Squire's Honor

by Peter Telep

  Christopher lowered his bow to view his shot: the arrow headed for the back of the bald sailor’s head, but the grainy darkness created an illusion. The shot was actually too high and grazed the top of the Pict’s pate, coming to rest with a sharp thump in the wood of the raised hatch.

  The sailor reacted perfectly to Christopher’s poor marksmanship. He reached up, used the arrow impaled in the hatch as a handle and brought the wooden door down on top of himself. Christopher stood and ground his teeth as he heard the sailor lock the hatch.

  Now the rest of the Picts below would gather what­ ever weapons they might have. Christopher remembered the archers from the Saxon cog. If this ship was armed anything like that vessel, then they were in for a fight, for the Picts would draw on a substantial arsenal. And they would either come back out to fight, or wait below for Christopher and Brenna to come in like invading rats. The foreigners would make a game out of their deaths.

  The plan had been to draw them out and drop as many as possible. M any was the crucial word. Not one.

  “Damn my shot to hell!” he cried.

  “Swear all you want,” Brenna said anxiously, slipping a bolt into her windlassed bow, “but let’s get down there and finish them.”

  Christopher shook his head as he turned to watch Merlin and Orvin finish unloading the last of the rushes. The two moved away from the short wall of straw and headed up the wharf toward the cog.

  “What are we waiting for?” Brenna asked. “Let’s go.” He regarded her with a frown. “We’re outnumbered.

  “We’ll wait for the others and then go below.”

  ”We can’t wait for the others. We don’t know how long Moma can keep those sailors locked up—or how busy Doyle’s fires are going to keep the marshal’s guards.”

  “We’re not going down there,” Christopher shot back. She’d been pushing all the way from Shores, and he’d let her come a very long way, but his wall was now up.

  “If we don’t get rid of them now, all of this will be for nothing. Everyone will get on board and we won’t be able to go anywhere. There’s no wind. Or hadn’t you noticed that? We have to get down there and use those oars.”

  Brenna was so consumed in her argument that she hadn’t noticed she was pointing her bow directly at Christopher’s heart. He flashed her a wide-eyed, annoyed look as he pushed the business end of the bow away from his chest. “Do you want to shoot me now and take care of those sailors yourself?”

  It was a faint sound, nearly lost under the distant shouts and the incessant barking of a mongrel dog from the shoreline; it sounded like metal grinding on metal and was the tiniest of squeaks. Christopher looked over the edge of the parapet.

  And there, directly below, they’d failed to notice a second hatch, a hatch that was presently dropping inward.

  “Oh no.” Christopher jerked his head back even as something blurred before his eyes and was gone.

  “Now we’ll see—” Brenna began and cut off, shoving into Christopher and aiming her bow downward.

  Fwit!

  On the heels of the bowstring’s release was the distinctive thud of the projectile as it penetrated wood. She’d missed.

  Having guessed what had blurred past him, Christopher grabbed Brenna and drove her toward the starboard side of the aftercastle. He looked up and saw the silhouette of the arrow as it fell beyond the port side of the cog.

  “It’s all right now,” he said, then realized he’d inad­vertently gotten a little too close to her. He was aware of the scent of her body. Her own sweat did something to the salty smell of the seawater, creating an odor that could become intoxicating, were he to inhale it for much longer.

  With warming cheeks he removed his hands from her shoulders, then took a step back.

  “Reload,” Brenna said tersely.

  Christopher nodded. She wanted to forget about their sudden closeness, and so would he. He reached back and drew a fresh arrow from his quiver, then nocked it into his shortbow.

  Brenna crossed to the ladder on the port side of the aftercastle. Before he realized what she was doing, she slung one leg over the parapets, then the other, braced herself with a free hand, and began her descent. “Aim at the hatch down here for me,” she said.

  “Wait. What’re you—” “Please,” she cried, “do it.”

  He hastened to the bulwark and pointed his bow down at the hatch from which the Pict arrow had come. He listened for sounds of the men below, but found his ears filled with the footsteps of Orvin and Merlin as they trudged their way up the cog’s gangplank. He looked to them and shouted, “Orvin. Merlin. They’re still below.”

  The old men heeded his words, and once setting foot on the deck, they moved as quickly as they could to the ladder that led up to the forecastle. As they did so, Christopher saw the main hatch lift a finger’s length as one of the sailors chanced a peek. Fwit! Christopher’s shot was enough to persuade the sailor to shut the hatch and stay below, but it strayed a yard from its target, hit the deck, and then skittered out of sight.

  Orvin was just over the top of the ladder leading to the forecastle when Christopher heard the crash from directly below.

  Mad girl!

  Brenna had leapt onto the small hatch, broken through it, and now plunged toward the lower deck. Christopher heard the muffled shouting of the Picts as he drew an arrow from his quiver, climbed on top of the aftercastle’s parapet, and jumped. He hit the deck beside the hatch but slipped and fell sideways onto his bow, nearly snapping the weapon in two. From the lower deck, he heard the shuffle of feet followed by the snap Fwit! of Brenna’s crossbow. He thumbed off his quiver and let his bow remain where it was on the deck. He leaned forward, unsheathed the dagger strapped to his calf, slid over the hatch, then let himself drop into the darkness.

  Orvin had once told him that bravery and insanity walk the same path, begging, borrowing, and stealing from each other. He had said that a great fighter can detach himself from everything, and does not reason with himself during combat. A great fighter does not second-guess his actions. Therefore, a great fighter does not consider that dropping into the hold of a ship full of Picts is suicide.

  I guess I am not a great fighter.

  The small alcove that led to the hold reeked of some­ thing stale, but was mainly tinged with the not exactly pleasant odor of burlap. Christopher caught the smell even before his bare feet made contact with the deck. The impact sent a sharp, tingling pain up both of his ankles, a pain that reverberated through his knees and found his groin. He fought to maintain balance, but lost it and fell forward. He broke his fall with his free hand. He looked up and saw shadows playing over the ceiling and beams of the alcove. The shadows were drawn by the meager light of a single candle in its holder atop a ceiling beam at the far end of the hold. He heard some­ thing. He pushed back and up to his feet, and then listened. A shout came from the other end of the hold, and after it, a shuffling noise. He saw more shadows on the ceiling ahead. He crept forward and moved past a small hallway that opened up into the hold proper. The place was divided into rows and rows of crated and barreled cargo, a maze of provisions cast in an ominous gloom. There were scores and scores of hiding places for the Pict sailors. He’d known of the danger of entering the hold. But coming down hadn’t been his decision, and moaning about it now was futile. He had to find Brenna, and they had to get out of here.

  “Brenna?”

  “Over here,” she answered.

  He looked to his right, and mentally leapt over crate, barrel, and grain sack to find her. Then he thought about the foolishness of his call. Now the Picts knew both of their locations. His new vulnerability made his skin crawl. He spun and eyed the dark comers of the hall behind him. Nothing. He moved to a pair of crates at the end of a line, ducked behind them and ran into a Pict sailor hiding there. The Pict was down on his haunches, and Christopher’s impact with him knocked both of them onto their rumps. Christopher rocked forward and tightened his grip on the dagger, while the Pict sho
ok off the collision. Christopher saw the Pict clearly now, a gaunt, shadow­ cheeked man who presently lifted and leveled his cross­ bow.

  In a heartbeat he dived forward, simultaneously swip­ing the crossbow away with his dagger hand while wrap­ ping the fingers of his other hand around the sailor’s throat.

  The Pict said something to Christopher just before the dagger slid between his ribs and kissed his heart, some­ thing Christopher was glad he did not understand. Christopher closed his eyes and pulled the dagger from the sailor’s chest. He opened his eyes, rose, and then moved away without looking back. He shadow-hugged the starboard hull and made his way closer to the bow end of the hold.

  How does it feel to have killed another man, Christopher?

  His gaze probed the cargo and ventured into corners and recesses for Brenna. He felt the blood on his dagger leak onto his forefinger.

  How does it feel to have killed another man, Christopher?

  He could answer the question in a word, but instead let it hang in his mind. He forged on.

  A double row of barrels stacked two high trailed off to his left. A yard up from the row was a line of grain sacks piled about six high, four or so wide. Christopher moved into the open avenue between the barrel and grain sack rows. At the far end of both lines, a silhou­ette appeared. Christopher heard the release of a bow­ string and dropped to the deck.

  An arrow whistled overhead and he turned—just as it appeared in the hull behind him, at neck height. It would have been somehow fitting if he and Woodward had both died the same way. By now, everyone back at Shores probably thought that he had murdered the knight, and they would have attributed his ironic death to God’s justice.

  “Christopher,” Brenna called out, her voice coming from a spot much closer to him. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  “Quiet. I’ll find you,” he answered with feigned confidence, having only her faint voice to guide him.

  He crossed to the grain sacks and hunkered next to them. He wished he could will his pulse to slow down. In fact, his heart felt like it was on the outside of his chest and slamming strangely downward on his ribs. He swallowed and tried to steady his breath.

  Another arrow flew overhead and hit the hull behind him. This one caught one of the support beams at a bad angle and was deflected away. As he looked for where the arrow would drop, he rested his elbow on the edge of a grain sack, then felt something nudge it. Startled, he pulled back and plunged his dagger into the sack. He felt the blade penetrate the burlap and pierce something within, something that let out a tiny squeal. Christopher shuddered and grimaced as he ripped his dagger out of the sack, wiped both sides of the blade on it, then darted off.

  It was difficult to move swiftly while keeping his head low. Intermittent arrows still fought for a piece of his flesh, but fell either behind or too far in front of him. The closer he drew to the bow of the hold, the easier it was to see. But in this better light, the Picts would also have the same advantage. And besides that, the hold had become much more narrow, and he could see the far corner where the port and starboard hulls joined, along with the spare rigging that was coiled in loops hanging in rows along both walls. On the port side below the rope was a rectangular pile of bundled wool, and Christopher spotted a shadow that rose slightly over the pile. Thankful for the near-silence of his bare feet, he slid between two stacks of oak bath vats and found Brenna seated and lying back on the bundles of wool.

  “Oh, no, not you …”

  Feeling as if one of the Picts had finally put an arrow in his chest, Christopher dropped to his knees before her. The dagger fell out of his hand.

  There was an arrow in Brenna’s right arm, near her bicep. The point of the arrow protruded from the back of her arm, and it was remarkably clean-looking, as if it had passed so quickly through her flesh that it hadn’t had time to pick up any blood. In fact, the wound itself looked clean, with only a tiny ring of blood on the front of Brenna’s damp shirt.

  “Doyle’s going to be upset,” she said weakly. “He told me to take good care of his shirt. And now I’ve gone and ripped it.” She smiled, an act Christopher found amazing. He’d been shot in the calf while fleeing the castle and knew all too well the agony of an arrow wound. Brenna smiled through it. “What do you—what should I, we—” He broke himself off, barely able to speak, let alone help.

  Brenna, her eyelids heavy, her mouth still curled in a wan smile, raised her good arm and pointed toward something behind him. “Get your dagger and cut the tip of this arrow off. Then you are going to tie your shirt around my arm and slide the shaft free.”

  Somewhere behind them, he heard a creak of wood. She noticed it, too. He got to his feet but kept himself hunched over, then looked to her crossbow and quiver that lay beside her. The bowstring was already wind­ lassed into place. He moved to the quiver, withdrew a bolt, loaded the bow, then stood poised.

  Fwit!

  Christopher looked down, thinking he’d fired. No, an unseen Pict had, one also armed with a crossbow. He looked around for the bolt, assuming it had stuck in the hull behind him, but found nothing.

  “Christopher!”

  Brenna saw the Pict sailor leap down from the top of the stacked bath vats a half second before Christopher did, but her cry still came too late. Though Christopher was already turning in the direction of the man’s assault, he still lacked the time to fire. The sailor came down on Christopher’s bow and knocked it out of his hands. The Pict brought the bow to the deck and smashed it under him, then he lost his balance and fell forward onto Christopher. Both of them were driven back toward Brenna, who screamed as they collapsed on her.

  Christopher looked up, seized the linen collar of the sailor with both hands, then forced him upward. He rec­ognized this Pict as the bald one he’d nearly shot up on the deck, and saw that the man’s pate had a slight cut across it. What was more unnerving was the large silver ring that dangled from between the man’s nostrils. He appeared a living vision of black sleep, the worst kind of barbarian. Orvin had said that the barbarians with nose rings were cannibals. The Pict’s snarl and crazed eyes were no argument against Orvin’s report.

  They rolled off of Brenna. Christopher released his grip on the man’s shirt, found the sailor’s neck, then pinned the Pict’s head to the deck. But his triumph did not last more than a moment, for the sailor tore Christopher’s hands away, then jolted him up and away with his powerful hips.

  The sailor vocalized something that might have been a grunt or an actual word in his language. Christopher speculated it might be something about how he was about to breathe his last breath. He rolled to right him­ self, but was caught midway by the sailor, who leapt on him and used his chest to press Christopher’s right side to the hard and splintery planks. He reached up, but his arm was forced down. The Pict now had him in a one­ handed choke hold, and the sailor drew back his other hand, which was now balled into a fist.

  The image of the dark brown ceiling and its interlock­ ing beams and planks that framed the cut-by-a-hatchet face of the sailor suddenly vanished. There was only one thing that existed in the world now: the sailor’s fleshy, white-knuckled fist; it filled Christopher’s gaze just before he closed his eyes.

  Christopher heard himself scream, and his voice sounded warped, too low, and unfamiliar to him.

  Then he felt the Pict collapse onto him. Confused, he opened his eyes and struggled from beneath the now­ limp, inert man. He managed to move the sailor far enough aside to view Brenna. She was on her knees and hunched over the Pict. She released her quivering hand from the dagger in the sailor’s back, leaving the blade where she had rooted it: just below his left shoulder blade. Had Christopher been forced to act as she had, he would have chosen the same spot, catching the man’s heart from the rear. Brenna was shocking in her sav­agery … and her bravery.

  She blew out air, then sat back on her haunches, the horror over what she’d just done slowly tightening her brow and twisting her lip. He stared at
her a moment, then opened his mouth to say something, but nothing would connect. Nothing made sense. He pursed his lips and listened to his own breathing, then shoved the body away and sat up.

  “That’s two,” she said softly, after what would never be enough silence. “Now help me get this arrow out of my arm.”

  “That’s three,” he corrected. “I got another one on my way here.”

  “I thought I heard the sounds. How many do you think are left?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, eyeing the cargo and the shadows of the cargo. He stood.

  Before attending to Brenna’s wound, he picked up and examined her bow. The left side of the T-bar had snapped off, rendering the bowstring limp. Were the bow an arbalest made of steel, it might have survived the sailor’s weight. He discarded the weapon and crossed to the sailor. Christopher turned his head away and pulled the blade from the Pict’s back.

  Wincing, Brenna settled herself on the deck, trying in vain not to move her wounded arm. Christopher removed his shirt, then sat facing her. He reached up and tied the garment around her arm above the arrow, tightening the knot as best as he could. He picked up the dagger, gripped the arrow’s iron tip, and then set the dagger down on the arrow shaft. Brenna steadied the shaft with her free hand. He picked a spot about a thumb’s length down from the tip and began sawing. Brenna closed her eyes, and her face was never more creased with pain. He heard her breath tum short and shivery.

  He stopped cutting, then released the arrow and rose. He crawled to her quiver, withdrew a bolt, and then proffered it to her. “Brenna.” She opened her eyes. “Bite on this.”

  “I’m sorry. I know I’m making noise,” she said.

  It was as if the Picts had heard her. From directly below came the faint but discernible sound of move­ment. In unison, their gazes fell to the floor planks.

  “You’d better hurry,” Brenna warned, then took the bolt from him and placed it between her teeth.

  He complied and resumed his sawing. Brenna fought valiantly against the pain, but she could not prevent the small, extremely high-pitched cries that escaped past the bolt, nor the tears that fell in an unrelenting current down her cheeks. Every vibration of the shaft woke new tremors of suffering in her.