Free Lost Years: The Quest for Avalon by Richard Monaco Page B

seriously at his companion. He had no sense of irony or sarcasm. Many of Lohengrin’s sayings, consequently, were lost on him.
    “I am well proud of my blood,” he said stolidly, “and the deeds of my forbearers.”
    Lohengrin almost laughed. He looked sidelong at his companion with a provoking air. “I am proud of Lohengrin,” he said. “Let the rest be fucked in their ears and asses.”
    Henry said nothing more. He looked contemplative and uncomfortable. Lohengrin always made him uncomfortable. He was about to ask himself if indeed he had not made an error in joining him. “Surely,” he said at length, “we will come to a village before long.”
    Lohengrin looked uninterested.
    “Do you long so for the company of villains?” he asked Henry. “No,” responded his companion, “but base folk make some excellent dishes.”
    He nodded thoughtfully. He remembered things. “Some nobles think only the dainties from Italy are worth swallowing.” Lohengrin seemed incredulous.
    “You concern yourself with such things,” he wondered. “Naturally, I think the foods of our country are greatly underrated. Did you ever have flatfish and thistleweed stewed with clams such as the peasants eat at my manor?”
    Lohengrin chuckled. “I’ll drink salt water and chew dry oak leaves,” he said, “in trade for one of their choicer wenches.”
    “What’s that? You’d mate yourself with a serf sow?” Lohengrin shook his head. Henry was hopeless.
    “What have you fucked above a sheep or two?” he wondered. Henry was offended.
    “Do you think me unnatural, Lohengrin?”
    “A wench with a bath is a clean hole,” Lohengrin said, “but a sheep dripping Arabian perfume is still a foul beast.”
    Henry was agitated. His eyes flashed.
    “Why do you link me to such Godless practice?”
    Lohengrin guffawed. He was really enjoying himself now. He shifted around in the saddle to better look at his victim.
    “Haven’t I seen you rightwise linked?” he snorted. “Linked to a sheep’s arse?”
    The strong, stocky Saxon youth stood up in his stirrups. “Cease!” he cried, baited, furious.
    Lohengrin couldn’t control it. He was shaking with laughter. “What a sight,” he said. “Fear not, I’ll not reveal your vices to your lady.”
    Henry sat back down, looked uneasy. “I have no lady,” he said, nervously.
    “Ah, have you not?” Lohengrin cocked his head to the side. “Come now, Hal.”
    Hal was sullen. “I have not.”
    They were just entering a thick, dark wood of mainly saplings massed together. The thin trees made a soft-looking grey wall.
    “I know her well,” Lohengrin said. He did. His aunt’s daughter. A slightly thick-waisted, but pretty-because-young flaxen-haired girl, a year his senior. “I had her kiss me stick,” he said, breaking up.
    Henry’s eyes flashed. He’d had just enough.
    “You lie,” he cried. “she never —” then cut himself off, realizing, finally, he was merely being provoked.
    Lohengrin squinted ahead across thickly bright green, overrich, almost spoiled-looking fields and rolling foothills. He felt confident. Life would be his. He stretched and cracked his finger joints. He felt good.
    “You want serf’s pasty bread?” he asked, rhetorically. “I —”
    “I mean to make war, like any other lord. I have an idea of booty.” He looked quite cold, his eyes suddenly dark and still. Henry didn’t say anything watching him, uneasily. “We’ll raid and we’ll rule,” Lohengrin assured him. “I’ve made my plans.” Which was true. He’d sketched them out during long, dull afternoons in the castle yard, in his chamber, or riding in the neighborhood. They were crossed between the just possible and youthful daydreaming.
    “Plans?” asked Henry.
    Lohengrin came back from the cool distance of his inner vision. “We’re heading to the seacoast,” he informed Hal. “I’ve thought it through. We’ll gather foreign and masterless men about us.”
    Hal blinked.