“I understand.”
A moment of silence.
“Well, would you care to spend the evening with me? A walk or something of the sort?” Patrick offered.
Katherina smiled sadly. “I can’t, I promised Sister Abagail that I would help her finish a quilt. Maybe some other time?”
Patrick nodded. “Of course.”
#
Sir Gawain dragged the butt of his pike along the stones on the battlements. He had no energy to carry the weapon tucked at his side, as good soldiers did.
Rain pelted him and ran down his bare face. The iron helmet he wore on duty seemed to magnify the cold, and channel it into his skull, rather than keep it out. This was the worst he had seen it rain on the Isle. And it just happened to be the night that he agreed to cover duty for Jeremiah; a favor returned.
Gusts of wind shifted anything not tied down, including Patrick’s great-cloak that flapped violently about him. He was thoroughly soaked through to the skin and was generally miserable. As he did his rounds, he was finding himself spending more and more time outside the Hall for Lady Guests. At first, he thought it was his imagination, but after a few more passes on the wall by the structure, he was sure he didn’t let himself gravitate in that direction. After a while, he gave in and took to pacing outside Katherina’s window. Perhaps he was hoping that she would come home early from her quilt making, and then see him cold and forlorn on the wall and invite him in. Maybe he was just being an obsessed madman; victim to the whims of human behavior.
He cursed himself as he paced.
Then, a light slowly illuminated the confines of her chamber until it lit the room. The Lady Katherina hung her shawl on the wall. Patrick’s heart beat a little faster with delight. She scurried about her chamber, performing routine tasks. She paused and turned as if to speak to someone who was just out of sight. Her mouth moved rapidly, and then she smiled and touched her hair. She sat at her vanity, and a dark figure came up behind her.
Patrick’s heart stopped as he watched the Viscount Loki comb out her long platinum braids. His free hand wandered over the back of her neck and shoulders. Then he bent and kissed her nape. She didn’t seem to mind.
When Patrick was relieved of his duties, he did not go to his warm room and bed. Instead, he went directly to Aesclinn and the pub, despite the hour.
#
The following morning the Lady Katherina strode down the corridor leading to the main hall inside the keep. It was times like this that she wished she had a lady-in-waiting to bring her breakfast in her chamber, which was a long walk from the main hall.
As she thought this, her attention was caught by the familiar sounds of leather straps creaking, as on a knight’s ensemble.
She turned around and looked up. There was Sir Gawain, sitting above the entrance on the staircase. He looked dreadful.
“How did the quilt come out?” he asked. He was sprawled on the staircase. He held a goat skin flask in one hand.
“Fine,” Katherina replied. She noted that he was wearing the same clothes as the day before, yet they were damp looking. Patrick was also garbed in his chain mail coat and he hadn’t shaved. His eyes were sunken and he seemed to glower.
“Did it take you long to finish it? Or did you end up having much free time on your hands after all?” Patrick took a long swig of the flask. The red fluid that beaded about his mouth indicated that it was wine.
Katherina turned a lighter shade of pale. “Yes, it took most of evening.”
He no longer looked at her, but focused on something in the air before him. He took another drink of the wine. “Are you sure? If you had been free, I would have been more than happy to make you laugh for the evening. Tried at least.”
“I was busy entire evening, Patrick,” she insisted.
Patrick shook his head. His hair hung in his eyes and Katherina could not tell whether the sounds he now was making was silent bitter laughter, or weeping.
“Tell me poem, Sir Gawain,” she said, the first thing to come to mind.
Patrick looked up, but his eyes were still hidden. His mouth moved into a mechanical smile.
A glittering storm had blown my way;
A foreign beauty
Whose eyes pierced like the winter sun.
At first I resisted;
I ran and denied
The grasp in which I twisted,
And wished I had died.
But then I accepted
This pale hand held out.
And for once I felt rested,
And with joy cried out.
But it was not for long.
The storm blew away,
And she was gone
With nothing to say.
My Snow Princess had become
An Ice Queen.
During his recital, he had been quite animated, but now he slumped back against the balustrade.
Katherina’s chest heaved and her jaw set. She turned suddenly and left. Sir Patrick’s bitter laughter followed her, interrupted only by a pause to take another drink from his flask.
#
The Viscount Loki yawned as widely as possible. He hoped that the young Guest, William, would take the hint and stop speaking. But the boy was as oblivious as he was dull. The Viscount told himself that it wasn’t much longer. A few more days and he could leave these people.
The Lady Katherina approached the table. Loki, William and Minion all stood in consideration.
“Do I interrupt?” she asked.
“No, not at all, my dear Lady. Won’t you join us?” Loki elbowed Willy gently aside to make room for Katherina. She took her place and the conversation turned to other things.
Patrick entered a few minutes later, unshaven, unkempt and haggard. He looked even worse than the poor King-Steward Mark. Loki smiled to himself. Even though he had been forced to endure this place, he had had some fun. It was not unlike puppeteering. Why, there was Sir Peredur, glaring at Sir Jon who pretended not to notice; Sir Mark and Sir Gawain were hollow shadows of themselves; Sir Geoffrey still bore the faint, discolored bruises around his eyes; the maidservant Aimeé stood by with a vacant look in her eyes; and the list went on.
Katherina relaxed a bit when the Irishman took a seat
―
nearby, but not in her line of sight.
“You know, Lady Katherina,” the Viscount whispered. “I was thinking about being naughty. How would you like to accompany me on an adventure?”
Katherina glowed. “Yes, I’d like very much.”
Loki rubbed his hands together. “Splendid! How would you like to join me a week’s time from now and travel to the other side of the isle?”
Minion, who had been working on a roasted chicken leg, froze.
“Isn’t that against rule?” Katherina asked.
“Of course, that’s why it’s naughty.”
“I don’t know...”
Loki scowled. “Why Kat, I’ve never known you to back down from an adventure. Why, I expected more from you.”
Her countenance became angry and indignant. “Yes, I want to go. I just want to know what you have in mind and how you expect to get away with it.”
“Well, that’s more like it: I have heard tell that on a full moon’s night, one can see the fairy-ghosts on the moors. Their spirit flames light up the countryside like a heavenly rainbow. Would you like to find out if there is any truth to this story?”
Katherina smiled. “Yes.”
Minion hissed to the Viscount, “Master, you want to take her
with
us?”
Loki hissed back, over his shoulder, “Of course, fool, I have plans.”
Katherina had overheard Minion’s half of the exchange. “Is he going?”
Loki turned to her and murmured, “Of course, we need him to drive the carriage. How else am I supposed to divide my time between gazing out onto the moonlit moors and your eyes? I have only two eyes, you know.”
Katherina’s smile deepened. “Still, how do you manage to make this happen? We just can’t slip out gate in middle of night with guard everywhere.”
“Let me worry about that,” Loki said. He noticed that Sir Gawain was leaning in their direction. “Besides, it will be no more trouble than the time we went to that little chapel you showed me,” Loki said in a louder voice. “You know, when you made me tell you a story about those pictures on the wall.”
Loki gently, and obviously, took the Lady Katherina’s hand and kissed it.
Patrick stood and made to leave the dining hall, but caught his pant leg on the bench, stumbled, knocking over plates and falling into people, red-faced.
Before Patrick disappeared out the door, Loki raised his hands and mimed pulling on puppet strings.
Sir Corbin saw Sir Gawain leave the hall in a huff and went after him. He caught him in the corridor.
“Patrick,” he called. “Could I speak to you for a moment?”
Patrick held up and wondered what he had forgotten to do. He ran his hand nervously through his hair.
Corbin looked uncomfortable. He didn’t look Patrick in the eyes and sighed heavily. “We’ve been talking, Mark and some of the others. We think that perhaps it would be a good idea if maybe you took some time off
―
just for a while,” Corbin added. “Until you
―
work things out. You seem to be under much stress right now. A distracted guard is next to a useless guard. Nothing personal, friend. It is better for everyone.”
Patrick did not respond right away. He stood quietly as if pondering, or concentrating on something invisible before him. Corbin fidgeted during the silence, not sure what to say either.
At last, Patrick nodded and grunted something in acknowledgement, then said, “What of the tournament I was organizing?”
Corbin fidgeted some more, his eyes wandering.”Mark feels that the resources for such an event are best applied elsewhere at this time.”
Again Patrick was silent for a moment. “When can I return to my duties?”
Corbin shrugged. “We’ll let you know.”
Patrick smirked. That statement held many possible meanings. He left Corbin standing there, and as he walked he ran his hands through his hair. The flush in his cheeks had not quite ever left.
“Gawain?” Corbin called.
Patrick waved him off.
Like most people, he may have wanted attention from time to time, but what he didn’t want was pity.
#
“What do you mean you’re not serving Aphelon right now?” Patrick growled.
Frederique shrugged an apology. “I am sorry, monsieur, but the holiday is coming up and we need to increase our stores of the cider.”
“Why, so you can increase the price as well?”
Frederique smiled. “Of course. How about some beer instead, good sir?”
“I was hoping to find myself in a drunken state as soon as possible. With beer, it will take a little longer. Not to mention more money.”
Frederique shook his head. “I can give you Trub, if you are that eager to crawl into the depths of despair.”
Patrick frowned. “Trub? That dark beer that if you put a fork in it, it will stand on end?”
Frederique nodded.
Patrick slapped his hand on the table. “Very well, Trub it is!”
Frederique shuddered a bit as he prepared a mug of the heavily sedimented brew for the knight.
As Patrick waited for the foam to subside, he used his last lucid thoughts to consider what led him to this chair with this drink in his hand. He knew that his actions towards Katherina bordered on obsessive, and that letting his feelings run his actions did not help his already poor image as Sir Silence. Sir Corbin’s dismissal said as much.
He had known it was coming. Now that it was actually here, he was ashamed. All his work to act the part of a true Avangarde was wasted, and he was no good to Katherina, the Avangarde, or himself. So what was left? This chair, this beer—out of everyone’s way. If he really felt anything for Katherina, he could do that much for her. Stay away.
Patrick took a sip of the dark brew. Actually, it was a nice change from the acidic Aphelon.
#
He spent the remainder of that night alone in the public house drinking everything he could keep down, as he did for the next many nights to come. He had nothing else to do except sit alone in the dark in his room, which was worse.
At first he tried busying himself with swordplay, but as a solo activity, it proved difficult and boring. So, inevitably, he found himself back at the Aesclinn pub. Logically, being antisocial and crawling into the bottom of a mug was the wrong thing to do, but what he knew and what he felt were different things. Drinking himself into a stupor made him feel better. Made him forget.
Oddly, however, it made the Apparition clearer. It dogged him in the halls, his room, at the pub. It followed silently, occasionally pointing with its outstretched hand, as if it were feeding off his misery. The Irishman almost became used to the thing being around. Almost.
It accompanied him one evening as he sat on the stool at the bar.
He was in rare form this evening with his hair and clothing in disarray. He no longer tried to maintain an image. He had no one to impress. Now that his days were filled with―nothing, he was slowly going mad with boredom and the dull ache of worthlessness. The madness circled about him like a dark flock of bats that obscured his good memories. At night, as he lay in his bed, if he listened hard enough, he could hear the wings of madness circling him. It sometimes made him laugh.
During the day, he lurked about the stables, the kitchens or in the basement to hide from people. It was working all too well. No one really noticed him gone. He thought, with all seriousness and chagrin, that if he were to die suddenly in his room, no one would notice until the smell alerted them.
Patrick sat bitterly at the bar and glared at the other patrons. He didn’t know who perturbed him more at that moment: the silent Apparition or the loud gay patrons.
They seemed so happy. They knew each other and exchanged greetings. As far as Patrick could tell, he was invisible to them. He couldn’t blame them, they were only doing what they did on a regular basis anyhow. They only did what they knew best: be themselves. Something that he wasn’t entirely sure he knew how to do.