and replied. For several seconds, they snapped at each other, then lapsed into a tense, glaring silence. Terence looked inquiringly at Dinadan.

"Oh, dear," Dinadan said. "This is awkward."

"Who is that fellow?" Terence whispered.

"That seems to be the Duke of Saxony, quite the big deal in the empire."

Terence had heard that name before but couldn't recall where.

"He wants to know why he wasn't invited to Fenice's wedding," Dinadan explained.

Then Terence remembered. It was something that he had heard Fenice say while she was at Camelot—the reason she was leaving England, in fact. "Because Fenice was already betrothed to him, right?" Terence said.

"That's it," Dinadan agreed. "As I say—awkward."

The Holy Roman Emperor, the most powerful king of the West, was effectively a prisoner in his own castle, held there by the besieging forces of his vassal, the Duke of Saxony. After the brief exchange of words in the banquet hall, the duke had turned and left the court. All had sighed with relief—except, of course, the Greeks, who had no idea what had just taken place—but their relief was short-lived. The duke had spent many weeks preparing for this confrontation, and the court soon discovered that his armies were camped around Mainz, barring every road and blocking all from entering or leaving.

Terence had no trouble piecing together the rest of the story over the course of the next day. The Emperor Karl had arranged for his niece, Fenice, to marry the Duke of Saxony, a very useful internal alliance, but when the offer from Alis had arrived, he had quickly jettisoned this plan in favor of a grandiose dream of joining two empires. He had sent a hasty message to Saxony, saying that he had decided Fenice was too young to marry, then ignored all the duke's ensuing letters. But the duke had heard, of course, about the imperial marriage and had laid very careful plans in response. What exactly the duke hoped to gain, Terence wasn't sure, but for the time being Saxony held the upper hand.

Karl's knights prepared for war, but the emperor decided to try diplomacy first. He and a company of his best knights rode out, taking Fenice with them. Terence watched the parlay from the castle wall, accompanied by Dinadan and Acoriondes.

"Why is he taking Fenice?" Terence asked Dinadan. "Do you know?"

"He says he wants to show the duke her wedding ring," Dinadan replied. "Though what difference he thinks that'll make is beyond me."

"And he thinks the duke will look at a ring, then just apologize and take off?" Terence asked mildly. "I didn't think Karl was such a fool."

"He is not," Acoriondes said calmly.

As they watched, Fenice extended her hand, but the duke didn't even look at it. Instead he raised his arm in a signal. Perhaps two dozen archers rolled from hiding places and began shooting toward the emperor's knights. The knights quickly formed a circle around the emperor, shielding him from harm as they retreated into the protection of the castle. The archers arrows sailed harmlessly over the knights heads as they brought the emperor back unharmed.

"If that's the best that German archers can do—" Terence began scornfully, but he never finished his sentence. From farther down the battlements Cligés's voice rose in a long, despairing cry, followed by a single word: "Fenice!" In their haste to save their liege, the emperor's knights had neglected one other detail. Fenice was still in the duke's hands.

"Is it my imagination," Dinadan mused aloud, "or is this Duke of Saxony rather more clever than our friend the Holy Roman Emperor?"

"So it would seem," Acoriondes said thoughtfully. "Whatever he wants, he is playing his hand very skillfully. Now Karl has no choice but to fight. Is this Duke of Saxony so powerful that he could defeat his own emperor?"

They were soon to find out. The Emperor Karl's men now prepared for battle in earnest, scheduling a sortie for the very next day. Alis, who had none of his nephew Alexander's zeal for battle, made a halfhearted offer to lead the Greek knights out at Karl's side, but his offer was firmly declined. "Karl doesn't want to risk Alis being killed," Acoriondes said. "If that happened all this would be for nothing."

"He probably would be, too," Dinadan commented. "Killed, I mean. Have you ever seen such a mooncalf?"

Dinadan was right: Alis was behaving like a lovesick child, moping about and breaking into tears every minute or two. Acoriondes frowned. "Indeed, my lord Dinadan. I cannot account for it. The regent truly seems to have fallen in love with the child Fenice. He told me—but this is ridiculous—that she is just like his deceased wife."

Terence and Dinadan exchanged glances. Was this Alis's "good dream"? That he had married the image of his former love?

The next day dawned, and Terence, who always rose with the sun, watched from the wall as the Emperor Karl's army mustered in the castle courts. Beyond the walls, the gray light showed activity in Duke of Saxony's camp as well. He wondered how many men would die this day over an irritating fifteen-year-old girl, and he was glad he was out of it. "Terence!" came an urgent whisper.

Terence turned. "Yes?"

It was Acoriondes, hurrying up the stairs. "Cligés isn't in his room," Acoriondes panted. "And a half-dozen of our Greek knights are missing as well."

Terence and the Greek looked at each other for a long moment. "Oh," said Terence.

Wearing hastily donned armor, Acoriondes led Terence and Dinadan around the edge of the battlefield. They were trying to stay out of the fighting itself, but had to remain close enough to see the battle. "What color is Cligés's armor?" Terence asked.

"Today? Who knows?" Acoriondes replied bitterly. "The silly gudgeon travels with several suits of armor, in different styles and colors. It's his hobby."

Terence grinned. Acoriondes's English was becoming more colloquial every day. Few foreigners would have known that in England,
gudgeon
—actually a type of minnow—could also be used to describe a fool.

"What's the Greek word for
gudgeon?"
asked Dinadan curiously.

"Moron, "
replied Acoriondes shortly.

"That's Greek?" Dinadan exclaimed with delight. "But I've been using that word for years! I can speak Greek! Cligés is a
moron!"

"Most excellently spoken, Sir Dinadan," said Acoriondes.

The battle, for the most part, was contained in a low area that lay before the castle of Mainz, flanked by the Rhine River and surrounded by low hills. They circled the battleground on the summit of these hills, scanning the scene below them for any sign of Cligés or the other Greek knights.

"And what do we do when we find the
moron?"
asked Dinadan.

"Try to keep him alive," replied Acoriondes. "Whatever else he is, he is my master, heir to the throne of the empire."

"He won't be in the thick of the fighting, you know," Dinadan commented. Terence and Acoriondes glanced back at him inquiringly, and Dinadan explained. "He's not out here to fight the duke. He's trying to rescue the damsel, like Sir Lancelot."

Terence and Acoriondes both nodded. "Of course," Acoriondes said. "So, if we can find Fenice, we'll find Cligés. Let us move farther back from the fighting."

"That'd be my preference anyway," Dinadan said.

An hour later, they found her. Rounding a craggy ridge, they came upon a small encampment, where six or seven knights stood guard outside a tent. One of those knights, seeing them, stepped forward, drew his sword, and shouted at them in German.

Dinadan stepped in front of Terence and Acoriondes and replied calmly. For several minutes, Dinadan and the knight talked, and at the end of that time, the German replaced his sword and removed his helm, revealing a handsome, youthful face framed with long flaxen hair. He smiled at Terence and Acoriondes.

"This is Captain Boniface," Dinadan said. "He's in charge of the detail. He also writes poetry."

Acoriondes blinked. "He writes poetry?"