Squire's Honor

by Peter Telep

  Trunks and limbs whirred by. A brown squirrel darted across the path, but Llamrei charged on, undaunted. Christopher wished he had taken a torch, but then again, the wind created by the horse’s speed would have blown it out. The half moonlight was come­ and-go, and he didn’t see the other, slower-moving rider in the path until he was nearly on top of him.

  “Whoa! Whoa!”

  Christopher yanked hard on the reins. He began to slip out of his saddle and thrust his legs downward, locking his boots tighter into the stirrups. A cloud of dust rose at his back and drifted around him as he arrived to trot at the other rider’s side. The trail was barely wide enough to accommodate two mounts.

  The other rider coughed, waved dust from his face, then shouted, “You could’ve killed me”!

  The voice was high. Too high.‘The other rider was not a man. Another look proved him right.

  Her countenance softened as she recognized the man who had nearly killed her.

  His countenance hardened as he recognized the woman in his way. “Brenna, what are you doing out here? And where did you get that horse? And why do you have riding bags, and that bow and quiver?”

  A crossbow. Could she …

  “I talked to Neil. I’m going—” “Now wait—”

  “I know what you’re going to—” “Then why don’t you listen—”

  “Because you need me and—

  “I need you to stay here. It’s too—”

  “Dangerous for you to ride out there alone and—” “You’ve been thinking too much. Remember—”

  “I know what you did to me. And what I did—” “This is truly mad. Truly—”

  “Could I finish speaking. Please!”

  Her scream raced all the way back to the elbows of limestone that jutted from the ramparts, and they lis­tened to its echo and the hoofing of their horses for a score of breaths before talking again.

  Staring at the easy lines of her profile, Christopher finally said, “I will talk you out of coming.” If nothing else, she was too beautiful to come. He would never allow her to be scarred.

  Don’t think of her that way!

  “It’s getting a little cold,” she started coyly. “You need to keep all that warm air inside you—instead of wasting it.”

  “That’s something new,” he said, smiling to himself. He saw her regard him from the comer of his eye.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You’re … I don’t know how to put it. Have you been spending time with Orvin?”

  “I’ve been busy working with Hallam.”

  “Hmmm.” He glanced at her crossbow and quiver. “Can you fire that bow?”

  “Yes, I can. You’d be surprised.” “Did Innis teach you”?

  “An archer named Peter.”

  Christopher shrugged. “I don’t know him.”

  His suspicion had been triggered the first time he had seen her with the crossbow, but he had dismissed the idea in an instant. Brenna could have been the one who had shot Woodward. She did not know how to fire a crossbow. She had probably managed to get her hands on one and had it with her for show, a visual threat with no action behind it.

  But now she confessed she could fire it. She didn’t know about Woodward’s death, unless she was the mur­derer. If she wasn’t, then he couldn’t ask her if she had killed the knight; by asking he would be leaking the news of the murder. He did trust Brenna, but the fewer people who knew what had happened, the better. If she was the killer, then perhaps he could lead her into a confession.

  “Watch out!” Brenna screamed.

  Christopher’s introspection had veiled his vision. He failed to see the horse-drawn wagon rumbling up the trail, headed directly for them. There was no room to let the wagon pass.

  He and Brenna braked and steered toward the wood on the right side of the path. Their horses plowed through yellow, spiny gorse. Then Christopher felt the ground abruptly drop; it was a slope of sorts, short but very steep. The mare struggled for footing, but her hooves slid wildly over a bed of fallen leaves. The earth leveled off, but the momentum created by the slope kept his horse moving out of control.

  Christopher knew he had to slam his chest forward onto his saddle, as Brenna did beside him, but he impul­sively reached up to push a particularly low-hanging limb out of his way.

  And hidden behind that limb was another one, as thick around as one of his hips. His arm slid up and over the limb and became snagged on it. As his mount moved forward, he felt himself being torn out of the saddle. He yanked his boots back out of his stirrups as the mare finally vanished beneath him. The weight of his entire body rested from his arms. With an almost inaudible groan he reached up with his free hand, vised it around the limb, and lifted his body up to dig out his arm. The mare came to a halt a few yards ahead.

  “Are you all right?” Brenna called from somewhere beneath him.

  With his arm finally over the limb, Christopher let himself drop, and acorns crunched beneath his boots. Brenna was off her horse and caught him by the shoul­ders as he was about to fall back on his rump. She steadied him, then shifted to face him.

  It was odd, the pain under his arm, a combination of pleasant and unpleasant sensations, similar to that spot near his elbow that he had once hit. His eyes were sore with tears of pain, and his lips strangely fought back a giggle.

  “Thank St. Michael you had the good sense to get out of your stirrups,” Brenna noted. “Otherwise—”

  “Otherwise half of me would still be in the stirrups and the other half hanging up there. Either that, or I’d be a yard taller.” Christopher rubbed the ribs under his arm, then his shoulder. Oh, it was a sweetly horrible pain.

  “You down there? Are you all right?” The shout came from above the slope, from the trail. Through the fence of tree limbs, Christopher saw that the wagon which had driven them off the road had stopped, and the driver now stood at its side, staring down into the wood. “We’re alive—if that’s what you mean!” he shouted back.

  They gathered their horses, pushed off a few tree trunks, and made it to the top of the slope. They broke free of the gorse enclosing the wood, and, in a few moments, emerged onto the trail a few yards away from the driver.

  “They ought to widen this path,” the driver said, then brushed a bead of sweat from his wrinkled forehead. “That was close.”

  “Oh … my lord,” Brenna said in shock.

  At the moment the moon was right, unfettered by clouds. Had there been less light, Christopher would not, from his angle, have been able to identify the rot­ ting corpse draped across the back of the wagon, but as it was, the image of the crossbow bolt still buried in Lord Woodward’s blue neck was perfectly clear.

  “Uh, my apologies for that, my dear. Wish I had a blanket to cover him up,” the driver said grimly.

  Christopher stiffened. “You found him?”

  “No, a hunting party did. They just hired me to go back and fetch him. He was deep in the eastern wood. Had to drag him all the way out of it.” He huffed in disgust. “This job was worth a lot more than two deniers.”

  “Where are you taking him?” Christopher asked, somehow growing even more stiff than he already was.

  “Do you know who this is? This is Lord Woodward. He’s one of the king’s battle lords. Sir Lancelot wants me to take the body to the king himself.”

  Brenna took a step back from Christopher.

  He looked at her. “I didn’t—” he began urgently. “You didn’t what?” the driver asked.

  He drew in a long, slow breath. “I didn’t mean to ask so many questions.”

  A dark thought consumed Christopher. If he could stop this driver from delivering his cargo … but how? Beat or tie up or kill the man? Add another evil to his growing list? Woodward’s body would eventually be discovered no matter how hard he tried to hide it. And there wasn’t time to do that. No, it was better just to leave. He had to keep his mind fixed on the journey. But the situation here was a wound that would not heal bu
t grow steadily worse.

  “Well, I’m glad you are both all right. I’m off, then. I’ve money to earn. Good evening to you both,” the driver said, turning away. “They really ought to widen this path.”

  Christopher led his mare away from the cart, then paused to mount the horse. Brenna climbed atop her own mount, then looked at him, studied him.

  As they started off, he said, “I didn’t kill him, Brenna. You have to believe that.”

  “You didn’t seem surprised that he was dead,” she said accusingly. But could she be acting, when, in fact, she had done the killing?

  “I’ll tell you everything,” he said. “Woodward wanted to meet me …”

  Before he continued, Christopher closed his eyes and tried to clear his thoughts. He wanted to remember exactly what had happened. He wanted to fill her in on all of the details, and perhaps while telling the story, see if he could get her to reveal something she might be hid­ ing. Yes, he closed his eyes to clear his thoughts, but all he could see was Woodward lying on the back of the cart. Suddenly, Woodward sat up, tore the crossbow bolt out of his neck, and, as black blood gushed from his wound, he screamed, “Squire! You will pay for this”!

  PART TWO

  THE PORT OF BLYTHEHEART

  1

  The Saxon army gathering in the Parret River valley finally finished its organizing and dividing into respective ranks, and, with only a few hours of night left, its newly formed Vaward Battle headed directly toward the foothill where Doyle and Montague were camped.

  Thank St. Christopher that Doyle had decided to stay on watch all night. While Montague snored and repeat­edly broke wind, Doyle kept his gaze trained on the army. Now, as battle horns resounded, he jogged back up the foothill to where Montague lay sprawled at the base of an oak and kicked the highwayman in the thigh.

  Montague jolted awake. “Yaowww!” He scowled at Doyle and rubbed the fire in his leg.

  “Get up. They’re coming.”

  Doyle crossed to his mount, fetched his riding bag, then once again regarded his companion. “I think you had it wrong back there, Monte. I think you need me a lot more than I need you. My idea to move before sun­ rise was a good one.” He slid his riding bag up over his rounsey’s croup and positioned it behind his saddle.

  “Luck,” Montague said groggily.

  Doyle fastened his bag to his mount, then smiled over the pleasure of having thrown Montague’s foolish argument about moving before sunrise back into the brig­ and’s face. To Doyle’s continual disbelief, the fat man invariably put his own physical comfort over the much larger concern of survival. You had to make sacrifices to stay alive; the concept seemed too obvious. But Montague refused to put himself out. Doyle was near­ positive that it was only through his goading that the gaudy grain sack had made it this far.

  Montague knuckled sleep grit from the corners of his eyes, stretched as he sighed through his nose, then replied, “All right, laddie. You’re the young smart one. I give you that. But once we’re in Blytheheart your charge is over.” He lifted a thumb, tapped it on one of his sag­ging breasts. “I run things there.”

  “We’ll see,” Doyle said, then tugged at the leather cords binding his bag to be sure they were tight.

  Montague licked his dry lips. “Yes we will.”

  It was too early to begin an argument, and their cur­ rent situation made one even less desirable. Doyle swal­lowed back the retort in his throat, threw Montague a hard look, and finally said, “Just get up and get ready.”

  In the predawn gloom they trotted to the west side of their foothill, and, camouflaged by an adequately thick stand of trees, paused as the Saxons’ Main and Rearward formations clustered into flanking positions of the Vaward. All three groups began their march, each containing a torch-bearing cavalry of crossbowmen and armored swordsmen in front, followed by longbowmen on foot and a rear guard of more mounted crossbowmen protecting at least a half score of supply wagons. It was a rare spectacle—and it was just Doyle’s luck that he had the opportunity to see the massive groups of ascending men; to feel the ground quiver under their weight; to smell the torches, horse dung, and smolder­ ing cookfires that rose and all but choked the air.

  He hoped it would all be over soon, and once the Saxons were gone, crossing the river might be as simple as paying the flatboat master his denier toll. Then again, the Saxons could have killed the flatboat master on this side of the Parret and sent his vessel to the muddy bot tom, in which case Doyle would find out whether Montague had really forgotten how to swim. But even if he did remember, maybe Doyle was wrong: perhaps the fat man would not float. Suffice it to say that it would be nice if the flatboat master was still alive.

  The Saxons advanced through the copses and knee­ high grass at the base of the foothill. As they did, Doyle and Montague eased forward in the opposite direction toward the river. They steered as far west as their tree cover would permit. The Saxon cavalry created a thun­derous cacophony that multiplied and reverberated across the hills, a sound Doyle had not heard since his battle days on the Quantocks. The clatter triggered memories of his murdering of Innis and Leslie. There was a sour taste in his mouth from not eating since yes­terday, and he forced saliva over his tongue to wash it out. He wished he could wash away the memories as easily. He was sure to hear the roar of hooves in the future, and could not avoid the sound and its accompa­nying recollections. He must live with them. Live with everything. Were it as easy as thinking it …

  “Doyle!” Montague stage-whispered, “We can make it to the toll cross now. I think that’s a flatboat down there at that quay. And I think someone’s on it.”

  Montague, who was ahead of Doyle, paused at the edge of the last stand of trees between them and the river. It was some two hundred yards to the shoreline. Two hundred wide open yards. All that was needed was for a curious rear guardsman to flip his gaze in their direction. To anyone else, the silhouettes of two horse­ men moving toward the river might be regarded with apathy. But to a Saxon the dark shapes might be Celt scouts on their way to report the movement of the army; they would have to be pursued, captured, and killed.

  “’Wait another moment for the guard to get a little farther up the hills.” Doyle closed his eyes; he hadn’t realized how tired they were. The lids argued against rising again. He felt his mouth hang open a bit, his body fall slightly forward in the saddle. His arms were weights almost too heavy to bear.

  Then, struck by the lightning of the moment, he snapped open his eyelids, jerked up his head.

  Stay awake. Stay alert. Can’t sleep. Don’t.

  Montague’s rounsey whinnied, then nuzzled up to the foot of a beech tree to look for something to eat. “I know, I know, dear,” he told his horse, “I feel the same.”

  Again, Doyle felt the hand of sleep press hard on the back of his head. He felt fingers reach around and attempt to force his eyelids closed. He cleared his throat, breathed deeply, and tightened his hands on his reins. “Let’s go.”

  He let Montague lead as they began a trot toward the shoreline, a trot which quickly shifted into a canter but held back from a gallop. Montague was smart enough to realize that the footing grew more unstable the closer they got to the river. Reeds and hollow-stemmed rushes grew as far away as one hundred yards from the water, which meant the ground even that far out was precari­ously soft. Add to that the ruts and dangerous potholes left by the Saxons’ horses and supply carts, and this course was about as dangerous as the practice field that stretched below the castle of Shores. Few riders ever made it across that acreage at full gallop.

  Montague’s large buttocks bounced in the saddle, two large jelly sacks of flesh bursting over the seat’s wood and leather rim. Doyle Hfted his gaze to a more pleasant sight.

  The clouds were thin, small, and numerous, spread out evenly above him, haloed in orange and brushed del­icately over the slowly fading stars. Like guards changing, the moon would soon bed down in the Quantocks,relieved by the sun. He dropped his gaze
slightly to the mountains, only shadows really, but the familiar outline was enough. This was the first time he had been back to the Quantocks since the killings. This was not getting bucked off a rounsey and remounting; this was ventur­Ing into a part of himself that he would rather not go. The mountains were mirrors and he did not want to look into them. He would play a little game to cross them. The land was not a place of evil, but a happy step­ ping-stone to Blytheheart. His gaze would leap over the past and anchor itself in the future. He would develop a new picture of himself: Doyle, the well-paid merchant with admirable taste; Doyle, dressed in the height of fashion, eating the most expensive meals; Doyle, living in a grand manor in the center of Blytheheart. And the women would swoon as he strolled by them, overcome by his grandeur. Yes, they would swoon! The loss of his fingers would be regarded as the smallest of scars on a man very large in prestige.

  “Ho, man, ho,” Montague cried.

  The flatboat master stood on the rickety wooden quay, the dark, blue-green waters of the Parret rushing beneath him. His long, wintry hair was pulled into a ponytail, his shaggy beard pulled into the same. Except for his beard, there was nothing particularly notable about him.

  Until he opened his mouth.

  “What did he say?” Montague asked as he dis­ mounted. He clenched his rounsey’s bridle and started forward.

  Doyle stopped his horse where the quay met the muddy shore, then lifted himself out of his saddle. “I didn’t quite hear him,” he said, hitting the earth with a faint thud. He stepped onto the quay, its timbers track­ ing his steps with baritone creaks, and then accosted the master. “I’m surprised you’re here. The Saxons let you live I guess, huh?” The master frowned as he paused before him. “How much for passage across?”

  The master shook his head, a query crinkling his sun­ browned face.

  “What’s wrong?” Doyle asked.

  And then the master fired off a volley of sentences that were about as understandable to Doyle and Montague as the barking of a hound.