eye over the daughter, who stood further back, staring at us from behind a fence of waiting-women. She was pretty enough, but only a child, no older than me. His gaze slid off her like water off metal and went roving among her older, prettier companions.
“We’ll take no gold from you,” he said, talking to the lady of the place, but with his eyes on one of the serving women. “A bed for the night, and straw for our horses, and a day’s hunting. That’s all we ask of Peredur Long-Knife’s widow.”
Peredur Long-Knife’s widow looked past him to her saint, as if expecting help. None came. She seemed to gather herself, leaning for a moment against the doorpost while she struggled to recollect the right words and ways for greeting war-lords. With a watery effort at a smile she said, “You are welcome, my lord Arthur.”
That night she served a feast for us. Killed and roasted a pig she probably couldn’t spare (though I noticed that Saint Porroc’s monks had pigs a-plenty in pens behind the little chapel). She was so frightened of Arthur that just looking at him seemed to hurt her. Arthur could have helped himself to her place without a thought, and everybody in the hall knew it; you could see it in the wary, watchful looks they gave him through the smoke. The monks outside knew too. When I slipped out topiss I saw a dozen of them standing outside their humpbacked huts, eyes on the hall. They knew they and their angry saint would be booted out if Arthur took the place.
But Arthur had no use for this drab, sandy holding, so far from his other lands. Anyway, he was in a giving mood. He ate the stringy pig and called it good, and drank Peredur Long-Knife’s memory in gritty, vinegarish wine. He nodded approval when the widow’s blushing daughter picked out a tentative, tuneless air upon her harp. He grabbed the serving girl who’d snagged his fancy and sat her on his lap and shouted to my master for a story.
So Myrddin, who’d seen the hunting-spears being sharpened ready for tomorrow’s sport, told us the tale of another hunt that Arthur had ridden out on, and somehow the real hunt merged into a magical hunt where Arthur and his companions took the places of the old heroes, and the boar they were hunting became Twrch Trwyth, the great boar of the island of Britain, and they chased him deeper and deeper into dark old thickets of story until Arthur speared him and snatched from between his two ears the magic comb.
And we slept by the fire that night, wrapped in our cloaks, dreaming of riding through ancient woods, with the white tail of Twrch Trwyth flashing ahead of us and the spears in our right hands so sharp we heard the air sing as the blades sliced it.
I woke to a booming, sunlit morning. The doors of the hall were open, and a sea-wind was whisking up theashes in the fireplace. The light kept dimming suddenly as a cloud masked the sun and bursting out again, golden, world-filling. Even the gulls sounded happier.
The men and boys of Arthur’s band were waking up around me, scrambling to their feet and shaking the wine-fog from their heads. Bedwyr, all tousle-haired, tugged me away to ready our masters’ horses for the hunt. He was itchy with excitement at the day ahead. “A hunt’s not like war,” he said earnestly. “In a hunt we’re the equal of the grown men. Speed and wits may take the quarry, where weight and strength mean nothing. I hunted often in my father’s lands when I was younger.”
I nodded, trying not to show how I really felt about the idea of riding our wiry little ponies fast across those hummocky, tussocked cliff-tops. I tried to look as if I had hunted before, too; as if I’d spent my summers chasing the boar Twrch Trwyth instead of dipping for minnows in the withy-ponds. And when I thought about the tales Myrddin had spun for us in the firelight I found it wasn’t so hard, after all, to imagine myself a great hunter. You could see the same thing in Bedwyr’s face, and in
“We’ll take no gold from you,” he said, talking to the lady of the place, but with his eyes on one of the serving women. “A bed for the night, and straw for our horses, and a day’s hunting. That’s all we ask of Peredur Long-Knife’s widow.”
Peredur Long-Knife’s widow looked past him to her saint, as if expecting help. None came. She seemed to gather herself, leaning for a moment against the doorpost while she struggled to recollect the right words and ways for greeting war-lords. With a watery effort at a smile she said, “You are welcome, my lord Arthur.”
That night she served a feast for us. Killed and roasted a pig she probably couldn’t spare (though I noticed that Saint Porroc’s monks had pigs a-plenty in pens behind the little chapel). She was so frightened of Arthur that just looking at him seemed to hurt her. Arthur could have helped himself to her place without a thought, and everybody in the hall knew it; you could see it in the wary, watchful looks they gave him through the smoke. The monks outside knew too. When I slipped out topiss I saw a dozen of them standing outside their humpbacked huts, eyes on the hall. They knew they and their angry saint would be booted out if Arthur took the place.
But Arthur had no use for this drab, sandy holding, so far from his other lands. Anyway, he was in a giving mood. He ate the stringy pig and called it good, and drank Peredur Long-Knife’s memory in gritty, vinegarish wine. He nodded approval when the widow’s blushing daughter picked out a tentative, tuneless air upon her harp. He grabbed the serving girl who’d snagged his fancy and sat her on his lap and shouted to my master for a story.
So Myrddin, who’d seen the hunting-spears being sharpened ready for tomorrow’s sport, told us the tale of another hunt that Arthur had ridden out on, and somehow the real hunt merged into a magical hunt where Arthur and his companions took the places of the old heroes, and the boar they were hunting became Twrch Trwyth, the great boar of the island of Britain, and they chased him deeper and deeper into dark old thickets of story until Arthur speared him and snatched from between his two ears the magic comb.
And we slept by the fire that night, wrapped in our cloaks, dreaming of riding through ancient woods, with the white tail of Twrch Trwyth flashing ahead of us and the spears in our right hands so sharp we heard the air sing as the blades sliced it.
I woke to a booming, sunlit morning. The doors of the hall were open, and a sea-wind was whisking up theashes in the fireplace. The light kept dimming suddenly as a cloud masked the sun and bursting out again, golden, world-filling. Even the gulls sounded happier.
The men and boys of Arthur’s band were waking up around me, scrambling to their feet and shaking the wine-fog from their heads. Bedwyr, all tousle-haired, tugged me away to ready our masters’ horses for the hunt. He was itchy with excitement at the day ahead. “A hunt’s not like war,” he said earnestly. “In a hunt we’re the equal of the grown men. Speed and wits may take the quarry, where weight and strength mean nothing. I hunted often in my father’s lands when I was younger.”
I nodded, trying not to show how I really felt about the idea of riding our wiry little ponies fast across those hummocky, tussocked cliff-tops. I tried to look as if I had hunted before, too; as if I’d spent my summers chasing the boar Twrch Trwyth instead of dipping for minnows in the withy-ponds. And when I thought about the tales Myrddin had spun for us in the firelight I found it wasn’t so hard, after all, to imagine myself a great hunter. You could see the same thing in Bedwyr’s face, and in
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