“True,” he said. “Perhaps he could destroy it.”
“And perhaps it’s just a joke,” I told him. “A cruel one.”
He shook his head again.
“No. That is not his style. I wonder what he is after?”
“Sleep on it,” I suggested.
“There is little else that I can do, just now,” he said, stifling a yawn.
We rose then and walked the wall. We said our good nights, and I staggered off toward the pit of sleep and fell headlong into it.
Chapter 2
Day. More aches. More pains.
Someone had left me a new cloak, a brown one, which I decided was a good thing. Especially if I put on more weight and Ganelon recalled my colors. I did not shave my beard, because he had known me in a slightly less hairy condition. I took pains to disguise my voice whenever he was about. I hid Grayswandir beneath my bed.
For all of the following week I drove myself ruthlessly. I worked and sweated and strove until the aches subsided and my muscles grew firm once more. I think I put on fifteen pounds that week. Slowly, very slowly, I began feeling like my old self.
The country was called Lorraine, and so was she. If I happened to be in the mood to hand you a line, I would tell you we met in a meadow behind the castle, she gathering flowers and me walking there for exercise and fresh air. Crap.
I guess a polite term would be camp follower. I met her at the end of a hard day’s work, spent mainly with the saber and the mace. She was standing off on the side lines waiting for her date when I first caught sight of her. She smiled and I smiled back, nodded, winked, and passed her by. The next day I saw her again, and I said “Hello” as I passed her. That’s all.
Well, I kept running into her. By the end of my second week, when my aches were gone and I was over a hundred-eighty pounds and feeling that way again, I arranged to be with her one evening. By then, I was aware of her status and it was fine, so far as I was concerned. But we did not do the usual thing that night. No.