Beatrice started to speak, but Axl said over her quickly: “I’m sorry, child. We wish we could help you, but to climb higher into these hills is now beyond us. We’re elderly, and as you see, weary from days of hard travel. We’ve no choice but to hurry on our way before further misfortune takes us.”
“But, sir, it was God himself sent you to us! And it’s but a short stroll, and not even a steep path from here.”
“Dear child,” Axl said, “our hearts go out to you, and we’ll raise help at the next village. But we’re too weak to do what you ask, and surely others will pass this way soon, happy to take the goat for you. It’s beyond us old ones, but we’ll pray for your parents’ return and that God will keep you safe always.”
“Don’t go, elders! It wasn’t our fault the ogre was poisoned.”
Taking his wife’s arm, Axl led her away from the children. He did not look back until they had passed the goat’s pen, and then he saw the children still standing there, three abreast, watching silently, the towering cliffs behind them. Axl waved encouragingly, but something like shame — and perhaps the trace of some distant memory, a memory of another such departure — made him increase his pace.
But before they had gone far — the marshy ground had started to descend and the valleys to open before them — Beatrice tugged his arm to slow them.
“I didn’t wish to talk across you before those children, husband,” she said. “But is it really beyond us to do as they ask?”
“They’re in no immediate peril, princess, and we have our own worries. How goes your pain now?”
“My pain’s no worse. Axl, look how those children stand as we left them, watching as we grow ever smaller in their sight. Can’t we at least pause beside this stone and talk further on it? Let’s not hasten away carelessly.”
“Don’t look back to them, princess, for you only taunt their hopes. We’ll not go back to their goat, but down into this valley, a fire and what food kind strangers may give us.”
“But think on what it is they ask, Axl.” Beatrice had now brought them to a halt. “Will a chance like this ever come our way again? Think on it! We stumble to this spot so near Querig’s lair. And these children offer a poisonous goat by which even the two of us, old and weak though we are, might bring down the she-dragon! Think on it, Axl! If Querig falls, the mist will fast begin to clear. Who’s to say those children aren’t right and God himself didn’t bring us this way?”
Axl remained silent for a moment, fighting the urge to look back towards the stone cottage. “There’s no telling that goat will bring any harm at all to Querig,” he said eventually. “A hapless ogre’s one thing. This she-dragon’s a creature to scatter an army. And can it be wise for two elderly fools like us to wander so near her lair?”
“We’re not to face her, Axl, only to tether the goat and flee. It may be days before Querig comes to the spot, and we’ll by then be safe at our son’s village. Axl, don’t we want returned to us our memories of this long life lived together? Or will we become like strangers met one night in a shelter? Come, husband, say we’ll turn back and do as those children bid us.”
So here they were, climbing still higher, the winds growing stronger. For the moment, the twin rocks provided good shelter, but they could not stay like this for ever. Axl wondered yet again if he had been foolish to give in.
“Princess,” he said eventually. “Suppose we really do this thing. Suppose God allows us to succeed, and we bring down the she-dragon. I’d like you then to promise me something.”
She was sitting close beside him now, though her eyes were still on the distance and the line of tiny figures.
“What is it you ask, Axl?”
“It’s simply this, princess. Should Querig really die and the mist begin to clear. Should memories return, and among them of times I disappointed you. Or yet of dark deeds I may once have done to make you look at me and see no longer the man you do now. Promise me this at least. Promise, princess, you’ll not forget what you feel in your heart for me at this moment. For what good’s a memory’s returning from the mist if it’s only to push away another? Will you promise me, princess? Promise to keep what you feel for me this moment always in your heart, no matter what you see once the mist’s gone.”
“I’ll promise it, Axl, and no hardship to do so.”
“Words can’t tell how it comforts me to hear you say it, princess.”
“A queer mood you’re in, Axl. But who knows how much further it is till the giant’s cairn? Let’s not spend any more time sitting between these great stones. Those children were anxious when we left, and they’ll be awaiting our return.”
Gawain’s Second Reverie
This cursed wind. Is this a storm before us? Horace will mind neither wind nor rain, only that a stranger sits astride him now and not his old master. “Just a weary woman,” I tell him, “with greater need of the saddle than me. So carry her in good grace.” Yet why is she here at all? Does Master Axl not see how frail she grows? Has he lost his mind to bring her to these unforgiving heights? But she presses on as determined as he, and nothing I say will turn them back. So I stagger here on foot, a hand on Horace’s bridle, heaving this rusty coat. “Did we not always serve ladies with courtesy?” I murmur to Horace. “Would we ride on, leaving this good couple tugging at their goat?”
I saw them first as small figures far below and took them for those others. “See down there, Horace,” I said then. “Already they’ve found each other. Already they come, and as though that fellow took no wounds at all from Brennus.”
And Horace looked my way thoughtfully, as though to ask, “Then, Gawain, will this be the last time we climb this bleak slope together?” And I gave no reply but to stroke gently his neck, though I thought to myself, “That warrior’s young and a terrible fellow. Yet I may have the beating of him, who’s to say? I saw something even as he brought down Brennus’s man. Another would not see it, yet I did. A small opening on the left for a canny foe.”
But what would Arthur have me do now? His shadow still falls across the land and engulfs me. Would he have me crouch like a beast awaiting its prey? Yet where to hide on these bare slopes? Will the wind alone conceal a man? Or should I perch on some precipice and hurl down a boulder at them? Hardly the way for a knight of Arthur. I would rather show myself openly, greet him, try once more a little diplomacy. “Turn back, sir. You endanger not just yourself and your innocent companion, but all the good folk of this country. Leave Querig to one who knows her ways. You see me even now on my way to slay her.” But such pleas were ignored before. Why would he hear me now he is come so close, and the bitten boy to guide him to her very door? Was I a fool to rescue that boy? Yet the abbot appals me so, and I know God will thank me for what I did.
“They come as surely as they have a chart,” I said to Horace. “So where shall we wait? Where shall we face them?”