2
Day. More aches. More pains.
Someone had left me a new cloak, a brown one, which I decided was a good thing. Especially if I put on more weight and Ganelon recalled my colors. I did not shave my beard, because be had known me in a slightly less hairy condition. I took pains to disguise my voice whenever he was about. I hid Grayswandir beneath my bed.
For all of the following week I drove myself ruthlessly. I worked and sweated and strove until the aches subsided and my muscles grew firm once more. I think I put on fifteen pounds that week. Slowly, very slowly, I began feeling like my old self.
The country was called Lorraine, and so was she. If I happened to be in the mood to hand you a line, I would tell you we met in a meadow behind the castle, she gathering flowers and me walking there for exercise and fresh air. Crap.
I guess a polite term would be camp follower. I met her at the end of a hard day‘s work, spent mainly with the saber and the mace. She was standing off on the side lines waiting for her date when I first caught sight of her. She smiled and I smiled back, nodded, winked, and passed her by. The next day I saw her again, and I said “Hello” as I passed her. That‘s all.
Well, I kept running into her. By the end of my second week, when my aches were gone and I was over a hundred-eighty pounds and feeling that way again, I arranged to be with her one evening. By then, I was aware of her status and it was fine, so far as I was concerned. But we did not do the usual thing that night. No.
Instead, we talked, and then something else happened.
Her hair was rust-colored with a few strands of gray in it. I guessed she was under thirty, though. Eyes, very blue. Slightly pointed chin. Clean, even teeth inside a mouth that smiled at me a lot. Her voice was somewhat nasal, her hair was too long, her make-up laid on too heavily over too much tiredness, her complexion too freckled, her choice in clothing too bright and tight. But I liked her. I did not think I‘d actually feel that way when I asked her out that night because, as I said, liking her was not what I had in mind.
There was no place to go but my chamber, so we had gone there. I had become a captain, and I took advantage of my rank by having dinner brought to us, and an extra bottle of wine.
“The men are afraid of you,” she said. “They say you never grow tired.”
“I do,” I said, “believe me.”
“Of course,” she said, shaking her too-long locks and smiling. “Don‘t we all?”
“I daresay,” I replied.
“How old are you?”
“How old are you?”
“A gentleman would not ask that question.”
“Neither would a lady?”
“When you first came here, they thought you were over fifty.”
“And. . . ?”
“And now they have no idea. Forty-five? Forty?”
“No,” I said.
“I didn‘t think so. But your beard fooled everyone.”
“Beards often do that.”
“You look better every day. Bigger. . .”
“Thanks. I feel better than I did when I arrived.”
“Sir Corey of Cabra,” she said. “Where‘s Cabra? What‘s Cabra? Will you take me there with you, if I ask you nicely?”
“I‘d tell you so,” I said, “but I‘d be lying.”
“I know. But it would be nice to hear.”
“Okay. I‘ll take you there with me. It‘s place.”
“Are you really as good as the men say?”
“I‘m afraid not. Are you?”
“Not really. Do you want to go to bed now?”
“No. I‘d rather talk. Have a glass of wine.”
“Thank you. . . . Your health.”
“Yours.”
“Why is it you are such a good swordsman?”
“Aptitude and good teachers.”
“. . . And you carried Lance all that distance and slew those beasts. . .”
“Stories grow with the telling.”
“But I have watched you. You are better than the others. That is why Ganelon made you whatever deal he did. He knows a good thing when he sees it. I‘ve had many friends who were swordsmen, and I‘ve watched them at practice. You could cut them to pieces. The men say you are a good teacher. They like you, even if you do scare them.”