Ironfoot

by Dave Duncan

  Smoke was rising from Guy’s cottage, so I postponed my confession and headed straight to the students’ schoolroom, which was just a single-roomed cabin like most of the others, furnished with three benches, a table, one stool, a chest to hold slates and chalks, and pegs for cloaks. At the moment it was cold and dark, but student heat would soon warm it, and I was permitted to light candles on days when the shutters could not be opened. I was anxious to write out a version of Hwæt segst incorporating my corrections.

  All but two varlets and two squires already knew their letters and would be off elsewhere, studying Latin under Sage Alain. I hoped that Squire William would play truant again. The varlets would cause me no trouble, being Saxons like myself, but squires, dave duncan not just William, never took kindly to having a Saxon in authority over them.

  I had barely lit the last candle when in rushed Varlet Eadig, known as Earwig. He was the newest and youngest varlet, still boyishly shrill and shoulder-high, with hair almost as blond as my own, millions of freckles, and a huge eagerness to learn. He bowed as low to me as he would to one of the sages, and wished me God’s favor that day. I responded in kind, thinking that God’s favor ought not to include murder, but might.

  Eadig draped his cloak on a peg and grabbed a place on the front bench, so that nobody taller could sit in front of him.

  “Why are you so old?” he demanded.

  “Because it’s twenty years since I was born.”

  He considered that for a moment, nodding to concede that it made sense. “But you know everything, so why aren’t you an adept or a sage?”

  “I don’t know everything and won’t if I live to be a hundred.”

  “But why do you have to chop firewood and look after the horses?”

  This was no secret. “Because my father couldn’t afford to pay for me to study here. Sage Guy discovered that I had a knack for horses and was eager to learn, so he arranged for me to be a servitor. That means I earn my lessons by looking after the academy’s herd.” And the people of Helmdon also, I thought with amusement, not to mention teaching trivial classes like that one. “Where are you from?”

  “Bicester.”

  “That’s a long way. Your father must have wanted to be well rid of you!”

  “Naw. He’s a freeholder, and wants me to know how to keep the accounts when I grow up.”

  “Then why not pay the priest to teach you?”

  Eadig grinned. “Because he’d sent my brother to the abbey to learn there, and the monks talked him into staying on and becoming one of them. He didn’t want that happening to me.”

  In my opinion, Eadig’s father had been worrying needlessly, but he might have outsmarted himself. While Eadig did not strike me as promising religious material, given time his sharp wits might make him an excellent sage.

  Then I heard the bell ring and had to abandon my hopes of writing out the incantation. As voices sounded outside, I handed Eadig a slate and a piece of chalk. No one below the rank of adept ever wrote on expensive parchment. The rest of us used slate or tablets of lime wood that could be sanded clean again.

  “Let’s get started,” I said. “The last letter you learned was m. The next one is n. Like m but with only two legs, not three, remember? So you write as many words as you can think of with that sound in them.” He suggested a few, automatically switching to French. Among ourselves, we Saxons naturally spoke in the old tongue, but almost nothing had been written in it for ninety-eight years.

  The door flew open with a crash and Squires Lawrence Debrett and William Legier swaggered into the room. Trouble had arrived.

  The gap between Saxons and Normans was wider then than it is now. The king and most of the barons spoke only French, and it was rare to meet a Saxon above the level of farmhand. Obviously, therefore, Saxons were incapable of doing anything better, yes? Even sages were not immune to this illogical bias.

  Lawrence began to unlace his cloak, saw that William was not going to remove his, and stopped. William stalked over to the front bench and deliberately cuffed Eadig’s ear.

  “Stand when your betters enter the room, worm.”

  Eadig jumped up, shooting worried glances at me.

  “That’s my seat. You sit there, trash!” said William, pointing to the second bench, right behind.

  Eadig scrambled out of the way.

  I braced for the battle. “Close the door, please, William.”

  “There’s a terrible stink of horse dung in here today, Lawrence.”

  Lawrence grinned. He was a decent enough boy—not much older than Eadig, smooth-faced, still speaking in a treble register, and very nearly literate enough to move on to Latin and other higher studies. Unfortunately, he was completely bewitched by his hero, William. The door remained open, admitting rain.

  “William, I asked you to shut the door.”

  “I think I hear a dog barking. Can you hear a dog barking, Lawrence?”

  Lawrence smirked and said nothing.

  I was rescued—that time—by the arrival of my last pupil, varlet Ulf son of Magnus, a slender, quiet lad, who bowed to me and closed the door unasked. Teaching four pupils at four different skill levels simultaneously was never easy; when one of them was intent on making it impossible, the results of the struggle could not be in doubt.

  They were all better dressed than I. Not that their basic wardrobe was that different—they did not flaunt their wealth like the peacocks you see around court these days; Helmdon was a rustic backwater, after all. But the quality and condition of their garments put mine to shame. They all owned hooded leather cloaks to keep out the rain; their hems hung lower, and there were no holes in their leggings.

  I handed Ulf a slate and chalk and told him to write a letter to someone at home, telling them how to travel to Helmdon. Then the two squires . . .

  “William, Lawrence, write out the Lord’s Prayer, if you please.”

  William displayed a goofy expression. “Oh, I can’t write, servitor. I get all mixed up with those b’s and d’s and p’s and q’s. You have to teach me.”

  “You wrote a very fair hand when you first came here.”

  “Must be the bad instruction, servitor. Driven it all out of my head, see? All I can do now is draw pictures.”

  “Then draw the Paternoster in pictures. But be careful you do not commit blasphemy, or the dean will have to report you to the bishop.”

  His eyes narrowed at this threat: bishop takes knight. “I won’t even try, boy. It must be blasphemy to use the Lord’s Prayer as a teaching model. I’ll complain to the dean.”

  I had long ago concluded that William Legier was in some ways utterly crazy. To rouse him to homicidal fury when the runes had warned me of murder and he was wearing a sword could be suicidal folly. That left me only one more die to roll.

  “Then go away. I won’t attempt to teach you if you refuse to learn.”

  He showed his teeth in a leer. “Make me.”

  “I won’t even try. Class canceled! Eadig, please extinguish the candles. You may all leave.” I limped over to the pegs, donned my cloak, collected my staff, and left. Perhaps my example would rouse the sages to do the same. If teaching ground to a halt, the dean would be forced to expel William, no matter what the cost.

  chapter 5

  obviously I must report what I had just done to the faculty, and the way to do that was to tell my tutor. So now I had two confessions to make; my sins were piling up. I plodded along the boardwalk to Guy’s cottage. The rain was showing signs of letting up.

  Every door of every sanctum in the academy bore a pentacle symbol as a warning that it was warded. In principle these warnings might be backed up by very terrible curses, but in Helmdon they never were, because we all trusted one another, and because someone might trespass by accident—a child, say, or an adult on a dark night. Guy’s ward, I knew, merely provoked a violent attack of hiccups. I knocked.

  I heard him shout for me to enter. Had I not known the password, I would have knocke
d again and he would have come to open the door for his visitor. Instead I just recited the necessary four words and lifted the latch. He was combing his hair and he was barefoot.

  I blinked as the smoky, steamy air stung my eyes. The hearth in the center of the room both crackled and hissed, as rain came in the smoke hole faster than smoke could escape. The stuffy warmth perversely made me shiver after the damp cold outside.

  I knew the cramped little place very well. I had spent hundreds of hours at the table there, toiling over herbals and grimoires under the sage’s stern eye, scribbling notes as his lectures droned on, or standing at the bench grinding powders in a mortar. I had filled and labeled most of the jars and vials on the shelves. I had helped him chant healing spells over patients lying on the examination couch, which he had obviously been using as a bed until a few minutes ago.

  Guy Delany was an esquire and a keen sportsman, commonly invited to hunt with the local gentry. Although he was of an age with the bookish Sage Rolf, he had kept his youthful energy. That he owned his own horse had been reason enough for the dean to put him in charge of the stables; he was also my tutor, which saved me from receiving conflicting orders from two masters. Guy enjoyed teaching, and two of the squires presently enrolled in the academy were also his pupils. No doubt he earned good money from their families, but he never neglected the Saxon servitor who cared for the horses. After six years the two of us had become close.

  Bowing, I said, “God’s blessing on you, master.” I removed my cloak carefully, trying not to spill too much water on the floor.

  “And on you, Durwin.” His tone startled me, so I forced my eyes to focus. His complexion was always ruddy, which is a sign of a choleric disposition of course, but I had only rarely seen him lose his temper. Now his face was much redder than usual; his neck seemed shorter, his shoulders bulkier.

  I glanced quickly at the old tongue manuscript chest, but the lid was closed, as I had left it. He must have noticed my guilty reaction, but somehow he had already known that I had betrayed his trust. I had no idea how. What a fool I had been, expecting to deceive a sage!

  He was frowning. “Aren’t you supposed to be teaching the chicks?”

  I explained about the intolerable William and my reaction.

  Guy’s frown became a furious show of teeth. “God’s mercy! One day I will smite that lunatic with the curse of Abélard, I swear!”

  I had never heard of the curse of Abélard, and had no idea why that learned and saintly theologian should have been dabbling in such evil enchantments. I learned much later that the name was a cruel reference to the operation often inflicted on male calves and colts with a sharp knife. The curse might not have literally sterilized William, but it would have turned him into a gentle, biddable softy. Such maledictions require many voices; they are black magic, which was neither taught nor performed in Helmdon.

  “Forget William for now,” Guy growled.

  Why? Why not just boot his backside out the gate and send him home? That was what was done to any other noncompliant student. I had seen it happen twice in my years there. But I must not pry into what were obviously faculty secrets.

  And my mentor was waiting for me to continue. “Let’s discuss your failings instead,” he said.

  I opened my satchel and produced the futhorc tiles.

  His bushy eyebrows rose slightly, suggesting that he hadn’t known the specifics of my transgression, just that I had done something wrong. He had not, as I had supposed, gone looking for the tiles and discovered their absence. He strode forward, snatched the bag from my hand, tipped the contents out on the table, and began to count them.

  “I never took them out of the bag, master,” I said, as meekly as I could. “They’re all there.”

  Satisfied that they were, he turned to glare at me again. He held out a hand. “The scrolls!”

  “No, just the tiles, master. I didn’t take any scrolls. I memorized what I needed.”

  “Then you weren’t using candles in the barn?”

  “No, master.”

  “So you were chanting in the dark?” Apparently that was worse.

  “Um, yes, master.”

  “Idiot! I ought to assay you now for demonic possession. I’ve told you and told you: never, ever, experiment after dark! A tried-and-true, benevolent healing spell would be safe enough, but anything you are not certain of, or that may be in the least bit ethically questionable, should only be attempted in broad daylight. Never a summoning, of any sort, for instance.”

  “Master . . . it worked!”

  “What worked?”

  “The Hwæt segst. It prophesied for me!”

  “Don’t try to lie your way out of this!” Guy roared, clenching his fists. “I dragged you out of a ditch, you bumpkinly Saxon ingrate. For six years I have taught you, nurtured you, promoted your cause to the faculty, and you reward me with rank mutiny? Great Heaven, how stupid can a lummox be? Chanting in the dark!”

  I was aghast, dismayed. I had nothing to say but I was certain he had never warned me of this before. Looking back, I suspect that he knew he had not given me that warning and was angrier at himself than at me.

  He took a couple of very deep breaths, then said, “Get out of here. Now! Before I throw you out, you worthless Saxon cripple. Out!”

  I stumbled out into the rain. Only then did I put my cloak on again.

  Now what? I must just hope that Guy’s rage would fade and he would forgive me. The alternative did not bear thinking about.

  Having free time was a heady surprise. I was able to spare some of it to comfort Widow Edith’s dying son, dosing him with herbs that would do him no harm and might ease his pain, although nothing could do much good for a four-year-old who looked like a two-year-old and coughed up blood. I had chanted the most powerful single-voice healing spells I knew for him, but I had felt no acceptance and knew that my appeal had been rejected. Even when I had called the academy’s best healer, Guy, to help, our joint appeals had been rejected.

  Edith knew, of course. As she was bidding me farewell at the door, she whispered, “How long, Adept?”

  I faked what I hoped looked like a smile. “If he can make it through until spring, summer sunshine will help.”

  She was not deceived. Her boy would not see Christmas. “Should I warn the others?”

  “I think you must discuss that with Father Osric, mistress, not me.” Osric, alas, was a barely literate farmhand, son of the previous priest, who mouthed his Latin by rote and was also a notorious gossip. While not as bad as some rural priests, he was not far below average, either.

  The soaked, miserable horses were eager to come to the treats I offered, knowing that rubdowns and oats would follow. I took them back to the barn and gave them the best rubdowns they had enjoyed in days. I found a scrap of writing tablet and wrote notes on the corrections I had made to the futhorc enchantment. Then it was time to go back to the academy for the main meal of the day. No one had tried to murder me yet—although I suspected Guy had come close. After all he had done for me over the years, I felt sick at having given him cause to berate me.

  The rain had faded to a drizzle.

  The refectory cottage was divided into two rooms, each with its own entrance. When Widow Edith and a couple of helpers from the village brought in the food, they kept the outer doors bolted until they had laid it out. Starving youngsters clustered outside in the rain like drooling puppies, while their elders had the patience to wait elsewhere.

  Even when the doors were opened, the varlets were both expected and wise to let the squires enter the building first. We all ate together, though, packed onto two benches flanking a single table, so that every meal began with a stampede and free-for-all, where the longest, strongest arms grabbed the largest shares. The sages and adepts ate in the other room, and so quietly that we could never make out what was being said, or even hear voices raised in disagreement.

  For once I arrived while the hungry horde was still gathered outside. Willia
m was holding court, clearly under the impression that he had scored a victory by forcing me to cancel a class. The other seven squires were not disagreeing, but that was probably more out of caution than conviction. The others had all been at the academy longer, and some must have had the wits to question his logic. The Saxon varlets were saying nothing.

  “Here it is!” William announced. “Ironfoot itself! The crippled Saxon turd.”

  Everyone waited to hear my reply. The runes had predicted murder, but that was unlikely to happen in broad daylight and the presence of witnesses. I would have preferred to ignore him as I usually did, but this morning I had responded to his hostility in a very defeatist way. Now I could not see how this stupidity could end without a genuine fight.

  “If you would rather fight than learn, Squire Legier, why don’t you go off and do so, preferably a long way away from us?”

  His eyes gleamed at the challenge. “What are you implying, scum?”

  “Nothing that everyone else isn’t wondering.” Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a couple of sages approaching. They had observed the confrontation. Even so, William might have let the squabble die, for he could gain nothing more by prolonging it and he was not stupid, but his crony Lawrence was. Lawrence laughed, which was intolerable.

  William barked, “I will make you eat dung, Saxon! Handfuls of it.”

  “You and your army? Or just you against me?”

  “Just me, and you’re going to get the beating of your life, as you well—”

  “Sword against quarterstaff, or fists and feet?”

  William glanced down at the metal platform attached to the sole of my boot. Sensing his manhood being questioned, he snapped, “You choose!”

  “No, you choose. You’re the one picking the fight. And you’ll have to hit first.”

  “Tonight, right after—”

  The door opened, which was the signal to start the stampede. William, as the largest and strongest squire, led the way, and the conversation was abandoned.