Indeed, Gawain had slumped forward. He now straightened and breathed a sigh. “Well enough, thank you for asking. Yet Horace and I have gone many nights without a soft bed or decent shelter, and we’re both weary. That’s all there is to it.” He raised his hand and caressed a spot on his forehead, though his real purpose, it occurred to Axl, might have been to obscure his view of the face beside him.
“Master Wistan,” Axl said, “since we’re now speaking frankly, perhaps I may in turn ask something of you. You say you’re in this country on your king’s errand. But why so anxious to adopt your disguise travelling through a country long settled in peace? If my wife and that poor boy are to travel beside you, we’d wish to know the full nature of our companion, and who his friends and enemies might be.”
“You speak fairly, sir. This country, as you say, is well settled and at peace. Yet here I am a Saxon crossing lands ruled by Britons, and in these parts by the Lord Brennus, whose guards roam boldly to gather their taxes of corn and livestock. I wish no quarrel of the sort may come from a misunderstanding. Hence my disguise, sir, and we’ll all of us move more safely for it.”
“You may be right, Master Wistan,” Axl said. “Yet I saw on the bridge Lord Brennus’s guards seemed not to be passing their time idly, but stationed there for a purpose, and if not for the mist clouding their minds, they might have tested you more closely. Can it be, sir, you’re some enemy to Lord Brennus?”
For a moment Wistan appeared lost in thought, following with his eyes one of the gnarled roots stretching from the oak’s trunk and past where he stood, before burrowing itself into the earth. Eventually he came nearer again, and this time sat down on the stubbled grass.
“Very well, sir,” he said, “I’ll speak fully. I don’t mind doing so before you and this fine knight. We’ve heard rumours in the east of our fellow Saxons across this land ill used by Britons. My king, worrying for his kin, sent me on this mission to observe the real state of affairs. That’s all I am, sir, and was going about my errand peaceably when my horse hurt her foot.”
“I understand well your position, sir,” said Gawain. “Horace and I often find ourselves on Saxon-governed land and feel the same need for caution. Then I wish to be rid of this armour and taken for a humble farmer. But if we left this metal somewhere, how would we ever find it again? And even though it’s years since Arthur fell, isn’t it our duty still to wear his crest with pride for all to see? So we go on boldly and when men see I’m a knight of Arthur, I’m happy to report they look on us gently.”
“It’s no surprise you’re welcomed in these parts, Sir Gawain,” Wistan said. “But can it really be the same in those countries where Arthur was once such a dreaded enemy?”
“Horace and I find our king’s name well received everywhere, sir, even in those countries you mention. For Arthur was one so generous to those he defeated they soon grew to love him as their own.”
For some time — in fact, ever since Arthur’s name had first been mentioned — a nagging, uneasy feeling had been troubling Axl. Now at last, as he listened to Wistan and the old knight talk, a fragment of memory came to him. It was not much, but it nevertheless brought him relief to have something to hold and examine. He remembered standing inside a tent, a large one of the sort an army will erect near a battlefield. It was night, and there was a heavy candle flickering, and the wind outside making the tent’s walls suck and billow. There were others in the tent with him. Several others, perhaps, but he could not remember their faces. He, Axl, was angry about something, but he had understood the importance of hiding his anger at least for the time being.
“Master Wistan,” Beatrice was saying beside him, “let me tell you in our own village there are several Saxon families among the most respected. And you saw yourself the Saxon village from which we came today. Those people prosper, and though they sometimes suffer at the hands of fiends such as those you so bravely put down, it’s not by any Briton.”
“The good mistress speaks truly,” Sir Gawain said. “Our beloved Arthur brought lasting peace here between Briton and Saxon, and though we still hear of wars in distant places, here we’ve long been friends and kin.”
“All I’ve seen agree with your words,” Wistan said, “and I’m eager to carry back a happy report, though I’ve yet to see the lands beyond these hills. Sir Gawain, I don’t know if ever again I’ll be free to ask this of one so wise, so let me do so now. By what strange skill did your great king heal the scars of war in these lands that a traveller can see barely a mark or shadow left of them today?”
“The question does you credit, sir. My reply is that my uncle was a ruler never thought himself greater than God, and always prayed for guidance. So it was that the conquered, no less than those who fought at his side, saw his fairness and wished him as their king.”
“Even so, sir, isn’t it a strange thing when a man calls another brother who only yesterday slaughtered his children? And yet this is the very thing Arthur appears to have accomplished.”
“You touch the heart of it just there, Master Wistan. Slaughter children, you say. And yet Arthur charged us at all times to spare the innocents caught in the clatter of war. More, sir, he commanded us to rescue and give sanctuary when we could to all women, children and elderly, be they Briton or Saxon. On such actions were bonds of trust built, even as battles raged.”
“What you say rings true, and yet it still seems to me a curious wonder,” Wistan said. “Master Axl, do you not feel it a remarkable thing, how Arthur has united this country?”
“Master Wistan, once again,” Beatrice exclaimed, “who do you take my husband to be? He knows nothing, sir, of the wars!”
But suddenly no one was listening any more, for Edwin, who had drifted back to the road, was now shouting, and then came the beating of rapidly approaching hooves. Later when he thought back to it, it occurred to Axl that Wistan must indeed have become preoccupied with his curious speculations about the past, for the usually alert warrior had barely risen to his feet as the rider turned into the clearing, then slowing the horse with admirable control, came trotting towards the great oak.
Axl recognised immediately the tall, grey-haired soldier who had spoken courteously to Beatrice at the bridge. The man still wore a faint smile, but was approaching them with his sword drawn, though pointed downwards, the hilt resting on the edge of the saddle. He came to a halt where just a few more of the animal’s strides would have brought him to the tree. “Good day, Sir Gawain,” he said, bowing his head a little.
The old knight gazed up contemptuously from where he sat. “What do you mean by this, sir, arriving here sword unsheathed?”
“Forgive me, Sir Gawain. I wish only to question these companions of yours.” He looked down at Wistan, who had again let his jaw drop slackly, and was giggling to himself. Without taking his eyes off the warrior, the soldier shouted: “Boy, move that horse no closer!” For indeed, behind him, Edwin had been approaching with Wistan’s mare. “Hear me, lad! Let go the rein and come stand here before me beside your idiot brother. I’m waiting, lad.”
Edwin appeared to comprehend the soldier’s wishes, if not his actual words, for he left the mare and came to join Wistan. As he did so, the soldier adjusted slightly the position of his horse. Axl, noticing this, understood immediately that the soldier was maintaining a particular angle and distance between himself and his charges that would give him the greatest advantage in the event of sudden conflict. Before, with Wistan standing where he was, the head and neck of the soldier’s own horse would momentarily have obstructed his first swing of the sword, giving Wistan vital time either to unsettle the horse, or run to its blind side, where the sword’s reach was diminished in scope and power by having to be brought across the body. But now the small adjusting of the horse had made it practically suicidal for an unarmed man, as Wistan was, to storm the rider. The soldier’s new position seemed also to have taken expert account of Wistan’s mare, loose some distance behind the soldier’s back. Wistan was now unable to run for his horse without describing a wide curve to avoid the sword side of the rider, making it a near-certainty he would be run through from behind before reaching his destination.