Thump! A rock bounced off the man’s head. The man sat down. Shea turned back to the first and just parried a cut at his head. The first kiltie was really boring in now. Shea backed another step, slipped, recovered, parried, and backed. The water tugged at his legs. He couldn’t meet the furious swings squarely for fear of snapping his light blade. Another step back, and another, and the water was only inches deep. Now! Disengage, double, one-two, lunge — and the needlepoint slid through skin and lungs and skin again. Shea recovered and watched the man’s knees sag. Down he went.
The other was picking himself our of the water some distance down. When Shea took a few steps towards him, he scrambled up the bank and ran like a deer, his empty swordsling banging against his back.
* * *
Amoret’s voice announced: «You may come now, gentlemen.» Shea and Chalmers went back to the river to find the girls dressed and drying their hair by spreading it to the sun on their hands.
Shea asked Briromart: «You threw that rock, didn’t you?»
«Aye. Thanks and more than thanks, Squire Harold. I cry your grace for having thought that slaughtering blade of yours a toy.»
«Don’t mention it. That second bird would have nailed me if you hadn’t beaned him with a rock. But say, why did you just sit there in the pool? A couple of steps would have taken you to the deep water. Or can’t you swim?»
«We can swim,» she replied. «But it would not be meet to expose our modesty by leaving the pool, least of all to the wild Da Derga.»
Shea forebore to argue about the folly of modesty that exposed one to death or to a fate that Britomart would undoubtedly consider worse. The blonde beauty was showing a much friendlier disposition towards him, and he did not wish to jeopardize it by argument over undebatable questions.
When they rode on, Britomart left Amoret to inflict her endless tale of woe on Chalmers, while she rode with Shea. Shea asked leading questions, trying not to reveal his own ignorance too much.
Britomart was, it transpired, one of Queen Gloriana’s «Companions» or officers — a «count» in the old Frankish sense of the term. There were twelve of them, each charged with the righting of wrongs in some special field of the land of Faerie.
Ye olde tyme policewoman, thought Shea. He asked whether there were grades of authority among the Companions.
Britomart told him: «That hangs by what matter is under consideration. In questions involving the relations of man to man, I am less than those gallant knights, Sir Cambell and Sir Triamond. Again, should it be a point of justice, the last authority rests with Sir Artegall.»
Her voice changed a trifle on the last word. Shea remembered how she had mentioned Artegall the evening before. «What’s he like?»
«Oh, a most gallant princely rogue, I warrant you!» She touched her horse with the spurs so that he pranced, and she had to soothe him with: «Quiet, Beltran!»
«Yes?» Shea encouraged.
«Well, for the physical side of him, somewhat dark of hair and countenance; tall, and so strong with lance that not Redcross or Prince Arthur himself can bear the shock of his charge. That was how I came to know him. We fought; I was the better with the spear, but at swords he overthrew me and was like to have killed me before he found I was a woman. I fell in love with him forthwith,» she finished simply.
Singular sort of courtship, thought Shea, but even in the world I came from there are girls who fall for that kind of treatment. Aloud he said: «I hope he fell for you, too.»
Britomart surprised him by heaving a sigh. «Alas, fair squire, that I must confess I do not know. ’Tis true he plighted himself to marry me, but he’s ever off to some tournament, or riding to some quest that I know not the end or hour of. We’ll be married when he gets back, quotha, but when he does return, it’s to praise my courage or strength, and never a word to show he thinks of me as a woman. He’ll clap me on the back and say; ‘Good old Britomart, I knew I could depend on you. And now I have another task for you; a dragon this time.’»
«Hm-m-m,» said Shea. «Don’t suppose you ever beard of psychology?»
«Nay, not I.»
«Do you ever dress up? I mean, like some of those Ladies at Castle Caultrock.»
«Of what use to me such foibles? Could I pursue my tasks as Companion in such garb?»
«Do you ever roll your eyes up at Artegall and tell him how wonderful he is?»
«Nay, marry beshrew me! What would he think of so unmaidenly conduct?»
«That’s just the point; just what he’s waiting for! Look here, in my country the girls are pretty good at that sort of thing, and I’ve learned most of the tricks. I’ll show you a few, and you can practise on me. I don’t mind.»
* * *
They dined rather thinly that night, on coarse brown bread and cheese which Britomart produced from a pack at the back of her saddle. They slept in cushiony beds of fern, three inches deep. The next day they rode in the same arrangement. Chalmers rather surprisingly consented. He explained: «The young lady is certainly very. uh. verbose, but she has a good deal of information to offer with regard to the methods of this Busyrane. I should prefer to continue the conversation.»
As soon as they were on the road Britomart pulled up her visor and, leaning cowards Shea, rolled her eyes. «You must be weary, my most dear lord,» she said, «after your struggle with those giants. Come sit and talk. I love to hear —»
Shea grinned. «Overdoing it a little, old girl. Better start again.»
«You must be weary — Hola, what have we here?»
The track had turned and mounted to a plateau-like meadow. As they emerged into the bright sun, a trumpet sounded two sharp notes. There was a gleam of metal from the other side. Shea saw a knight with a shield marked in wavy stripes of green drop his lance into place and start towards him.
«Sir Paridell, as I live!» snapped Britomart, in her policewoman’s voice. «Oft an ildoer and always a lecher. Ha! Well met! Gloriana!» The last shouted word was muffled in her helmet as the visor snapped shut. Her big black horse bounded towards this sudden opponent, the ebony lance sticking out past his head. They met with a crash. Paridell held the saddle, but his horse’s legs flew out from under. Man and animal came down together in a whirlwind of dust — Shea and Chalmers reached him together and managed to pull the horse clear. When they got Paridell’s helmet off he was breathing, but there was a thin trickle of blood at his lips. He was unconscious.
Shea gazed at him a moment, then had an inspiration. «Say, Britomart,» he asked, «what are the rules about taking the arms of a guy like that?»
Britomart looked at her late opponent without pity. «Since the false knave attacked us, I suppose they belong to me.»
«He must have heard I was travelling in your company,» piped Amoret. «Oh, the perils I go through!»
Shea was not to be put off. «I was wondering if maybe I couldn’t use that outfit.»
Paridell’s squire, a youth with a thin fuzz of beard on his chin and the trumpet over his shoulder, had joined them. He was bending over his master, trying to revive him by forcing the contents of a little flask between his lips. Now he looked up. «Nay, good sir,» he said to Britomart, «punish him not so. He did but catch a glimpse of you as you rode up, and mistook this dame for the Lady Florimel.»
* * *
A flush of anger went up Britomart’s face. «In very truth!» she cried. «Now if I had no thought before of penalties, this would be more than I needed. Sir, I am Britomart of the Companions, and this Paridell of yours is a most foul scoundrel. Strip him of his arms!»