Chapter Twenty-Four
Twenty-Four
And so the King came upon the Green Knight, and threw down such a great challenge that the Green Knight was sore afraid to die, and they met upon the bridge to exchange but a single blow, and when the Green Knight saw the King was full of the might of chivalry, he cried mercy.
—FROM AN EARLY DRAFT OF THE QUESTS OF KING GAbrIEL AND HIS ROUND TABLE BY SIR FLORIAN ARDEN
They rode hard for another four days, making camp each night beneath the trees, gathering by the fire to listen to the Wizard’s philosophical musings, or tales of Sir Bowen’s days at war with France, or Sir Leonard’s early success on the tourney circuit.
Gabriel rarely made it past the first story before he excused himself to bed, and the others didn’t fare much better, staggering off to their tents soon after the sun slipped away.
Riding for so long, as it turned out, was horribly hard work.
They’d decided against a carriage for the optics, but as a result, Gabriel now had sores in places that had never seen the light of day.
His back hurt, he smelled perpetually of horse, and his sleep was better than it had been for months, by dint of the fact that his body was so exhausted it barely waited until his head touched the pillow.
As they approached their destination on the ninth day, all conversation turned to the Green Knight.
Gabriel knew he was traditionally considered a legendary figure who was unbothered by trivial wounds like decapitation, residing in a large estate, and only venturing out to issue challenges that tested a knight’s honor and loyalty—for example, by tricking them into kissing his wife.
There had been not a peep about him for hundreds of years, aside from the old stories, until now; back at Camelot, Lady Oakley had presented a report to Gabriel that a man purporting to be the Green Knight had been living under a bridge, challenging people to strike him, and generally making a bloody nuisance of himself.
The problem would have resolved itself with a simple defeat, but apparently everybody was too afraid to fight him.
“I suppose nobody wants to take the risk,” said Sir Hurst. “He might be dangerous.”
“Or perhaps,” said the Wizard, “they are afraid that if they hit him, he’s going to make some assessment of their moral character, and send them home with a new awareness of their failings and the threat looming over them that he may some day strike a blow in return.”
“He’s dressed himself all in green, daubed his hair, and keeps waving his sword at innocent bystanders,” said Cardinal Richards. “I think they’re all just afraid he’s an ungodly madman with nothing to lose.”
It was only a few hours farther to the town nearest to said bridge, and Gabriel spent the rest of the ride in blessed silence. He supposed the others might think he was doing lots of regal, serious thinking about the tasks ahead of him. Instead, he was thinking about kissing.
Namely the fact that he’d probably forgotten how to do it.
His body was a dried-up husk, good for nothing but carrying books and hiding in cupboards.
It was considered good manners for kings to kiss a lot of people to convey love and the acceptance of loyalty and fealty—on the lips, if you were serious—but Gabriel had drawn the line there.
On the occasions when he really couldn’t avoid it, he’d go for hand-kisses instead, which were still repulsive but not quite as harrowing as exchanging saliva with a member of the council or a lord who was practically a stranger.
It was incredible how something that had once been second nature could come to feel like a lost language, and that both states felt permanent.
Like how, when you were full, you couldn’t imagine ever being hungry again, and when you were hungry, you knew for certain you could eat and eat forever and remain utterly starving.
The only people who touched Gabriel regularly now, aside from animals, were Gwen and the physician.
There had been a time when even that had felt almost like too much, but now it was as if there were something missing.
He wished he’d never known that there was another way to live.
He was always surrounded by people, forever ducking away just to steal a moment for himself, marched every day through corridors and into meeting rooms flanked by five, ten, twenty people, so why did he feel so … alone? Untouched? Starving?
Arthur and Leonard had almost matching hair today. Arthur’s was a short, dark, glossy braid, strands flying free where the hair had grown back choppy and uneven, Sir Leonard’s longer and neater, both of them adorned with gold silk ribbons.
Gabriel put them together in his mind like a child making two dolls kiss, wondering if it worked.
Leonard was a decade older, pretty and proud, and seemed to have a slightly meaner streak than Arthur, whose jokes were almost all self-deprecating or gentle rebuffs.
He also seemed half in love with himself, something Gabriel wouldn’t think Arthur could abide—but who knew, on that front? People changed. Grew.
Well, other people did. Gabriel stood still and watched them pass him by.
Besides, Sir Leonard was at least half involved with Sir Bowen, and Arthur tended to demand one’s full and undivided attention.
They were alike in lots of ways, though: the same strange and quick wit, their care over presentation, their propensity to talk and talk. Gabriel was sure they could pass time together quite entertainingly, when they weren’t bickering. Was that how courting was supposed to work? Was it enough?
Gwen and Bridget certainly seemed to be figuring something out, but seeing as until very recently Gwen hadn’t been able to get so much as a letter back, she was hardly a font of good relationship advice.
They were riding side by side again today, talking in low voices.
Gwen shifted on her horse, and Bridget leaned casually across the gap to adjust something on Gwen’s saddle for her; Gwen briefly touched her arm with her fingers in thanks.
The hair stood up on Gabriel’s arm in just the same place. Phantom intimacy. Pathetic.
Sir Hurst, who had been riding so close behind Gabriel his horse was practically nipping Penelope’s rump, pulled up alongside. “We’re approaching the bridge, Your Majesty.”
“Right,” said Gabriel. “So what’s the … strategy, here?”
“The real Green Knight was an immortal of sorts. One of your knights will simply best this impostor, he will beg for mercy, making it clear that he fears for his own mortality, and the rumors will be put to rest.”
“What if he’s not to be bested?”
Sir Hurst huffed. “Unlikely, sire. You are riding with some of the finest knights in the kingdom.”
The bridge, when they spotted it, did not seem big enough to accommodate anyone living beneath it.
It was barely curved enough to constitute an arch, and was falling down in at least five places.
The land was wooded on both sides, although they had passed a few small dwellings on the way, the tentative beginnings of a town that came to fruition after you’d crossed this stream.
There was a small group of onlookers, mostly children, gathered by a rotted fence post that no longer belonged to any particular fence. The youngest seemed to be throwing rocks in the general direction of the bridge, but they stopped once somebody shouted, “Shit, it’s the bloody king!”
Gabriel never knew what people saw when they looked at him.
Lord Best had told him once that he’d heard people referring to Gabriel as The Red Prince, which seemed fair enough due to the fact of his gingerness, but later, when he’d asked Gwen about it, she’d told him, reluctantly, that it was spelled The Read Prince, and it was actually meant to be an insult.
Reading too much was weird. Reading too much and being crap at speeches and announcing a whole swathe of laws that people found baffling and infuriating was beyond the pale.
They dismounted, and Sir Hurst accompanied Gabriel to the bridge, so that Gabriel might give the impression of a mighty royal challenger while Sir Hurst’s sword stood at the ready between them. There was quite a steep drop-off to the river, and Gabriel leaned slightly over it.
“Er. Hello?”
Nothing. He looked at Sir Hurst, who shrugged. “Perhaps with a little more volume, Your Majesty.”
Gabriel tried again. “Hello, I’m … I’m in search of a man who calls himself the Green Knight. And … I’m also the king.”
Not great, and Gabriel definitely heard some snickering from behind him.
There was a long pause. He was about to tell Sir Hurst that perhaps the gentleman had ventured elsewhere for the day when a scruffy head of hair appeared from below, followed by a man’s face.
It was battle-worn and leathery, his nose perhaps once Roman but now broken into many distinct segments, his hair graying but streaked with something green.
He had a high, wide forehead and thick brows; if Gabriel had needed to describe him in one word, he would have said craggy.
He squinted up at them, then said, “’Scuse me one second. ”
He disappeared. Sirs Leonard, Bowen, Florian, and Bridget came over to have a look too, hands hovering near their sword belts, and Gabriel just looked at them and said, “I don’t know.”
In short order the knight was back, this time wearing a dented and rusty helm. He hitched up his trousers, then put two large hands on the rocky outcrop by Sir Hurst’s feet so that he could haul himself up.