ng my help. What
do you want me to do?"

Instantly, her tears stopped and she clasped her hands together and
looked at him with worshipful eyes. "Oh, fair sir, ye be most kind
indeed! Well I wot from thy shining armor that ye--"

"Knock it off," Mallory said.

"Knock it off? I wot not what--"

"Never mind. Just tell me what you want me to do."

"Ye must bear me from the castle, fair sir, or the king learns I have
bewrayed my trust and wreaks his wrath upon me. And then ye must help
me regain the Holy Cup and return it to this chamber."

"We'll worry about getting the Cup back after we're beyond the walls,"
Mallory said, starting for the door. "Come on--they're all in the
banquet hall and as drunk as lords--they won't even see us go by."

She hung back. "But the warders, fair sir--they be not enchafed. And
King Pelles, by my own wish, did forbid them to pass me."

Mallory stared at her. "By your own wish! Well of all the crazy--"
Abruptly he dropped the subject. "All right then--how _do_ we get out
of here?"

"There lieth beneath the fortress and the forest a parlous passage
wherein dwells the fiend, the which I have much discomfit of. But with
ye aside me, fair knight, there is naught to fear."

Mallory had read enough Malory to be able to take sixth-century fiends
in his stride. "I'll have to take my horse along," he said. "Is there
room for it to pass?"

"Yea, fair sir. The tale saith that aforetime many knights did ride
out beneath the fortress and the forest and did smite the Saxons,
Saracens, and Pagans, the which did compass the castle about, from
behind, whereupon the battle was won."

Mallory stepped outside the chamber, the girl just behind him, and
encephalopathed the necessary directions. After a moment, Easy Money
came trotting down the corridor to his side. The girl gasped, and, to
his astonishment, threw her arms around the rohorse's neck. "He is a
noble steed indeed, fair sir," she said; "and worthy of a knight
fitting to sit in the Siege Perilous." Presently she stepped back,
frowning. "He ... he is most cold, fair sir."

"All horses of that breed are," Mallory explained. "Incidentally, his
name is 'Easy Money'."

"La! such a strange name."

"Not so strange." Mallory raised his visor, making a mental note to
see to it that any and all suits of armor he might buy in the future
were air-conditioned. He got his spear. "Let's be on our way, shall
we?"

"Ye ... ye have blue eyes, fair si