Chapter Three

A t daybreak, King Arthur had his knights roused from their pallets with trumpet blasts. Sir Erec rose with his fellows.

The knights' chamber overflowed with broad-shouldered men twisting themselves into shirts and short coats. Erec plunked himself onto a narrow bench and watched Sir Gawain thread his way through the herd. The older knight was already clad in hunting togs: a padded brown leather jerkin, too heavy for springtime, and wool hose in a woodsy green. Erec had seen him in the same clothes earlier that fortnight. And him the king's nephew! He shook his head.

"What's wrong?" Gawain asked.

Flushing, Erec lifted his chin. "Wrong?" He could not admonish Sir Gawain for dressing like a boor.

Gawain pushed some of Erec's things aside, sat down uninvited, and asked in a confidential tone, "What are you doing? I thought you had a plan?"

Erec's face felt even hotter. "I—I did."

Gawain stared, waiting.

Erec confessed, "I prayed all night for rain." That wasn't quite true. Succumbing to the warmth of his blankets and numbing snores of his comrades, he had fallen asleep.

Trying to ignore Gawain's scornful look, Erec continued dressing, fastening leather ties around his brocade hose. The hose showed Erec's calves to great advantage. They didn't sag at the knees the way Gawain's did.

"Do you want to marry the girl?" Gawain demanded.

"What? No." He thought he'd made that clear last night. He'd wear his ermine mantle and the flowered silk tunic his father had bought him from Constantinople—

Gawain made an impatient sound. "Don't come with us."

"Don't? Why?" Erec asked, startled.

"Stay here. Well, not here . The king will flush you out. But hide somewhere. Try the hayloft in the stable."

"But someone else will kill the White Stag!"

Gawain laughed. "That's what you want, isn't it?"

Was it? To succeed at taking the unique beast would make him the talk of the court for months. It wasn't that he needed to win. His reputation as one of Arthur's top knights was well-established. It was simply that he hadn't done anything especially noteworthy in…a while.

"…all too likely and then what?" Gawain said, rapping his knuckles against the bench.

Erec jumped. "Then what, what?"

"You'll have to kiss her. Unless you have another lass in mind?"

"No," Erec said quickly, shaking his head for emphasis.

One of Gawain's eyebrows rose. "Therefore, I suggested you hide in the loft."

Erec stiffened. He couldn't do something so cowardly. "Perhaps you might kill the White Stag." Rather than an optimistic possibility, it came out sounding like sarcasm.

Gawain snorted. "Perhaps. If we gave the pretty beast armor and a sword." His amusement was short-lived. "Listen. Several knights have sworn to take the stag. Each says his lady deserves the kiss. But no one is likely to challenge you over the right to bestow the prize, and not one of them can match you with a bow."

Erec started to cast his eyes down, seeing that a show of humility was in order.

Gawain snickered. "That's not to say there are not better bowmen here." As Erec's head jerked back up, Gawain said, "It's only that today, those men's arrows will fly late and fall short. No, Erec. The man who will take the White Stag must possess just the right combination of skill and impetuosity, pride, and lack of discretion." Gawain gave him a piercing look. "Guinevere is very clever. She only had to set the trap. You cannot stop yourself from walking into it."

"Not true," Erec protested, vaguely aware he had just been insulted.

"So, you're going to kill the White Stag?"

"I'm going to hunt it," Erec said, confused. Of course, he would kill it. He was a better archer than the men who wanted the prize, and the men who, according to Gawain, had a better chance of bringing down the stag would not even try.

Gawain threw up his hands. "And then you're going to kiss the girl?"

"Well, yes, I will have to."

"And so, I ask again, then what?"

Erec looked beyond the shoulder of his self-appointed counselor. And faced a brick wall.

*

Hay tickled Erec's nose. He was buried in the stuff. Gawain had insisted on this—yet now, Erec questioned whether such extremes had been necessary. No one had come looking for him. The trumpets had sounded their summons several minutes before, and dogs had answered with howling cries. Surely it was safe now.

He pushed aside the grassy layers. It stank of the stable. Drawing a deep breath, Erec winced. No. He stank of the stable.

He staggered to his feet, brushing chaff and seeds from his brocade hose and silk coat. Then he thumped across the floor of the loft, his golden spurs jangling, and peered through the trapdoor down the ladder. He could just make out the backside of his horse. Erec felt a twinge of mortification. His fellows had all set out on a great adventure. And he was hiding in a bed of hay.

Why? The Queen's favorite was a pretty thing. Her dowry would be all that his father could wish. He was no longer a boy. He had to marry sometime. He had responsibilities.

In a flash, he swooped through the trapdoor. His feet barely touched the ladder rungs as he slid to the ground.

"My steed!" he cried out, startling the stable boys. They must have been frightened by his sudden appearance because rather than rushing to help, they stood aside. Erec threw open the door to the stall. Fortunately, the horse had been readied for the hunt, and the boys had not yet gotten around to unsaddling him.

One brave lad drew closer. "Milord…"

"Stand back," Erec said, smiling benevolently as he placed his hands on the horse and leapt, unaided, into the saddle. He gathered the reins and patted the pommel of his sword.

"Sir!" the boy piped up again, "the lord Sir Gawain—"

"Gawain?" What had they agreed upon for excuse? Sudden illness? "No, no. I'm fine."

He put a bit of spur to his horse, just enough to make him snort. The boy jumped back.

"But sir! Milord Gawain—"

Erec called out, "I must hurry to catch the others."

His steed responded to the pressure of his heels. They dashed from the stable into the yard, clouds of dust rising in their wake. Erec veered toward the Adventurous Wood. This was the right course. The girl would do for a wife.

Yet a sudden unease came over him. It had been far too easy to perform that jump-into-the-saddle feat. There was nothing in the way. Nothing. As in not the bow and quiver that should have been fastened there. He recalled the earnest stable lad trying to tell him something. What had he said just before Erec bolted?

Sir Gawain.

*

Could it get any worse? Erec was irritated with Gawain but more so with himself. If a slew of arrows should first wound the stag, he might still deal the death blow with his sword. But it would hardly be the singular triumph he had envisioned.

He galloped around a bend in the road only to draw up short. Before him were the queen and the maiden he wished to avoid. They were mounted on gentle-footed white palfreys. Pounding on past was out of the question.

Guinevere smiled a greeting, reining in her mount. Erec slowed and bowed.

"My lady." He had no better explanation for his own presence than he did for theirs, so he lied. "I'm here to accompany you."

She smiled again. "Dear Sir Erec, I could not imagine a better escort."

Erec breathed a sigh of relief until Guinevere turned to her lady-in-waiting with a significant glance. The girl blushed crimson.

"Let's hurry," Erec mumbled, beginning to regret the entire day.

They went onward, but now Erec's progress was hampered by that of his companions. They could not catch the others, no doubt already deep within the woods. Unless the hunters chased the wounded White Stag across his path, he would have little chance of killing it. Who would win? Gawain? Erec didn't like to think he'd been so easily duped.

Erec and the two ladies entered the woods. The trees were leafing out, obscuring the view into the forest's depths. A breeze blew, tossing branches in the sun's rays. But the rippling colors were those of the woods, not the banners of the hunters or the golds or reds of their mantles.

"Let's wait here a moment," the queen suggested. "Surely we'll catch some sound to tell us which way the hunters have gone."

Erec agreed. There was no point dashing about blindly. For several minutes, they waited quietly, straining their ears. No horns blew. No hounds bayed. Erec closed his eyes to listen harder.

"Who is that?" Guinevere blurted.

"Who?" Erec replied, blinking.

Guinevere gestured with her chin. A knight was riding toward them from afar. With a sword at his side, he carried a lance and wore a shield slung around his neck. At his right rode a lovely lady. An ugly dwarf on a hack trotted before them, carrying a knotted scourge.

"What a handsome knight!" Guinevere exclaimed. "Why don't we know him?" She turned an accusing look on Erec, who could only shrug.

She turned to her attendant. "Go ask that knight to come here and bring his lady with him."

The girl ambled off. As Erec watched her approach the fair couple, the dwarf prodded his hack into the middle of the road. Warning bells sounded in Erec's head. Something wasn't right.

"Stop, maiden!" The dwarf's voice was rough as grit in a boot. "What do you want?"

"Let me pass!" the girl commanded. "I've come on my queen's behalf to speak with that knight."

"Go back," he sneered. "Such a knight has no reason to speak with you!"

Erec saw the shock on the maiden's face turn to irritated determination. Disregarding the small obstacle the dwarf presented, she tried to bump her way past, white palfrey pushing aside dirty gray nag. The dwarf drew back his whip and cracked it.

"Oh!" she cried out, raising her arm to ward off the blow.

Thank God the scourge struck her hand, not her cheek. But the thing was ill-done. And Erec had done nothing to prevent it. The girl came back at a gallop, tears streaming down her face. Her hand showed a dark red welt. Guinevere's eyes were hard as stones.

"Sir Erec," the queen said through clenched teeth. "That knight must be ill-bred indeed to allow his creature to strike a maiden. Bring him here. At once!"

Erec spurred his mount. He would rather fight the knight than puzzle out how to comfort the angry queen and wounded maiden.

"Vassal, go back!" The dwarf shouted.

"You nasty, loathsome little toad!" Erec cried out. How dare the varmint call him "vassal." He was a prince ! "Let me pass."

The dwarf put his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest. "You shall not."

Erec stared in disbelief. He could flick the pest away like a fly from his potted cheese. But when he reached out to do so, the dwarf slashed him across the neck and face with his scourge.

Erec's hand went at once to his sword. Yet a moment's reflection stayed him. The knight behind, in full armor, was so lacking in principles he had not prevented his servant from striking a lady. As Erec's father would say: Rashness is not courage .

He returned to the queen. He could swear she was trying to hide exasperation beneath her tender looks of concern.

"My lady," he said, attempting to speak over the loud weeping of the maiden. "That knight has shown himself to be a brute. If I killed his dwarf, I have no doubt he would strike me down though he is fully armored and I am…" he hesitated, feeling ridiculous in his finery, "…not."

Guinevere narrowed her eyes. Erec pictured the heavy, padded leather coat Gawain had been wearing. Gawain was not even present, and he managed to make Erec feel like an idiot.

His pride smarted worse than his injuries. "I swear I will avenge this disgrace. My armor is at the castle. If I return for it, I'll never be able to trace this scoundrel." He looked from impatient queen to wounded maiden. "I'll find arms to borrow. And return in…three days. Victorious."

"For the love of God, go!" Guinevere yelled, pointing off into the woods, which had already swallowed up the rude knight and his two companions. She put a hand to her bosom and breathed a deep sigh. "I meant, Sir Erec, go with God."