The Quest of the Fair Unknown (18 page)

When he came back to the guest hall where he had left the others, the rooms were empty. Filled with sudden panic, he threw his candle aside and began to run back down the hall toward Lady Petunia's chamber. As he approached the door, he saw two armed guards—one of them the knight Ronnie—standing outside.

"You may not enter!" Ronnie said.

"You can't stop me," replied Beaufils quickly. Ronnie drew his sword, and Beaufils took it away from him. He was not sure exactly how he did so, because he acted entirely on instinct, but at one instant Ronnie had had a sword, and in the next instant Beaufils had twisted it from his grasp and was holding the point at the other guard's throat. "I have looked on the face of death today," Beaufils said quietly. "I don't wish to cause it."

"I have sworn to my mistress that I will protect this room," Ronnie said tensely. Then he leaped forward, and Beaufils flicked the sword away from the other guard's throat and thrust it forward at Ronnie. It was not by conscious design, but the point of the sword slipped between two armor plates just at the bend of Ronnie's left arm, in the exact spot where Beaufils had seen the wound in the arm of the last corpse. Blood spurted through the armor, and Beaufils turned to the other guard. "Bind up his arm!" he snapped. The guard hesitated, and Beaufils added, "Help someone to live, not to die!"

The guard knelt by Ronnie, and Beaufils threw aside the sword and pushed open the door to Lady Petunia's chamber. There was Ellyn, standing before the lady's vast bed, with Galahad just off to the side, near a strange man who held a knife and a large bowl. Beaufils drew a breath to shout a warning to Ellyn, but before he made a sound, he heard Ellyn say, in a clear voice, "No!"

"No?" Lady Petunia wheezed. "Are you going to be so selfish? Are you so unnatural a female as to put herself before others?"

"I will not give my blood for you to live, my lady."

"Then your guilt will weigh on your head forever. How will you sleep at night? Can you deny your very nature? What is woman apart from self-giving love? Nothing! Nothing!" Lady Petunia's face was turning alarmingly purple.

"Lady Ellyn," said Galahad, stepping forward. "Think what you are doing! Can you not give of yourself to help another?"

"Selfish! Selfish!" Lady Petunia shrieked. "Oh, that I should have lived long enough to see so foul and unnatural a woman!"

Ellyn gritted her teeth, but she replied clearly, "Lady Petunia, one day I may give my life for another, but if that happens it will be out of love, not out of duty and certainly not just because I'm female."

Lady Petunia's eyes bulged, and she began to gabble incoherently. Flailing with her arms, she pushed her massive form to a sitting position, and then, quite suddenly, fell back on the pillows and was silent. The man who had been holding the knife and basin threw them down and rushed to the bed. "My lady! My lady!" he exclaimed. For several minutes he felt for her heartbeat, and then he sank slowly to his knees beside the bed. "My lady!" he said again, brokenly.

"You have caused a woman's death, Lady Ellyn!" Galahad said sternly.

"No," Beaufils said. "Lady Petunia caused her own death." He stepped forward and touched the kneeling man's shoulder. The man looked up, his eyes wet, and Beaufils said, "Lay her on the last slab in the hall of death. Put her beside all the maidens who died for her."

The man looked up blankly, then nodded.

"What maidens?" asked Ellyn.

Before Beaufils could reply, a dull blue light began to shine from Lady Petunia's body. As they watched, the glow formed a swaddling band about the corpse, and in the midst of the light, Lady Petunia began to change. The raddled skin knit itself together and grew smooth. The puffiness around the eyes subsided, the wispy hair thickened, and the body's huge dimensions shrank. A minute later, they were staring at a different person, a pleasantly plump woman of middle years, with lustrous gray hair, a few fine wrinkles beside her eyes, and an amiable expression on her dead face. In the shape of the face, though, there was still something familiar.

The man who had held the basin caught his breath and said, "Mother!"

"Mother?" Beaufils asked.

"This is what she used to look like, what she was supposed to become again once we had filled the hall of maidens. Mother promised it would be so."

"She is your mother?" Ellyn repeated.

"All of us in this castle are her children," the man said simply. "We would have given our souls for her."

"You did," Beaufils said. He took Ellyn's arm and began leading her away. He looked once over his shoulder at the man. "Your mother was once very beautiful." Then, leaving by a different door than the one Beaufils had pushed open a few minutes earlier, the two withdrew from the room, followed by Galahad, and together they found their way to the stables, where their mounts awaited.

Beaufils and Galahad rode along the river, behind Ellyn. None of them spoke. Beaufils, for his part, was too weary to talk. His journey to the death hall had taken something out of him—something more than mere strength. It was as if he had left some vital part of his soul behind, beside the bodies on the stone shelves, and his thoughts were never far from the maidens he had found there. Ellyn also seemed exhausted, and as for Galahad, he was clearly struggling with a strong sense of shock and indignation.

At last Galahad put his feelings into words. "You let that woman die," he said to Ellyn.

"Yes, I did," she replied in a toneless voice.

"How
could
you?"

Beaufils judged it time to intervene. "Before you answer, Ellyn, I need to tell you both something." Then he described what he had found in the hall of maidens. "So you see, Lady Petunia and her sons knew from the beginning that Ellyn would die, just like all the others."

Ellyn stared at Beaufils, her face stricken, her eyes filled with horror. "Oh, Beau," she whispered. "All those girls. And you found them lying there? How ... are you all right?"

"All right, yes. But different," Beaufils said. "And you? You had to make a horrible choice. How are you?"

"As you said, different. I'll recover, but I won't be the same."

Galahad broke in. "I don't think it makes any difference at all. Yes, it was very wrong of them to kill all those girls—though we need to remember that they gave their lives willingly—but it doesn't change anything for Lady Ellyn. She didn't know about those noble girls when she refused Lady Petunia."

"But it did make a difference," Beaufils pointed out. "When Ellyn refused, Lady Petunia was restored. She became who she was supposed to be, a gentle old woman."

"She may have looked better, but she was still dead!"

"That's the only thing that
didn't
change," Beaufils said. "Lady Petunia was dead already. That whole castle was. Now maybe some of her sons can leave that horrible place. By the way, have you wondered why they were all sons? Didn't she have any daughters? What happened to them?"

Galahad shook his head. "It makes no difference," he said doggedly. "Killing her was a mortal sin, and I only hope we find a priest soon for Lady Ellyn to make confession to."

Ellyn abandoned the dispute wearily. Beaufils, considering Galahad's last words, was wondering idly if there
were
any priests in the World of Faeries when they rode through a stand of trees into a small clearing, in the center of which was a tiny log house. "A hermitage!" Galahad declared joyously, flinging himself from his horse and hurrying toward the hut.

"I really, really don't feel like meeting a hermit just now," Ellyn murmured.

"Not all holy men are annoying," Beaufils reminded her. "Remember the good Basil. Say, why's Galahad stopping?"

Galahad had halted his run forward and now was standing hesitantly in the little yard, staring at the hut.

"There's no door," Ellyn said suddenly. "Just that one shuttered window." Galahad started forward again and walked all around the cabin. "Is there one on the other side?" Ellyn asked him.

Galahad shook his head, then leaned toward the window. "Father?" he asked uncertainly.

The shutters opened and a smiling face appeared.

"You can call me Father if you like, but if you really want to be accurate, you should find another title." It was a woman.

"I know who you are!" Galahad burst out suddenly.

"Do you?" the woman replied. "That will save time on introductions. But you'll still have to tell me who you are."

"You are an anchoress!" Galahad exclaimed.

"Yes, I am," she replied. "But that isn't
who
I am, only what. My name is Irena. And what are your names?"

Galahad ignored the question. "God be praised!" he murmured, sinking to his knees and raising his eyes toward the sky. "For leading us to this holy place!"

Ellyn slipped easily from her horse and walked over to the cabin. "My name is Ellyn," she said. "This is my friend Le Beau Desconus and my traveling companion Sir Galahad."

"I'm very glad to meet you all," Irena replied, and from the smile in her eyes Beaufils saw that she meant it.

"What is an anchoress?" he asked, dismounting and joining Galahad and Ellyn by the window.

Irena looked surprised. "You've never heard of anchoresses?"

"I had a sheltered childhood," Beaufils explained. "It gave me a late start."

"An anchoress," Irena explained, "is a woman who goes apart from society and lives in a cell, like this one, devoting herself to prayer. Sort of a female hermit. Do you know about hermits?"

"Oh, yes," Ellyn replied. "We've met a lot of hermits."

"Hmm," Irena replied. "By your tone, I gather that you didn't enjoy them all."

"Not all of them, no," Beaufils admitted. "It was back in the World of Men. Do you know that world?"

"I'm from there myself," Irena said.

"Oh, then have you heard of a place called the Sacred Forest?"

"Dear me, yes," Irena replied, shaking her head sadly. "I understand you now. A dreary place, the Sacred Forest. I don't suppose you met ... anyone there you
did
like, did you?"

"Yes," Beaufils said. "A hermit named Basil."

Irena smiled broadly. "Oh, good. You found him. Dear Basil. Is he well?"

"Very well, thank you," Beaufils replied politely.

Ellyn had stood through this exchange with a frown deepening on her face. "I'm sorry to interrupt," she said. "But did you really
choose
to live in this tiny log hovel?"

"I did, yes, and I do."

"How can you do that? How do you get out?"

"I don't," Irena replied.

"How do you eat?"

"The people who live nearby bring me food, far more than I need."

"They bring you food? Why?"

Irena smiled. "I think they have some notion that I pray for them in return for their gifts. Silly of them, really, but I've stopped trying to argue."

Ellyn raised her eyebrows. "What do you mean, 'silly'?" she asked.

"They ought to know that I would pray for them whether they brought me food or not, but I'm afraid some people have a terrible time believing in gifts."

Ellyn shook her head again. "But this looks like a prison!"

Irena looked mildly at Ellyn for a moment before answering. "And I?" she said at last. "Do I look like a prisoner?"

Ellyn seemed confused by the question, so after a moment Beaufils answered. "No, Irena. You don't."

Irena acknowledged his reply with a nod, but she kept her eyes on Ellyn. "And have you never seen anyone who lived at liberty in a great palace who
did
seem like a prisoner?"

"Yes," Ellyn said softly. "In fact, we've just come from a place like that—a magnificent castle filled with people in bondage."

"When you know what a prison is really like, then you will find what you seek."

Beaufils didn't understand this, but he had a sense that it wouldn't do any good to ask for an explanation. He wouldn't have had time anyway, because just then Galahad, who had been gazing rapturously all this time at the sky and ignoring everything that was being said, rose to his feet. "My lady," he said. "I honor you."

"That's very kind of you, child," Irena replied. "But you don't have to, you know."

"Such true womanliness!" Galahad declared, giving Ellyn a disdainful glance. "To devote your life to prayer and purity! To sacrifice yourself and all your happiness for the sake of others."

"Oh, I'm quite happy," Irena said. "I don't feel that I'm making a sacrifice at all."

"You are so brave!" Galahad said reverently.

Irena sighed. "Yes, of course. Quite." Her eyes met Ellyn's, then crinkled with amusement. "He means well, you know," she said softly.

Ignoring her words, Galahad announced, "I only hope that this lady with whom I ride can learn something from your example!"

"Yes, I hope that, too," Irena said. She smiled at Ellyn. "But I'm not worried about it. You will find your joy, dear."

Galahad returned to his horse and mounted. "We have been inspired to have been with you."

"And likewise, I'm sure," Irena murmured. "And, if you're looking for a place to stay this evening, let me suggest you follow the river downstream a few miles to the castle of Lady Synadona. Perhaps you could even help her with a problem or two. You must insist on seeing Lady Synadona personally, though."

With that, Irena smiled again, then closed the shutters and returned to her dark cell. Beaufils and Ellyn glanced at each other, then mounted and joined Galahad in riding toward the river.

"That's a castle?" Beaufils asked, delighted with the sight that lay before him. The castle of Lady Synadona was unlike any he'd seen. The walls were of stone, but not of rough and jagged stone like the castles he had seen in the World of Men. This palace was built of shiny, white, smooth stones that gleamed in the light. And, while it had as many towers as other castles, these were topped not with battlements but with roundish structures, something like onions with their pointed bits jutting upward. Most of all, there were no walls around the outside.

"Ridiculous," Galahad said. "Who could defend a castle like that?"