What They Wished For
by David Barber
And now there was a knight at the castle gate.
The steward was rushed off his feet. A kitchen boy smelling of smoke had just whispered that the roasted boar was nowhere near ready, while Sir Kay sat with an empty plate, his brow darkening. The steward beckoned forward a servant with the wine jug, then hurried to the gatehouse.
“Sir Hector of Bourne,” said the old fellow, and the steward’s gaze took in the faded surcoat and a horse unkempt as its owner, burdened with worn armour. They both dripped patiently in the rain.
Why does he have no squire? the steward wondered. He led the knight into the Great Hall and pointed out a bench amongst drunken men-at-arms and their women.
“Sir Hector!” bellowed Sir Kay. “Can it be you?”
The steward was roundly cursed for not recognising this old companion, and a place was found beside his Lordship.
“In our day,” declared Sir Kay, flushed with drink, “proud knights would bar the way at bridges and the toll to cross was a passage of arms. Of course no true knight refused the lance.”
He gestured towards the men of his retinue. “Look at them. Not one worthy of Arthur. I still think of him,” he added sadly.
Shoulder to shoulder in the fight, it had become a fellowship. The burliest of them round the Table spellbound as Arthur spoke of visions, mailed fists thumping approval for the quest. The greatest knight was their invention. Yet escorting Guinevere to Camelot, no one guessed her doom was to betray the king, or how soon the waters would reclaim the fated sword.
Sir Hector could think of no reply, but his host was just getting started.
“When we were young,” Kay mused, “forests were enchanted, and a Lady might not be what she seemed, tricking a knight out of his life-long vows. Yes, and the wild wood was home to ogres and dragons, and hid towers where sorcerers would skry your fate.”
Sir Hector tried his wine and nodded. Such tales had been common.
He’d always been a dour fellow, Kay now recalled. Dependable in the melee but, as a guest, with about as much to say as a damp dog.
Perhaps Sir Hector caught the look on his host’s face. “Though something curious did happen recently,” he admitted. “And if not magic, then I don’t know what it was.”
Yes, Kay knew the River Nene. It was the western boundary of his estates. Just in time he stopped himself mentioning this to the landless knight.
Rain had made a torrent of the ford, so Sir Hector rode on along the riverbank, hoping for a bridge. Ahead was a figure on foot. His eyes not being what they were, the blur was quite close before it resolved itself.
Sir Kay stroked his moustaches. “A dragon you say? An actual dragon?”
Neither of them had ever seen a dragon, but what else could it be? The creature had a pebbly hide, teeth like pegs in a blunt snout, and on its hind legs came up to Hector’s stirrup. Not much like drawings in manuscripts, but then what did monks know?
“And it talked?”
The creature had piped that it was in need of assistance and would pay for help. Disconcertingly, its words did not match the movements of its mouth.
“I suppose anything’s possible with magic,” conceded Kay dubiously.
Knights who encountered sorcery often woke to find it was all a dream. Kay hoped it didn’t turn out to be one of those stories.
Whether it was the creature of legend or not, quests were as rare as honour these days, and Sir Hector had seized the moment.
* * *
From what he could understand — the creature being excitable and shrill — armed men had taken something precious.
Through the trees he glimpsed burnished metal in the shape of an upturned bowl, though big as a barn. Half a dozen raggedy men were trying to prise it open.
“There!” cried the creature, hanging back. “I had to flee for my life.”
“Leave now,” Sir Hector told the men, “else defend yourselves.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Kay. This was more like it.
While their clubs and blades glanced off his armour, Hector’s sword hacked flesh and bone. He let the survivors help each other away.
“Can’t remember when I last drew Isenmund in anger,” mused Kay. Isenmund was his sword. At one time it had been fashionable to name swords.
“We did not discuss a price,” said the creature, “which was a mistake on your part.”
“No payment is necessary.”
“Quite,” sniffed Kay. “The blaggard.”
But the knight’s altruism gave the creature pause. It wondered if it was being duped in some way. Perhaps a small reward was only prudent.
“My ship has powers you would consider magic. Any technology sufficiently advanced—”
“Your ship?”
“My flying craft.”
Of course. In legend, dragons could fly, though this one lacked wings. Sir Hector raised and lowered his sword arm. Yes, the shoulder joint needed oiling. And his armour wasn’t the only thing getting rusty; he’d let a couple of blows through his guard.
There had been a time when fealty to Arthur meant rescuing damsels and questing after the Grail; now he was reduced to chasing away ruffians for a small venal dragon.
“So, not precious metals then.” The creature was finding indebtedness a challenge.
“What if you were granted a single wish?” it persisted. “Just the one. What would it be?”
The past as a commodity. Imagine this native risking its life in exchange for a few memories, dug up and polished. If it wasn’t such a dangerous world, the creature could have made a killing here.
Afterwards, the metal barn had surprised Sir Hector by whirling away into the clouds, and apart from marks in the grass and a body or two, it was as if nothing had happened.
* * *
“Magic’s like that sometimes,” judged Sir Kay, disappointed by the ending.
He pulled at his moustaches thoughtfully. “Just the one wish then.”
For such hearty fellows, u†nited only by the past, it was too intimate a question to ask. In the days of their valour, they had performed great deeds. They were still the same men, though the years divided them from those feats.
The world glimpsed though a visor; his eager charger’s hoofbeats; lance after lance shocked to splinters as foes tumbled backward from their mounts.
A line of banners flapping in the wind; crowds cheering his name. Arthur come to shake him by the hand.
Copyright © 2022 by David Barber
