CHAPTER ONE
In which our Heroine does a False Knight a kindness
and suffers his Treachery as her Reward
Bradamant rode alone, as upright as a spearshaft, gleaming like white-hot iron in her bright armor, so self-assured and confident that one immediately looked, in vain, for the thousand warriors who surely must be accompanying her.
She rode as she did because she thought that was how a knight errant should ride. She looked neither to the left nor the right, neither up nor down. She was aware of the landscape through which she was passing, but she refused to acknowledge it. Like a frog that is unconscious of a fly until it moves—and would starve in the midst of a thousand motionless insects—Bradamant tried to allow only those things that should properly interest a knight to penetrate to her carefully-trained consciousness. Everything else—the road, the dust that rose from it, the lazy clop, clop of her horse’s heavy feet; the grassy verge that lined the highway, yellow from the dust that settled on it; the occasional low stone walls and the hedges and the crows that sat upon them, watching her with glittering, intelligent eyes; the ponds, some like circular mirrors, others green with lily pads and duckweed, with armadas of geese and ducks cutting meadering paths like the silvery tracks of snails; the undulating pastures dotted with sheep, cattle or goats overseen by drowsy cowherds, shepherds and goatherds, now and then accompanied by a dog or two that glanced with lazy indifference at the passing knight; the vinyards and orchards and the farmland, worked by heavy men behind wooden plows drawn by grim mules, dense with grain in the summer, harvested in the fall by thick, buxom women and dull, red-cheeked girls; the huts, hovels and castles, the hamlets, villages and cities—all passed by her like a grey mist.
She indeed tried very hard to maintain a proper aloofness from the world, but it persisted in intruding itself in the form of an aching butt, dust that made her nose run and a splitting headache from the glaring sun. Such trivial earthlinessesses—unwelcome reminders of her own corporality—not only annoyed her in their own right, they annoyed her by making her aware that she could be annoyed. She gritted her perfect teeth in the face of such self-destructive circularity.
She had removed her enameled helmet in deference to the sultry air—the year had just progressed from Joy-Month to the first days of Plough-Month—, and it was now balanced between her legs on the high pommel. She had ridden many miles while agonizing over the question of whether removing her helmet might not be an expression of weakness or self-indulgence before finally deciding—as she so often did—that weakness and self-indulgence were so inimical to her true nature that, probatum est, the removal of her helmet could by definition be only a worthy action. Her hair was caramel-colored and cropped quite short—though not by choice: it had been shorn, and inexpertly at that, as part of the treatment for a grave injury she had recently suffered and it had been frustratingly slow in growing back. The frustration bothered her, since it was symptomatic of vanity and vanity was a sin and sin was unchivalric. The hair was still wet with perspiration and clung smoothly to her head like a skullcap of burnished bronze. A long white scar was visible beneath the locks over her right ear, like a pale snake zigzagging through autumn leaves.
Her tanned face was sculpted in bold planes; serious, stern, aloof, with prominent cheekbones shading the hollow alcoves of her cheeks. Her dark eyes had the shimmering metallic luster of hematite spheres, under brows the color and shape of iron scythes. Her broad forehead was supported by the flying buttress of her sharp raptor’s nose. She enjoyed looking down its length from her great height, as if she were sighting along the stock of a crossbow. Her jaw was square and her mouth was straight and serious and full of bright, white teeth she thought were too small but which were not. The cumulative effect was one of dignity, resolve, great strength and—in spite of a haughty aloofness that sometimes seemed dispassionately, superciliously cold—great beauty. The realization of this came as a surprise to many people, especially those who would have doubted that the combination of so many essentially unfeminine and perhaps individually unattractive parts could be assembled into such a greater whole; it would have certainly been scoffed at by Bradamant herself, who wrongly imagined that she had no illusions about her personal appearance. Nevertheless, whatever her self-opinion, she was as reknowned for her comeliness as she was for her prowess at arms. Surely the wise Francis Bacon had her in mind when he wrote, several centuries in Bradamant’s future, that there is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in its proportion.
It was difficult maintaining the unworldliness she associated with her duty, and for which she strove with such desperate if not always successful singlemindedness, especially on sultry, dusty summer days such as this, when perspiration traced muddy rivulets down her face and neck, trickling from her armpits and over her ribs—the droplets tickling like meandering insects—depositing a salty delta between her breasts; when the grit crunched between her teeth, when her breasts and buttocks chafed and itched beneath the sweat-soaked woolen undergarment that lined her steel-leaved brunia (she could have worn linen, but wool seemed more worthy); when incipient saddle sores stung like dagger points; when the sun—like the open door to a glass-maker’s furnace—burnt her face and chapped her lips and made her eyes squint and water from the glare and from the sting of the sweat that streamed from her forehead. And especially when shady bowers and cool, blue pools looked so tempting. It was a trial almost beyond endurance to face such discomfort with stoicism; but when the serfs in the fields and ditches glanced up with their dull, piggish, foolish eyes she knew that they must be allowed to see nothing less than a perfect knight. It was something they expected and needed, and of all her duties Setting An Example was one of the most important.
This aristocratic and idealistic damsel who had so handily defeated King Sacripant was of the venerable house of Clairmont, the only daughter of Duke Haemon and his wife Beatrice. The duke and duchess, along with Bradamant and her numerous brothers and cousins—all of whom were themselves prodigious knights—, had worked hard to reinstate the family’s name after brother Renaud had impetuously murdered the emperor’s nephew, Bertolai of Bayonne, a darling of the Maganza clan, over a chess dispute—thereby starting a small war between Charlemagne and the Clairmonts. It was halfheartedly waged, really more as a matter of form, since Bertolai had not been particularly loved by either side and had, in any event, begun the argument that led to his demise (Renaud had beaten him to death with the chessboard), but it was nevertheless considered something of a black mark against the Clairmonts—the emperor being required by custom and good taste to look upon them with official disfavor, however personally pleased he may have been with having been rid of such a nuisance as Bertolai—and it was quite some time before the family could again appear in the imperial court without embarassment.
Bradamant’s other brothers included Alard, Wilhelm, Richard and the worthy Reinhold, her identical twin. Her father’s three brothers, Milone d’Aglante, Otto (the present King of Angleland) and Buovo d’Agrismonte, had provided her with no less redoubtable cousins: the astonishing Roland, the only son of Milone, and the scarcely less formidable Astolph, the younger son of Otto—to say nothing of Buovo’s sons: the sorcerer Maugis and his brother Vivian. Reinhold, Astolph and Roland had in turn become the most illustrious and trusted of Charlemagne’s twelve greatest paladins. Roland, of course, eventually became the subject of an entire cycle of legends that rival those of Arthur himself. Bradamant and all her family—including the penitent Renaud—had spent years reestablishing the family’s position in Karl’s official regard and there might be some validity accorded those who argued that they had overcompensated.
The holy emperor himself was no less taken with Bradamant’s bravery, chastity, piety and strength than anyone else who met or saw or knew her. Indeed, she invited comparison with her matchless relatives and in no way suffered for it.
The emperor would certainly have knighted her but for her gender. This was no less frustrating for Karl than it was for Bradamant, since he would have liked nothing more than to openly acknowledge her prowess and loyalty by placing her among his greatest knights, where she certainly belonged. Had it been merely a matter of law, the emperor would simply have changed it. Unfortunately, it was a matter of tradition, which is beyond the tampering even of emperors. Therefore, Bradamant had to wear the white armor of the novice, unadorned by any device, no matter that her feats and accomplishments were already the stuff of legend. However, so well-known and so well-regarded was the bronze-haired warrioress that her undecorated brunia had itself become as distinctive and respected as any knight’s heraldic symbol.
And so her life had been for most of her years until (and she touched the bright scar as though it were a talisman) something had happened. Now she doubted not only her purpose but even the loyalty she owed her father, her emperor and her God.
After returning King Sacripant to the mossy bosom of Mother Earth, Bradamant had passed from the oppressiveness of the primeval forest and into the bosky piedmont that rose beyond it. She had dismissed the king almost as soon as her back was turned; succoring distressed maidens was the least part of her job and she had no further interest in either the man or the woman nor had she any wish to become interested. What became of them was of no concern to her. She had done her duty with the dispassion of a streetsweeper.
* * * * *
At noon the day after her encounter with Sacripant, she found at the foot of a slope a spring gushing from between mossy rocks; it flowed into a broad pool filled by the purple shadows of the ancient trees surrounding it. The pool was small enough that the branches overarched it, meeting overhead in a great translucent dome. The glade seemed deserted and the coolness of its submarine shadows invited a rest from the oven-heat of midday. She dismounted and patiently held her horse’s reins as it drank thirstily. The pool’s sapphire depth was compelling and nothing seemed more urgent at that moment than to strip off her red-hot armor and allow that shimmering solvent to cleanse her salty woolens of its filthy burden of caked dust and fermented sweat. It would not occur to her, of course, to remove either the tunic and leggings, to peel herself to the barest extremities, not to put too fine a point on it, which would naturally have made bathing in the pool infinitely more pleasurable and sensible. Or if it did cross her mind—which in truth it surely must have—she quickly dismissed the idea more for its indulgent hedonism than for its immodesty, the former seeming to her the greater sin. As she stared at the cool limpidity, which, like a vast blue eye, returned her gaze with a kindly intimacy, she felt some pride in being able to decline even such a seemingly harmless temptation just as it pleased her that she had borne so much discomfort with such stoicism. Is it not unsurprising, even knowing the girl for so short a time as we have, that it seldom occurred to her that while neither immodesty nor pleasure were one of the seven deadly sins, pride was? She had just begun to unfasten the first leather tie with stiff, sore fingers when, with considerable annoyance, she heard the nearby whicker of a horse.
She glanced around and saw that she was, in fact, not alone. In the shade of a tree on the far side of the pool she spied a figure who had been invisible from her previously elevated position. It was a knight sitting alone, apparently still oblivious to her presence. His horse was tethered to the tree, from the branches of which hung his shield and helmet. The former hung, unfortunately, with its face away from her so she could not see what symbol might be painted on it.
Although still much annoyed at the interruption of her idyll, her aches and pains were immediately forgotten as she placed her own helmet over her head, which was her custom whenever meeting a stranger. Leaving her horse to continue refreshing itself—she had perfect trust in the beast, which never had need for a tether—she approached the pensive knight. He was so still she wondered if he was alive. Indeed, a tiny, evil voice deep within her suggested that it might not be at all objectionable if the man were dead. Whoever he was, or had been, would then be of no particular concern to her. If he were dead, she could continue doing what, at the moment, she wanted to do more than anything else she could imagine. As she considered that happy possibility the man unfortunately issued a sigh of heartbreaking resignation. She had never heard a sound that expressed such despondence or soul-weariness (having not, of course, experienced Sacripant’s great cry of woe). He looked up as she came within a dozen paces and seemed neither surprised nor disturbed by the interruption; he only stared with a bored, lugubrious face. Bradamant thought that there was something familiar in its lines—which in spite of its grief was hard-looking, as though all of his heartbreaking emotion had been merely painted onto a lifeless granite sculpture—with eyes behind the tears that looked as cold and dispassionate as damp marbles—but she failed to place it. Since the man said nothing, Bradamant felt compelled to initiate the conversation. Not because she especially cared, but because it was her duty.
“Good day, sir knight,” she said.
“If it’s that for you, than I commend you for your luck,” he replied.
“Thank you.”
“It must have been hell for you out in the sun in that armor.”
“It’s cool enough here, though.”
“The dampness will play hell with your rheumatism, if you happen to be cursed by that disease, and it’ll be no good at all for your armor.”
“It was nice to find the spring, I think.”
“Oh?”
The conversation seemed to be going nowhere.
“Is there something troubling you, sir?” Bradamant asked, finally surrendering to the irresistable human compulsion to inquire into another’s misfortune.
The knight looked at her for a long moment without replying. She thought that perhaps he had relapsed into his brown study and was prepared to gladly abandon him to his depression which, after all, was no real concern of hers. However, the knight must have found the tall, white figure with the gentle voice reassuring, for he finally answered her question.
“I am, young sir,” he said—voicing a misconception about Bradamant’s sex he was neither the first nor the last to commit—, “Count Pinabel.” Bradamant listened quietly, the knight’s name meaning nothing to her. Neither did she correct his misconception—she was long used to being mistaken for a lad and had long since ceased to be annoyed. That there might be any humor inherent in such an error had always escaped her; perhaps Bradamant’s one great failing was that she did not possess a sense of humor—or, perhaps more fairly, whatever sense of humor she had been equipped with at birth had been as effectively and efficiently buried as a heretic in his lightless dungeon. She never understood the point of jokes, to the infinite annoyance of those who appreciated that life was not entirely—nor even desirably—a serious matter.
“I was leading a troop of infantry,” the count continued, “and calvary to join Karl the Great, who was waiting for my help to bar Emir Marsilius’ descent from the mountains. With me was the love of my life, the light of my soul, the incomparable Gravelotte. To spare her the discomfort and ignominy of traveling in the company of my army we kept apart from the main force, keeping to a parallel path some miles distant. A trusted lieutenant easily oversaw the discipline of my men. We did this thoughtlessly; I can see that now. All we had in mind was privacy and simply never noticed how bad the countryside was that we had gotten into. We were among rugged crags and boulder-strewn tracks barely wide enough to allow us to ride in tandem. Eventually, I had to take the lead, allowing Gravelotte to fall behind. We were approaching Rodonna when we came upon the most terrible thing I have ever seen.” The man shuddered so prodigiously that his armor rattled like a tambourine.
“What was it?”
“It was a horse of astounding proportions, black as molten pitch, but winged like a condor—huge pinions, beating the air like sails luffing in a roaring gale. And if all that weren’t bad enough, it had the head and talons of an eagle. Reining in this monster was a knight clad in armor no less black than his hellish steed. As soon as he caught sight of us, he wheeled the creature around and dropped down upon us like a falcon plummeting onto a rabbit. I was thrown from my mount by a blow from one of the wings. Meanwhile, the knight swept my beloved Gravelotte from her palfrey and, before I was aware of what was happening, he and his fair prisoner were a hundred feet above my head. I could hear her piteous screaming, but what could I do? She was as helpless as a chick in the grasp of a hawk.”
“Did you try to follow them?”
“How? I was surrounded by hills and cliffs. Besides, my horse was exhausted and could scarcely stagger over the rough ground.”
“What about your army? Surely they could have helped?”
“It would have taken more than a day, perhaps two, to have rejoined them. I left them to find their way to Karl without me.”
“So what did you do?”
“I did the best I could, of course, what do you think? For nearly a week, I pursued Gravelotte and her abductor. There were no paths through that weird landscape; it looked like it had been blasted by God Himself, like the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah. Eventually I came to a high, curving ridge. It overlooked a circular valley—like a broad crater—that was as wild and desolate as anything I have ever seen. From the middle rose a rock, a towering crag, and on the summit of this was a castle made entirely of steel.”
“Steel?”
“Yes, or silver. Some metal, at any rate, that blazed like an open furnace in the light of the setting sun. I arrived just in time to see the black horse land atop one of the gleaming towers.
“For days I circled the base of the crag, without finding any way to climb it; it was as smooth as a whale’s tooth. Can you imagine my despair? I’d have prefered to see my heart ripped from my breast, than to see Gravelotte taken from me. You’re too young to know about such grief, such despair.”
“Perhaps I do,” she replied, “know something of such loss.” The knight ignored her comment and continued his story:
“I had only just resolved to die there, waiting hopelessly, when I saw a pair of knights clambering down the rubbly slope of the crater. They were led by a dwarf, a horrible-looking thing riding between them on a donkey. I recognized them immediately as pagans. One was Gradasso, King of Sericana. The other was Rashid, the most eminent of all the Saracen warriors.”
“Rashid? One of them was Rashid?”
“That’s what I said. Why? Do you know him?”
“Yes! No. Not exactly. We’ve only met once. But please, I’m sorry,” she added, trying to hide her excitement and the embarrassment that she had allowed it to show, “don’t let me interrupt you.”
“A little late, isn’t it? Where was I?”
“Gradasso and, ah, Rashid had just arrived.”
“Yes. I approached and asked what had brought two such reknowned knights to such a Godforsaken place. The dwarf answered for them, which I thought insolent.
“‘They have come,’” it said, “‘to challenge the lord of that castle, the one who commands the hippogryph.’”
“Hippogryph?”
“Yes, yes,” he replied truculently at her interruption. “That’s what the flying monster is called. Half horse, half gryphon. Hippo. Gryph. It’s Greek. Anyway, if I may continue, I begged them to take up my cause and, if they were to prove victorious, to return my love to me. I told them my story and they promised to do their best.
“As they descended to the plain that surrounds the tower, I retired to the slopes, where I could best watch the battle. I knew that I was too exhausted—physically, mentally and emotionally—to be of any use to them. My proximity would have only been a hindrance.”
“I can see that.”
“Gradasso generously offered to toss for the privilege of being first to approach the enemy, but Rashid waived it, saying it didn’t matter to him who went first.”
“That’d be just like him!” she agreed breathlessly.
“As soon as Gradasso reached the base of the crag, he took his horn and blew a long, resounding note on it. The steel castle seemed to resonate in sympathy and the whole crater rang with the unholy sound. My very armor quivered like the metal of a bell and I had to clap my hands to my ears. The last echo had not stopped reverberating when the black knight on his black, winged charger appeared atop the highest turret. With slow, deliberate beats the monster rose and was soon nearly lost to sight at an altitude that would have made an eagle dizzy. Then the creature folded its wings and plummeted toward the ground like a meteor, like a falcon that had just spotted a succulent rabbit or pigeon.
“Gradasso set his lance, but he was obviously unused to combating a foe who came from above. He had scarcely acted, when the black knight was upon him with his own lance aimed at Gradasso’s helmet. At the last second, Gradasso swung his shield between his helmet and the point of the lance, which shattered at the impact. Gradasso tossed his shield aside and pulled his sword free, but he only swung and swiped at empty air as the flying monster hovered over his head, raising a whirlwind of dust from the beating of its mighty wings. Suddenly, the black horse shot back into the air, swooped and dived at Rashid, catching him entirely by surprise.”
“No!” Bradamant gasped, involuntarily pressing her hands over her mouth. “He wasn’t . . .?”
“No. Although Rashid had been distracted by watching Gradasso, he was able to duck just in time and the black knight caught him only a glancing blow.”
“Thank God!”
“He was almost thrown from his horse, and by the time he recovered himself the flying horse was already high above his head.
“This one-sided battle went on like this for some time. The black knight would first strike at one of the paladins, then at the other, flying away each time before he could receive a return blow. The flying horse was so fast that it almost seemed invisible. Most of the time it was just a dark blur, like a whirlwind. The fray would have gone on for another hour had it not grown too dark to see.
“It’s almost too embarrassing to tell someone else about all of this. It all seems so impossible, sitting here by this placid pool, in the midst of these green trees.”
“I have no reason to disbelieve you,” replied Bradamant.
“You haven’t heard the most unbelievable part, yet.
“During all of this time, never had the aerial horseman used his shield. He had one hanging from his saddle, but it was covered with an envelope of black silk. I thought that he had done this to prevent anyone seeing his arms and thereby identifying him. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It had been covered because it was too dangerous to leave uncovered.
“As the flying horse hovered with thundering wings over the two hapless combatants, the black knight tore the cover from his shield. It was as though the sun had suddenly reappeared in the zenith. I can’t describe such a dazzling brilliance, except to say that whoever so much as glanced at it fell down stunned, as senseless as though he had been poleaxed. Even I, more than a mile away, lost consciousness for more than an hour.”
“But Rashid! What happened to him?”
“I have no idea. When I came to, the battlefield was empty. There was not a sign of Rashid, Gradasso, the dwarf, the horses or the donkey.”
“The black knight must have taken them.”
“That was my conclusion, too, though for all I could tell the monster had eaten them. But there was nothing I could do. My last hope had been crushed. If two of the most valorous warriors in all of Europe and Afric proved powerless, what could I do?”
“Cheer up, sir,” she said. “My arrival may prove a Godsend to you and you’ll soon think this day your lucky one. We’ll depart immediately for this magical castle, in which is secreted treasures dearest to both of us. If Providence is on our side, our efforts won’t have been in vain.”
This stilted speech did not cheer Pinabel; he sneered contemptuously. “You’d have me go all the way back to that place, would you? Have you any idea of how difficult that’d be? Of course, it’d be little enough to me, since I’ve lost everything else that matters, but what about you? You’d only go to all that trouble just to end up a prisoner yourself.”
“That’s my worry.”
“So be it. Just don’t blame me; I tried to warn you.”
The Count rose from the grass and went to saddle his horse while Bradamant returned to her own mount. As they were doing so, the regular beat of hooves filled the still air of the glen. Bradamant pulled her sword free, but the interloper proved to be nothing more than a messenger on a pony. She recognized the city arms of Marseilles through the mud and grime on the boy’s tunic. As she resheathed her weapon, he pulled up beside her.
“My Lady Bradamant!” he cried breathlessly.
“Yes?” she replied and, unseen by her, Count Pinabel turned with a start and stared with an expression so blackly evil that it certainly would have had her drawing her weapon again. He had entertained not the slightest idea that the knight with whom he had been speaking was a woman, let alone the famous Bradamant. If it had crossed his mind at all, he had perhaps thought, from the sound of the voice, slimness of the figure and whiteness of the armor, that the knight was a very young man, perhaps a bit too effeminate for his taste; an eager if naïve novice. But Bradamant! He knew this Bradamant. . . or at least his family did and he was glad that he had not mentioned that his father was Anselm of Altaripa or that he was of that house of Maganza which had been waging a bitter, jealous, deadly and implacably hostile feud with the house of Clairmont for generations. (Bertolai, victim of the infamous chess dispute, had been a scion of the Maganza family and his death had certainly added little to their love for the Clairmonts.) And of that evil family of scoundrels, traitors and blackguards, Pinabel outmatched them all in the ugliness and foulness of of his achievements. He knew that Bradamant’s father’s heart beat for her sake. The Count wondered how he could take advantage of this situation to the detriment of the trusting Bradamant. A blow to her would strike to the heart of the Clairmonts. As he stood watching Bradamant and the messenger speak, his mind turned over a dozen plans, each more treacherous than the last, as he half listened to the conversation.
“I bring news,” the boy gasped, “that Montpelier and Narbonne have surrendered and that the flags of Saracen Cordova now fly above them. Indeed, the whole coast of Aiguesmortes is now under pagan domination. Marseilles is direly threatened and implores your aid. Because Karl the Great placed the city under your personal protection, my lady, the people have sent me to find you and to beg you to return.”
She did not know what to say. Charlemagne had not only given Bradamant the city of Marseilles, but all that great tract of coastal land from the Var to the Rhône. If he could not knight her, he had at least this way of expressing his admiration and appreciation.
Honor and duty, of course, demanded that she follow the messenger back to her protectorate. On the other hand, her heart dictated an entirely different course. Cold reason versus warm passion—old warriors clashing on a virgin battleground.
“I’ve just promised this good knight my aid,” she told the boy, “and I cannot go back on my word. I will complete this mission first and then return to Marseilles.” And, she thought, if I’m made a prisoner in the steel castle, then, through no fault of my own, at least I’ll be in the company of Rashid.
The boy protested, finally bursting into tears, but she turned her back and ignored him, leaving him to wonder gloomily what excuses he was going to make to his disappointed superiors, wondering, indeed, if it might be best to just keep on riding and not return to Marseilles at all.
“Are you ready, Count Pinabel?” she asked.
“Ready enough,” he replied.
“Then let us be off. As you can see, I have pressing business waiting for me elsewhere.”
The Count wheeled his horse around and started off, letting Bradamant follow, his mind a whirl of thoughts, almost all of them evil and self-serving. Now that he knew she was of the family that he and his had loathed and detested for generations, he was already plotting how he might betray her at the earliest opportunity. At the same time, he worried as to what his own fate might be should she discover that he was one of the hated Maganzas. He knew her reputation as well as anyone and had no illusions as to what the outcome of a fair fight would be. So filled was his mind with this inbred hatred, fear, cowardice and confusion that he was deep into the forest before he realized he had somewhere taken a wrong turning. So lost had he been in his evil scheming that he now found that he was lost in fact. He was trying to decide what to do when he came to the edge of a lofty precipice. He had absolutely no idea where they were, but rather than admit this to his companion, he thought that he might be able to take advantage of the situation. They seemed to have arrived at a place as far from human habitation as it was likely to get; he could wish for no better place to do away with the girl if he could manage it safely. As Bradamant joined him, he lied: “It’s getting dark and we’d better find some shelter. I think I know of a castle in that valley below us, just behind that hill. Wait here for me while I climb that spur where I can see.”
As he urged his horse up the steep slope he discovered a deep cleft between the rocks. Dismounting, he crept to the edge and gingerly looked over. It was a precipitous gorge with sheer granite walls, so narrow that he might have jumped to the far rim had he had the heart for such risk, which of course he hadn’t. The bottom was more than a hundred feet below and filled with crawling mists. He was surprised to see toeholds cut into the face of the rock, as well as a glimmer of light at the bottom—evidently, he decided, a cave inhabited by some ancient hermit. There was a noise behind him and he turned to see Bradamant—anxious not to lose her guide—climbing the slope to join him. He gestured for her to join him at the brink of the gorge.
“Good heavens!” she whispered, glancing into the abyss. “It seems bottomless.”
“You won’t believe what I saw down there,” he said, struck by a sudden inspiration as he pointed out the dim light. “A maiden of surpassing beauty. Judging by her fine clothes and distressed appearance, I’m convinced that she must be imprisoned there against her will. I had just started to call to her when a man emerged from a cave and drove her into it with a stick.”
“That’s absolutely unacceptable! We must rescue her immediately!”
“That was my idea, too, but I don’t see any way to get down.”
It was now too dark to see the footholds and Pinabel saw no good reason to tell her of them. Bradamant, meanwhile, cast around for something that might help her and spotted a tall, slim elm tree. Drawing her sword, she cut it down with a single blow. The count winced as he saw the ease with which she did that. A few additional strokes stripped it of its limbs.
“That’s scarcely half long enough to reach the bottom,” Pinabel protested.
“It’s not the idea,” she replied, dragging the timber to the edge of the cliff. “Look. See? There’s a narrow ledge about halfway down.”
“So?”
“I can use this pole to climb down to the ledge. The stumps from the limbs will make excellent handholds. Then I can use the same pole again to reach the bottom.”
“You?”
“Certainly. It only makes sense that the lightest one of us should climb down, while the biggest and heaviest anchor the free end.”
“Good idea,” he readily agreed. “I was about to suggest that I go, but. . . ”
“No, no. This is much more practical.”
“Well, then, if you insist.”
Together, they carefully lowered the pole over the brink until its further end finally rested on the ledge. Only a foot or two protruded above the cliff edge and Pinabel, lying flat on the ground, held this tightly, so that the pole was kept firmly flush against the cliff face.
On her hands and knees, Bradamant swung her feet over the edge. Grasping the pole, she carefully lowered herself over the chasm, descending hand over hand. The stumps of the severed limbs made it a veritable ladder, as she had predicted.
As she approached the middle of the pole, Pinabel called to her.
“How well can you fly?”
“What?” she replied.
Pinabel released his hold, and as the end of the pole swung away from the rim of the cliff, he called out: “Pinabel of Maganza wishes that your damned family were with you, so that I could put an end to your whole foul line at once!”
Bradamant was horrified when she felt the pole fall away from the cliff face. She was only dimly aware of Pinabel’s words. She did not know what to do other than to grasp the pole even more tightly and wish that she had not the additional weight of her armor. She fell free for a dizzying moment, the pole swinging out into open space. Bradamant got a brief, horrifying glimpse of the rocky floor, still nearly a hundred feet below, like the open, snaggle-toothed maw of some hungry, patient beast. There was a second jar as the upper end of the pole struck the opposite wall of the narrow cleft. The pole bounced like a spring, threatening to throw Bradamant from her place like a bucking horse. The upper end skittered down the far wall before jamming against some projecting rocks; Bradamant felt the pole bend like a drawn bow, then spring back high above the abyss; she felt her grasp loosening; then the pole snapped with the wicked sound of a whip cracking. Still holding onto one end of the shattered pole, the other end of which was still embedded in the rocks, Bradamant pendulumed toward the base of the cliff, crashing into a cluster of thorny bushes before falling back onto the rocks.
All that Pinabel could see, in the shadowy depths of the cleft, was an inert figure that lay among the shattered rocks at the bottom. Satisfied that Bradamant was dead, he turned and remounted his horse. To compound his treachery, he took her horse as well. Without a backward glance, he left the scene of his treasonous and unknightly act.