Morgain's Revenge - Laura Anne Gilman [28]
“What is wrong with it, sir?” Gerard asked politely. His face might hurt from the strain, but he was polite. King Arthur and Sir Rheynold would expect no less from him.
Sir Caedor went off into a litany of things that were wrong with their campsite, most of which seemed to revolve around the fact that they would be sleeping outside on blankets, rather than inside on beds. Sir Caedor, it appeared, did not enjoy being outside of walls at night, especially this far north of Camelot’s reach, among people he deemed “savages and heathens.”
Gerard added all this to the list of things that Sir Caedor did not like, which so far included the way the mule had been loaded, the pace they were traveling at—too slowly, consulting the lodestone too often rather than simply aiming themselves in the general direction it indicated—the dried foods they had brought, the way that the boys did almost everything, and Newt, on principle. Newt himself had obviously been holding back laughter at some of the knight’s comments about “lowly brats” and “the stench of stable,” but Gerard was considering notions of how to teach the older man some manners.
“I’ve heard worse,” Newt told him. “From you, in fact.”
Gerard had to admit the truth of that. They had not gotten off to a good start. Their first meeting involved an exchange of insults, a fistfight, and a scolding from Sir Lancelot. But Newt had proven himself since then. He had become a friend.
None of this seemed to matter to Sir Caedor. When they had stopped to water their horses around mid-afternoon on the first day, Caedor had handed his reins to Newt and gone off to the bushes in order to relieve himself, saying over his shoulder only that Gerard should make sure that “that boy” did not take anything from his saddlebag. Yes, Newt did work in the stables, but Caedor’s casual lack of respect—due even a kitchen scullion—had made Gerard’s jaw drop in astonishment. This was not how he had been taught that a knight should behave. It was certainly not how the men who trained him would act, not even when they were in their cups during a long-running banquet, or exhausted after a hard-won tourney.
If it had been up to him, Gerard would have mounted and ridden away right then, leaving Sir Caedor’s horse tied to an old oak tree. Newt, however, had merely shrugged and picked up Gerard’s reins as well. “It’s not worth it. He is who he is. And all he sees when he looks at me is the stables. That’s never going to change.”
“It’s not fair.”
“You’re still on about fairness?” Newt made a noise like a horse’s snort. “Grow up, Ger.”
“You shouldn’t take that sort of—”
“Gerard, he’s a knight. Annoying, yes, but no better or worse than anyone else.” Newt looked at the squire with a sort of pity. “You need to stop thinking of them as if they’re made of gold. They’re men, that’s all. Men who are very good with weapons, good on horseback, but…”
“We take a vow when we’re knighted,” Gerard protested.
“You haven’t taken the vow yet, and you’re a good fellow. Someone who isn’t…how is a vow of charity, chastity, and honor going to create something that isn’t there?”
“You’re wrong. Being a knight means something.”
“To you it does,” Newt allowed.
Gerard drew breath dramatically to retort, but a voice in the back of his head suggested that carrying on would be pointless. Gerard reached up to rub at the wound Merlin had left on his face, which still itched, and let the discussion go.
They waited in silence for the knight, then remounted and moved on.
And yet those words from hours past had been a heavy weight in Gerard’s throat since then, until he felt as though he were going to choke on it. He needed to show respect for the older man, and yet he also needed to respect the training they had both sworn to live by.
Oblivious of where Gerard’s thoughts had taken him, the knight was still talking. “All that aside, no matter