The Ballad of Sir Dinadan (18 page)

"Then I suppose I'm grateful, too. How is it that you're here? Just passing by?"

Sylvanus laughed, and his chuckle was music. "Hardly. I've been leading your friends' horses to you. They searched for you all afternoon, but were about to give up, so I had to help. Here they are now."

Sylvanus disappeared, and a minute later Dinadan heard riders approaching, speaking to each other in sombre tones. Recognizing the voices of Palomides and Hermind, Dinadan struggled up onto one elbow. "I hope you brought my horses, too," he called out, "because I sure don't feel like walking."

Dinadan and Palomides stayed at Withernsea Castle for two weeks, long after Dinadan felt well enough to ride. He didn't even have any broken bones, but from the fuss that Sir Hermind and the castle servants made over him, you'd have thought he was at death's door. At last he convinced everyone that he was well enough to ride, and he and Palomides took their leave. Sir Hermind—or rather, King Hermind, now—tried once again to convince them to stay, and said for the thousandth time that he didn't deserve the kingship. After all, Dinadan had killed one brother, and Palomides the second—by grasping him in a rage and throwing him through the throne room window after Dinadan and the first brother had gone over. (Dinadan never did learn whether it was Helius or Helake whom he had taken into the river, but it didn't seem to matter greatly.)

"But I tell you, you two were the ones who defeated the usurpers, so by rights you two should be kings instead of me."

"No true king is king by conquest," Palomides said. "You are king by right."

"But I never wanted to be king," Sir Hermind said.

"So much the better," replied Dinadan with a laugh. "After all, the brothers did want to be king and see what they were like? No, this is your home, not ours. Your place is at home." With that, the two friends mounted and rode away.

"So, where to?" Dinadan asked at last.

"As you said to Hermind," Palomides replied, "home. It is time for me to return to Araby."

Startled, Dinadan looked at the Moor. "But what about Camelot? Weren't you going to go there to see the greatest knights in the land?"

Palomides reined in his horse and looked fondly at Dinadan. "I need not go to Camelot for that, my lord Dinadan. I have found what I came for, and now I may return. Will you ride with me to the coast?"

Stunned, Dinadan could only nod, and they turned south toward Dover.

They did not get very far together, though. Just a few hours later, they were accosted by a knight—a wild, unkempt knight in stained golden armor. Dinadan groaned softly. "Halt and fight, foul recreants!" Tristram shouted shrilly.

"No," Palomides replied disdainfully. He started to ride on.

"Then I shall slay you like dogs," Tristram screamed. He drew his sword and began to swing it wildly about his head.

"Put that down right now, Tristram," Dinadan said sternly. "For the sake of your mother, Lady Giselle of the Fens, put that sword away."

Tristram froze. "Mother?" He turned unblinking eyes toward Dinadan, then began to cry. "But I love her, mother. And King Mark took her away, and now I have nothing." He lowered his sword.

Palomides looked curiously at Dinadan. "He is your brother," he said. It was not a question.

"Yes. A traitor and an ass and now a madman, but he's also my brother." Dinadan swallowed. "I'd better take him home."

"Then we will part now," Palomides said. He laid a hand on Dinadan's shoulder. "I will sing your songs in Araby."

Dinadan grinned. "And England will hear the Ballad of Sir Palomides."

When Dinadan was a child, he had sometimes dreamed of a day when he would return to his home, side by side with his glorious older brother. By then, of course, they would both be celebrated knights, and their return would prompt cheers and adoration from all. He hadn't thought of that dream in years, not since his profane knighting at his father's hand and his subsequent oath never to return. It only went to show, he thought, how far one's dreams and intentions are from what one ends up doing. Here he was, returning home against his oath, but the return could hardly have been more different from his childhood dream. Dinadan returned as an attendant to a lunatic.

Tristram was obviously different, too. Except that he still mumbled occasionally about a vow of silence, Dinadan would hardly have recognized his brother now. He was bearded, his hair long and unkempt, and his body pungently unwashed. He no longer moved with the grace of a natural athlete, but rather in short, jerky movements. His hands plucked with agitation at his armor, his saddle, his horse's mane, and at the hilt of his sword, which he unsheathed every two or three minutes. His eyes were either wide and empty, staring vacantly at the world around him, or else filled with tears or flitting nervously from side to side, as if every tree they passed were a hidden enemy.

Dinadan might never have been able to lead his nervous brother at all, had he not made the discovery that music soothed Tristram's distraction. And so, for mile after mile, Dinadan sat sideways in his saddle, improvising soothing melodies on his rebec. This treatment not only calmed Tristram for the moment, but it appeared to have a more permanent healing effect. After two days of travel, Tristram's movements were less restless and his eyes less vacant. As they sat around their fire on the third night, Tristram began to speak, and he sounded almost sane.

"Who are you, sir?" he asked suddenly.

Sane, but not necessarily smart. "My name is Dinadan."

"I've heard that name before, I think." "We've met several times, Sir Tristram, on different journeys."

"No, I mean a long time ago. Yes ... that was my brother's name." Dinadan waited silently, not sure if he wanted to be recognized, but Tristram didn't make the connection. "I never really knew my brother," Tristram said slowly. "He was much younger, and all I could think of was knighthood and glory." Dinadan sighed. "I was going to be the greatest knight of all," Tristram continued. "But that was before Iseult." Tristram shook his head slowly. "I forgot all about honor and glory after that."

"Was she worth it?" Dinadan asked.

But the moment of lucidity had passed. An owl's hoot from the forest behind them made Tristram leap to his feet, sword in hand, and glare menacingly at the nothing that threatened. After a moment, Dinadan rolled up in his blankets and went to sleep.

Just before nightfall on the fourth day, they came to Fenton Village, not half an hour from Sir Meliodas's castle. They were almost home, but Dinadan would not pass through the village without stopping to call on his old friend and mentor, Thomas the Rhymer. Thomas lived with his son, a cooper, and though Dinadan had never been to Thomas's home, he had no trouble finding the cooper's shop, where a burly, middle-aged man was shaping laths for a barrel. "Good day, friend cooper," Dinadan said pleasantly. "Is this the home of Thomas the Rhymer?"

The cooper stood slowly and looked at Dinadan, then at Tristram, then at Dinadan again. "Ay, it used to be," he said. Dinadan looked a question, and the man said, "Are ye friends of my father's?"

"I am," Dinadan said. "Where is he? He's all right, I hope."

The cooper hesitated, then said, "Come inside, your worship. Have a quaff of ale with me, if you will."

"Gladly, friend," Dinadan said, dismounting. A slow certainty of grief began to grow within him. He followed the cooper into the rooms behind his shop, leaving Tristram outside with the horses. The cooper unstoppered a jug and poured two mugs of frothy brown ale, then raised his in an awkward toast. "He was a good man, was he not?"

Dinadan closed his eyes. "He's dead then?"

"Just over a year ago now."

Dinadan lifted his mug to the cooper's, and together they drank to the memory of one they both had loved. "I'm sorry," Dinadan said.

The cooper smiled. "Nay, it's not so bad as that. We've all to die, and father died as he would have wanted, as if he'd writ the story of his own death."

"How did he die?"

"He was at the alehouse, singing a tale, and he just stopped once, asked a drink, then lay down at the table, and he was gone. His hands never let go his rebec, so we buried it with him."

Dinadan smiled. The cooper was right. It was a good way for Thomas to die. "What tale was he singing?" Dinadan asked.

The cooper smiled again. "His favorite one, in late years. The Noble Tale of Sir Dinadan."

Tears welled up in Dinadan's eyes, but his lips curved with delight. He put the cup down on the cooper's table. "I thank you for the drink, friend. Your father was the closest I had to a father, too. I am Sir Dinadan."

"I thought so. I saw the rebec on your saddle, and father always said you were the best with an instrument he'd ever seen. It's why I asked you in. I've someat to give you." The cooper opened a cabinet, took out Thomas's old lyre, and gave it to Dinadan. "He said once he wished he'd given it to you before you left. I'd like you to take it."

The two sons of Thomas grinned at each other for a moment, but then the moment was spoiled. Tristram poked his head into the room, then gasped. "A lyre!"

Annoyed, Dinadan glanced once at his brother. "That's right," he said abruptly.

"I used to play the lyre! Where did you get that?"

"It was a gift from this good man," Dinadan said.

Tristram stared at the cooper. "But you're a peasant! Why should a peasant have such a thing?"

Dinadan scowled, glanced apologetically at Thomas's son, then gently pushed Tristram back toward the horses. "It doesn't matter. Thank you for everything, my brother, but we have to be going if we're to make it to the castle before they close up. Sir Meliodas is still alive, I suppose?"

"Ay, last I heard." The cooper raised his hand in farewell, and Dinadan and Tristram rode away.

When they arrived, though, the castle was closed. They shouted and banged on the gates but could rouse no guards or servants. Near the top of the central keep, Dinadan saw a dimly lighted window, and once he heard the unmistakable sound of broken glass from the courtyard, as if someone had thrown a bottle from the upper window, but no one heard their calls, and at last Dinadan made camp outside the gates. He went to sleep dreading the prospect of the next morning's reunion with his father.

The reunion never happened. When Dinadan awoke the next day, shortly before dawn, he realized that Tristram was gone. Somehow he had managed to get away with his horse and armor without waking Dinadan. He had taken something else, too: Thomas the Rhymer's lyre.

Dinadan arrived at Tintagel Castle several days later. Along the way, stopping at taverns and talking to people he met, he had heard reports of a bearded minstrel named Tramtris who played wearisome love songs on a lyre, but Dinadan hadn't needed those reports to know which direction Tristram had gone. As soon as he had noticed the missing lyre, he had known that Tristram was off to Iseult again.

Arriving at the gates and remembering that King Mark no longer admitted knights into the castle, Dinadan introduced himself as a minstrel. The guard snorted with disgust and said, "Go on with ye. We've already got an uncommon lot of minstrel here."

"I didn't know you could have too many minstrels," Dinadan ventured.

"Show's what you know," the guard replied. "We've only got one, and he's too much by half. All day long plucking at a harp and mooning around, with not a merry song to his name."

"What, you mean nothing like this?" Dinadan demanded, producing his rebec from its sling behind his saddle. He tuned it quickly, then sang for them his little song about ladies, and as he finished—"Which one is better to discard? The dragon or the damsel?"—the guard was guffawing loudly and opening the gate.

"Ay, you can come in. Now if that other blighter would leave, we'd be all right."

The "other blighter" was not hard to find. King Mark and Queen Iseult were in their throne room, and Tristram sat at their feet, plucking at the lyre and crooning a repetitive lyric in which "June" and "moon" figured prominently, alongside "love" and "dove" and "above." Dinadan was able to slip into the room unnoticed behind a small group of courtiers and to examine the scene carefully. It seemed that Tristram's beard and disheveled appearance had been enough to disguise his identity from King Mark, but the glow in Iseult's eyes as she gazed at the minstrel "Tramtris" showed clearly that she knew him.

Dinadan had no desire to expose his brother, but neither did he intend to leave without recovering Thomas's lyre. He pushed his way through the collected courtiers and waited until Tristram finished his song. It lasted for several more stanzas, in which "tears" joined with "fears" and "heart" with "never apart." At last the song ended, and a sigh of relief filled the room. Dinadan stepped forward and cleared his throat. "Excuse me, your highness."

Mark looked up. "You! You're one of those who brought that blasted horn to my court!"

Dinadan nodded. "Well, yes. I did. But I didn't know what it was, remember."

"How dare you come back here!"

"I won't stay long, Your Highness. I promise," Dinadan replied soothingly. "I've just come to get that lyre from the minstrel Tramtris."

A man's voice from the back of the room said distinctly, "Hear, hear!"

"No!" Tristram said.

"Yes," Dinadan said firmly. "It's mine, a gift from an old friend. You stole it from my things. Now give it to me, please."

"Hear, hear!" came the voice again. There was a murmur of approval from the court.

"You say that this minstrel stole this instrument from you?" King Mark asked. Dinadan nodded, and the king continued, "Then he must be punished."

"Hear, hear!"

"Off with his head," came a new voice. Iseult frowned and said quickly, "You don't execute someone for stealing a lyre!"

"How about for something else, then?"

"Anything!"

"Hear, hear!"

"Besides," Iseult said to the king. "We have only this man's word that the good minstrel has stolen his instrument. We must test this case, my lord."

"How?" the king asked.