Free Gawain and Lady Green by Anne Eliot Crompton

devil. Besides, she’s only a wild savage, like this fellow here—
    THWACK ! Who could almost make a brother knight!
    Both of them are waiting to cut my head off. Maybe this Student Druid means to do it himself.
    Inner Mind cried, Sir! Do not anger yourself! Do not—
    THUNK ! What’s this?
    Gawain found sky in his eyes, then grass. A tremendous blow paralyzed his back, knocked out his breath.
    God and Mary, I’m down! What comes of thinking too much.
    Gawain lay flat on his back, still clutching his cudgel. While he whooped for breath, Merry jumped off his pony yelling, halloing, shaking his cudgel. “A-ho, ho-ho, woo-hoo!” Merry jigged over fallen Gawain. “Square Table beats Round!” Gawain felt the ground shake as both ponies dashed off to freedom.
    He had not been bested in years. He lay in Merry’s jigging shadow, looking up at the sky, sheerly astonished.
    With breath and wits, anger returned. The sky in his eyes turned red. Lest Merry see Fury glare up at him and laugh louder, he closed his eyes.
    Inner Mind warned, Sir. The time has come for restraint.
    “Wowowowowow!” Merry brandished his cudgel at the sky.
    Sir. Calm that anger.
    Gawain found breath and struggled to sit up. His back felt broken.
    “Let me, Gawain!” Merry grabbed his hand and hauled him up to sit, broken back or no. “May King, if I know the rules right, now we fight afoot. Aha!”
    Fight him now, Sir, you’ll kill him! Angered as you are.
    Gawain muttered, “Nay.”
    “Nay! No? Don’t you want to get even?”
    Gawain ground his teeth. Quietly, then: “Our quarrel is not so serious.”
    “Serious? What quarrel?” Merry’s dancing feet stilled.
    “A joust ends now. At this point.” Very gently, “You win.”
    Merry’s feet bounded up past Gawain’s aching head. “I win! I win!”
    Restraint, Sir. Calm. He’s only an ignorant savage.
    Testing his aching neck, Gawain looked up at the sky. It was blue again, with only a thin edge of disappearing red.
    Merry’s feet landed again under Gawain’s nose. “Let me help you up.”
    “No, no, no!”
    “Against the rules?”
    “This…triumphing…”
    “That’s against the rules?”
    “Against custom. A knight leaves his own praises for bards to sing.”
    “No bards here!”
    And a good thing , Gawain thought grimly.
    “You can tell one, later.” Gawain knelt up, then stood. Back, arms, and legs worked, reluctantly.
    Merry looked disappointed. “So what do I do now?”
    “Pretend there was nothing to it. You knock over a Knight of the Round Table every day.”
    “Ah.” On the instant, Merry relaxed. All surprised joy faded from his pert jester’s face. “That was exercise enough to make a man hungry. Come on, May—Gawain. Let’s go see what cooks in the Men’s House kettle.”

    “Ynis! watch what you do!” I whisper harshly. Ynis freezes where she stands, head cocked low, thin shoulders stooped. Whisper. “You’ve picked flowers instead of peas!”
    She looks down at the plants drooping in her small fists. “Oh. Didn’t mean—”
    “Whisper!” No need for the neighbors to know.
    Women and children harvest the pea rows, sweating under wide straw hats. Dogs play and fight up and down the rows. (Except for Granny’s Brindle, who lies panting in pea-shade.) Toddlers toddle. But everyone old enough to know pea from weed works.
    This work is not hard. You take a good grip on a bunch of vinesand yank. Then you hurl the vines behind you onto your growing pile. Since I was Ynis-small, I’ve found this task strangely satisfying, fun. I like to come to the row’s end and look back and see bare earth where peas used to crawl.
    Granny and I work two-handed, tossing vines back over shoulder without looking around. Most neighbors work the same, to a buzz of talk and laughter. Their auras flame like fires around the field, violet, blue, green. Here and there a pink aura shows me a pregnant woman, harboring life she maybe doesn’t realize yet.
    Ynis dreams and