The Ballad of Sir Dinadan by Gerald Morris

Author:Gerald Morris [Morris, Gerald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The next morning, Dinadan said nothing to the others, but he made certain that he was the first one to break camp so that the others would have to follow him. He saw no fox, but he pushed ahead, and a few minutes after starting he was rewarded with a glimpse of a tawny hide in the underbrush. Without hesitation, Dinadan left the path and headed into the brush.

"Hey, Dinadan!" Bedivere called. "Where are you going?"

"Follow me!" Dinadan called back, though he was not at all sure that they would. If Culloch, for instance, had led them into these thickets, Dinadan would have promptly parted company with him and kept himself to the path. But Dinadan heard them crashing into the bushes behind him. "Quickly," he said to the fox, hoping that somehow it would understand. Dinadan didn't want the others to catch up and ask him questions that he had no intention of answering.

It was a rough ride, but the fox seemed to understand what Dinadan wanted. It went slowly enough that he never lost track of it, even as he had to crash heavily through thickets that the fox slipped through with ease. At the same time, though, it went fast enough that Bedivere and Kai and Culloch never quite caught up. Dinadan's skin was scratched and bleeding, and his clothes were torn, and he was just beginning to doubt he could go on much farther when the fox stopped in a hollow under an ancient elm tree and looked up at Dinadan.

Without being sure why, Dinadan knew that this was the place to which the fox had been leading him. He dismounted, and the fox walked over to him and placed one paw on Dinadan's leg, just as he had done the night before. "Thank you, Renard," Dinadan said in a whisper.

In a blink, the fox was gone. Dinadan stood beneath the great tree, alone but for the wind and the thick layer of leaves. Then he saw it, a human skull at the base of the tree trunk, worn and weather-stained, but definitely human. Dinadan had just stooped to examine it when the others arrived, their horses lathered and panting.

"About time you stopped," Culloch said, gasping with exertion. "What were you thinking, riding off into the bush like that, when there was a perfectly good path?"

"What do you have, lad?" Kai asked curtly. Dinadan gestured at the skull, and Kai dismounted and joined him. "Let's take a look," Kai said. He knelt and began digging in the loam at the tree's base. In a moment, he had unearthed another bone, then a strip of embroidered cloth, faded but still clearly an intricate piece of work. Wordlessly, Kai handed the material to Bedivere, who had dismounted beside them.

Bedivere examined it for a moment, then said, "A woman's dress, I would say, and not of the latest fashion. But then, that much is obvious."

They both looked at Dinadan, who had been sitting beside the skull, watching Kai dig. Kai spoke.

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