Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
Gabriel’s research had produced many different opinions about the Questing Beast. In the accounts he’d read, it sometimes barked like a dog, was either very long or very tall, perhaps had spots, and was also maybe the offspring of a demon and a normal human woman.
Other experts agreed that none of the above was true, and it was actually quite a nice-looking little creature, dainty and pleasant to behold, except for the fact that its own children were trying to eat it alive from the inside, which was sort of religiously allegorical and suitably weird in the way that such things often were.
It was also supposed to be long-dead; slain by Sir Palamedes, or maybe felled by natural causes after a long and healthy lifespan of some hundred years.
There were quite a few noblemen who claimed to have chunks of Beast on display or contained in reliquaries in their houses, although for all of these claims to be true, the Beast would have needed to be so outrageously large that it called into question why it had taken King Pellinore and Sir Palamedes quite so long to hunt down this hulking, landscape-dominating behemoth.
Still, the idea that there might be some very interesting and perhaps rare species inhabiting the woods was a scintillating thought.
“I can see you’re very excited,” Arthur said as they rode together, the guards doing as bidden and disappearing into the foliage around them.
“How?” Sidney asked, from Gabriel’s other side. “He’s frowning.”
“Yes, but that’s his excited frown. It’s different from the usual one.”
The peace between them was too fragile for Gabriel to speak and doubtless ruin it.
It felt something like hope to hear Arthur talk to him like this, like he was a real person, and one who Arthur didn’t hate.
It had been so long since their conversations had been anything but deeply fraught, every silence a gaping chasm, every word a snagged fingernail.
Just offering to ride along felt like such a big olive branch, he was practically offering Gabriel the whole tree.
“Your Majesty,” Sir Hurst said, looking back over his shoulder, perpetually concerned but especially troubled at this very minute. “Are you well?”
“Yes,” Gabriel replied. “Just … excited.”
“I knew it,” Arthur said triumphantly, obviously speaking to Sidney now, but still about Gabriel. Across Gabriel.
Such tragic little victories were not to be sniffed at.
“We should be quiet,” Gabriel said, preemptively cutting himself off from saying anything foolish. “We don’t want to frighten it away.”
They clopped on through the forest, following their guide down a twisty trail through the undergrowth that narrowed and necessitated they ride single file, which obviously upset Sir Hurst deeply.
If the Captain of the Guard had his way, Gabriel would never travel anywhere without about thirty men riding in constant circles around him in a three-layer-deep perimeter with him at the center, like the hidden pit of some insane fruit.
Actually, if Sir Hurst had his way, Gabriel wouldn’t be allowed to travel at all. Right now, this sounded quite peaceful. They would likely call him the Hermit King, but why would he care? From his library, he wouldn’t be able to hear them.
It was an old forest, mossy, the ground soft with leaves. As they rode, Gabriel started jumping at the sight of any slightly interesting shape, his heart pounding before he realized all he’d spied was a fat stick or a tree stump that looked a little like a cooked turkey.
“What are we actually looking for?” Arthur whispered from behind Gabriel.
“I have no idea,” Sidney whispered back. “I actually thought it was a rabbit? Like … just a big rabbit?”
“Don’t be stupid, it’s not a rabbit.”
“What is it then?”
“Um…” There was quite a long pause as Arthur thought. “A badger?”
“It’s not a badger,” Gabriel said quietly, twisting in the saddle so that he was almost looking at Arthur, but not quite. “It’s not supposed to be any known animal.”
“How are we supposed to look for it then?” Arthur said, slightly too loud. Sidney shushed him.
Gabriel shrugged, and turned back to the path ahead. “If you see a Beast, you’ll know.”
“Process of elimination. You got that, Sid?”
“Shut up, let me concentrate. I’m shifting into Beast mode.”
They were going along in this fashion, their guide stalwart ahead, Arthur and Sidney whispering, Gabriel and Sir Hurst ignoring them in silence, when John’s wiry little terrier burst from the undergrowth, yapping sharply at them in warning.
Sir Hurst held up his hand for all to stop. “I think we ought to—”
So much hell broke loose so quickly that, for a moment, Gabriel thought that they were under attack on all sides from some new enemy.
Reality was not much kinder: There was something thundering toward them, screaming with gusto.
It was a boar, and it was enormous. Five feet of pure muscle, a thick shaggy coat, tusks twice as long as Gabriel’s forearm; in any other circumstance, his first emotion would have been pure awe.
It still was, for half a heartbeat—and then the boar skidded to a snorting halt, Sir Hurst drew his sword with a shout of warning, Gabriel’s horse reared, and the more appropriate reaction—pure panic—flooded his veins.
Gabriel grappled for the reins as Penelope shied backward, threatening to rear again.
He was all turned around; he couldn’t see the boar anymore, which felt like a very bad sign.
Someone was saying, “Shit, shit, shit,” against a cacophony of raised voices and many horses approaching, presumably the guards drawn by Sir Hurst’s cry.
He was shouting “Go!” now, clearly aimed at Gabriel, but his horse still wasn’t having any of it. He had just managed to regain control and was trying to turn her when someone slapped her hard on the rump. She did the only sensible thing, and bolted.
Gabriel flung himself down over her neck and closed his eyes, so that if they did run headlong into any low-hanging trees, at least he wouldn’t know he’d been decapitated until his head hit the ground.
Penelope was a well-behaved horse, even when pushed this far past her limits, so she didn’t run for very long. Once the immediate terror had passed, she slowed to a snorting walk, keeping her head held high and ready to spot any new dangers that might befall them.
“Good girl,” Gabriel said, easing upright and patting her neck. “That’s it, Penny, it’s all right. I’m sorry about the boar.”
He listened for company, and heard nothing but the staccato disagreements of small birds overhead.
They weren’t on a game trail anymore, but had found themselves in an area where the trees were less dense, the muddy ground swelling and falling around a small, leaf-clogged stream.
There were absolutely no clues as to what direction they had come from or should be going.
His guards must have been searching for him—if they weren’t still locked in battle with an indignant pig—but they were nowhere to be seen.
“Right,” Gabriel said. “Hmm.”
A noise from behind startled both him and Penelope, and Gabriel braced for the boar in hot pursuit before realizing that he was being approached by a horse and rider.
“Jesus,” panted Arthur. “I thought you’d been eaten alive by the hog from hell.” He was red in the face and quite sweaty; his horse just looked quite annoyed.
“No.” Gabriel felt lightheaded, watching Arthur slide from his horse and stumble when he hit the uneven ground, grabbing the stirrup for balance. “I think Sir Hurst … I think he encouraged Penelope to run, to get us out of—”
“Yeah, that’s what he did to me too. Nice of him.
The guards showed up, but it was chaos, everybody waving their swords around.
I guess you’re too valuable and I’m too much of a liability.
Luckily my horse fancies your horse, because I think he just chased after her. Haven’t seen any of the others.”
Arthur’s stallion did seem to be making eyes at Penelope. This was somewhat grounding, as horses often were. Gabriel gingerly eased himself from the saddle—one more thing that he’d had to relearn one-handed, harder than the riding part even—until his feet found mostly solid ground.
“What’s his name?” Gabriel asked, nodding to the horse, desperate for distraction.
“Oh God, he’s called Steed. I didn’t name him, he’s on loan from your stables. The head groom said that as I’m a reasonable rider I should have a good, hearty courser … the implication being that he might compensate for the rest of me.”
“I’m sure that’s … not what he meant.”
“He said, ‘It might be a good idea, considering,’ and then he never voiced the considerations. I joined the dots myself. Are you all right?”
Gabriel was not all right. His fingertips had gone numb, and his mouth felt sort of cold and fuzzy, like he’d brushed it against something mildly poisonous. He said, “Um,” and then found he couldn’t say anything more.
“Sit down,” Arthur said, and when Gabriel didn’t move, Arthur took an awkward half step toward him and then, more boldly, took him by the elbow.
“Sit,” he said again, and Gabriel let himself be guided down onto a slightly damp tree stump, bright worms of light wriggling in the muddy recesses of his vision.
“I’m all right, I just feel a bit…”
“Yeah,” Arthur said sternly, “that’s because you’re not really breathing. You’re sort of gasping a bit, and then not breathing at all, and what you want to do is find a happy medium between the two.”
“Mmm,” Gabriel hummed, noticing that he was right, but not sure how to course-correct.
It wasn’t something he was doing on purpose.
He took in a ragged breath, pressing his hand into the soggy grooves of the tree stump, wondering distantly if he might be about to faint as his heart pounded bloodily against his rib cage.
“Hey,” Arthur said, and then his hand was on Gabriel’s back, resting on his shoulder blade. It would have been excruciatingly nice if Gabriel could have enjoyed it. “Are you hurt? Where?”
“Not … hurt.”
“Ill?”
“Maybe,” Gabriel wheezed, sort of wishing Arthur would stop talking, but simultaneously dreading the moment he’d back away. Don’t leave me alone with me.
“Jesus, Gabe, what can I do? You’re scaring me.”
There was nothing he could do. Nothing anybody could do. Gabriel was broken in ways nobody could fix, in ways he couldn’t even explain; he was drowning in the open air, dying of absolutely nothing, miles away from the danger. Panicking. Always panicking.
Sudden warmth. Arthur’s hand was on Gabriel’s, and then he interlocked their fingers, lifted them, and placed them on his chest, right where his heart was beating strong and steady.
This was the bit where Arthur would usually make a joke to diffuse the tension, to make light of how obviously strange the situation was, but he didn’t.
He just breathed slowly, in and out, Gabriel’s hand rising and falling with the movement of his chest, until Gabriel was breathing like that too, as if they were a pair of lungs separated by circumstance.
Arthur ran hotter than Gabriel. Something to do with good blood supply. Holding him had always felt curative, like morning tea in Gabriel’s favorite cup, the chips and grooves as familiar to him as his own skin.
Arthur smelled like citrus—but not in the way that Gwen did, wild mint and lemons.
His was blood oranges and something rich and woody.
He dressed himself in the scent every day, carefully eked out from a little amber bottle he’d inherited from his mother, dotted on his wrists and throat.
Gabriel breathed in and out, in and out, and his hand and heart said: I remember, I remember, I remember.
The horses had been whickering back and forth at each other, but when Arthur’s stallion approached, Penelope responded by nipping him hard on the neck; he squeaked with outrage, and Arthur laughed and dropped Gabriel’s hand, which immediately felt freezing again.
“He’s a delusional chap, but extremely romantic,” he said, looking fondly at his horse, who was now gazing balefully at Penelope from a safe distance away. “I find him deeply relatable.”
Gabriel stood up clumsily, suddenly needing to put distance between himself and the tree stump—and, more specifically, the person by the tree stump.
“Right.”
Arthur was still looking at his horse when he asked, “That happen often?”
“What?”
His tone was even. “You know. The problems with your breathing.”
Only about once a day, if he was lucky. “No.”
“Oh. Good.”
Gabriel squinted into the trees, finding nothing but leaves, but pretending they were fascinating regardless. “We should … find the others. They might be hurt.”
“I’m sure they’re riding all over looking for you. Don’t worry, Sir Hurst is no idiot, and Sid is half boar, he knows how to think like a pig. They’ll be all right.”
He was worried though, because his smile was all wrong and he kept messing with his hair.
He looked a bit paler too, rougher around the edges than he had even a few days ago; Gabriel had been so concerned with staying upright, he hadn’t thought about how hard this journey would be on Arthur too.
He was stronger than he had been in the months after his life-threatening injuries last year, thanks to sheer determination and his unfailing commitment to his daily walks, but he still tired easily, needed to sit more often, slept for long hours after hard days …
or at least, that had been the case back when Gabriel had been privy to such intimate details.
“Are you all right?”
Arthur looked slightly taken aback by the question, and then shrugged. “No. But I’ll do.”