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In chilly Orkney, where the stench of sorcery blows in along with the North Wind, the young princes would, in their boyhood, all too often track in magical residue along with springtime mud, earning a scolding from the seneschal for their trouble. This did nothing to dissuade them; the list of things that did not set one-eyed Symon to scolding could be counted on the fingers of a single hand, and it had been years since Father listened to his complaints. Mother might, but as she tracked in her fair share of magical residue, any attempted reprimand on her part ended only in full-throated laughter. So Gawain felt free to lead his brothers in all sorts of mischief, whether constructing circle henges in miniature upon the rocks or searching for adders’ tails or climbing down to the beach to watch the selkies sun themselves.
He thought often upon those days later in life; when it had been so obvious to see—and still so obscured from childish eyes—the fate laid upon him. For while of Queen Morgause’s brood, Mordred might love magic most and Gareth love it least, there was no question that magic, in turn, loved Gawain best. It clung to him like so many cockleburr, reaching its zenith with the sun’s height; it refused to let him die, try (as Sir Kay dryly observed) as he might. It would never, never let him go.
Others might have a claim to ignorance, but not Gawain.
*
The Green Knight’s breath smells of mint. Gawain is certain he is the only man living in a position to know: an uneasy, uncertain title. He thinks he would have preferred the green girdle on its own. But mint is what one smells, when one tries to distract oneself from the unnatural veins popping from the side of the Green Knight’s neck; and when one’s host’s lady wife leans over one in bed; and when said host in turn leans forward to collect his forfeit.
(“Morgan never told me,” says the Knight, his host, his wife, “that you were quite so charming.)
Mint is what keeps Gawain sane in that last minute before his death, and mint what gives him the courage to confront his attacker after the third blow bruises his neck.
Mint is what shames him enough to return.
(“Morgan never warned me,” says his Knight, his host, his wife, “that I might fall in love.”)
*
Come harvest-tide, the princes of Orkney would ride through the fields, whooping with joy. In the morning, there would be griddle-cakes; in the afternoon, ale; at night, dancing with the selkie-brides at their weddings. There was always at least one to be found, easily identifiable by a large liquid gaze and an air of indulgent flirtation. They were great fun, even if one chose not to steal their seal-skins. Especially if one chose not to steal their seal-skins. They can whirl a fellow about, laughing, and leave him breathless; they can make him forget all the long months that passed before.
For others that might be enough, but not Gawain.
*
His wife keeps a garden.
He tells her that’s hardly necessary, in the wife of one of Arthur’s own; the table at Camelot is always piled high with dainties, delicacies, and decorations. But it pleases her, she says, reminds him of home. He allows her her way in this as in all things, this woman first met in crone’s form in Inglewood Forest; this woman with a brother like enough her to unnerve the most accepting eye. Gawain is grateful that Arthur was the only other man to meet Sir Gromer Somer Joure in the flesh--Arthur, who knows what it is to have a secret weigh on the soul.
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, she sings as she works, and Gawain does his best not to understand.
When the wind blows from the north, and the garden covered with snow, still his wife remains outdoors. Her hem is sodden, her boots worn, and still there are whispers about her unmaidenly ways. As always she was cleverer than he realized to come to Court in a frightening form--by comparison, anything she does now will be deemed acceptable. She is a wife unlike any other, but then again, he fears he is a husband unlike any other.
She doses the castle children with peppermint from her garden when they come to her complaining of toothache, and her hands smell of the herb, and Gawain does his best not to think anything of it.
*
Winter penned the princes of Orkney within, until the days grew short and tempers shorter. But even separating Gaheris and Agrivaine from each other after yet another brawl was preferable to sitting by the window, as Mother did, and listening intently to the wails below. The fishermen had realized that their beds were empty, their wardrobes ransacked, and their babes were mourning the mothers they would never see again. Year in and year out, they came and left; the same old story never changed.
The first rule to happiness learned on Orkney: never expect an unearthly bride to linger long.
Only Gawain had.
*
He is seven years a husband, half as many a widower, when he comes to Carlisle in the company of Kay and Bishop Baldwin. Gawain is already wet, and cold, and weary when they knock on the door of the nearest land-owner, and in no mood to be accepting when they find only a surly Carl, his wife, and his daughter.
(There are three. There are always three. He is not so much a fool not to have noticed.)
He nibbles on dry bread, offers to sleep among the straw, endures Kay and Baldwin’s complaints with remarkable tolerance. He ignores the Carl’s taunts, imaginative as they might be. He smiles just as wanly when offered the stately beldame to bed with, or the bonny young lass.
(There are three, and they are all one. He has been toyed with enough to realize this.)
Later, after moonrise, when Kay and Baldwin have exited muttering congratulations and condemnations respectively, he lays back against the pillows, more exhausted than he has any right to be.
Across the bed, green eyes glint at him cat-like. The room is dark, but still he knows the exact shade and color of reddish-hair strewn over the pillow opposite. “Ragnell,” he says, brief and broken, because he has no other name to call; this is the time he loves best, when the strange, puzzling creature beside him chooses a single shape to wear, rather than to taunt him with two others.
“After this,” he hears, “I think the Carl of Carlisle might offer you his lovely daughter’s hand. As thanks for freeing him of his dread curse, you see.”
Gawain should be grateful, and still: “For how long?” he finds himself saying, bitterness hard and bright in his voice. “Seven years more? Or shall it be three days again before you tire of me? I’ve noticed you’re fond of threes.”
An indrawn breath. “To think they call you most courteous of all men alive.”
Gawain holds himself still. He will not rise to such inelegantly cast bait. He knows how to wait out his prey.
“Mortal time, and mortal feeling, is--difficult for those such as us,” the answer comes at last. “And so there are rules by which we may claim our own. Those selkies who still speak of you are bound to the sea’s rhythms, and just so am I confined to...trees and threes, it seems. Only when you choose me, and all that I am, can I come to you.”
“If I choose you,” Gawain says, not a little sulkily. That might be a way for a man to prove his love, but not time and again, like a steer set to plowing the same plot of land.
“Yes. If.” That is all, no anger or judgement besides; Gawain’s true love is nothing if not hopelessly, heartlessly fair.
He thinks of a life spent in parting, time and again, and of rending his heart open, time and again, and knows what answer he must make. When he brings his axe swinging down upon the Carl’s neck, in the midst of the silent courtyard, he means it as the closest thing he can manage to a farewell.
When the castle disappears behind him into the mists, he knows he’s made a mistake.
*
Despite it all, the Princes of Orkney agree that they best remember this: that sweet moment, soon after the first ice-melt, when seal-song rose up from the waves to let those waiting ashore know that they might be far away but not forgotten.
Gareth might imitate their calls with most skill, and Gaheris with least, but they could all agree that it was only Gawain among them who could always, always make out the eerie summons from any difference. At bed and board, he would grow still and silent, head cocked to one side; his eyes would grow distant, his ears ringing with music.
It was Mother, and Mother alone, who dared ask him what he heard. “Do they weep, my boy?”
“No,” he told her, unthinking, unfeeling even then, “they only wonder what might have been.”
Memory proves how wrong he had been back then: wishing is the worst sort of weeping there is.
*
It is an honest pleasure to befriend Lanval. He marvels at first that others cannot see the otherworldly air about him, or realize that they play but figures in a morality play long since grown stale: the conniving queen, the duped king, the wrong innocent. But if there is one thing Gawain has learned over the years, it is that those in Camelot can always do with a lesson in humility; if there’s another, it’s that no one needs advice from a man who’s since regretted his choice. Heholds his tongue.
Even when Lanval returns, and speaks of a love like none other, Gawain does not realize what he must. It takes a lady-in-waiting riding a mule, and claiming to be the least of her queen’s retinue, and the taste of mint—sharp, sudden—on his lips for the epiphany to form.
(All is never lost. There are always three, and they are one, and they love him. Magic will never let him go.)
When Lanval’s lady raises her veil, her eyes are as a brilliant a green as her lover’s. “If,” she says, and if none notice that Lanval and her lady-in-waiting mouth the word, too, so much the better.
“I do,” Gawain replies.