The Quest (The Sons of Camelot Book 2)

by Kim Dragoner

  “Ganador is not an English name,” Alpina said after some time.

  “My father brought him from Spain as a weanling foal; he was a matched pair to the one that my father rode when he left for the Shetlands,” John replied. “The name means ‘victor’.”

  “He is a suitable mount for a knight and certainly beautiful with his shimmering silver coat, but I prefer my Blackbird,” she replied.

  John looked back over his shoulder and noted that Thomas and the two squires were keeping a steady pace behind them, but would be some time in catching up. He turned back and rode along beside Alpina without speaking. Mixed with the confusion of thoughts darting about inside his mind were the sounds of dawn in the surrounding fields and forests; among those sounds, the melodic song of the red-winged blackbird.

  The sleepless night that John had passed had been full of all sorts of thoughts about the young lady who rode at his side. In sharp contrast to the reality which had already played out that morning, his thoughts had been upon how he might woo her. The thin barrier between fantasy and reality was certainly broad in the various ways that either might be played out.

  “The Cairngorms are really not as savage and dangerous as you believe. They are majestic and beautiful,” Alpina said softly. She seemed to stir herself up after presenting that observation. “In fact, your perspective of things isn’t nearly as infallible as you would like to think that it is.”

  John, feeling the sting of yet another of her barbs, decided to take a step that was certainly on shaky ground. “Why does every phrase that you utter have a sting in its tail?”

  “You’ve felt a sting, have you?” she responded. Her tone was anything but sympathetic. “Perhaps you’re not used to being brought down to size.”

  “I’ve hurled no javelin in your direction, so why are you so quick to release yours in mine?”

  “Are you implying that it’s not you who cast the first stone?” she scoffed. “’Twas you, indeed, who started this feud.”

  “If it was me,” John replied, confused by her accusation, “then I am unaware of it.”

  “I believe that your exact words were these: ‘You are a bit fresh with your tongue for someone of your station.’” She lowered her voice to mock the tone with which the line was delivered.

  “You were serving drinks and tending to us at an inn,” he replied. A person’s status and station was certainly known by the vocation that they applied themselves to. He saw nothing wrong with his observation.

  “Do you like to be nourished and your thirsts sated?” she asked.

  “I do,” he responded.

  “Do you like to have a clean bed to sleep in away from the rats and the dirt of the street? And do you like having clean garments about your loins?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he answered.

  “These necessities keep you alive and keep you healthy, do they not?”

  “They do.”

  “And you reckon these things to have been given to you by the gracious hand of Providence, do you not?”

  “My thanksgiving is certainly raised to Providence.”

  “Then.” Her eyes penetrated through him. “Perhaps you ought not to have such a low opinion of those whose hands do the bidding of Providence.”

  John watched in speechless awe as she urged the mare forward once more. He was no longer interested in trying to outpace her.

  Chapter Six

  It had been a difficult journey from the Shetlands for Sir Jofrit of Leeds up until the time he arrived in Aviemore but the thought of his beautiful wife, Breniya and his handsome, capable son, John were all it took to keep him moving south toward Yorkshire.

  The last time he’d sent word of his progress had been at Inverness but instead of stopping to do so, he had ridden hard and only taken short breaks on the side of the road to eat and tend to his horses. So far, his Spanish stallion Guerrero had managed well under most of the burden of the journey but he had also taken one of the king’s mounts at each stop he had made to ensure he had an alternate to ride.

  He arrived in the square at Aviemore as the church bells were sounding for the evening vespers. The sun was still shining brightly but it was certainly well on its descent toward the horizon; it would be dark in less than two hours. His first stop would be at the royal stable yard where he would return the brown mare he had fostered in Inverness and select a new horse for the ride to Pitlochry. Then he would repeat the process, making stops in Perth, Stirling and then Glasgow.

  He would be glad to put the Pictland behind him at that point and move on without stopping to Gretna Green or Carlisle, depending on how both he and his horses held up on the road.

  Jofrit would need the strongest horse from the stables at Aviemore. The road he would take around the Cairngorms demanded strength and stamina rather than speed to carry the amount of rations, tools and gear he would need to survive the hilly and heavily forested area. To his delight, there was a cache of suitable animals to choose from and when the stable master took the mare’s reins from Jofrit, his first comment was that both the horses would need a day or two for some proper feeding.

  Jofrit smiled at the kind-faced man and watched as he went to fetch buckets of grain for the horses. The knight went about spreading fresh straw in the two stalls and removed and stored the saddles and bridles while a young boy brought buckets and filled the water troughs.

  “This will do the trick!” the stable master announced as he returned to the stall which Guerrero and the brown mare would share for the next few days. He emptied two buckets into the feed trough and began to mix the contents thoroughly with his hands.

  “What have you got there, good sir?” Jofrit asked curiously. The food was giving off a pungent aroma which the knight was not familiar with.

  “This be my own secret blend for richening the blood of any horse,” the man boasted. He looked around to make sure the stable boy wasn’t listening, then said softly to Jofrit. “Soybean and sunflower meal. These two need some extra nutrients to replenish all they’ve given and it will help get the Spaniard ready for the road ahead.”

  “Aye.”

  “It won’t make them colic and they’ll be as strong as bulls in a short time.” He let the knight out of the stall ahead of him and led him over to the other side of the stable. Pointing to four other horses in stalls there, he continued, “These four are in their prime and ready to serve the king’s men. Choose any that suits you and let the boy know which one you would like.”

  With that, the stable master turned and left. Such was the confidence the man had in work that Jofrit was left alone to appraise the animals and make his selection. After advising the stable boy of his choice, Jofrit asked for directions to the scribe’s offices.

  “You’ll want to take a right turn down the street outside the stables, then follow it over the bridge into the square,” the boy directed. “The scribe’s office is the fourth shop on the right but I can’t be sure what—or who—you’ll find there today.”

  The look of apprehension on the young boy’s face made Jofrit curious what had happened to the town scribe.

  “What’s your name?” Jofrit asked.

  “Malik, sir.”

  “Well, Malik. I’d say that there’s a story in this,” Jofrit said smiling and reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a copper coin and tossed it to the youth. “Tell it to me.”

  The boy put down his bucket, turning it over so he could sit on it. Jofrit took the cue; reached for a bucket for himself and did the same. Malik started to talk immediately.

  “About a week ago, a crowd of townspeople gathered outside the scribe’s office at noon and demanded that he come out and show himself. They accused him of making false accounts on their tenanted lots to the landowners and that they now owed more in rents and crop shares than they actually did. The sheriff was summoned and he in turn called in the four major landowners around these parts. Both sides made an account of what they felt was owed and the sheriff found that th
e scribe’s accounts were in accordance with the landowners to the letter.

  “The tenants claimed that he had been bribed to falsify the records and of course, both the landowners and the scribe denied it. The sheriff asked the crowd to disperse, promising them that he would investigate further.”

  “Was any of it true? What did the sheriff find out?”

  “Well, for the next four days, he visited each of the four landowners and spent and extensive amount of time at each estate. But the townspeople found out that he had been entertained lavishly at the estates and had returned to town drunk and well paid each of those days, so the next morning, both the scribe and the sheriff were hanged and placed in gibbets in the square. I think they’re both still there.”

  “Oh, my,” Jofrit said matter-of-factly.

  Malik nodded his agreement. He stood up and righted his bucket, then added, “They should have elected replacements by now but I’m not entirely sure of that.”

  Standing up, Sir Jofrit said, “Well then, thank you young Malik. I shall go into the square and see what I find.”

  “Good luck, sir.”

  Things in the countryside had certainly taken a very serious tone since the Battle of Camlann. The memories of the foul legions that had taken up arms against mankind were still fresh in the minds of the people. They remembered how men had stood side by side against the evil forces of Mordred, regardless of class, creed or station and they had come away from the battlefield with a renewed sense of brotherhood.

  For the first time since the Romans had seceded from England, Britons had a true sense of citizenship and pride and felt that they should support each other in all things and not be party to anything which cheated one so that it could benefit another. As a result, they had developed a rather low tolerance for unfair dealings from those who were higher up on the social ladder and elected representatives who were bribe takers and cheats.

  In the eyes of the people, the sheriff of Aviemore and the scribe had gotten their just desserts and with any luck, the landowners would take heed from the justice that was dealt and make things right.

  When Sir Jofrit arrived in the square, the gibbets had been taken down and the bodies of the two officials removed to the undertaker’s shop. The scribe’s office was open and a new man was already busy making the accounts right.

  “Good evening, sir,” the knight said as he stepped into the office.

  “Good evening, knight. How may I be of assistance?”

  “My name of Sir Jofrit of Leeds, a Knight of King Arthur’s Round Table. I have just been relieved of my post in the Shetlands and am presently on my way home to Yorkshire.”

  “Well, well. Congratulations, sir and thank you for your service defending our country in these perilous times.”,

  “No thanks are necessary, good citizen,” Jofrit replied as he took a seat at the man’s desk. The scribe closed the big account book he had been scribbling in and put it aside so Jofrit would know he had his full attention. “I would like to send a letter to my family to apprise them of my progress south and make a withdrawal on the king’s exchequer for my lodging and my supplies for the journey.”

  “Very well, how much will you be needing for your equipment?”

  “Thirty gold coins should be sufficient to take me to Glasgow. I believe that is where the next holding of the king’s accounts is?”

  “You are quite correct. I will arrange that for you immediately. In the meantime, Steven can take the dictation of your message home. We have a rider who can take it tomorrow; he leaves at dawn.”

  “Excellent!”

  When Jofrit left the scribe, he turned back through the square in search of an inn where he could have a meal and find a room to spend the next few days. As he crossed the flat, cobblestoned meeting place, an old woman approached him. She walked slowly using a cane for balance but she never took her eyes off him as she came closer.

  “You are one of the king’s men, aren’t you?” she asked when she was close enough.

  “Yes, my lady. I am. Sir Jofrit of Leeds at your service.”

  “Leeds, you say? Then aren’t you a long way from home?”

  “Indeed, I am. I am traveling back there presently.”

  “That is good. Your wife is missing you terribly and your son worries more about you than he does about your lands. Do you know how much he hates that wretched pasture called Otley?” Jofrit stared at the woman in disbelief his jaw dropped wide open as she spoke. “Yet he goes without quarrel because that is where the bread of all Yorkshire is baked daily… in the well-being of those herds he hates.”

  The old woman cackled. She took a seat on a stone bench and patted the space beside her so Jofrit would sit with her for a while.

  “How do you know these things?”

  “I am a gifted woman from a gifted tribe here in the Cairngorms. My people come from Auchavan. You probably have never heard of the place but what I’ve seen of the future says that soon Auchavan will mean much to Leeds and so will Leeds mean much to Auchavan.”

  “You are a seer?”

  “Of sorts,” she replied. “I did not mean to startle you, Sir Jofrit, but when I saw you walking across the square I thought my old eyes were playing tricks on me.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because, for eighteen moons I have seen visions of you, your wife and your son. I have seen visions of thing that will soon come to pass.”

  “What are these things? Will something happen to Breniya? Or, to John?”

  “Calm, sir. There is nothing to be afraid of but proceed around the Cairngorms as you have planned. Do so cautiously and whatever you think or see, do not enter the forest.”

  Believing that he had heard enough of an old woman’s rambling, Jofrit stood up from the bench and bowed courteously to her.

  “Thank you for your warning, my lady. I must find shelter for the night.”

  As he walked away from her, the old woman repeated her last words, “Be cautious, Sir Jofrit and do not enter the Cairngorms.”

  ***

  A truce, for all practical purposes, though it had never been formally declared, existed between John and Alpina from that point forward. John recalled clearly that she had begun her sharpness well before he had mentioned anything about her station. He decided that there was no point in pursuing any explanation to the strange combination of cool disregard and intense interest that seemed to be an integral part of the character of Alpina of Auchavan.

  When Thomas and the two squires had overtaken him, Alpina had lengthened the distance in front of John to a steady pace which was out of earshot.

  “You’ve a dour look to you, Sir John of Leeds,” Thomas commented with a smile as he joined up with John. “I’m going to assume that you are not pleased with our traveling companion?”

  “I’m neither pleased nor displeased,” John replied.

  “Well, now, there’s a straight answer when one is asked for,” Thomas chuckled.

  John didn’t respond. When he’d left Leeds, he’d ridden out confident and focused on the goal in front of him. Though there had been, and still was, some anxiety about finding his father alive and delivering him out of whatever trouble he might have gotten into, John couldn’t help but feel like he was being sidetracked. The confusion in his mind concerning Alpina certainly hadn’t helped matters.

  “Look,” Thomas said, breaking into his thoughts. “If she really does know the Cairngorms, then she’s probably going to be a valuable person to have along. Besides, she’s a rather comely maiden, don’t you think?”

  “It’s the stinger in her tongue that goes along with that scarlet mane that…” John wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence. What did the stinger in her tongue do to him? She was certainly well-spoken, though in a rather crude fashion, for one who served tankards of mead and tended to an inn. She wasn’t of any of the houses of England that he knew and he knew of no great estates to the north of the Pict’s Wall. Where had she been educated an
d by whom? The mystery baffled him.

  “She seems to have taken a liking to you, though?” Thomas pointed out. “After all, she did ask to ride along with us.”

  “I don’t remember her asking, actually.”

  “No,” Thomas replied. “You’re right on that point, but she’s here and I believe that it is to be of service to you in some way.”

  “What sort of service?”

  “It is an enigma yet to be solved, but an attractive and delightful one,” Thomas replied. “That quest might prove to be greater gain than the finding of your father when all is said and done.”

  The rest of the ride to Carlisle and the inn that awaited them there was a silent one. Not only were the pair of knights, the squires and their companion engulfed by the beauty of their surroundings, the steady rhythm of their horses’ hooves and the melody of the countless blackbirds that attended to them, but each seemed to be lost in deeper, private thoughts as well.

  At the inn, Alpina dismounted and led her horse to the stables along with the squires.

  “I can have Chatburn tend to her if you like,” he called after her.

  “I’m not so frail that I cannot tend to my own mare,” she responded.

  The hurled insult, though subtle, was not lost on John. “That is the sort of thing that I’m speaking of,” he commented to Thomas.

  “It is baffling, the mind and heart of a maiden, huh?” Thomas nudged him and grinned broadly. “Enigma.”

  John only shook his head and followed Thomas into the inn.

  The evening in Carlisle had passed peacefully for all except John, who simply could not get his mind around the puzzle who was Alpina of Auchavan. However, when dawn broke, they were already mounted and had covered the short distance to the Pict’s Wall.

  It had been quite a surprise to find that Alpina insisted on riding beside him as they rode out of the small village and started north. She spoke little, but when she did, her tone was much more civil and she seemed to be in a much more amiable state of mind.