42.                            The Little Knight

Notwithstanding Ellen and the chancellor's protest—little Abby, too, had tearfully pleaded that she not go—the royal wagon pulled up well before dawn at the lord major's tent outside the city—his growing army no longer could be accommodated at the old castle and lists, now used as quarters and training for the order of knights. Trailing was the golden steed in royal garb and Roland and his men. The lord major stood at the lantern entrance to his tent. As the ladder was placed the queen stepped down from the wagon and the lord major, instead of bowing, stood frozen in disbelief. She stood before him in a young squire's attire. The king and her mother's blazon across her breast. Girdled about her was a jeweled dagger. She would have worn her father's sword—with Hector's death the vigil in behalf of Noil was terminated— except it was too large and would have trailed along the ground. She did, however, have it holstered to her horse. Her smile, framed by a cowl drawn about her face, lit up under the lanterns. "You seem surprised, lord major....Have you never seen a woman in pants before?...And, goodness, what would be your reaction were I in a coat of mail?"

He snapped out of his trance and kneeled before her. "My courageous queen, despite the lack of armor, I should think you were ready to do battle."

She said laughingly, "Appearance is deceiving, the fact is I'm simply prepared to mount my steed."

"My queen, surely, you do not mean to leave your transport behind!" he squawked as he rose up and searched with puzzlement into her eyes.

"I do, my lord. You mentioned that the man-of-war's castle—my grandmother's, that is—is six days ride from here. And since you do not want a wagon of provisions slowing you up until you journey back or prepare a siege, I surely, am not going to be the one responsible for holding back your finest horsemen; for already you have dispatched your foot soldiers to the destination."

"But, my queen, you have been ill; I fear the ride may be too much on you."

"Perhaps, but God's Will be done."

"Aye, may it truly be done," he kneeled again and kissed her hand, then led her to his tent whereupon he offered her some food which was eagerly accepted, her having left the palace hours before dawn.

 She loosened her cowl and slid it off her head, and her gold locks sprung to life. The major's eyes glittered. She sipped pheasant soup and dunked a pasty, talking in between. “I know you are a knight of noble conflict and are probably eager to do battle, and of course, in that event you are in charge. But my presence is to avoid bloody engagement and unless I fail in that mission, I trust you realize I am in command."

"Of course, your majesty, but you must also understand that I am sworn to protect the crown and what with this treachery in the works and if you're in danger, I must override the command of peace," he cautioned, his steel grey eyes piercing her.

The queen’s queen’s lips curled for and instant. "Agreed." She added with a nervous quiver, "Though if war must be, at least the intent is peace."

"I say this, my queen, more in behalf of your father than I do as commander of your Royal Marches. Though separated often from our divers duties, we were the best of friends."

"Yea, that I've heard. Tell me, what in truth was he like?" she risked asking. "So much was he like a stranger to me—so often was he absent from my heart."

He looked at her with deep commiseration and his eyes softened. "Aye, absent from me and himself so very often. When we were young carefree knights and he still a prince under your grandfather's army, there wasn't anything we didn't know about each other, so open we were as if brothers. Oh, and how he carried on when smitten with love on first encounter with your loving mother!" He laughed heartily, then toned to chuckling and finally a wistful smile. "I swear, my queen, like Adam he did hold his rib till Alexa consented to marry him!" He looked over at her with eyes transformed to watery grey. She smiled warmly. He ran a thick finger under his left eye and did the same with the other.

She waved the spoon before him. "Pardon me, major, that I probe," she said, feeling warmth for the battle-scarred knight. "How is it that you never took a spouse?"

"In truth, your grace—or should I weave false fabric?"

She laughed and countered, "Are these I wear now not false fabric enough for you?"

"Well, then, forgive this foolish weaver who unravels from round the heart to bare to you...." He sat down at the small table and leaned toward her. "When I first saw your mother no longer could I don a mantle for another so smitten not unlike your father that the hidden rib of my soul did pain."

"Gracious, my lord, two knights so iced by the grimness of war had turned to tropical waters?" she quipped, then became intrigued and her heart went out to him. "Tell me, did you also woo my mother?"

In a mildly indignant tone, he defended his honor: "Oh, your majesty, never could I undercut the royal heart, and most assuredly a friend's!"

"I do understand—more than you know," she said sadly, then speculated with mild excitement. "But surely, you must have met another damsel of equal loveliness to soothe your aching heart?"

"How tragic a daughter's plight not ever to know her mother!" He reached out and touched her hair. "Quite simply there was no other to break the seal to my heart, so deeply resident was she within and oddly even more so when she...passed on. And thus, I understood all the more your father's grief....Yet I recovered; alas, he never did, and therefore I trust he loved her more....To a point, that is, I sympathized, nay, empathized, until he took me to your cradle and I saw Alexa's sweet legacy. Oh were I your father,...how I would have rebounded and turned all my love for her to you! I thought after his internal crusade he would then recover, but he never did. There seemed another hurt within as if he loved another. Aye, I understood that; for, swear I, sometimes I did love the wraith of your mother that came upon me in my lost thoughts or dreams to break the bailey wall I had built up to defend against the relentless scaling of determined grief. But I could not accept his mad quests at the heartless expense of denying you the comfort of a father. And hurt I was that he would never let me accompany him in the later journeys of his dark sense."

She welled up and clutched her heart. "Try hard, my warring but gentle lord, to be kind to him; for I do see that the wraith thou speakst of was in fact a living thing that he could not shake. Yea, who knows what lurketh in the darkness of our senses? They may not be just phantoms of our minds, but true, viable entities that thrust at us with strong wills of their own."

He smiled over the informal pronoun directed to him for the first time, and nodded gently as he looked over at a fragile queen, who incongruently seemed carved from a granite slab of yore to give hopeful permanence to the mysterious, frightening, volatility of life. "Aye bright queen, a will of their own, like your father's dark sense absorbed a light, he once admitted before off on one of his mysterious quests."

"A light, thou sayst?" she asked, leaning forward.

"Aye, my queen, a blue one. Could there be a connection, I wonder, to the burst of light at the theatre?"

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