by Wayne Grant
Sir Roger hauled back harder on the reins. Tencendur nickered at the other horses, but finally settled. Declan O’Duinne sat his horse casually and tried to suppress a laugh. The horse under control, Roland made his introductions.
“My lord, may I present Griff Connah. He and his Welsh archers helped us take back Chester from de Ferrers.”
Sir Roger nodded at the newcomer.
“Yer welcome here at Shipbrook, Master Connah, and my thanks for your service to my Earl. There was a good deal of mischief done in these parts while I was away with the King on Crusade. I appreciate the help ye gave these two lads,” he said, gesturing to Roland and Declan.
“Thank you, Sir Roger,” Griff said. “I but served Prince Llywelyn. I am happy to see Shipbrook has been rebuilt. It was a shame what they did to your home.”
The big Norman knight frowned at the memory.
“Aye, those were bad days, sir, but better ones are ahead, I pray.” Greetings dispensed with, he turned back to Roland.
“It’s good to see you, lad. How fares my daughter?” he asked, trying not notice his young mount had curled its upper lip and was showing white teeth at the other horses.
“She is well, my lord, and sends you her warmest greetings.”
“Good, good.”
Never one for dawdling over pleasantries, Sir Roger turned to business.
“You can billet the men on either side of the road outside the gate. Not nearly enough room inside to hold ‘em. I gathered from your message that they have lost their edge.” The big knight paused and looked at the ragged column drawn up behind his son-in-law. “I see I was not mistaken! When would you wish Sir Declan and I to commence our ministrations on this sorry looking lot?”
Roland looked over his shoulder at the men of the Invalid Company. They were about to receive a rude reminder of what it meant to be a soldier.
“Straight away, my lord. I will have Patch detail a few of them to make camp. The rest…they are at your disposal.”
“Good! Have the lads dismount and join us over to the northwest field. We have a pile of good ash staves there. Just the thing to get them back in a fighting mood!”
Roland nodded, then turned to signal Patch forward. He issued quick orders then edged his horse toward Declan.
“Don’t go easy on these boys, Dec. They are good men all, but seem to have forgotten who they are.”
Declan reached over and clasped hands with Roland.
“I’ll sweat the ale out of them, even in this cold, Roland. Ye can be sure of that. Then I’ll be wanting all the news from Danesford.”
“And you shall have it, but for now, I must go pay my respects to Lady Catherine.”
Behind him Patch was bawling orders. Men dismounted stiffly and led their horses to a chest-high picket line that was stretched between poles off to the left of the road. Sergeant Billy and the most fit men were detailed to make camp and rode off toward the gate of Shipbrook, with the supply mules in their wake. On foot, Patch led the Invalids toward the frozen, stubbled field that lay off to the northwest.
None looked eager to get there.
***
Lady Catherine de Laval greeted Roland at the top of the stone steps that led up to the fine wood frame manor house near the south wall of Shipbrook. The place had been burnt to ashes by William de Ferrers two years before, but a new structure had risen over the old foundations, grander than the original. Roland always felt a rush of fond memories anytime he passed through the gates of this place. He had been brought here five years ago as a fourteen-year-old fugitive on the run from the Earl of Derby. Sir Roger and Lady Catherine had taken him in and had made Shipbrook his home. It was a kindness he would never forget.
The mistress of Shipbrook had a warm smile on her face as she watched him bound up the steps. Roland noted a few more fine lines around her eyes, but she remained a handsome woman and no doubt as formidable as ever she was. One did not cross Lady Catherine de Laval without consequences.
“My lady,” Roland said and gave her a deep bow. “It is good to see you.”
Lady Catherine extended her hand and Roland took it in his.
“Sir Roland, you are looking well! Marriage seems to agree with you.”
Roland couldn’t help but flush a bit.
“Aye, my lady, it does. Your daughter sends her fond greetings.”
Lady Catherine nodded and withdrew her hand.
“Come inside. This wind is chilling and we have much to discuss.”
Roland followed the tall woman into the manor house as she called for a servant to bring food and ale. The table in the main hall was larger than the one lost in the fire, but she brushed by it and led him to a set of chairs arrayed in front of the hearth. A low fire was crackling there, keeping the chill away. Roland settled in and looked up at the high timbered ceiling.
“It’s a grand home, my lady.”
Lady Catherine laughed.
“The King and the Earl have been generous, but I miss the old place. This one has no memories yet.”
“You will make new ones here, I’m sure, my lady, but, tell me, how are things with you?
Catherine smiled.
“It is always well with me when my husband is home and safe—at least as safe as he can be along this border. All of the strife in Wales has begun to spill over onto our side of the Dee of late. I’ve heard that our friend Prince Llywelyn is winning, but with Daffyd losing his grip along the border, the old habits of the Welsh have reappeared. Roger and Declan have had to chase cattle thieves back across the Dee twice in December and once already in January. They are hungry over there, Roland, and men need to feed their families. So the raids will continue until some kind of peace can be found in Gwynedd.”
Roland listened carefully. Lady Catherine was a dedicated collector of information flowing across the borderlands and all such news would be helpful where he was going.
“How fares Sir Roger?”
A fond smile played across Lady Catherine’s face.
“He is not a young man any more, Roland. He leans a bit more on Declan for the patrolling these days. His years in the east aged him—aged you all, I would guess—and the arm he broke the day he fought his way back to Chester still troubles him.” She paused for a second, then arched an eyebrow. “But I’d not bet against him in a fight.”
“Never,” said Roland with a smile.
Lady Catherine chuckled, then leaned toward him.
“So, what are you about, Roland? What brings you here with the Invalids—you’re too late for the Twelfth Night celebration!”
“No, my lady, there will be no celebrations where we are going. You know well the debt owed to Llywelyn by the Earl. We are payment for that.”
Lady Catherine gave a little sigh.
“I guessed as much. Armed men do not come to Shipbrook lest they are going to Wales or coming from there. What is your charge?”
“The Earl said that I was to lead the Invalids in support of the Prince, though even Griff Connah does not seem to know his master’s plans for us.”
“Is that all that Ranulf told you?”
“No, my lady. He reminded me that there has been peace between him and Lord Daffyd along this stretch of the Welsh Marches for years and that Daffyd is no threat to his interests. He is not so sure about Llywelyn.”
Lady Catherine rose and stepped toward the fire. She stretched out her long slender hands to the warmth and looked over her shoulder at the young knight. He’d changed much since she’d first met him as a ragged, skinny boy trailing after her husband like a stray dog. She had been sceptical of his loyalty and his worth, but Roland Inness had more than proven himself in her eyes. Now the young man was about to step into very murky water.
“Roland, you and I spoke many times when you were a squire about the nature of the Welsh. My family has been bound up with them since the time of my grandsire, Edric the Wild. The Welsh are brave and passionate folk, Roland, poets and warriors, but…”
> She hesitated for a long moment, searching for words, then continued.
“Let me tell you two stories that might be of help to you. After King William slaughtered so many of your people in the harrowing of the north, Edric allied himself with the Welsh to resist the Normans here in the west. Together, they held back the Conqueror’s armies for over three years. But in the end, the Welsh betrayed my grandsire to the Normans, who took him in chains to London. There, he wasted away and died in prison.”
Roland nodded. He thought back to the many lessons he had received from Lady Catherine on the history of this land—none of which he had known of as a boy in Derbyshire. Everything the woman taught him had helped him survive in a brutal world. And, with Lady Catherine, there was always a lesson within the lesson.
“So, the Welsh are not to be trusted…”
Lady Catherine sighed.
“You will have to judge that. Alwyn Madawc was a Welshman and I trusted him with everything dear to me. We have much we owe Llywelyn and he strikes me as a man with some honour, but ambition can make men forget themselves and Llywelyn is ambitious.”
“Aye, he is that, my lady. But what of the other tale?”
Lady Catherine moved away from the hearth and sat opposite him.
“Roland, you should be aware that our Earl Ranulf’s ancestor, Hugh of d’Avranches, once enticed Llywelyn’s great grandsire, Gruffydd ap Cynan to a parlay and treacherously seized him. Gruffydd was imprisoned in Chester Castle for ten years before finally escaping.”
Roland furrowed his brow. This was a story he had not heard before.
“So, the Normans are not to be trusted…”
Catherine smiled at this.
“Excepting my husband—of course not. I’m a Saxon and you are a Dane. We understand this in our bones.”
She stopped and turned serious.
“Roland, there is much history between the Princes of Gwynedd and the Earls of Chester, little of it pleasant. Earl Ranulf is a good man, but no less ambitious than Llywelyn. His honour compels him to pay this debt, his interests compel him to weigh the price. I would not like for you and your Invalids to be that price. My daughter should not be made a widow so young.”
***
As he walked out of the gate of Shipbrook, Roland considered all that Lady Catherine had told him. It was troubling. War was complicated enough without the politics—though he knew the two were always bound together. He wished he had Friar Tuck along to help him sort it all out. The monk had an uncanny knack for knowing where all the pieces stood on the chess board.
Tuck had journeyed to Danesford a week before Christ’s Mass to pay his newlywed friends a visit. After the King had been ransomed, he’d gone back to ministering to his flock of outcasts in the wilderness areas of Derbyshire and seemed happy with his lot. Roland had asked after Sir Robin of Loxley and that had brought a rueful laugh from the monk.
“Gone to France to join the King,” Tuck said. “I knew Robin was never suited to be a peaceable country nobleman—told him that straight out when we came home from the east. He’ll be happier fighting the French, if he’s not killed over there. Nothing ever happens these days in Nottinghamshire. He’d be miserably bored.”
The friar had spent three days with them and had delighted in playing games with Lorea, Roland’s young sister. Millicent had shaken her head in wonder as the retired Knight of the Temple got down on hands and knees to whisper stories to her seven-year-old charge. The girl, who had been raised for three years by the monks of Saint Oswald’s priory, would cackle with laughter and the burly monk would fairly beam with joy. In truth, Roland knew he would miss Tuck’s buoyant spirit as much as his wise counsel in the days ahead.
Outside the gate, there was a buzz of activity as Sergeant Billy’s detail was busily setting up camp for over a hundred men. Lady Catherine had dispatched her kitchen staff to try to make an evening meal out of the field rations the Invalids had procured. They brought root vegetables and dried beans to add to the salted meat already in the stew pots. The Shipbrook men-at-arms made themselves useful carrying wood for the cookfires and fodder for the horses. Sergeant Billy saw his commander coming and limped over to report.
“All will be ready before sundown.”
In the distance, Roland could see two lines of men being led through the old sword drills he had once learned from Alwyn Madawc. No doubt Declan and Sir Roger would push those poor souls to the limit. He noticed with satisfaction that Patch had chosen the men who had been most sober at the dawn muster to make camp and escape the ordeal of the others.
“Who is the one-armed fellow with the fine clothes, Billy?” he asked, nodding toward a man using his good arm to chop wood for one of the dozen cookfires dotted around the camp. It was the finely-dressed man Roland had seen mounted on the expensive charger at the dawn muster. “Another new recruit?”
“Aye, sir. That is Sir John Blackthorne. The men call him Fancy Jack behind his back. Always looks as though he’s spoilin’ fer a fight, but has started nary a one. He’s the best horseman in the Company and dead frightening with a blade.”
“So, no one calls him Fancy Jack to his face.”
“Aye, not a one. He joined us just a little after ye left with Lady Millicent for the Weaver. Bit of mystery exactly where he hails from. Keeps to himself and doesn’t say much. Hasn’t made any friends to speak of, but no one fancies being his enemy either. He does his duty and he stays out of trouble, which is more than I can say for a lot of the boys of late.” This last he said with a jerk of his head toward the men thrusting and parrying in the far field.
“Carry on, Billy. I think I’ll have a word with Fancy Jack.”
Sergeant Billy arched an eyebrow, but held his tongue and stumped off toward a knot of men arguing over where to set up the one tent that had been provided to shelter supplies. Roland walked over to where Sir John was, quite efficiently, turning sizable logs into firewood. The man looked up as he approached, but did not interrupt his labours.
“Sir John, a moment, sir.”
The man finished a stroke with his hand axe, and looked up.
“You are Sir Roland Inness,” he said simply.
“Aye,” Roland replied.
The man took a clean white cloth from inside his tailored wool shirt and mopped his brow. Then laid on with his axe once more.
“What can I do for you?” he asked as he chopped.
“In a few days, we will be crossing the Dee. I’ve ridden with, lived with and fought with most of the other lads in the Invalids, but you I do not know. I thought it best to remedy that before swords get crossed.”
The man nodded, then wrestled another piece of wood into position.
“What would you like to know?”
“Your story. I do not recall seeing you in King Richard’s camp during the late crusade. Is that where you got your wound?” he asked pointing to the missing arm.
The man shook his head.
“No, I did not take the Cross. Never left England. Is that a problem?”
There was challenge in the man’s voice.
“Not to me.”
The man paused from his work for moment and glanced up at Roland.
“Perhaps it would have been best if I had gone crusading.”
“How so?” Roland asked, his curiosity about this man growing.
Sir John seemed to attack the log at his feet with a new fury.
“The rest of these boys,” he said, gesturing to the small figures still at sword drill in the far field, “at least took their losses in a cause—whether it be holy or otherwise. My loss was from pure stupidity.”
The man stopped for a moment to adjust the log with his foot, then spoke again.
“I am from Sheffield, Sir Roland. You know of it?”
“Aye, it’s in Yorkshire, near the border with Derbyshire.”
“Aye, that’s the one. You know what happened at Sheffield?”
Roland nodded slowly.
“John’
s mercenaries pillaged the place. I was close enough to see the smoke. You lost your arm there?”
The man gave a bitter laugh.
“Arm?” he said raising the stump. “That was the least of what I lost at Sheffield. You say they pillaged and that’s true enough, but first they raped and murdered. I was a fool to stay, but I was the constable of the town. It was my duty to stay. Over my protests, the burghers ordered me to open the gates. As soon as I did, those Flemish bastards cut me down with my sword still in its scabbard. I near bled to death I’m told. The surgeon took the arm but I have no memory of that. I took a fever and lay senseless for five days. So I did not see what they did to the town. When I finally managed to get to my house I found my wife…dead.”
Sir John punctuated his final word with a savage blow from his axe, splitting the log cleanly in two. When he looked up, Roland could see pain and fury in the man’s eyes. He recognized that pain and fury.
Was this how I looked, when my father’s death was fresh?
“My pardon, sir. I did not know.”
“None here do—save you, now.”
The man dragged another log into place and laid a first stroke into the wood.
“So, you joined the Invalids.”
“Aye. There was nothing left for me in Sheffield. No one wanted a one-armed constable and the place…I just could not stay there. I went to London. That’s where I heard the stories of men—damaged men like myself—who killed mercenaries. That was good enough for me.”
“But the mercenaries have sailed back to Flanders and Prince John is in exile.”
“Aye, but they’ll be back,” he said, pure venom in every word, “and I will be waiting.”
Roland did not reply at once. His own anger over the murder of his father had once burned this hot and his determination to one day avenge that crime had never waned. But time and the new happiness he’d found with Millicent had banked the fires—enough for him to have a life. In Sir John Blackthorne, he sensed a kindred spirit, if the man did not let his hatred consume him. Such a man could be dangerous and not just to his enemies. He needed to know what was at this knight’s core, beyond a thirst for revenge. He cleared his throat and Sir John looked up.
