Kazuo Ishiguro - The Buried Giant

“We’ll do it gladly, sir, and your horse will be the saving of us too, for it’s a harsh journey down these hills.”

“On that point, sir.” Gawain had now come right to the foot of the mound. “I urged you once before to use the river, and do so again. Let Horace take you down these slopes, but once you meet the river, search for a boat to take you east. There’s tin and coins in the saddle to buy your passage.”

“We thank you, sir. Your generosity moves us.”

“But Sir Gawain,” Beatrice said. “If your horse takes the two of us, then how’s your fallen body to be carried from this mountain? In your kindness you neglect your own corpse. And we’d be sorry to bury you in so lonely a spot as this.”

For an instant, the old knight’s features became solemn, almost sorrowful. Then they creased into a smile, and he said: “Now, mistress. Let’s not discuss burial plans while I still expect to emerge victorious! In any case, this mountain’s no less lonely a spot to me now than any other, and I’d fear the sights my ghost must witness on lower ground should this contest go another way. So no more talk of corpses, madam! Master Wistan, have you anything to ask of these friends should fortune not go your way?”

“Like you, sir, I prefer not to think of defeat. Yet only a mighty fool will believe you anything other than a formidable foe, no matter your years. So I too will burden this good couple with a request. If I’m no more, please see to it Master Edwin reaches a kind village, and let him know I considered him the worthiest of apprentices.”

“We’ll do so, sir,” Axl said. “We’ll seek the best for him, even though the wound he carries makes his future a dark one.”

“That’s well said. Now I’m reminded I must do even more to survive this meeting. Well, Sir Gawain, shall we go to it?”

“Yet one more request,” said the old knight, “and this one to you, Master Wistan. I raise the matter with embarrassment, for it touches what we discussed with pleasure a moment ago. I mean, sir, the question of drawing the sword. With my heavy years, I find it takes a foolishly long time to pull this old weapon out of its sheath. If you and I faced each other, swords undrawn, my fear is I’d provide you with feeble entertainment, knowing how fast you draw. Why, sir, I might still be hobbling about, muttering small curses and tugging at this iron with one grip then another even as you take the air, wondering if to cut off my head or else sing an ode while waiting! Yet if we were to agree to draw our swords in our own time … Why this embarrasses me greatly, sir!”

“Not another word on it, Sir Gawain. I never think well of a warrior who leans on the speedy draw of a blade to take advantage of his opponent. So let’s meet with swords ready drawn, just as you suggest.”

“I thank you, sir. And in return, though I see your arm strapped, I vow not to seek any special advantage of it.”

“I’m grateful, sir, though this injury’s a trivial one.”

“Well then, sir. With your permission.”

The old knight drew his sword — indeed it seemed to take some time — and placed the point into the ground, just as he had done earlier at the giant’s cairn. But instead of leaning on it, he stood there regarding his weapon up and down with a mixture of weariness and affection. Then he took the sword in both hands and raised it — and Gawain’s posture took on an unmistakable grandeur.

“I’ll turn away now, Axl,” Beatrice said. “Tell me when it’s finished, and let it not be long or unclean.”

At first both men held their swords pointing downwards, so as not to exhaust their arms. From his vantage point, Axl could see their positions clearly: at most five strides apart, Wistan’s body angled slightly to the left away from his opponent’s. They held these positions for a time, then Wistan moved three slow steps to his right, so that to all appearances, his outside shoulder was no longer protected by his sword. But to take advantage, Gawain would have had to close the gap very rapidly, and Axl was hardly surprised when the knight, gazing accusingly at the warrior, himself moved to the right with deliberate strides. Wistan meanwhile changed the grip of both his hands on his sword, and Axl could not be sure Gawain had noticed the change — Wistan’s body possibly obscuring the knight’s view. But now Gawain too was changing his hold, letting the sword’s weight fall from the right arm to the left. Then the two men became fixed in their new positions, and to an innocent spectator, they may have looked, in relation to one another, practically unchanged from before. Yet Axl could sense that these new positions had a different significance. It had been a long time since he had had to consider combat in such detail, and there remained a frustrating sense that he was failing to see half of what was unfolding before him. But he knew somehow the contest had reached a critical point; that things could not be held like this for long without one or the other combatant being forced to commit himself.

Even so, he was taken aback by the suddenness with which Gawain and Wistan met. It was as if they had responded to a signal: the space between them vanished, and the two were suddenly locked in tense embrace. It happened so quickly it appeared to Axl the men had abandoned their swords and were now holding one another in a complicated and mutual armlock. As they did so, they rotated a little, like dancers, and Axl could then see that their two blades, perhaps because of the huge impact of their coming together, had become melded as one. Both men, mortified by this turn of events, were now doing their best to prise the weapons apart. But this was no easy task, and the old knight’s features were contorted with the effort. Wistan’s face, for the moment, was not visible, but Axl could see the warrior’s neck and shoulders shaking as he too did all he could to reverse the calamity. But their efforts were in vain: with each moment, the two swords seemed to fasten more thoroughly, and surely there was nothing for it but to abandon the weapons and start the contest afresh. Neither man, though, appeared willing to give up, even as the effort threatened to drain them of their strength. Then something gave and the blades came apart. As they did so, some dark grain — perhaps the substance that had caused the blades to fasten together in the first place — flew up into the air between them. Gawain, with a look of astonished relief, reeled halfway round and sank to one knee. Wistan, for his part, had been carried by the momentum into turning a near circle, and had come to a halt pointing his now liberated sword towards the clouds beyond the cliff, his back fully turned to the knight.

“God protect him,” Beatrice said beside him, and Axl realised she had been watching all the while. When he looked down again, Gawain had lowered his other knee to the ground. Then the tall figure of the knight fell slowly, twistingly, onto the dark grass. There he struggled a moment, like a man in his sleep trying to make himself more comfortable, and when his face was turned to the sky, even though his legs were still folded untidily beneath him, Gawain seemed content. As Wistan approached with a concerned stride, the old knight appeared to say something, but Axl was too far to hear. The warrior remained standing over his opponent for some time, his sword held forgotten at his side, and Axl could see dark drops falling from the tip of the blade onto the soil.

Beatrice pressed herself against him. “He was the she-dragon’s defender,” she said, “yet showed us kindness. Who knows where we’d be now without him, Axl, and I’m sorry to see him fallen.”

He pressed Beatrice close to him. Then releasing her, he climbed down a little way to where he could see better Gawain’s body lying on the earth. Wistan had been correct: the blood had flowed only to where the ground rose in a kind of lip at the cliff’s edge, and was pooling there with no danger of spilling over. The sight caused a melancholy to sweep over him, but also — though it was a distant and vague one — the feeling that some great anger within him had at long last been answered.