Well, she thought, at least it explained her kirtle crushed and stained with hay and her hair and headcloth filled with hayseed. She need not go before Gwenhwyfar and her mother looking like the woman in Scriptures, the one taken in adultery; young Griflet held out his arm and she leaned on it heavily, saying, "I think my ankle is twisted," and limped all the way up to the castle. It would explain the hay, if she had had a hurt and fallen hard. One part of her was glad of Lancelet's quick thinking; the other, desolate, cried out for him to acknowledge and shelter her.

Arthur had gone off with Cai to the stables, distressed at the accident to the horses. She let Gwenhwyfar fuss over her and Igraine send for cold water and linen strips to bandage her ankle, and she accepted a place at Igraine's side, in the shade, when horses and men rode out to display their exercises. Arthur made a little speech about the new legion of Caerleon which would revive the glories of the days of Rome, and save the countryside. His foster-father, Ectorius, was beaming. Then a dozen riders rode out, displaying the new skills with which the horses could stop in mid gallop, pull up, wheel, move together.

"After this," Arthur declared grandly, "no one will ever again say that horses are fit for nothing but to move wagons!" He smiled at Gwenhwyfar. "How do you like my knights, my lady? I have called them after the old Roman equites-noblemen who could own and fit out their own horse."

"Cai rides as well as a centaur," Igraine said to Ectorius, and the old man smiled with pleasure. "Arthur, you never did a kinder thing than when you gave Cai one of the best of the horses."

"Cai is too good a soldier, and too good a friend, to wither in the house," said Arthur decisively.

Gwenhwyfar said, "Is he not your foster-brother?"

"True. He was wounded in his first battle, and feared he would skulk at home with the women forever after that," said Arthur. "A frightful fate for a soldier. But on horseback he fights as well as any."

"Look," exclaimed Igraine, "the legion has smashed down that whole series of targets-I have never seen such riding!"

"I don't think anything could stand against that attack," said King Pellinore. "What a pity Uther Pendragon could not live to see this, my boy -excuse me-my lord and king-"

Arthur said warmly, "My father's friend may call me whatever he wishes, dear Pellinore! But the credit must go to my friend and captain, Lancelet."

Morgause's son Gaheris bobbed in a bow to Arthur. "My lord, may I go down to the stables and see them unsaddled?" He was a bright, merry-looking boy of fourteen or so.

"You may," said Arthur. "When will he come to join Gawaine and Agravaine at our side, Aunt?"

"This year, perhaps, if his brothers can teach him soldierly arts and keep him close," Morgause said, then raised her voice: "No! Not you, Gareth!" and made a snatch at the chubby six-year-old. "Gaheris! Bring him back here!"

Arthur spread his hands with a laugh. "Don't worry about it-boys run to stables like fleas to dogs. I have been told how I rode my father's stallion when I was scarce six years old! I don't remember; it was only a little before I went to be fostered with Ectorius," he said, and Morgaine shivered suddenly, remembering a fair-haired child lying like death and something like a shadow in a bowl of water-no, it was gone.

"Does your ankle pain you much, sister?" Gwenhwyfar asked solicitously. "Here, lean against me-"

"Gawaine will look after him," Arthur said offhandedly. "I think he's the best man we have at training the young knights and riders."

"Better than the lord Lancelet?" asked Gwenhwyfar. Morgaine thought, She only wants to speak his name. But it is me he wanted, not long ago, and tonight it will be too late ... better that than break Arthur's heart. I will tell Gwenhwyfar if I must.

Arthur said, "Lancelet? He's our best rider, though too much of a daredevil for my taste. The lads all adore him, of course-look, there's your little Gareth, Aunt, tagging after him like a puppy-they'll do anything for a kind word from him. But he's not as good at teaching the boys their business as Gawaine; he's too flamboyant and he likes to show off. Gawaine takes them slow and easy and makes them learn the art step by step, and they never get hurt through carelessness-Gawaine's my best arms master. Look, there's Lancelet on that horse he's training for me-" He burst into a laugh, and Igraine said, "That little devil!"

For Gareth had swung like a monkey from the saddle leather, and Lancelet, laughing, scooped up the boy in front of him on his saddle and broke into a fast gallop, racing directly up the hill toward the sheltered place where the royal party sat watching. They raced at breakneck speed straight toward them, so that even Arthur gasped and Igraine stepped back, her face white. Lancelet pulled up the horse so that it reared into the air and wheeled it round.

"Your horse, lord Arthur," he said with a flourish, holding the reins with one hand, "and your cousin. Aunt Morgause, take this little scapegrace and tan his breeches for him!" he added, letting Gareth slide down almost into Morgause's lap. "He could have been killed under the stallion's feet like that!"

Gareth heard not a word of Morgause's scolding, looking up at Lancelet, his blue eyes wide with adoration.

"When you get older," Arthur said, laughing, aiming a playful cuff at the child, "I will make you a knight and you shall ride out to conquer giants and evil raiders, and rescue fair ladies."

"Oh no, my lord Arthur," said the child, his eyes still fastened on the white horse which Lancelet was riding up and down. "The lord Lancelet shall make me a knight, and we will go on a quest together."

Ectorius chuckled and said, "Young Achilles has found his Patroclus, so it would seem."

"I am quite in the shade," Arthur said good-naturedly. "Even my new-made wife cannot take her eyes from Lancelet, and begs him to call her by her Christian name, and now little Gareth would rather be made knight by him! If Lance were not my closest friend, I should be mad with jealousy."

Pellinore was watching the rider cantering up and down. He said, "That damnable dragon is still hiding in a lake on my lands, and coming out to kill my tenants or their cows. Perhaps if I had a horse like that, who would stand to fight ... I think I will train a battle horse and go after it again. Last time I barely got away with my life."

"A dragon, sir?" asked little Gareth. "Did it breathe fire?"

"No, lad, but it had an almighty stench and a noise like sixty packs of hounds all baying together from his belly," said Pellinore, and Ectorius said, "Dragons do not breathe fire, my lad. That comes from the old way of calling a shooting star a dragon, for they have a long tail of fire-there may have been dragons once who breathed fire, but not in the memory of any living man."

Morgaine was not listening, though she wondered how much of Pellinore's tale was true, and how much exaggerated to impress the child. Her eyes were on Lancelet, putting the horse through its paces.

Arthur said to Gwenhwyfar, "I could never train a horse like that- Lancelet is training it to battle for me. Look, two months ago that one was wild as one of Pellinore's dragons, and now look at him!"

"He seems still wild to me," said Gwenhwyfar. "But then, I am afraid even of the gentlest horses."

"A horse to be ridden in battle must not be meek as a lady's palfrey," said Arthur. "He must have spirit-God in heaven!" he cried out, rising up suddenly. From somewhere there was a blur of white; a bird of some kind, a goose perhaps, had suddenly flapped upward, right under the horse's hooves. Lancelet, riding at ease, his vigilance relaxed, started as the horse reared upright with a frantic whicker; fought for control, slid off almost under the hooves; half senseless, managed to roll away.