by Peter Telep
“Messengers from Lord Devin’s castle bring news of a tournament,” the king said.
A cheer lifted in the room.
“Devin offers the champion his daughter Marigween’s hand in marriage, and the rank of knight banneret in his army. The pay, I might add, is excellent.”
Chuckles erupted from many of the fighting men seated at the table next to Arthur. Christopher didn’t quite understand the joke, but suspected it had some thing to do with the fact that just becoming a banner knight, second only to a lord, was such an accomplishment in and of itself, that being paid for the honor of carrying one’s own banner into battle was only a mild concern.
“As the day for our attack on the invaders draws near, I trust it will be good for all of us to ease the tension at a tourney.”
Innis stood, a lone boy among the seated. “My liege, if I may?”
Christopher was astonished by what he witnessed; how could Innis be that bold?
Arthur squinted to see Innis, as all eyes in the room found the varlet. “What is it, boy?”
“Now, when battle torches are already lit, is it not foolish to twiddle?”
A hush blanketed the room. Christopher swal lowed, feeling nervous for Innis, but at the same time hoping Arthur would put the boy in his place once and for all.
One of the sentries who stood guard at the main entrance to the hall marched from his post and up one of the side aisles of the room, pivoted, and stood before Innis. The sentry gestured with his head for Innis to leave.
Arthur chuckled, a laugh which put the hearts of everyone at rest. “No, guard,” the king said, “let the boy stay. He might be bold but he does have a point. Why should we play when battle is upon us? Anyone?”
Uryens stood. “As you said, my sovereign, to ease our fears.”
“Exactly,” Arthur said. “Every man has his rituals before combat. Let this tournament be an unwinding for every fighter. Do you understand now, boy?”
“Yes, my liege,” Innis said. “I will listen more care fully in the future.” The varlet took his seat.
It wasn’t the scolding Christopher had hoped for, but it was nice to see Innis’s eyes glass up and his color fade in the face of the king.
Arthur sat down to enjoy his meal as the sweet music of the minstrels rose above the clanking of plates and chinking of tankards.
Brenna and Innis exchanged a smile, and for the first time Christopher saw her affection for the varlet. And suddenly he felt that the entire dinner had been a mistake, that even coming to Uryens’s castle might have been wrong. She had obviously moved on with her life and why should he put himself through any more torture? It hurt to be with her. He wanted her back, but it didn’t feel right. At least not at the moment. Maybe it would never be. Perhaps her eyes only teased him.
Christopher stood. “If you’ll excuse me?”
Brenna looked surprised. He quickly turned and left the table. He strode toward the hallway that would take him to the stairwell and out of the great hall. As he walked, he felt his face stiffen and he rubbed his eyes. His fingertips became wet with tears.
9
The inn, constructed of irregular stone courses, stood on a long road that stretched into a field swept in darkness. I t was the largest and only two-story building in this, one of the many small villages that circled and supported Uryens’s castle.
Torches burned within the inn and illuminated the unglazed windows, adding to the light already drop ing from the waxing gibbous moon. A shingle hung over the warped front door spelling out simply: inn. On the opposite side of the road, Christopher noted six merchants’ carts parked in a line, two covered with thick tarpaulin; their owners surely enjoyed a night’s rest inside.
As Christopher dismounted, a boy half his age came quickly from the front door and took the reins of his rounsey. Before he had a chance to thank the young servant, the boy escorted his horse around the side of the inn, toward a stable.
He had ridden this far, and even lf Doyle was not inside, he might as well spend the night. As he pushed in the front door, he was immediately taken by the smell of something wonderful.
Glazed, roasted duck and steaming carrots were being forked off a large tray to a score of chatting guests at a single, long trestle table by two heavyset women, the red-faced keepers of the inn. One of the women turned her attention to Christopher, then looked to the merchants and knights-errant at the table. “Slide over,” she ordered in her baritone voice. “Make room for the boy.”
“I have eaten already, madam. But thank you.”
“The price of a night’s stay includes a meal,” she said.
“I’m looking for a friend.”
“Ah … I’ll take you.” She set her fork down and gestured to the other woman who was serving the carrots to finish dishing out the meat.
Christopher followed the woman through a narrow hall that turned right and ended in a staircase. The innkeeper’s heavy, sandaled feet ka-chunked down on the coughing timbers. Christopher imagined the steps giving way and the woman plunging with a bloodcurdling scream into the cellar. He kept a few steps back in case that happened.
They stepped into another narrow hall. On each side of them were the doors of the guest rooms, and the woman led Christopher to the last door on the left. “I’m sure he’s the one you’re looking for. Now, one to a room. If you are staying, it will be five deniers for the night.”
Christopher untied Fergus’s purse from his belt and emptied into his palm the last six deniers Orvin had given him. He kept one and handed the rest to the woman.
“Your room is right next door,” she said. “And if
you change your mind about eating, I’ll have a plate warm for you.”
“Thank you,” Christopher said in earnest as the woman left.
Tentatively, Christopher knocked, then pushed the door in; it was unlatched, and furtively, he peered behind it.
Doyle lay supine in a wide trestle bed, an arm slung over his eyes. The door creaked a little as Christopher pushed it fully open and came into the room.
Doyle lowered his. arm and sat up, blinking to focus. When he saw it was Christopher, he fell back onto his goose-feather pillow and yawned.
“You never told me you were coming here,” Christopher said, realizing his voice bannered more irritation than he actually felt.
“Now you’re going to play father like he wants to?” Christopher moved to the edge of the bed and sat down. A small candlestand stood near the bed, and since Doyle was not looking at him, his eyes closed,
Christopher gazed at the hypnotic flame of the stick as he spoke. “Tell me what happened.”
“I listen to you. And you get me to believe I need them. You make me think how wonderful it is to have a family. But it is not I who will have a family, it is they who will have a son-own a son. Control a son. They do not approve of anything I do. My father wants me to become a steward like himself. It’s horri ble. I need to get back out and fight!”
Christopher knew exactly what it felt like to be dominated by a father, to be forced into a future that you had no desire for, to be expurgated of your “soiled goals” of becoming a squire, or in Doyle’s case, a master archer. It was odd, though, that Baines had not fallen under the same pressure. He had been allowed to become Hasdale’s squire, which would certainly lead him to knighthood. But then Christopher considered Baines’s death, the effect it must have had on Lord Heath and Lady Neala. They didn’t want to lose Doyle, a son already lost and found. They, like so many parents, wanted to protect their boys from the swords of the battlefield. They had given Baines his chance-and had lost him … .
But how to ease Doyle’s pain?
“I’m an expert saddler,” Christopher told his friend, “not because I want to be. But it’s good I know the trade. It’s helpful. You don’t have to be a steward, but maybe you could learn more about your father’s duties. That could be of value.”
“I don’t see how. All he does is inspect eve
rything, make lists and reports. The job bores me!”
“Tell him you don’t want to be a steward, but you would like to learn about the duties of one. Give him that much time. He only fears for you. He wants to protect you. He and your mother have already lost one son.”
“Yes,” Doyle said sardonically, “they don’t have much luck with sons, do they? Coming, going, dying … “
“I don’t want to say this, but I think you know it’s true. No matter what happens, they will always be your parents. You’ll never escape that, and if you never see them again, deep down there would always be pain. I’ll never see mine again. It hurts.”
“I’ll never see Weylin again. Your bastard friends stuck a sword in his neck.”
Christopher rubbed a frustrated hand over his face. “Weylin may have been your father, but he wasn’t your blood.”
“And there is no way out of bad blood?”
“I don’t believe there is. But you’re mistaken in thinking it’s bad blood. It’s the blood that gave you life. It’s noble blood.”
“It’s the blood that cursed me.”
“I don’t know how to make you feel better,” Christopher said. He had grown more and more dis consolate during the conversation, and was now ready to lay down his mental arms.
“Let me sleep,” Doyle said.
Christopher rose from the bed. “I’m next door. We’ll ride home at dawn. Maybe coming here was wrong, I don’t know.” He moved toward the door and exited soundlessly.
He found his own trestle bed much softer than it looked. Cradling his head in his palms, Christopher watched shadows cast by his candle fluctuate ever so slightly off the timbers of the ceiling. Downstairs, he heard the moans and cries of the ale-laden merchants who were engaged in a game of dice.
He wished now he had never left Shores to ride with Hasdale. Then his relationship with Brenna might have continued. The attack on Garrett’s men affected everyone he knew in one way or another. Did Hasdale realize how many lives he had dis rupted? He had paid the price for it, but his terrible judgment would linger on for many, many more moons. Orvin had changed. Brenna had changed. Doyle had changed. Doyle wanted to get back on the battlefield, and this time not run. His obsession with proving himself could get him killed.
Christopher realized his old life was beyond repair. He would have to go back to Shores and begin again, like every other villager. He would discard the wood of his past and lay new walls of stone. At the same time, he would focus himself, not be baited by lost desires. If he wanted to be a true servant, he needed to find truth, and truth was not at Uryens’s castle.
10
M allory and four of his men hid behind a hedge on the outskirts of the dense wood that stood to their rear. To their right, a young cornfield, nearly waist high, concealed a tilled ground, and the wind carried its muddy scent to the rogue party’s nostrils. To their left, three farmers’ huts stood on the edge of a lonely, fallow field cornered by marshy grasslands obscuring the Cam. A path was beaten through the planted and unplanted fields, a course now taken by Duke Edward of Somerset and his entourage of two bachelor knights and three squires. As he watched them through claws of leaf and branch, trotting inno cently toward Shores, Mallory’s pulse quickened.
Ambush. The very word evoked chills which flared along his spine; every hair on each of his arms stood on end. He’d beaten many an unsuspecting traveler to his knees, nobleman and merchant, serf and free man alike, but this, this was the first step up a spiral ing staircase to the solar in the castle of Shores-a solar which would ultimately be his.
Following his escape from Queen’s Camel Abbey, Mallory had done a lot of thinking. And he had dis covered that giving up his estate and his lands to finance an army had been great error. Twelve men left, and they truly were not enough to be effective. His dream of running a series of whirlwind night strikes against the Saxons had dwindled. The men had run off as the money had run out. And even these last dozen were discontent. He should have retained his estate and lands, financed an indepen dent army that operated outside Arthur’s rule. But could that have happened? He was not sure. The past was a ball of confusion now, but the future seemed clear. His plan was simple, and he would not back out of it.
Mallory rubbed his thumb over his unsheathed spatha, tightening his grip on the smooth, brass hilt. The duke rode closer.
Dallas, crouched next to Mallory, edged forward, startling a rook, which flitted from its perch in the hedge.
Mallory put his free hand on his best man’s shoul der. “Easy. Let him come closer.”
Dallas, eager for the confrontation, nodded im patiently.
While Mallory and Dallas were armed with spathas, the rest of the rogues bore halberds. A quick unhorsing of the duke and his men would render them vulnerable. The bachelor knights and squires would be killed at leisure, and Mallory felt a whisper of guilt at the back of his ears as he stared into the too-young eyes of the approaching squires. He shook the feeling away. Unlucky boys.
The duke’s party passed the first farmer’s toft. Mallory curled his thumb and index finger, touched them together into an 0, then put them to his opened mouth; a piercing note came from his lips, and the duke’s party braked their steeds.
Rear doors on the second and third farmers’ huts banged open and two groups of four of Mallory’s men rushed from their hiding places onto the path. They jabbed their halberds forward and charged toward the duke and his men.
Mallory and Dallas pushed through the hedge in unison, and, having donned thin gambesons and light bascinets, were able to jog the fifty yards toward their prey.
Fergus, who had hidden in one of the huts, hooked his halberd around a bachelor knight’s neck; the hal berd klanged off the knight’s metal gorget. Had it not been for the knight’s neck protection, Fergus might have killed the man with the force of his pull. The brass-plated bachelor clutched the halberd with gauntleted hands, but the attempt to pull the weapon away was futile. Fergus dragged the man off his courser and he crashed loudly to the groumd. As the man rolled over, Fergus dug the swordlike tip of his pole arm into the bachelor knight’s exposed fore head. The knight let out a horrible cry that became a gurgle as he drowned in his own blood.
Two of Mallory’s men worked on the other bache lor knight, who was already on the ground but had managed to unsheath his spatha. The knight hacked away at the advancing halberds, but unsuspectingly backed into Dallas. Before the bachelor knight had a chance to tum around, Dallas yanked off the man’s bascinet and made a downward strike with his spatha. Dallas had cracked open a skull before, and judged the force of this blow correctly; the entire width of his blade passed into the knight’s head. He had trouble removing his blade from the crumpling man’s skull, but on the second pull it came.
One of the three squires kicked his horse and attempted to flee. Four of Mallory’s men teamed up on the boy, using their halberds to catch each of the legs of the squire’s ride; the horse went down hard, throwing the squire into unconsciousness. The boy never felt the halberds impale his chest.
The other two squires were braver, and gave Mallory’s men a tougher time. Smaller and more agile than the bachelor knights, and not constrained by heavy armor, the boys ducked under the halberd strikes and wheeled their horses around as they sringed! out their spathas. They fought their attackers with hard, determined blows, but the numbers were against them. While the squires were busy fighting off attackers in front of them, two of Mallory’s men slid up behind the squires, hooked them off their steeds, and ran the boys through. The faint cries of the squires were lost in the clattering of hooves and gleeful screams of Mallory’s men.
Gradually, all fell silent. The duke, still mounted, was alone and a ring of rogues now locked around him. Mallory, the jewel of the ring, stood in front of Edward, looking into the man’s enraged eyes.
“Kill him, lord!” someone shouted.
Mallory lowered his gaze to the ground, saw the duke’s bann
er lying near one of the dead squires. He stepped away from the group and picked up the lance which held the banner. He let the gold flag hang down so that he could see the device: a red phoenix. the proud arms of the duke. He resumed his position in front of Edward. “Dismount,” he ordered.
Edward remained in his saddle, his face as hard and cold as his plating.
“DISMOUNT, I SAID!”
Fergus and Dallas pulled Edward’s sabatoned feet from his stirrups, then grabbed the duke’s arms and dragged him backward, out of the saddle and over the rump of the horse. Pained by the awkward dis mount, the steed neighed, then bolted through the ring of men. Edward jerked his arms free of Fergus and Dallas, then marched up to Mallory. “Arthur was right about you.”
A trace of a grin flicked over Mallory’s lips as he shifted his gaze from Edward to the banner in his own hands. “There will be no pyre for you, Edward. No ash for you to rise from.” With that, Mallory nod ded a silent order to Dallas.
Held by two other men, Edward was stripped by Dallas of his armor, then his shirt and breeches. Finally, he stood naked before the rogues. “You cannot humili ate me, Mallory. I’ll die cursing you-not fearing you.”
Mallory sighed. “I don’t really care how you die as long as you do.” Dallas moved in front of Edward and handed Mallory the duke’s great helm. The large tournament helmet which Edward had stowed in a riding bag slid easily over Mallory’s head. “I think it fits,” he said. His men erupted in laughter.
“You’re going to the tournament,” Edward said, the horror darkening his face as it all, Mallory guessed, flowered in his mind.
“I’m glad you see better than you fight,” Mallory said as he removed the helm. “The duke of Somerset will hold the lists for many days.”
“If you’re going to don my armor, God, spare me that sight. Kill me and let it be over with.”
“You’re going to marry Marigween,” Mallory informed him through a broad, though sardonic smile. “I’ll carry your banner with pride.” Mallory held up the flag and waved it.
