Beatrice pressed herself against him. “He was the she-dragon’s defender,” she said, “yet showed us kindness. Who knows where we’d be now without him, Axl, and I’m sorry to see him fallen.”
He pressed Beatrice close to him. Then releasing her, he climbed down a little way to where he could see better Gawain’s body lying on the earth. Wistan had been correct: the blood had flowed only to where the ground rose in a kind of lip at the cliff’s edge, and was pooling there with no danger of spilling over. The sight caused a melancholy to sweep over him, but also — though it was a distant and vague one — the feeling that some great anger within him had at long last been answered.
“Bravo, sir,” Axl called down. “Now there’s nothing stands between you and the she-dragon.”
Wistan, who had all the while been staring down at the fallen knight, now came slowly, somewhat giddily, to the foot of the mound, and when he looked up appeared to be in something of a dream.
“I learned long ago,” he said, “not to fear Death as I fought. Yet I thought I heard his soft tread behind me as I faced this knight. Long in years, yet he was close to getting the better of me.”
The warrior seemed then to notice the sword still in his hand, and made as though to thrust it into the soft earth at the foot of the mound. But at the last moment he stopped himself, the blade almost at the soil, and straightening, said: “Why clean this sword yet? Why not let this knight’s blood mingle with the she-dragon’s?”
He came up the side of the mound, his gait still somewhat like a drunkard’s. Brushing past them, he leant over a rock and gazed down into the pit, his shoulders moving with each breath.
“Master Wistan,” Beatrice said gently. “We’re now impatient to see you slay Querig. But will you bury the poor knight after? My husband here’s weary and must save his strength for what remains of our journey.”
“He was a kin of the hated Arthur,” Wistan said, turning to her, “yet I’ll not leave him to the crows. Rest assured, mistress, I’ll see to him, and may even lay him down in this pit, beside the creature he so long defended.”
“Then hurry, sir,” Beatrice said, “and finish the task. For though she’s feeble, we’ll not be easy till we know she’s slain.”
But Wistan seemed no longer to hear her, for he was now gazing at Axl with a faraway expression.
“Are you well, sir?” Axl asked eventually.
“Master Axl,” the warrior said, “we may not meet again. So let me ask one last time. Could you be that gentle Briton from my boyhood who once moved like a wise prince through our village, making men dream of ways to keep innocents beyond the reach of war? If you have a remembrance of it, I ask you to confide in me before we part.”
“If I was that man, sir, I see him today only through the haze of this creature’s breath, and he looks a fool and a dreamer, yet one who meant well, and suffered to see solemn oaths undone in cruel slaughter. There were others spread the treaty through the Saxon villages, but if my face stirs something in you, why suppose it was another’s?”
“I thought it when we first met, sir, but couldn’t be sure. I thank you for your frankness.”
“Then speak frankly to me in turn, for it’s a thing shifts within me since our meeting yesterday, and perhaps, in truth, for far longer. This man you remember, Master Wistan. Is he one of whom you would seek vengeance?”
“What are you saying, husband?” Beatrice pushed forward, placing herself between Axl and the warrior. “What quarrel can there be between you and this warrior? If there is one, he’ll need strike me first.”
“Master Wistan talks of a skin I shed before we two ever met, princess. One I hoped had long crumbled on a forgotten path.” Then to Wistan: “What do you say, sir? Your sword still drips. If it’s vengeance you crave, it’s a thing easily found, though I beg you protect my dear wife who trembles for me.”
“That man was one I once adored from afar, and it’s true there were times later I wished him cruelly punished for his part in the betrayal. Yet I see today he may have acted with no cunning, wishing well for his own kin and ours alike. If I met him again, sir, I’d bid him go in peace, even though I know peace now can’t hold for long. But excuse me, friends, and let me go down and end my errand.”
Down in the pit, neither the dragon’s position nor posture had changed: if her senses were warning her of the proximity of strangers — and of one in particular making his way down the steep side of the pit — Querig gave no indication of it. Or could it be the rise and fall of her spine had become a little more pronounced? And was there a new urgency in the hooded eye as it opened and shut? Axl could not be sure. But as he continued to gaze down at the creature, the idea came to him that the hawthorn bush — the only other thing alive in the pit — had become a source of great comfort to her, and that even now, in her mind’s eye, she was reaching for it. Axl realised the idea was fanciful, yet the more he watched, the more credible it seemed. For how was it a solitary bush was growing in a place like this? Could it not be that Merlin himself had allowed it to grow here, so that the dragon would have a companion?
Wistan was continuing his descent, his sword still unsheathed. His gaze rarely strayed from the spot where the creature lay, as if he half expected her to rise suddenly, transformed into a formidable demon. At one stage he slipped, and dug his sword into the ground to avoid sliding some way down on his backside. This episode sent stones and gravel cascading down the slope, but Querig still gave no response.
Then Wistan was safely on the ground. He wiped his forehead, glanced up at Axl and Beatrice, then moved towards the dragon, stopping several strides away. He then raised his sword and began to scrutinise the blade, apparently taken aback to discover it streaked with blood. For several moments, Wistan remained like this, not moving, so that Axl wondered if the strange mood that had overtaken the warrior since his victory had momentarily made him forget his reason for entering the pit.
But then with something of the unexpectedness that had characterised his contest with the old knight, Wistan suddenly moved forward. He did not run, but walked briskly, stepping over the dragon’s body without breaking stride, and hurried on as though anxious to reach the other side of the pit. But his sword had described a swift, low arc in passing, and Axl saw the dragon’s head spin into the air and roll a little way before coming to rest on the stony ground. It did not remain there long, however, for it was soon engulfed by the rich tide that first parted around it, then buoyed it up till it swam glidingly across the floor of the pit. It came to a stop at the hawthorn, where it lodged, the throat up to the sky. The sight brought back to Axl the head of the monster dog Gawain had severed in the tunnel, and again a melancholy threatened to sweep over him. He made himself look away from the dragon, and watch instead the figure of Wistan, who had not stopped walking. The warrior was now circling back, avoiding the ever-spreading pool, and then with his sword still unsheathed, began the climb out of the pit.
“It’s done, Axl,” Beatrice said.
“It is, princess. Yet there’s still a question I wish to ask this warrior.”
Wistan took a surprisingly long time to climb out of the pit. When at last he appeared before them again, he looked overwhelmed and not in the least triumphant. Without a word, he sat down on the blackened ground right on the rim of the pit, and at last thrust his sword deep into the earth. Then he gazed emptily, not into the pit, but beyond, at the clouds and the pale hills in the distance.