“How could you?”
“I lied to him,” you answered casually, and commenced to brush your hair. “There’s a riddle for you, my virtuous child: Is it worse to deny the truth, or to hide it? I doubt you’ll hurry to set him straight.”
I did not know what to answer. As I hesitated, the guards woman at the door entered; she said to me, “My lord, Caius is asking for you.”
“Send him in,” you told her.
“The rhyming!” I sighed. I had forgotten in my anger. “I cannot go dressed like this.”
“Why not?” you answered. And Caius exclaimed as he came in, “Medraut, you look a prince!” He laughed, and slau="justcame to stand before me and clasp my shoulders as he admired my finery. “You need not change. You know the costumes were made to fit over our clothes.”
“Even so.”
“No fear, we’ll make it part of the performance. I’ll get you a cloak. No one must see you yet.”
“Medraut!”
I turned back to you before I left the room. You said quietly, “Come bid me good night when all is over.”
We took the pageant from door to door throughout the village, nameless, anonymous luck-bringers in our shaggy and shapeless costumes. Our small party had become a parade when we arrived back at the estate, for many of the villagers had followed us on their way to the feast at Camlan. Warm with the cider and ale of Elder Field, we burst shouting into the crowd gathered in the Great Hall, who returned our shouts for greeting. Then Gofan in his great voice called out the opening lines of the pageant:
“Way! Make way!
Yield the floor, clear the way!
We’ll mend all evil’s ill with mirth
On this Midwinter’s Day.”
He commanded silence. The laughing crowd stood still.
“Under your green-girt beams we come
Neither to beg nor borrow;
Happy we play upon your hearth
To speed away all sorrow.
We are the season’s rhymers!
Cry welcome to us here!
Fortune we bring to field and fold
At the closing of the year.”
Now our audience was rapt. The words were old and familiar, and it was too long since they had been spoken in this hall. Caius stepped forward into the small circle of clear ground, the red, holly-trimmed hood hiding his face so that the white linen mask beneath could not even be glimpsed.
“In come I, the Old Year,
Keeper of this fruitful land.
Your stout hoards of grain, ale, and meat
Are blessed beneath my hand.”
A ragged cheer went up. They were apt words from the steward of the estate, but no one was sure that it was Caius.
“Here is your hope, here is your bread,
Your shield against the dark’s sharp blast:
Who boldly dares before me stand
To lay me low at last?”
Bedwyr answered him, the high king’s swordsman, gray-hooded and glittering with icicles of silver foil and mica.
“In come I, the New Year;
The snow falls at my word.
The black months wheel around ere Spring,
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Ice-edged as my cold sword.
I am the one stronger than all
Who march in this parade:
Which of these gay retainers, lord,
Dare turn aside my blade?”
Marcus, in his crown of forced flowers:
“In come I, the Winter Prince,
Son of the Year that’s gone;
Green ivy, hawthorn, and holly I bear
For pledges of the returning Sun.
I will fight for the Old Year:
Though the grim Midwinter’s rod
Strikes the soil, soon the young Sun
Will stir the Spring’s triumphant sod.”
Bedwyr as the New Year answered:
“Pull out your sword, young Harvest Lord,
Defender of the Sun!
As the Year dies, so you shall fall—
You and the Old Year both I shall have
Before I quit this hall.”
Gofan brought forth the swords, staves bound with ribbons and green leaves. Half serious, half in jest, Marcus and Bedwyr began the ritual duel. Marcus cried out in feigned innocence: “The New Year has only one hand! How is he to fight me?” The audience laughed, full well aware of Bedwyr’s skill with a sword, and guessing his opponent to be untrained and woefully mismatched. Marcus retorted smartly to the good-natured jeers of the spectators; but when Bedwyr casually knocked Marcus’s staff aside with his useless arm, Lleu’s voice rang out above the rest in a peal of delighted laughter. Marcus whipped around to face him. “I suppose you can do better?” he challenged. He tore the wreath of flowers from his head, crying, “I’ve been killed eight times today already. Let the New Year fight one who can defend himself!” Faceless still, masked in white linen, he advanced upon Lleu and snatched away the golden circlet to replace it with his own. “A worthy champion for the Old Year!” Marcus announced triumphantly, dragging the protesting Bright One to the center of the floor.
“Pull out your sword, young Harvest Lord,
Defender of the Sun!”
Bedwyr repeated, as Marcus pressed his staff into Lleu’s hand.
Lleu swallowed his mirth and straightened the wreath he now wore, black hair tousled beneath blossom out of season, dark eyes glinting in a face white with excitement: he stood slender and solitary amid the costumed figures, a single human youth among savages or gods. He said to the audience in confidential tones, “You realize how unfair this is. They’ve been practicing all evening.” There was some laughter at that, but it was hushed, for this would be a duel worth watching.
It went on, and on. Even Bedwyr, who had taught him, could not disarm Lleu son of Artos. The revelers cheered and laughed till they must gasp for bre s gawenath, feverish in their pleasure. Marcus shouted at last, “You’re supposed to let him kill you!”
“Why would anyone do that?” Lleu cried, without a gap in his defense.