by Alex Myers
Giles crammed the rest of the sausage in his mouth, as if worried Hob might lay claim to it. He chewed a couple of times and swallowed. ‘And when I next win, I will pay you handsomely.’
‘You always say that. And you never win.’
Giles stretched his long arms over his head; Silence could hear his joints pop and crackle. ‘Ah. But we have taken a bet together, have we not?’ He reached over and plopped a hand on Silence’s shoulder. ‘Our former page. What did you say your name was?’
‘Maurice.’
‘Maurice. We’ll train him and he’ll earn us coin. At least until his voice breaks.’
‘With your luck, he’ll be a baritone within a month,’ Hob groused.
Giles gave Silence’s shoulder a hard squeeze, digging his fingers in. ‘Maybe we’d better make him a eunuch.’
Silence stood up, shoving the bench back and spilling Giles to the ground. His hand went to his basilard.
‘A joke, a joke,’ Giles said, picking himself up. He eyed Silence’s stance. ‘Do you know how to use that, then?’
‘Of course. I was trained for it at Tintagel.’
‘Then you’ll be our apprentice and our guard. Hob will keep our purse. I will be the diplomat.’ He gave a deep bow, flourishing his arms and waving his hands theatrically. ‘For I know how to speak to nobles.’
‘Especially the ladies,’ Hob murmured.
‘And there must be trust among us. Keep your needle sheathed except against our foes.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
So began Silence’s life as a minstrel. The coast of Brittany was not so different from the coast of Cornwall with its rocky outcropping and ever-battering surf. They worked their way inland and south over the course of the summer, playing for a night or two at manor houses, now and then at an inn, and occasionally, much to Hob’s dismay, they’d sing in the open air at a market, hoping for offerings from passers-by or an invitation to play elsewhere. But these days often ended with them hungry and sleeping in a haystack and then a day of bitter bickering between Hob and Giles, Silence hanging back to avoid incurring their wrath.
He learned the lute – though Hob and Giles agreed on few things, they were in concurrence that he ought not attempt the harp just yet – and spent what time he could practising the techniques of strumming and plucking. As they walked from one place to the next Hob would sing songs and Silence would sing them back. This kept their pace rather slow, as Hob got winded easily, though it was Silence who carried most of their baggage.
The fields of Brittany ripened around them, such acres of barley as Silence had never seen. It was like walking through an amber sea; when a breeze touched down, the stalks would whisper and shake. For Silence, these days felt magical. He could move through the world with no weight (well, the weight of two harps, but what was that compared to the weight of being an earl’s son?) and with much freedom. They might head north, they might turn east. They might stay for a week at a lord’s hall and they might sleep in a kennel. All of this delighted him in comparison to the circumscribed world of Ringmar or Tintagel. Giles, though, cursed his way through most days. The hay of stables and kennels made him sneeze. The yellow flowers that grew on the edge of the track made his eyes water. He had packed away his gaudy peacock coat and hat (Silence carried those as well) and travelled in a stained and dusty tunic, pausing every ten steps to empty his nose. It was not glamorous, this mode of travel, but to Silence it was wonderful.
The end of summer found them at the manor of the Chevalier de Gourin, an older knight, long since retired from the field. Despite his age, he had a legion of young sons, as well as nephews and nieces, and he was delighted to welcome the musicians to play for the children in the daytime and the adults in the evening. They stayed a week, then two, and it was here that Hob first trusted Silence to play on his own, lending him a lute and sending him to the garden where the women sewed. ‘Sing loudly,’ he instructed. ‘It’ll cover your playing.’
But the squat man gave him a friendly cuff on the shoulder and then a smile. ‘And don’t let them fall in love with you. I’ve enough troubles with Giles and the ladies.’
‘I’ll do my best. Though women know their own minds where love is concerned.’
Hob snorted. ‘Women don’t know anything. Go on now.’
And Silence hurried off, knowing that Hob had certain afternoon plans that involved a jug of wine and a sunny spot in the manor’s orchard. He found the women already assembled in the garden, a pretty spot with espaliered lime trees against one stone wall and roses, in red, riotous bloom, climbing the other. ‘Here’s our boy,’ one old woman said when Silence entered. He bowed to them and sat on a wooden bench. He knew five songs and most of one story. He hoped they didn’t want to sew for long. But it was pleasant in the garden and the women chatted and a few young children ran about, chasing after butterflies. The sun angled overhead and Silence’s bench moved from shade to light, and he closed his eyes against the brightness and played ‘The Knight’s Farewell’, for the second time. He bungled the opening sequence on the lute, and then entered the verse. His voice was too high for the knight – normally Giles or Hob would sing this part – but he managed, then soared away singing the lady’s reply, My love, my love, return to my side … With his eyes closed, he could hear better, it seemed, the shape of the notes, how they formed not in his throat, but deep in his belly, and came up out of him, warm and round.
He startled when he felt a hand on his thigh, opened his eyes and saw an older woman had sidled close on his bench. She had her hair drawn up under a coif and wore a black dress, perhaps marking her as a widow, and she let her hand rest right there, above Silence’s knee. He forced a smile on his face as he turned to her and gave an awkward bow around his lute. ‘M’lady.’
She squeezed his leg and said with a slight slur, ‘You remind me of my husband as a young man, though your hair is a bit fairer.’ She stared hard at him; her nose was thin but prominent, her eyes a blue-grey, not too dissimilar from his own.
‘Indeed, m’lady. And how fares your husband now?’
‘He’s dead. Gone off to be a knight, killed in his second battle.’ No tears came to her eyes. ‘Better to be a minstrel than a fighter. I wish he’d had a voice like yours.’
Silence was surprised to feel thickness in his throat as he said, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ He thought then of Griselle and whether she believed him to be dead, struck by the guilt of the pain he might be causing. But it was worth it, was it not, for him to be free.
The next day, the three of them took to the road again. Hob stalked along grumpily, likely nursing a large headache, and Giles whistled as he strode – at least for the first part of morning, until they reached a hay field being harvested, when he began to sneeze convulsively.
‘Don’t see why we had to leave,’ Hob grumped when they stopped by a stream to cool down.
‘Because,’ Giles said. Ha-chooe! ‘They paid us with food and a bed. And those are lovely things, true, but they are not coin. For coin, we must go to a larger holding. Or a city.’ Ha-chooe! Ha-chooe!
‘Bah.’ Hob splashed water over his bald head and let it run down over the sweaty collar of his tunic. ‘You just didn’t care for the ladies there. None to your taste?’
‘I’m more choosy in my ladies than you are in your wine.’
‘A bad vintage will give me a headache. A bad wench will give you the pox. Bear that in mind, Maurice,’ Hob said, shaking a finger at Silence.
‘I will, good sir.’
‘Our angel boy stays far from wine and women …’ Giles knitted his hands in mock prayer, batting his eyelashes and pursing his lips. ‘He is pure as the driven snow.’
‘What? Are you writing a song for him now?’ Hob stood up from beside the stream bed and hoisted his pack. ‘Speaking of which, we should practise those stories. You’ll want to be able to recite “The Knight in the Cart” even if you can’t harp along with it.’
Silence adjusted the basilard,
which he carried tied to his belt, and then heaved his pack back on. He had both the minstrels’ lutes, most of their supply of food, and his own (meagre) extra clothes. The minstrels each carried their own harp (and, Silence suspected, Hob had at least a skin of wine tucked away as well).
There was no escaping the sun as they walked along the road, but reciting stories to one another provided some distraction. ‘Here’s one to try,’ Giles said. ‘Always popular: “Merlin’s Curse”.’
Silence bit his tongue as he was about to say that his own father had encountered the cursed Merlin in Gwenelleth. ‘Indeed,’ he said instead. ‘I’ll listen well.’
‘Do.’ Giles cleared his throat. ‘When Merlin reached his middle years, he was handsome and though not strong as knights are strong, yet had a power beyond all other men. And he fell in love with Queen Viviane and she, a beautiful and wise woman, traded her love for his knowledge.’
Up and down hills, through a shady orchard, they walked as Giles spun out the tale; how Merlin taught Viviane the ways of wyrd, the paths of Fey. How the lady soaked up the secrets of magic until she could enchant Merlin herself … and she did. For the sorcerer tried to seduce her one night, tried to carry her away from her husband, and she refused and locked him away in the mind – though not the form – of an animal. Cursed to roam the forest and eat grass for all but one day a year …
‘Some say she stuck him in a tree trunk. Or a stone,’ Hob puffed.
‘No, no,’ Giles replied. ‘He is out and about, but can’t talk.’
Silence listened eagerly – his father had spoken to Merlin. And he had too, hadn’t he? Or to a crow that was Merlin’s messenger … how strange was that?
‘They say,’ Giles continued, ‘that only a maiden can free him. That’s an important part of the tale to add, Maurice. Don’t leave it out.’
‘Tonight at an inn?’ Hob asked as they climbed up a hill.
‘Not an inn. We’re aiming for Count La Marche’s keep. If you can walk a little faster, we’ll be there just after Nones,’ Giles replied. He set off down the other side, swinging his long legs and sniffling. He looked over his shoulder. ‘If my memory serves, we should see its towers over the next hill.’
‘The next hill,’ Hob grumped. ‘Always the next hill.’
Silence turned the words of the story over in his mind and started again, muttering the words under his breath. Afternoon shadows stretched across the road. A thick stand of trees grew nearby, leaning over the track.
‘These must be the count’s hunting grounds,’ Giles said.
‘I swear,’ Hob said from behind them, ‘some boy is adding weight to my load. My pack grows heavier by the day …’
‘I’ll lighten that load.’ From out of the shadows a man stepped, crossbow ready. He stood in the middle of the track, a few steps in front of Giles. Silence couldn’t readily see the man’s features, for he wore a floppy hat that cast his face in shadow. He wasn’t tall, but he was heavyset, wearing a short tunic bleached to near-white by the sun and patched here and there with darker fabric. He held the crossbow firmly before him, the bolt levelled at Giles. He turned his head and whistled, and yet another man appeared from the trees on the far side of the road, this one near as tall as Silence, with a dark beard and broad shoulders, holding a sword in one hand, a dagger in the other.
‘Shit,’ Giles said. ‘You bugger.’ The two minstrels had no weapons except short cudgels that hung from their belts. Earlier in their journey, Hob had regaled Silence with tales of brawls at inns and pickpockets at festivals, and how he had used the cudgel to bash in a brain or two. Silence had simply laughed along with everyone else, but there was no humour now in watching as Giles didn’t even reach for his cudgel, instead taking a few steps back from the crossbow.
The practice of years spent training in the courtyard flowed into Silence’s limbs and around his chest. He stepped away to the right, making himself distant from Giles in order to spread out the targets. If the thief shot the crossbow, it would take too long to reload; he’d have to rely on other weapons, and all Silence could see was a long dagger – not nearly as long as his own basilard – on his belt. He took another step away from Giles, another.
‘Marcus here will take your burdens from you. If you please,’ said the man with the crossbow. The taller thief sheathed his sword but kept his dagger to hand; he gave a wolfish grin as he stepped forward. His lips were nearly covered over by his beard, but Silence could count four brownish teeth leering at him.
Without needing to think, Silence knew what to do. He took one more step and then dropped the bundle he was carrying – mostly clothes and food – and set the lutes on top of it, trying to appear calm, resigned, as if he were surrendering.
‘Good sirs,’ Hob began, bobbing a bow, hands extended. ‘We are musicians. These harps are worth little to you, but are our livelihoods, nay, our very lives …’
‘Shut up,’ said the thief with the dagger, cuffing Hob across the face. The strike landed with a sound like a breaking twig, and Hob dropped to his knees, blood pouring between his fingers. Silence almost went to his side, but restrained himself.
‘Good one,’ the thief with the crossbow said. He tipped back the brim of his floppy hat, letting Silence see his face, broad and fleshy and smudged with dirt, as he laughed.
It was the opening Silence wanted. The moment he saw the bowman’s head tilt back, he drew his basilard and lunged. He didn’t risk a precise strike with his blade, but rather threw himself at the bowman, landing his shoulder solidly against the man’s torso, sending him sprawling. The floppy hat went in one direction, the crossbow in the other, as the man flung his arms wide. Silence jabbed the basilard’s point into the thief’s stomach, surprised by how much effort it took to wedge the blade deep, yet how much more pliant flesh was than the wood of the pell. The thief fell to ground, Silence’s basilard stuck in him. And for a moment, Silence just stared at the dark stain spreading out over the sun-bleached tunic.
Had he just killed a man?
A cry came from behind him and he spun about. Giles had drawn his cudgel at last. Hob was cowering in the roadway, hands over his face, blood still dripping; and the other thief was running towards Silence, sword drawn. Silence kicked the fallen crossbow away, grasped the hilt of his basilard and, with some effort, drew it out of the thief’s belly, raising it to meet the other man’s sword.
The thief made a clumsy cut, followed by a weakly angled slash. Silence dodged the first and parried the second. Master Waldron had taught him to use the first moments of a fight to get the measure of the opponent, and Silence had a clear estimate: low. The thief’s one advantage was the length of his blade – a foot more than Silence’s basilard. He waited for the man to charge. The thief raised the sword high and brought it crashing down, as only someone utterly untrained would do. Silence would have preferred to have a shield to catch the blade, but no matter. He stepped to the side and, with both hands on the hilt of his basilard, drove the point up, up into the man’s armpit.
The thief staggered for a few steps, one arm raised like a puppet, and then crashed to the ground, his mouth in a round O, his eyes wide open. Silence’s breath came panting and he forced a few deep inhalations to steady himself. Then he walked over and grabbed hold of the basilard’s hilt and tugged, but it wouldn’t come loose. ‘Help me, would you?’ he called to Giles, who still stood in the middle of the roadway with his cudgel in his hand. The minstrel’s mouth was as wide open as the dead man’s, and for once, Giles had nothing to say. So Silence put his foot against the thief’s ribs and tugged. He felt the blade grate against bone as he pulled it out. It would take a while for him to smooth and sharpen the blade again.
With the basilard removed, the wound gushed blood, and Giles stopped gawping and began retching. Silence shook his head and used the dead man’s tunic to clean off the worst of the gore. Then he went over to help Hob, who had risen shakily to his feet. ‘You … killed them?’ the minstrel said.
‘So it would appear,’ Silence replied. It seemed like a dream. He knew from the tales of his father and other heroes that death can be served righteously. His breathing slowed. They had deserved it, these robbers, and he shouldn’t feel any guilt. So why did he feel a heaviness, a weight of responsibility? He had taken two lives.
‘Purses are yours then,’ Hob said thickly through his bloody nose. ‘Sword, too, if you want it.’
Silence shook his head. ‘You’d be better off with a cudgel than that piece.’
Giles wiped his mouth on his sleeve and spat. ‘If you’re that handy with a sword, why’d you leave off being a page?’ He squinted at Silence, a weasel-like look coming over his thin features.
Silence bent over to untie the thief’s purse. Whatever strength had surged through him in the heat of the attack now ebbed, leaving him feeling sweaty, light-headed, and tired. ‘I heard that minstrels live longer than knights.’ The words tasted bitter in his mouth and his stomach gave a little twist.
The keep of the Count of La Marche put Silence’s dear Tintagel to shame. Towers rose from each corner of the walls, higher than any church spire he’d seen and from the top of each fluttered the count’s flag: a field of blue diagonally slashed by red, with a yellow fleur-de-lis on each side of the slash. The guards in the towers could see for miles in every direction (Silence knew because he’d climbed up there as soon as possible). In the chapel off the hall, there were even small windows with glass, which Silence sat and marvelled at quite often (Giles took to teasing him about his piety). There were guardsmen on the walls and at the gates and beside the main doors, many more than were posted at Tintagel. They eyed Silence’s basilard, which he wore in its leather scabbard whenever he left the keep, with some scepticism and, once or twice, a rude comment. Silence ignored them, half-hoping for someone to challenge him. Since that night with the thieves on the road, Giles’s question had nibbled at him.
