THE KNIGHT OF LIONS
PART 3
By Cretin de Twonk
Soon Yvan began to forget how long he'd been living in the trees like a wild man. He ate the animals he caught with his bare hands without cooking them, and hid himself whenever he heard footsteps or voices. All he wanted was to be alone.
One morning he passed out from hunger in front of a cave-mouth. Yvan meant to shelter inside the cave, but his head was too light and his body too weak to make it, as he had been subsisting on a diet of broken-necked squirrels, and squirrels are hard to catch.
In the gloom of semi-consciousness he saw a figure walk out of the cave and bend over him in concern. The figure was small and thin, draped in robes. It had a shaved head.
When Yvan awoke there was a bowl of broth and a loaf of bread beside him. So great was his hunger that he practically inhaled all of it in one gulp, then sat thinking with his arms around his knees.
Who was the stranger who fed him? A vague memory came of a story Gawain told him, when he was among the living. In the forest near Arthur's castle lived a man who became a recluse, existing without talking to anyone -- a religious man. Yvan's eyebrows knotted as he forced himself to think about the man as a different entity to himself. He couldn't remember the hermit's name, but food was left for him by the monks in a particular Order at the abbey on the other side of the forest. He was obviously living in the cave and giving Yvan his own meagre supply of food. No wonder the man was so thin.
This didn't stop Yvan from eating what was left out for him. People who lose their wits lose their self-consciousness, and in doing so often lose their conscience.
It was on the seventh day of his eating the hermit out of cave and home when three women approached Yvan. It was a long time since he'd seen a woman, so he stayed very still and stared, lethargically, trying to compare their faces to that of a lady he had three-quarters forgotten. All he recollected was her name began with L -- Linden? -- and she had taken something important from him by trickery.
"Who's that?" one of the younger women said to the eldest. The older woman rode a black horse, the other two walked.
"A vagabond, dead perhaps." The horsewoman had long, dark hair and eyes as blue as a laughing sky. She wore a dress suitable for dancing in, if the dance involved a lot of tripping over, whereas the others wore grey shifts and carried baskets on their arms. "Look at the wound there, in his chest. Obviously a corpse."
"Wait," the other young woman said. "I recognise his face."
"Thank goodness you said his face!" the other one guffawed.
The young woman blushed. "That is the warrior from Gore who went missing from King Arthur's court weeks ago, Sir Yvan the son of Lord Uhrience. Do you think bandits attacked him?"
The horsewoman placed a finger to her chin in thought. Then she turned and pulled something out of one of the saddlebags. It was an engraved box made of something like shell, pearly and luminescent.
"In this is a measure of a special healing salve Morgan the Fey gave to me when we were very young children," she said, handing it to the servant-girl. "Edda, you must go to Yvan, if it is Yvan, and daub a small amount on his forehead only. That will cure his madness, for I see he is alive by the way he just blinked. Follow my instructions exactly, leave some of these clothes out for him to cover his indecency, and take him with you when you catch us up. I would have words with him."
The woman and the other servant rode away, leaving Edda with the box. Yvan was now watching the proceedings with one eye but hurried to close it as the young woman approached. There was a space of a few seconds, and then a cool liquid was rubbed into his head...then his face and neck...down his body even to the soles of his feet. He thought of protesting and reminding her of the woman's instructions, but then memories sprang to his brain with clarity, and he felt ashamed of his nakedness.
He sat up. On a rock lay a folded tunic and some leggings, with a pair of boots on top. Edda was hiding behind a tree; he saw some of her shift poking out at the sides. Pretending not to see her, he turned his back and got dressed.
When he turned around again she was standing in front of him, red-faced and cow-eyed. He yelped.
"Hello," she breathed. "I was sent to bring you to my employer. She requires the help of a heartless knight."
The salve on his skin tingled like static electric currents, rendering him weak and numb. "Lead the way," was all he managed to utter, and, shivering, he followed Edda.
A little way towards the edge of the forest, he said, "Earlier, um..."
"Yes?"
"Were you looking at me, um..?"
She stared at him with wide-eyed bewilderment. "I couldn't have healed you with my eyes closed, sir."
"True," he mumbled, and gave up further attempts at conversation.
They crossed a bridge spanning a river, and Edda dropped the empty salve-box into it. Yvan wondered what her agenda was, but still said nothing.
On the far side, the two other women stood waiting.
"Good afternoon, Sir Yvan," the lady in black said. "My name is Lenore, and these are my ladies-in-waiting, Edda and Forna."
Yvan bowed, stiff and aching. He noticed Lenore was not staring at his chest-hole, as any normal person would have done. Instead she gazed keen as a vulture at his face, as if trying to read a secret in it. Edda and Forna moved a short distance away to pick herbs.
"I can sense," Lenore said, "that you are covered head to toe in something which isn't yours."
"Clothes?"
"Aside from that."
Yvan wasn't sure how to respond. He guessed that, if Lenore knew Morgan of the Fey, then she was an enchantress of some type, and he hoped she might help him get his heart back. He said so.
"If you do one task for me, I will consider your request," Lenore said.
"What do I have to do?"
Lenore allowed Yvan to sit behind her on the horse, although he hadn't washed in a long time and was creeping with fleas. They rode through a small town, little more than a village, to a fort on a hill surrounded by farmlands. Inside her rooms the three women ran a bath for him, and Lenore insisted on shaving him and cutting his hair, as if he was her personal pet.
"You've not done this before very often, have you?" he said when she set a sieve over his head and began to cut around the edges.
"What gives you that notion?"
"Most people would use a bowl. And, um, bowl cuts are usually reserved for pages." And village idiots, he didn't say.
Once Lenore had cut round and round, and eventually decided his scalp should be shaved as well, and once Yvan had eaten and rested, he asked:
"So. Why am I here?"
"There is a man who keeps attacking my lands," Lenore said. "Count A-leer, we call him."
"Aleer?"
"Yes. Because he's always wearing one when he sees me. He is convinced these lands are his by rights, not my own, because I am a woman and he is a chauvinist. He rides in burning and looting and killing any person who tries to defend their property, being too much of a coward to arrange a proper battle with me. My husband grew up with him when he was a boy. He always did like to play the Viking."
"And you want me to get rid of the Count?" Yvan checked.
"No, I want you to invite him for a picnic on Hangman's Heath," she said with heavy sarcasm. "I want you to kill him in a fight, sir, that's what is needed."
"And then you'll give me back my heart?"
Lenore hardly hesitated at all. "We'll see. Magic with organs is a tricky business."
They didn't have to wait more than a day for the next raid. By sunset a farmhand asked to see Lady Lenore with news of barns burned and cows roasted.
"He's on his way here," Lenore said to Yvan, who was already clad in her late husband's armour. "You know what to do."
He clapped the helmet on his head and nodded.
One of the fallow fields was reserved for him to lie in wait. He cantered up and down on the old, grey horse he was given, trying not to look bored.
Count A-leer's raiding party came into view. There were twenty of them, all on horseback. Count A-leer was noticeable by his large stature and tattooed face. The skin around his eyes, on his cheeks and over his nose was dyed blue to create the impression of a skull.
"Halt!" Yvan bellowed, walking his horse up and down the line of men to make it difficult for them all to pass at once. "Who goes there?"
"Who are you?" the skull-faced man sneered.
"I asked first."
"I am the rightful holder of these lands. Move out of my way."
Yvan positioned his lance in its rest, glad the new armour he wore concealed his heartless chest. "No. I will not let you menace an innocent woman. She has done nothing wrong."
"So it's to be a fight, eh?" Count A-leer grinned like a feral cat at his comrades, who smirked back and subtly positioned themselves into defensive stances.
"Ready when you are."
Yvan was grim. Ever since he had his mentality restored, his body felt different, or more specifically his skin. It tingled and burned, but not in an unpleasant way, and his fingers and feet were numb. He supposed it was the effect of the healing salve Edda pasted all over him. When he moved, it felt like his body was encased in candle-wax.
Count A-leer raised his lance, they cantered fifty paces away from each other, turned, and struck.
A crowd of twenty against one man should finish him off quickly. However, Yvan was different. Ten minutes into the skirmish he had killed three men, and sustained five injuries, yet still sat upright on his horse. The injuries, he guessed, should have been severe, but there was no blood and no pain. An arrow poked out of his left shoulder and tickled his face, which was annoying, and his nose had been cut off and lost in the mud somewhere, but he decided to worry about it later.
It was when a red-haired fighter with an eye-patch sliced his sword into a gap in Yvan's chain-mail, then withdrew it, that the raiding party stopped attacking and stared at the still-clean sword.
Yvan blinked. Still no pain. He wondered what was happening to him.
"What...is...he?" A large man like a bristly pig asked the red-haired one.
"It's not human." The raider dropped his sword like it was cursed and ran. The large bristly one ran, and the next one, and the next, until it was only Count A-leer facing Yvan. Then the Count fled.
Calm as glaciers, Yvan followed him. The Count led him a long chase, over a river, through a copse, across some farmland, and finally stopped outside a little stone hut with the remains of a camp-fire inside it.
The Count dismounted, as the horse was nearing collapse.
"Please," he said. "Don't kill me."
"I won't harm you if you surrender to Lady Lenore, and let her keep her lands. Become her butler as well, if you like."
"I...think I'd draw the line at that," Count A-leer said.
On the return to Lenore's fort, Yvan stepped on something lumpy. Brushing the mud off it, he saw it was a severed nose, albeit bloodless. It stuck back onto his face just fine.
It was evening. The light slanted grey and blue through the windows of the audience chamber. Yvan had taken off his breastplate and other armour, but kept the mail shirt on to hide the heart-hole. He didn't want everyone there to know what he was.
The Count knelt in front of Lenore, and put his forehead to the back of her hand.
"What are you doing?" she said.
"Do I have a temperature?"
"Get off!" She whacked him. "I want a proper apology from you, and you must swear you will never try to attack me or my lands again."
"Yes," Count A-leer said stiffly.
Yvan watched the proceedings with cold detachment, and once the conversation ceased, he turned towards the doors.
"Where do you suppose you're going?" Lenore's voice was brisk and harsh behind him.
"If you won't restore my heart, I may as well leave now," he replied, quiet and morose. "I can't abide feasting and entertainments, these days."
"You are stealing something that belongs to me," Lenore said, voice soft with warning. "The salve does not belong to you."
There was the whisper of Count A-leer drawing his sword.
"It is not my fault your servants can't follow instructions properly," Yvan said. "My being covered head to toe in your potion is none of my doing."
"So that is why he is invincible, eh?" the Count said. "I knew there was cheating in it somewhere."
Yvan spun around and glared. "Attacking one man using a war band of twenty is cheating, sir."
"Count," Lenore said. "Seize him, would you?"
The ex-rebel strode down the hall and took hold of Yvan's elbow. Yvan couldn't bring himself to fight free of his grip. He was too busy goggling at Lenore and her blatant, ungrateful disloyalty.
"The only way to regain the magic of the salve is if I flay his body and keep the skin," she muttered half to herself. "Yes, that seems the best plan. He isn't a real human, after all."
In the twisted position Count A-leer held him in, Yvan couldn't reach his sword with his left hand, and his right arm was pinned to his side. Knowing he was unable to die made the grisly fate much worse. How on earth would he manage to exist with no skin? The pain would drive him mad -- if he was able to feel the pain of losing his skin. Still, he wanted to keep all his insides on the inside.
Then Count A-leer pushed him towards the door.
"Go," he said, turning to face Lenore with his sword bared. "I will waylay her for as long as I can. Get out of here. My lady, if you scream for guards, I will rip an extra smile in that pretty face of yours."
Yvan didn't bother to ask why the Count was suddenly helping him. He regained his balance and ran with strides longer than a horse.
He soon found a route back into the woods, and once among the shelter of the trees he began to relax. The shield he carried was emblazoned with Lenore's husband's coat of arms, which would make him traceable, so he took it off his arm and buried it.
Then he stood in his chain-mail and leggings, wondering what to do next.
That was when he saw the lion.
Now, even in those days, it was unlikely for a lion to be found in the King's hunting-grounds, firstly because lions don't like trees in large gangs, and secondly because the King tended to kill everything that moved when he was sober. Yvan had not seen a deer or even a badger since he'd come here.
However, as he walked he came to a clearing. There the lion was, fighting a long, sinuous groundwyrm.
Groundwyrms were a lesser type of dragon. (In those times, seeing a dragon in a forest was very, very unlikely. In fact, you were less likely to see an intact forest around a dragon than to see a dragon in a forest.) This type of lizard was the tunnelling kind, with two sets of tiny, skimpy legs, a snaking body with feathers on the end -- though groundwyrms had evolved unable to fly -- and a massive whiskered head full of rows of backwards-facing, nasty teeth, and a tongue blackened with stomach-soot. Beneath the layer of mud its scales were red.
The lion was small, almost dog-sized, and its fur was ghost-pale. Maybe that was why Yvan decided to save its life. In hindsight, he wasn't sure of his reasons. Before he could think about death and pain too much (human habits are hard to get rid of) he charged at the dragon crying "Aaaarghhh!" waving his sword above his head.
The lion's tail was stuck in the groundwyrm's mouth. Yvan cut through the end of the tail, releasing the lion, and together they turned and killed the groundwyrm. It dissolved back into the earth it came from, and Yvan was alone. With a lion.
The animal licked the dragon blood from its chops and sighed. "Well, that was stupid of you, wasn't it?"
"Sorry?" Yvan blinked. "What was stupid?"
"You were, charging into the middle of a fight wearing hardly any armour at all, no shield, no subtlety -- and you forget that both parties are meat-eating." The lion drummed its claws on the tamped-down earth. "I suppose I'll have to save you for dessert."
"You're joking. I just saved your life."
"Yes, and you've cut off most of my tail. I find that extremely rude. And what kind of battle-roar is 'Argh'? I've heard better shouts from rabbits I've killed."
Yvan blushed furiously. "I'll have you know I'm immortal and I don't bleed. I'd still be alive in your stomach and by God, I'll give you so much indigestion you'll wish you'd never been whelped."
The lion turned to lick one of its haunches, not fazed. "Perhaps I'll save you as a snack for later. The fact you're coated in lioness pheromones makes it hard to eat you just now."
"Lioness pheromones?" Yvan guessed the lion was talking about the salve.
"Yes, special-smelling stuff the female of my species excretes," it said in a tutoring voice.
"You're not meaning to tell me I'm covered in lion pee?"
"Lioness pee. I'm not homosexual."
Yvan cast around the woods for a stream, then paused to reconsider. If he washed off the salve, the lion might attack him, and without the salve he would feel the pain.
"Leaving it on, are we?" the lion said, amused.
"Shut up. What's your name, if you have one?"
"In my language, my name is --" the lion broke off and gave a low snarl ending in a growl.
"I can't call you that."
"In that case, you may call me Your Grand Eminence."
"Fat-Head, more like."
"Oh, all right. It's Luan."
"Luan the Lion?"
"Will you stop taking the mickey?"
"No," Yvan said. "Anyway, why are you talking? Lions don't speak."
Luan didn't answer. "It's approaching nightfall. If I catch us some game, will you cook it? I despise raw food, and you've had a tiring battle."
"Of course." Yvan was surprised. He hadn't expected the animal to offer help. Maybe having a lion around would be useful.
It was nearing the hour of midnight when Luan came back with a couple of dead hares in his mouth. He nudged Yvan awake, and they had a warm, companionable, bleary-eyed supper. They fell asleep where they sat, with the fire dying down to embers, then ash.
Over the ensuing days of travel in the forest, Yvan and the lion grew close. They still swapped sarcastic remarks, and there were no visible signs of affection during the day, but every night Luan would hunt for them both, bringing Yvan either a wild bird, or a rabbit, or another hare, and they would sit around a fire gnawing the meat off the bones. Then they talked about all manner of things, not always in a sarcastic way. In the mornings Yvan would wake to find the lion had padded over and laid back-to-back with him in the night.
One evening the pair of them stumbled into a dell containing a familiar sight: a pine tree above a white-bubbling fountain.
"This reminds me of something," Yvan whispered.
"What?" Luan said.
Yvan's eyes travelled over the rocks of the spring until they saw the chain with the bowl attached.
"We must have walked further than I thought. This...this is where it all started..."
What felt like five minutes later he opened his eyes to find himself lying in the grass, the lion's nose sniffling all over his face in concern.