Shea saw Chalmers start in dismay. But it was too late to back out now. When the women had mounted they rode through the gate together. Shea rook the lead with grumpily silent Britomart. Behind him, he could hear Amoret prattling cheerfully at Chalmers, who answered in monosyllables.
The road, no more than a bridle path without marks of wheeled traffic, paralleled the stream. The occasional glades that had been visible near Castle Caultrock disappeared. The trees drew in on them and grew taller till they were riding through a perpetual twilight, only here and there touched with a bright fleck of sunlight.
After two hours Britomart drew rein. As Amoret came up, the warrior girl announced: «Time for a bath. Join me, Amorer?»
The girl blushed and simpered. «These gentlemen —»
«Are gentlemen,» said Britomart, with a glare at Shea that implied he had jolly well better be a gentleman or else. «We will halloo.» She led the way down the slope and between a pair of mossy trunks.
The two men strolled off a way and sat. Shea turned to Chalmers, «How’s the magic going?»
«Ahem,» said the professor. «We were right about the general worsening of conditions here. Everyone seems aware of it, but they don’t quite know what causes it or what to do about it.»
«Do you?»
Chalmers pinched his chin. «It would seem — uh — reasonable to suspect the operations of a kind of guild of evil, of which various enchanters, like this Busyrane mentioned last night, form a prominent part. I indicate the souring of the wine and the loss of the grapes as suggestive examples. It would not even surprise me to discover that a well-organized revolutionary conspiracy is afoot. The question of whether such a subversive enterprise is justified is of course a moral one, resting on that complex of sentiments which the German philosophers call by the characteristically formidable name of
Shea said: «Yeah. But what can we do about it?»
«I’m not quite certain. The obvious step would be to observe some of these people in operation and learn something of their technique. This tournament — Good gracious, what’s that?»
From the river came a shriek. Shea stared at Chalmers for three seconds. Then he jumped up and ran towards the sound.
As he burst through the screen of brush, he saw the two women up to their necks in a little pool out near the middle of the river. Wading towards them, their backs to Shea, were two wild-looking, half-naked men in tartan kilts. They were shouting with laughter.
Shea did a foolish thing. He drew his epee, slid down the six-foot bank, and ploughed into the water after the men, yelling. They whirled about, whipped out broadswords from rawhide slings, and splashed towards him. He realized his folly: knee-deep in water he would be unable to use his footwork. At best his chances were no more than even against one of these men. Two.
The bell-guard of the epee gave a clear ringing note as he parried the first cut. His riposte missed but the kilted man gave a little. Shea out of the tail of his eye saw the other working around to get behind him. He parried, thrust, parried.
«Wurroo!» yelled the wild man, and swung again. Shea backed a step to bring the other into his field of vision. Cold fear gripped him lest his foot slip on an unseen rock. The other man was upon him, swinging his sword up with both hands for the kill. «Wurroo!» he yelled like the other. Shea knew sickeningly that he couldn’t get his guard around in time.
The other was picking himself our of the water some distance down. When Shea took a few steps towards him, he scrambled up the bank and ran like a deer, his empty swordsling banging against his back.
* * *
Amoret’s voice announced: «You may come now, gentlemen.» Shea and Chalmers went back to the river to find the girls dressed and drying their hair by spreading it to the sun on their hands.
Shea asked Briromart: «You threw that rock, didn’t you?»
«Aye. Thanks and more than thanks, Squire Harold. I cry your grace for having thought that slaughtering blade of yours a toy.»
«Don’t mention it. That second bird would have nailed me if you hadn’t beaned him with a rock. But say, why did you just sit there in the pool? A couple of steps would have taken you to the deep water. Or can’t you swim?»
«We can swim,» she replied. «But it would not be meet to expose our modesty by leaving the pool, least of all to the wild Da Derga.»
Shea forebore to argue about the folly of modesty that exposed one to death or to a fate that Britomart would undoubtedly consider worse. The blonde beauty was showing a much friendlier disposition towards him, and he did not wish to jeopardize it by argument over undebatable questions.
When they rode on, Britomart left Amoret to inflict her endless tale of woe on Chalmers, while she rode with Shea. Shea asked leading questions, trying not to reveal his own ignorance too much.
Britomart was, it transpired, one of Queen Gloriana’s «Companions» or officers — a «count» in the old Frankish sense of the term. There were twelve of them, each charged with the righting of wrongs in some special field of the land of Faerie.
Ye olde tyme policewoman, thought Shea. He asked whether there were grades of authority among the Companions.
Britomart told him: «That hangs by what matter is under consideration. In questions involving the relations of man to man, I am less than those gallant knights, Sir Cambell and Sir Triamond. Again, should it be a point of justice, the last authority rests with Sir Artegall.»
Her voice changed a trifle on the last word. Shea remembered how she had mentioned Artegall the evening before. «What’s he like?»
«Oh, a most gallant princely rogue, I warrant you!» She touched her horse with the spurs so that he pranced, and she had to soothe him with: «Quiet, Beltran!»
«Yes?» Shea encouraged.
«Well, for the physical side of him, somewhat dark of hair and countenance; tall, and so strong with lance that not Redcross or Prince Arthur himself can bear the shock of his charge. That was how I came to know him. We fought; I was the better with the spear, but at swords he overthrew me and was like to have killed me before he found I was a woman. I fell in love with him forthwith,» she finished simply.
Singular sort of courtship, thought Shea, but even in the world I came from there are girls who fall for that kind of treatment. Aloud he said: «I hope he fell for you, too.»
Britomart surprised him by heaving a sigh. «Alas, fair squire, that I must confess I do not know. ’Tis true he plighted himself to marry me, but he’s ever off to some tournament, or riding to some quest that I know not the end or hour of. We’ll be married when he gets back, quotha, but when he does return, it’s to praise my courage or strength, and never a word to show he thinks of me as a woman. He’ll clap me on the back and say; ‘Good old Britomart, I knew I could depend on you. And now I have another task for you; a dragon this time.’»
«Hm-m-m,» said Shea. «Don’t suppose you ever beard of psychology?»
«Nay, not I.»
«Do you ever dress up? I mean, like some of those Ladies at Castle Caultrock.»
«Of what use to me such foibles? Could I pursue my tasks as Companion in such garb?»
«Do you ever roll your eyes up at Artegall and tell him how wonderful he is?»
«Nay, marry beshrew me! What would he think of so unmaidenly conduct?»
«That’s just the point; just what he’s waiting for! Look here, in my country the girls are pretty good at that sort of thing, and I’ve learned most of the tricks. I’ll show you a few, and you can practise on me. I don’t mind.»
