Morgain's Revenge - Laura Anne Gilman [32]
The battle Sir Caedor was telling them about had taken place before either boy was born. By those standards, the entire story might be myth. But even if so, it was an entertaining myth. Gerard finally fell asleep, and dreamt of epic battles of his own.
Gerard woke to find the sun barely peeking over the hills, but Sir Caedor was already awake, practicing in a clearing a few feet away from the fire. He had put aside his armor, and, clad only in his pants and a sleeveless jerkin, had drawn a beautiful sword tempered to a dull gloss, and a smaller but no less deadly looking long dagger. He thrust and parried with the dagger in his right hand, even as the left arm drew back the sword, raising it to make a killing blow while his phantom opponents were distracted by the dagger. He pivoted seamlessly on his back leg, his forefoot carrying him into the attack of a phantom behind him. His dagger swung high, to threaten the eyes of a new opponent. It was all graceful and unhurried, his movements perfectly balanced, from the loose set of his shoulders to the way he rocked back and forward on his feet as he moved.
“He’s good, isn’t he?” Newt asked. He was awake, lying on his side and wrapped in his blanket with his backside to the coals of the fire, watching the knight thrust and parry.
“Yes. Yes, he is,” Gerard said, sitting up to better observe. He had never realized quite how good. Although there was a world of difference between practicing weapon forms in a peaceful clearing and fighting in the thick of battle, Sir Caedor had done both.
Sir Caedor was very, very good. And Gerard suddenly understood a little better why the king and Merlin had chosen the seasoned soldier to go with them. Not because they had thought that the two boys might need protection—or because they didn’t think the boys could carry out both parts of their mission—but because they could learn from seeing this experience in action. Ignore the stories, he could almost hear Arthur say. Ignore the snobbery. Look to the man.
It didn’t make the knight’s attitude any less annoying. But it gave Gerard a reason to look past it, to see the dedication, the power in his arms and shoulders, the focus given to his art.
He didn’t know how to say any of that to Newt. The stable boy would never be allowed to fight with sword and shield, never ride any of the horses he cared for into battle. He would never stand shoulder to shoulder with his brother knights to protect the innocent and defend the kingdom. It wasn’t fair, but Newt’s birth would forever keep him from the ranks of knights and landowners. So what use was Sir Caedor’s knowledge—and what protection did he have against Caedor’s cutting remarks?
Gerard lay back down on the ground with a sigh, crossing the back of one arm over his eyes as though to block out the awareness of another day ahead of them.
All he wanted to do was free Ailis and go home.
ELEVEN
Ailis had spent the night twisting and turning in the comfortable bed in her comfortable bedchamber, staring out the window at the gray sky washing into the gray sea. She plotted ways to escape until she fell asleep to dream of riding Sir Tawny through impossible underwater canyons made of whitewashed stone.
Waking brought the realization that she was no closer to finding a way out of the fortress. The air was only beginning to lighten, the sun rising on the other side of the compound, when Morgain herself arrived at the door of Ailis’s chamber. The girl had been sitting at the window, looking at the dark waves while brushing out her hair, when the sorceress walked in without bothering to knock. The usual magically propelled breakfast cart waited behind her, bearing twice as much food as days past.
The sorceress looked vastly different from the last time Ailis had seen the woman face to face. In her throne room on the Isle of Apples, Morgain had been dressed in a lovely gown, bejeweled and almost blindingly beautiful. Now, although her beauty remained, she wore a more demure outfit. Her hair was pulled away from her face