(A sample chapter from the Arthurian tale The Killing Sword.)
© 2011 asotir.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
XVIII. In Darkness
WHEN BALYN WOKE he lay underground in darkness, and at first he wondered if he were not yet in the prison of his lord Arthur and he asked, ‘Did I never leave this place?’ But when he would rise he found he might not stir.
And the Naked Damsel sat by him and said, ‘Rest you, Knight of Two Swords, for your wounds are mortal. But my gentlewomen will tend to you.’
She had beside her three damsels, and each more fair than the others. There was the damsel from the castle that had given Balyn to drink at that feast, and there was a damsel from the tower on the island, that had lain with Balan the Red Knight and with those other Red Knights that had abode in the tower before him, and there was the pale fish-eyed damsel from the lake that had warned Balyn on the island shore. And they cleansed and kissed Balyn’s wounds, and wiped the sweat from his brow.
‘But where is my brother Balan,’ he said.
‘There lies your brother and my brother as well, bound and lashed upon the stone next to yours,’ said the Naked Damsel. ‘But for the hatred I bear him I will let no hand tend to him or ease his pain.’
‘Now will you send for a priest that we may receive our sacrament and receive the blessed body of our lord Jesu Christ.’
‘Yes,’ said the damsel, ‘it shall be done. I will not deny him that.’
And so she sent for a priest and he gave them their rites.
After the priest left the Naked Damsel sent away her servants and her maidens and abode alone with them in darkness.
‘But how did it happen,’ asked Balyn, ‘that I had a sister and knew nothing of it until now?’
‘You have no sister, Balyn the Wild,’ said the Naked Damsel. ‘For he and I share a father but not a mother, and you and he share a mother but not a father. Your father as you know fell in the last wars of Uther Pendragon, and your lady mother took another lord to husband, and he begot upon her Balan, our brother. But my father and your mother quarreled, and my father departed and left your mother behind. So she raised you and Balan together alone in the Northumberland hills.
‘But my father abode in another castle in the dales, and there he took a fair gentle damsel to paramour, and upon her he begot me. And I one day while riding beside the lake was accosted by a rich and likely knight, and I assented to have lain with him. So I became his paramour, and he was the chief of the dalesmen in Northumberland, King Garamor.
‘But in the wars that went on between the dalesmen and those of the mountains in the hard days that followed Uther’s death,’ she said, ‘unfriendship fell out between King Garamor and your kin. At that time there was little coming and going between my household and your own, but in time my father sent for Balan and showed me to him and told Balan how I was his sister, and therefore he was to care for me and tend to me, and soon after our father died. But Balan felt shame for me, and kept our secret even from you his brother. And I never loved Balan, whatever I may have done with him, and he never showed me a single kindness. And he waxed only colder toward me after your mother died, for I held part with the dalesmen among whom I had grown.
‘One day after you were gone away seeking vengeance for your mother’s death, King Garamor boasted to Balan that he had lain by me and knew the hidden face of my lap. And therefore Balan grew so angry that he took it into his heart that King Garamor had taken me by force, which was untrue, and more that King Garamor had only done this thing to put Balan and his house to shame, and mock the hill-country knights. So Balan lay in wait for King Garamor and slew him by surprise at the lake-shore, a coward’s blow, as the king made ready to go back to his hall beneath the waves.’
‘Ah,’ said Balyn, ‘my brother never struck a coward’s blow in his life.’
‘Maybe not,’ the damsel answered him, ‘but my brother did. And this I never forgot nor forgave. And I held it against him also that I was driven out of my own house and country. For the Lady of the Lake, King Garamor’s daughter who came after him, blamed me for his death, and said I planned the thing together with Balan, and that I stole King Garamor’s heart all the while meaning to set Balan upon him to slay him. That also was untrue.’
‘Alas lady,’ said Balyn, ‘this tale you tell is filled with wretchedness.’
‘In truth,’ she answered, ‘it was in wretchedness I fled Northumberland. I wandered far, until at last I reached Avalon and besought the Lady Lille for her help. And all the while I held close by my body wrapped in the bloody tunic of King Garamor his sword Malison, this very sword that lies alongside you, that you won from me before our lord Arthur and his knights. For this is a powerful sword forged, it is said, in ancient times by Wayland himself, and will never break or dull. And the Lady Lille made for it a new pommel that would guide Malison to seek out my brother’s heart and head, and she made the Belt of Strange Clasps, that would defy any knight be he ever so worshipful or however great of prowess, unless he should be able to overcome Balan in joust.
‘But the name of the knight doomed to draw Malison I never knew, nor did Lady Lille speak his name. It was only when I lay with you the first time that I learned your name, a name that Balan had spoken often in our father’s hall, and boasted of his love for you, although you and I never had met before in life.
‘And so the doom worked its will. And the sword has destroyed us all. Balan will not last this night. Then when you die only I will be left in life, Balyn, and what life there is in me is little enough. All these years I have lived only for my grief and my revenge, and now the revenge is done I have only the grief.’
To that Balyn had nought to say. But he looked at where his brother lay, and tears flowed from his eyes.
‘Forgive me brother,’ said Balan, ‘that I did not tell you of this sister of mine before now. But I was ashamed of her and of our father both.’ And Balan too wept bitter tears.
‘I sent my maid to him,’ said the damsel, ‘and she watched him from that time when he met you in the pass upon the mountain. She watched him at the battle of kings, and she waited for her chance as I had taught her.’
‘I came at her summons away from the field by Terrabil Castle,’ said Balan. ‘Along the way the maid brought me to the castle by the lake. There they made merry for me even as they did for you, the knights and gentlewomen, the lord and the lady of the place. And the lady came to me in the night. She wore by enchantment a different aspect to deceive me, and I never knew her.’
‘By the grace of the Lady Lille of Avalon,’ said the damsel, ‘I have a balm that my damsels rub into my flesh upon my body and my face, that no man might know me, not my own brother, and my chief enemy on earth.’
‘At her bidding,’ said Balan, ‘I fought the giant from the island, the Red Knight. She begged me to do it so as to take her husband’s place for that was an old man and a weak. But when I won that battle I found I might not leave the lake but must abide in the tower and wear the red armor, and joust against all the knights the lady sent to kill me. And she mocked me and showed her true face to me from the castle wall. Every ninth day she sent another knight to try to kill me, but I overcame them all.’
And the Naked Damsel, Balan’s sister, laughed a mocking little laugh and said, ‘I knew you would conquer until Malison came to bring your death to you by your brother’s hands. But I did not want your prowess spoiled for disuse when it came time for you to die. A long battle brings more pleasure to us who watch it, though alas it means more wounds and pain for you who suffer them.’
And though Balyn lay under a clean white sheet Balan lay naked. And the lady pricked Balan’s tender parts with his own dagger. And then she took a bowl of salt mixed with grit and sprinkled it here and there where he bled, until Balan’s body heaved against the straps for pain. The last of the salt she poured upon his tongue, putting his mouth wide with the dagger, until his tongue was so swollen his words were only moans.
At last he groaned his last pain and she stopped up his mouth with a kiss. So she sucked from his throat Balan’s dying breath into her belly. When she rose up off him he was a corpse.
‘For shame, that is your brother’s body,’ Balyn said.
‘That never stopped me before from taking my pleasure from it,’ she answered, ‘nor will it now.’
After that the Naked Damsel left him alone.
Balyn lay alone in darkness. His heart was full of thoughts of the Devils of the deep dank Earth, that had played their torments upon him to the full, beyond any measure he had dreamt on.
‘Now,’ said Balyn, ‘my body will go into the earth alongside my brother. And when we are buried in one tomb and the mention made over us how two brethren slew each other, there will never good knight nor good man see our tomb but they will pray for our souls.’
But Balyn died not till the midnight after.
And so were they buried both. And the Naked Damsel let make a mention upon one stone that,
HERE LYETH BALAN OF
NORTHUMBERLAND
SLAIN HERE AT HIS SISTER’S WILL
and on the other stone she let write,
HERE LYETH THE KNIGHT OF
TWO SWORDS.
