Parsifal's Page (15 page)

Piers nodded. "Yes. 'The wonderful bed.'"

"That's what I thought." Gawain shrugged. "We'll find out soon, I suppose." They arrived at the bank of the river beside the great open gate of the castle. Gawain said, "No point in waiting. Let's go look for something odd and French." He leaped lightly onto the beach, and Piers followed.

They entered the gate, but the courtyard was empty. Gawain stopped and looked around. "I see no one, but the castle is well kept. Even the flagstones are swept." Piers looked at a stone carving of a lion on the wall, and for an instant the carving blurred, as if Piers's eyes had suddenly begun to water, but then his vision cleared again. Piers rubbed his eyes and saw Gawain do the same. "Are your eyes blurry, Gawain?" Piers asked.

"Just for a moment," Gawain replied. "They're fine now. Come on."

Next it was a molded cornice that grew momentarily indistinct, then a stairway. "Gawain?"

Gawain had stopped moving and was looking around him. "Ay, lad?"

"Something's happening. I'm scared."

"I see them, too. Either my eyes are going bad or the castle is behaving oddly. Or else ... or else something keeps passing before my eyes."

They continued through the castle. Every door was open, every passageway clean and empty, but for the vague flitting motions that never went away, as if someone were pulling an almost-invisible silken screen through the air, blurring everything it passed in front of. It was a beautiful castle, filled with lovely furniture, but Piers found himself praying that they could leave before it got dark. The Château Merveile was scary enough in the daylight.

They were now deep in the central
donjon,
the tower that stood at the castle's heart, and there was less light. Piers pressed closer to Gawain, who touched Piers's shoulder reassuringly. Then they stepped into the strangest room Piers had ever seen. It was at least forty feet from floor to ceiling, perfectly round, and completely without windows. The only light was from a ring of torches high on the wall above them. In the very center of the room was a rough and rustic bed.

"A bed," Gawain said. "Do you think that's it? 'The Wonderful Bed?'"

"It ... it looks pretty ordinary," Piers ventured.

"Ay, the most normal thing we've seen yet in this ghastly place," Gawain assented. He drew his sword and walked slowly around the bed, examining it from
every angle. "I feel a bit silly arming myself against furniture," he commented.

"Maybe there's something else in this room," Piers suggested. Together they walked around and examined the walls. There were regular holes in the stones of the wall, but they were far too small for any enemies to get through.

"Deuced if I understand it," Gawain said. "But there's one thing. Since we came in this room I haven't seen any of those boggarts flitting about. Maybe we're actually safer in here than out there."

Still looking around him, Gawain sat on the edge of the bed, and then there was no more talk of being safe. The moment that he touched the bed, the door through which they had entered slammed closed and the bed began to move. Gawain grabbed quickly at the bedpost, dropping his sword on the floor, and then the bed was off—careening into walls and bouncing off, with Gawain grimly holding on to the headboard. Three times Piers had to throw himself to one side to escape being crushed between the bed and the stone wall, and Piers realized he needed to be on the bed, too. The next time the bed came toward him, Piers threw himself beside Gawain, who grabbed him and pulled him up.

"
C'est un lit merveile!
" Gawain called.

"You don't say," Piers snapped back. His foot was throbbing where the bedpost had bashed it when he
jumped on, and Gawain's shield, still looped onto Gawain's forearm, kept rapping him in the face. He did not feel like making clever French conversation.

They rode the bed about the room for another minute before Gawain called out, "There's something moving on the wall!" Piers looked and saw what Gawain meant, but the bed was moving too fast to make out what it was. "Blast!" Gawain shouted. "Get under my shield, Piers! Now!"

Piers curled his body into as tight a ball as he could, considering the jolting he was taking, and tried to get as much of his body under the shield as possible. At once the shield began to ping and thunk with hundreds of sharp blows. Something hit Piers hard in the small of the back, and he pressed himself closer to Gawain and under the shield. "What are they?" Piers shouted.

"Stones! From slings!" Gawain called back.

After a moment the hail of stones stopped, and Piers ventured to peek out from under the shield. A short, thick shaft of wood zipped over him, nipping his scarlet hat from his head and pinning it neatly to the headboard. "Crossbows!" Gawain shouted. "Back under the shield!" Then the hail of missiles began again, but even more deadly this time, for every crossbow shaft that hit Gawain's shield stuck and went through it to a length of at least four inches. Soon the shield was like a giant's pincushion. More than once Piers heard Gawain grunt with pain, and he
tried to push the shield over to cover the knight better, but Gawain pushed it back. "I ... have ... armor," he gasped.

It seemed hours, but in fact was probably no more than a minute, before the crossbows stopped, and when they ceased, the bed stopped as well. "Gawain?" Piers asked after a moment.

"I must be alive," Gawain said hoarsely. "Dead doesn't hurt this much."

Piers crawled out from under the shield and looked around. There was blood on both of Gawain's arms, and several crossbow shafts that had managed to pierce his armor stuck out like hedgehog quills. Stiffly, Gawain got off the bed and looked around on the floor until he found his sword. Piers tugged three bolts out of the headboard and rescued his hat. All the plumes had been torn away, and with its new holes the hat was beginning to look decidedly ragged.

"I don't know what's next, lad, but stay near me," Gawain said. He unslung his arrow-studded shield and threw it onto the bed, just as an enormous cat with a heavy ring of hair around its face came through the door. Piers had never seen a live lion before, but he knew one when he saw it.

The lion roared and launched itself at Gawain. Gawain's sword flashed, and Piers saw blood spurt from one of the cat's paws, but the other paw knocked Gawain stumbling backwards. The lion roared again,
louder, and limped toward Gawain. Gawain heaved himself to his feet and moved away. For a minute the knight and the lion both limped in a circle. Then the lion leaped again. Gawain lifted his sword, but his feet slipped beneath him in a pool of the lion's blood, and the lion landed right on top of him. Gawain's sword skittered across the room, and Piers screamed, "No!"

Grabbing the only weapon he could find, Gawain's ruined shield, Piers ran toward the lion and threw himself against it. For a few wild moments the lion roared and thrashed while Piers pushed the shield against the lion's side, and then Piers was thrown through the air against a wall. His head rang, and he slid down the wall onto a litter of bloody stones and broken crossbow bolts.

"Is he dead?" a voice asked. It was a woman's voice. Piers opened his eyes and saw two ladies standing over the lion's body. Gawain was nowhere to be seen. One of the ladies knelt and bowed her head. Piers saw her lips move and realized she was praying. Shaking with weariness, Piers stood.

"What have you done with Gawain?" he said softly.

"He is under the lion," the standing lady said. Staggering over, Piers saw that the lady was right. The lion's body almost completely covered Gawain's form.

"Gawain?" he whispered.

"Mmpf," said Gawain.

By the time Piers and the two ladies had pulled the dead lion completely off him, Gawain had fainted. Wordlessly, they worked together to remove Gawain's battered armor and determine the extent of his wounds. They were many but not severe. The crossbow bolts had not been able to penetrate the double layer of armor around Gawain's torso, so all of his wounds were on his arms and legs. One lady brought a basin of water, and together the ladies bathed his wounds.

The ladies seemed to know what to do, so Piers left them to their work and looked around. There were at least a dozen women peeking around the doorway, watching the proceedings. A few blushed when Piers looked at them, but most smiled with a friendliness that was touched with gratitude. Piers wondered where
all these women had been hidden when he and Gawain had searched the castle.

At last Gawain's wounds were washed and bound, and one of the two ladies—a graceful woman with long, straight black hair that flowed over her shoulders like a waterfall—called for a pallet. Several of the ladies hurried away, and soon they were gently lifting Gawain onto a thin, hard cot. "We'll give him a more restful bed this time, I think," the lady with black hair said. Eight of the ladies lifted Gawain, bed and all, and took him out. Then the dark-haired lady turned to Piers. "And you will be weary as well. Please come with me, and I'll take you to a room near Gawain's."

"Thank you," Piers replied humbly. "I am very tired. But please, can you tell me what all this is? Who are you? Where did you come from?"

"In good time, Piers."

"You know my name? But how?"

"In good time." They started to leave, but Piers could barely walk on the ankle that had been hit by the bedpost. Seeing his limp, the lady took Piers's arm and supported him down the hall to an elegantly furnished bedchamber. There she guided him to a chair by a cheery fire, then knelt at his feet and examined his ankle. "I think it is not broken," she said at last, "but it is very swollen. You should rest now and try not to walk on it."

"Yes, my lady," Piers said. He could not imagine arguing with this majestic person. "Thank you, my lady."

"You may call me Nimue," she said.

"Nimue!" Piers exclaimed. "Then you are ... ah ... do you have ... do you have a daughter named Ariel?"

"I do have an impetuous, willful, and incurably inquisitive daughter by that name," the woman said gravely.

"She ... she told me that you were the most beautiful creature in any world," Piers said.

Nimue laughed, and her laughter was like a mountain brook dancing over stones. "I'll send her in to you after you've rested," Nimue promised. Then she left, and Piers decided it would be easier to sleep in his chair by the fire than to bother moving again, so he did.

"Piers?" the whispered voice was disturbing his dreams, and Piers tried to ignore it, but it only came back, louder this time. "Pi-ers? Oh, Pi-ers." Piers opened his eyes, and there was Ariel. She smiled happily at him. "Mother said I must let you sleep, but you were about to wake up anyway, weren't you?"

"It doesn't matter," Piers murmured. "I'd rather be awake now anyway."

Ariel smiled more brightly and turned pink. "Mother told me all that you've done. I think it's
wonderful! Did you really attack that lion all by yourself? I didn't know you were so brave! I mean I knew you were probably brave, but I didn't know how much."

"I wasn't really attacking him," Piers said. "I just wanted him to get off Gawain."

"But he could have killed you," Ariel said, her eyes wide.

"I didn't really think about that," Piers admitted. "Say, do you know what that was all about?"

"You mean the bed and the lion and all?" Piers nodded, and Ariel returned his nod gleefully. "Yes. Mother told me just an hour ago, and she said that I might tell you too, as soon as you woke up, which is why I just looked in to see if you were awake, and you weren't, but you looked as though you might wake up soon, so I came on in. You
were
about to wake up, weren't your?"

Piers laughed. "I guess so. I'm awake, aren't I?"

"Well, that's what I thought. Shall I tell you now, or would you rather go back to sleep?"

"Oh, hurry up, will you?" Piers said.

"Well, this castle is called the 'Château Merveile.' It's one of the castles of ladies. There are several of them in this world. Of course, it's not the greatest of them, but—"

"Hold on," Piers said. "What do you mean 'this world'? Are we in—?"

"Don't you even know?" Ariel asked, giggling. "You're in the Other World now, of course. You came over on the ferry. Isn't that funny? A ferry to the faeries. Now don't interrupt any more, or I'll forget the order of the story."

"Sorry." Piers looked around him. It didn't
look
like another world, but then he'd never seen another world before, so he could be wrong.

"Anyway, as I was saying, this is one of the castles of ladies—"

"You mean only ladies live here?"

"That's right."

"Why?"

"Well, they have to live somewhere, don't they? Are you going to keep interrupting?"

"Sorry," Piers said, but then he added quickly, "One more thing before you get started. Where were all these ladies when Gawain and I got here? We looked everywhere."

"I'll tell you if you'll just be quiet," Ariel said patiently. "Anyway, this castle has two hundred ladies in it, and there was this enchanter named Gottfried who wanted to come here."

Piers frowned. "Why?"

"What do you mean, why?"

"I mean, why would a man want to go live somewhere where there were only women? It sounds terrible. Two hundred women always telling him to pick up his stockings and clean his nails."

Ariel frowned thoughtfully. "Well, I don't know exactly, but mother says that men are always trying to get in. Maybe they're in love."

"With two hundred at once?" Piers asked skeptically. "This Gottfried can't have thought it through."

"Maybe not," Ariel said. "But that's what he wanted, anyway. And he tried and tried to get in using his magic, but every time he tried he failed."

"We didn't have any trouble getting in," Piers observed. "Didn't this Gottfried notice that the gate was open?"

"I don't know," Ariel said, with a touch of irritation. "I don't know why Gottfried couldn't force his way in while you just walked in, but that's what my mother told me. Do you want to hear this story or not?"