I saw them first as small figures far below and took them for those others. "See down there, Horace," I said then. "Already they've found each other. Already they come, and as though that fellow took no wounds at all from Brennus."

This cursed wind. Is this a storm before us? Horace will mind neither wind nor rain, only that a stranger sits astride him now and not his old master. "Just a weary woman," I tell him, "with greater need of the saddle than me. So carry her in good grace." Yet why is she here at all? Does Master Axl not see how frail she grows? Has he lost his mind to bring her to these unforgiving heights? But she presses on as determined as he, and nothing I say will turn them back. So I stagger here on foot, a hand on Horace's bridle, heaving this rusty coat. "Did we not always serve ladies with courtesy?" I murmur to Horace. "Would we ride on, leaving this good couple tugging at their goat?"

And Horace looked my way thoughtfully, as though to ask, "Then, Gawain, will this be the last time we climb this bleak slope together?" And I gave no reply but to stroke gently his neck, though I thought to myself, "That warrior's young and a terrible fellow. Yet I may have the beating of him, who's to say? I saw something even as he brought down Brennus's man. Another would not see it, yet I did. A small opening on the left for a canny foe."

But what would Arthur have me do now? His shadow still falls across the land and engulfs me. Would he have me crouch like a beast awaiting its prey? Yet where to hide on these bare slopes? Will the wind alone conceal a man? Or should I perch on some precipice and hurl down a boulder at them? Hardly the way for a knight of Arthur. I would rather show myself openly, greet him, try once more a little diplomacy. "Turn back, sir. You endanger not just yourself and your innocent companion, but all the good folk of this country. Leave Querig to one who knows her ways. You see me even now on my way to slay her." But such pleas were ignored before. Why would he hear me now he is come so close, and the bitten boy to guide him to her very door? Was I a fool to rescue that boy? Yet the abbot appals me so, and I know God will thank me for what I did.

The copse. I remembered it then. Strange how the trees grow so lush there, when the wind sweeps all around so bare. The copse will provide covering for a knight and his horse. I will not pounce like a bandit, yet why show myself a good hour before the encounter?

"They come as surely as they have a chart," I said to Horace. "So where shall we wait? Where shall we face them?"

So I put a little spur on Horace, though it hardly makes an impression on him now, and we crossed the high edge of the land, neither rising nor falling, battered all the way by the wind. We were both thankful to reach those trees, even if they grow so strangely one wonders if Merlin himself cast a spell here. What a fellow was Master Merlin! I thought once he had placed a spell on Death himself, yet even Merlin has taken his path now. Is it heaven or hell he makes his home? Master Axl may believe Merlin a servant of the devil, yet his powers were often enough spent in ways to make God smile. And let it not be said he was without courage. Many times he showed himself to the falling arrows and wild axes alongside us. These may well be Merlin's woods, and made for this very purpose: that I may some day shelter here to await the one who would undo our great work of that day. Two of us five fell to the she-dragon, yet Master Merlin stood beside us, moving calmly within the sweep of Querig's tail, for how else could his work be done?

The woods were hushed and peaceful when Horace and I reached them. Even a bird or two singing in the trees, and if the branches stirred wildly, down below was as a calm spring's day where at last an old man's thoughts may drift from one ear to the other without tossing in a tempest! It must be several years now since Horace and I were last in these woods. Weeds have grown monstrous here, a nettle rightly the spread of a small child's palm stands large enough to wrap around a man twice over. I left Horace at a gentle spot to chew on what he could, and wandered a while beneath the sheltering leaves. Why should I not rest here, leaning on this good oak? And when in time they come to this place, as they surely will, he and I will face each other as fellow warriors.

I pushed through the giant nettles -- is it for this I have worn this creaking metal? To defend my shins from these feathery stings?-- until I reached the clearing and the pond, the grey sky above it peeping through. Around its rim, three great trees, yet each one cracked at the waist and fallen forward into the water. Surely they stood proudly when we were last here. Did lightning strike them? Or did they in weary old age long for the pond's succour, always so near where they grew, yet beyond reach? They drink all they wish now, and mountain birds nest in their broken spines. Will it be at such a spot I meet the Saxon? If he defeats me I may have life left to crawl to the water. I would not tumble in, even if the ice would admit me, for it would be no pleasure to grow bloated beneath this armour, and what chance Horace, missing his master, will come tip-toeing through the gnarled roots and drag out my remains? Yet I've seen comrades in battle yearn for water as they lie with their wounds, and watched yet others crawl to the edge of a river or lake, even though they double their agonies to do so. Is there some great secret known only to dying men? My old comrade, Master Buel, longed for water that day, as he lay on the red clay of that mountain. There's water here left in my gourd, I told him, but no, he demands a lake or river. But we're far from any such thing, I say. "Curse you, Gawain," he cries. "My last wish, will you not grant it, and we comrades through many bold battles?" "But this she-dragon's all but parted you in two," I tell him. "If I must carry you to water, I'll have to go under this summer sun, a separate part of you under each arm before we reach any such place." But he says to me, "My heart will welcome death only when you lay me down beside water, Gawain, where I hear its gentle lapping as my eyes close." He demands this, and cares not whether our errand is well done, or if his life is given at a good price. Only when I reach down to raise him does he ask: "Who else survives?" And I tell him Master Millus is fallen, yet three of us still stand, and Master Merlin too. And still he asks not if the errand is well finished, but talks of lakes and rivers, and now even of the sea, and it is all I can do to remember this is my old comrade, and a brave one, chosen like me by Arthur for this great task, even as a battle rages down in the valley. Does he forget his duty? I lift him, and he cries out to the heavens, and only then understands the cost even of a few small steps, and there we are, atop a red mountain in the summer heat, an hour's journey even on horseback to the river. And as I lower him he talks now only of the sea. His eyes blind now, when I sprinkle water on his face from my gourd, he thanks me the way I suppose in his mind's eye he stands upon a shore. "Was it sword or axe finished me?" he asks, and I say, "What do you talk of, comrade? It's the she-dragon's tail met you, but our task's done and you depart with pride and honour." "The she-dragon," he says. "What's become of the she-dragon?" "All but one of the spears rest in her flank," I say, "and now she sleeps." Yet he forgets the errand again, and talks of the sea, and of a boat he knew as a small boy when his father took him far from the shore on a kind evening.

For a while we thought this might be our last, but I had mistaken this good couple for those others, and a while longer we travel in peace. Yet even as I lead Horace by the bridle, I must glance back, for surely they are coming, even if we go well ahead. Master Axl walks beside me, his goat forbidding him a steady step. Does he guess why I look back so often? "Sir Gawain, were we not comrades once?" I heard him ask it early this morning as we came out of the tunnel, and I told him to find a boat to go downstream. Yet here he is, still in the mountains, his good wife beside him. I will not meet his eye. Age cloaks us both, as the grass and weeds cloak the fields where we once fought and slaughtered. What is it you seek, sir? What is this goat you bring?

When my own time comes, will I too long for the sea? I think I will be content enough with the soil. And I will not demand the exact spot, but let it be within this country Horace and I have spent the years roaming contentedly. Those dark widows of earlier would cackle to hear me, and hasten to remind me with what I may share my plot of earth. "Foolish knight! You above all need choose your resting place well, or find yourself a neighbour to the very ones you slaughtered!" Did they not make some such jest even as they threw mud at Horace's rump? How dare they! Were they there? Can it be this woman now rides in my saddle would say as much if she could hear my thoughts? She talked of slaughtered babes down in that foul-aired tunnel, even as I delivered her from the monks' black plans. How dare she? And now she sits in my saddle, astride my dear battlehorse, and who knows how many more journeys are left to Horace and me?

"Turn back, friends," I said when they came upon me in the woods. "This is no walk for elderly travellers like you. And look how the good mistress holds her side. Between here and the giant's cairn there's still a mile or more, and the only shelter small rocks behind which one must curl with bowed head. Turn back while you still have strength, and I'll see this goat's left at the cairn and tethered well." But they both eyed me suspiciously, and Master Axl would not let go the goat. The branches rustled above, and his wife seated on the roots of an oak, gazing to the pond and the cracked trees stooping to water, and I said softly: "This is no journey for your good wife, sir. Why did you not do as I advised and take the river down out of these hills?" "We must take this goat where we promised," says Master Axl. "A promise made to a child." And does he look at me strangely as he says so, or do I dream it? "Horace and I will take the goat," I say. "Will you not trust us with the errand? I hardly believe this goat will much trouble Querig even if devoured whole, yet she may be a little slowed and lend me an advantage. So give me the creature and turn back down the mountain before one or the other of you fall in your own footsteps."

They moved then into the trees away from me, and I could hear the shape of their lowered voices, but no words. Then Master Axl comes to me and says: "A moment more for my wife to rest, then we will carry on, sir, to the giant's cairn." I see it is useless to argue more, and I also eager to continue on our way, for who knows how far behind is Master Wistan and his bitten boy?