I felt the lingering joys of just such a feeling as Horace woke me this morning, stamping the soft forest ground where I had lain down after the night’s exertions. He knows full well I no longer have the old stamina, that after such a night it is no easy thing for me to sleep but a short hour before setting off once more. Yet seeing the sun already high over the shady roof of the forest, he would not let me sleep on. He stamped his feet until I rose, chainmail complaining. I curse this armour more and more. Has it really saved me from much? A small wound or two at best. It is the sword, not the armour, I have to thank for this abiding health. I rose and observed the leaves around me. Why so many fallen and the summer not yet old? Do these trees ail, even as they shelter us? A shaft of sun breaking through the high foliage fell across Horace’s muzzle, and I watched him shake his nose from side to side, as though that beam were a fly sent to torment him. He had no pleasant night either, listening to noises of the forest all about him, wondering to what dangers his knight had gone. Displeased though I was that he aroused me so soon, when I stepped towards him, it was only to hold his neck gently in both my arms, and for a brief moment rest my head in his mane. A hard master he has, I know that. I push him on when I know him to be weary, curse him when he has done no wrong. And all this metal as much burden for him as for me. How much further will we ride together? I patted him gently, saying, “We’ll find a friendly village soon, and you’ll have a better breakfast than the one you just had.”
I spoke this way believing the problem of Master Wistan settled. But we were hardly down the path, not yet out of the woods, when we came across the bedraggled monk, his shoes broken, hurrying before us to Lord Brennus’s camp, and what does he tell us but that Master Wistan has escaped the monastery, leaving his pursuers of the night dead, many no more than charred bones. What a fellow! Strange how my heart fills with joy to hear the news, even though it brings back a heavy task I thought behind us. So Horace and I put aside our thoughts of hay and roast meat and good company, and now we climb uphill once more. Thankfully, at least, we travel further from that cursed monastery. In my heart, it is true, I am relieved Master Wistan did not perish at the hands of those monks and the wretched Brennus. But what a fellow! The blood he sheds each day would make the Severn overflow! He was wounded, the bedraggled monk thought, but who can rely on one such as Master Wistan to lie down and die easily? How foolish I was to let the boy Edwin run off that way, and now who will wager against the two of them finding each other? So foolish, yet I was weary then, and besides, little imagined Master Wistan could escape. What a fellow! Had he been a man of our day, Saxon though he is, he would have won Arthur’s admiration. Even the best of us would have feared to meet him as a foe. Yet yesterday, when I saw him meet Brennus’s soldier in combat, I might have seen a small weakness on his left side. Or was it his clever ploy of the moment? If I watch him fight once more, I will know better. A skilful warrior all the same, and it would take a knight of Arthur to suspect it, but I thought it so, as I watched the fight. I said to myself, look there, a small lapse on the left side. One a canny opponent might just exploit. Yet which of us would not have respected him?
Yet these dark widows, why do they cross our path? Is our day not busy enough? Our patience not yet sufficiently taxed? We’ll stop at the next crest, I was saying to Horace as we came up the slope. We’ll stop and rest even though black clouds gather and we most likely face a storm. And if there be no trees I’ll still sit down right there on the scrubbed heather and we shall rest all the same. Yet when the road finally levelled, what do we see but great birds perched on their rocks, and they rise as one, not to fly into the darkening sky, but towards us. Then I saw they were no birds, but old women in flapping cloaks, assembling on the path before us.
Why choose such a barren spot to gather? Not a cairn, nor a dry well to mark it. No thin tree nor shrub to comfort a wayfarer from sun or rain. Just these chalky rocks from which they rose, sunk into the earth on either side of the road. Let’s be sure, I said to Horace, let’s be sure my old eyes don’t let me down and these are not bandits come to set upon us. But there was no need to draw the sword — its blade still stinks of that devil dog’s slime, no matter I thrust it deep in the ground before I slept — for they were old women sure enough, though we might have made good use of a shield or two against them. Ladies, let us remember them as ladies, Horace, now we are finally beyond them, for are they not to be pitied? We will not call them hags, even if their manners tempt us to. Let us remember that once, some among them at least possessed grace and beauty.
“Here he comes,” cried one, “the impostor knight!” Others took up the cry as I came closer, and we might have trotted through their ranks, but I am not one to shy from adversity. So I brought Horace to a halt right in their midst, though gazing towards the next peak as if studying the gathering clouds. Only when their rags flapped around me, and I could feel the blast of their shouts, did I gaze down from the saddle at them. Were there fifteen? Twenty? Hands reached to touch Horace’s flanks, and I whispered to calm him. Then I straightened and said, “Ladies, if we are to talk, you must cease this noise!” To which they quietened, but their looks stayed angry, and I said then, “What do you want of me, ladies? Why come upon me this way?” To which one woman calls up, “We know you for the foolish knight too timid to complete the task given him.” And another, “If you’d done long ago what God asked of you, would we be wandering the land in woe this way?” And yet another, “He dreads his duty! See it on his face. He dreads his duty!”
I contained my anger and asked them to explain themselves. Whereupon one a little more civil than the rest stepped forward. “Forgive us, knight. It’s long days we’ve wandered under these skies and to see you in person come riding boldly our way, we cannot but make you hear our laments.”
“Mistress,” I said to her, “I may look burdened by years. But I remain a knight of the great Arthur. If you’ll tell me your troubles, I’ll gladly help you as I can.”
To my dismay the women — the civil one included — all broke into a sarcastic laugh, and then a voice said: “Had you done your duty long ago and slain the she-dragon, we’d not be wandering distressed this way.”
This shook me, and I cried out, “What do you know of it? What do you know of Querig?” but saw in time the need for restraint. And so I spoke calmly: “Explain it, ladies, what compels you to walk the roads this way?” To which a parched voice behind said, “If you ask why I wander, knight, I’ll happily tell you. When the boatman put to me his questions, my beloved already in the boat and reaching out to help me in, I found my most treasured memories robbed from me. I didn’t know then but know now, Querig’s breath was the thief robbed me, the very creature you were to have slain long ago.”
“How can you know this, mistress?” I demanded, no longer able to hide my consternation. For how can it be such vagabonds know a secret so well guarded? To which the civil one then smiles strangely and says, “We’re widows, knight. There’s little can be hidden from us now.”
Only then do I feel Horace give a tremble, and I hear myself ask, “What are you, ladies? Are you living or dead?” To which the women once more break into laughter, a jeering sound to it that makes Horace shift a hoof uneasily. I pat him gently while I say, “Ladies, why do you laugh? Was that so foolish a question?” And the raspy voice behind says, “See how fearful he is! Now he fears us as readily as he does the dragon!”