They moved then into the trees away from me, and I could hear the shape of their lowered voices, but no words. Then Master Axl comes to me and says: “A moment more for my wife to rest, then we will carry on, sir, to the giant’s cairn.” I see it is useless to argue more, and I also eager to continue on our way, for who knows how far behind is Master Wistan and his bitten boy?
Part IV
Chapter Fifteen
Some of you will have fine monuments by which the living may remember the evil done to you. Some of you will have only crude wooden crosses or painted rocks, while yet others of you must remain hidden in the shadows of history. You are in any case part of an ancient procession, and so it is always possible the giant’s cairn was erected to mark the site of some such tragedy long ago when young innocents were slaughtered in war. This aside, it is not easy to think of reasons for its standing. One can see why on lower ground our ancestors might have wished to commemorate a victory or a king. But why stack heavy stones to above a man’s height in so high and remote a place as this?
It was a question, I am sure, equally to baffle Axl as he came wearily up the mountain slope. When the young girl had first mentioned the giant’s cairn, he had pictured something atop a large mound. Yet this cairn had simply appeared before them on the incline, no feature around it to explain its presence. The goat, nonetheless, seemed immediately to sense its significance, struggling frantically as soon as the cairn had become visible as a dark finger against the sky. “It knows its fate,” Sir Gawain had remarked, guiding his horse up with Beatrice in the saddle.
But now the goat had forgotten its earlier dread and was chewing the mountain grass contentedly.
“Can it be Querig’s mist works its mischief on goats and men alike?”
It was Beatrice who asked this as she held with both hands the animal’s rope. Axl had for the moment relinquished the creature while he hammered into the ground with a stone the wooden stake around which the rope had been wound.
“Who knows, princess. But if God cares at all for goats, he’ll bring the she-dragon here before long, or it’ll be a lonely wait for this poor animal.”
“If the goat dies first, Axl, do you suppose she’ll still sup on meat not living and fresh?”
“Who knows how a she-dragon likes her meat? But there’s grass here to keep this goat a while, princess, even if it’s of a mean sort.”
“Look there, Axl. I thought the knight would help us, weary as we both are. But he’s forgotten his usual manners.”
Indeed Sir Gawain had become oddly reticent since their arrival at the cairn. “This is the place you seek,” he had said in an almost sulky voice, before wandering off. And now he stood with his back to them, staring at the clouds.
“Sir Gawain,” Axl called out, pausing from his work. “Will you not assist holding this goat? My poor wife grows tired from it.”
The old knight did not react, and Axl, assuming he had not heard, was about to repeat his request, when Gawain turned suddenly, and with such a look of solemnity, they both stared at him.
“I see them below,” the old knight said. “And nothing now to turn them.”
“Who is it you see, sir?” Axl asked. Then when the knight remained silent, “Are they soldiers? We watched earlier some long column on the horizon, but thought they moved away from us.”
“I speak of your recent companions, sir. The same with whom you travelled yesterday when we met. They emerge from the wood below, and who’ll stop them now? For a moment, I raised a hope I merely looked on two black widows strayed from that infernal procession. But it was the cloudy sky playing its tricks, and it’s them, no mistake.”
“So Master Wistan escaped the monastery after all,” Axl said.
“That he did, sir. And now he comes, and on his rope not a goat, but the Saxon boy to guide him.”
At last Sir Gawain seemed to notice Beatrice struggling with the animal and came hurriedly from the cliff edge to seize the rope. But Beatrice did not let go, and for a moment it was as if she and the knight were tussling for control of the goat. In time they stood steadily, both holding the rope, the old knight a step or two in front of Beatrice.
“And have our friends in turn seen us here, Sir Gawain?” Axl asked, returning to his task.
“I’ll wager that warrior has keen eyes, and sees us even now against the sky, figures in a tug contest, the goat our opponent!” He laughed to himself, but a melancholy lingered in his voice. “Yes,” he said finally. “I fancy he sees us well enough.”
“Then he joins forces with us,” Beatrice said, “to bring down the she-dragon.”
Sir Gawain looked from one to the other of them uneasily. Then he said: “Master Axl, do you still persist in believing it?”
“Believing what, Sir Gawain?”
“That we gather here in this forsaken spot as comrades?”
“Make your meaning clearer, sir knight.”
Gawain led the goat to where Axl was kneeling, oblivious of Beatrice following behind, still clutching her end of the rope.
“Master Axl, didn’t our ways part years ago? Mine remained with Arthur, while yours …” He seemed now to become aware of Beatrice behind him, and turning, bowed politely. “Dear lady, I beg you let go this rope and rest. I’ll not let the animal escape. Sit down beside the cairn there. It will shelter at least some part of you from this wind.”
“Thank you, Sir Gawain,” Beatrice said. “Then I’ll trust you with this creature, and it’s a precious one to us.”
She began to make her way towards the cairn, and something about the way she did so, her shoulders hunched against the wind, caused a fragment of recollection to stir on the edges of Axl’s mind. The emotion it provoked, even before he could hold it down, surprised and shocked him, for mingled with the overwhelming desire to go to her now and shelter her, were distinct shadows of anger and bitterness. She had talked of a long night spent alone, tormented by his absence, but could it be he too had known such a night, or even several, of similar anguish? Then, as Beatrice stopped before the cairn and bowed her head to the stones as if in apology, he felt both memory and anger growing firmer, and a fear made him turn away from her. Only then did he notice Sir Gawain also gazing over at Beatrice, a look of tenderness in his eyes, seemingly lost in his thoughts. But the knight soon collected himself, and coming closer to Axl, leant right down as though to remove any small chance of Beatrice overhearing.
“Who’s to say your path wasn’t the more godly?” he said. “To leave behind all great talk of war and peace. Leave behind that fine law to bring men closer to God. To leave behind Arthur once and for all and devote yourself to …” He glanced over again at Beatrice, who had remained on her feet, her forehead almost touching the piled stones in her effort to escape the wind. “To a good wife, sir. I’ve watched how she goes beside you as a kind shadow. Should I have done the same? Yet God guided us down separate paths. I had a duty. Ha! And do I fear him now? Never, sir, never. I accuse you of nothing. That great law you brokered torn down in blood! Yet it held well for a time. Torn down in blood! Who blames us for it now? Do I fear youth? Is it youth alone can defeat an opponent? Let him come, let him come. Remember it, sir! I saw you that very day and you talked of cries in your ears of children and babes. I heard the same, sir, yet were they not like the cries from the surgeon’s tent when a man’s life is spared even as the cure brings agonies? Yet I admit it. There are days I long for a kind shadow to follow me. Even now I turn in hope to see one. Doesn’t every animal, every bird in the sky crave a tender companion? There were one or two I’d willingly have given my years. Why should I fear him now? I’ve fought fanged Norsemen with reindeer snouts, and they no masks! Here, sir, tie your goat now. How much deeper will you drive that stake? Is it a goat you tether or a lion?”