The Story of Silence

by Alex Myers

  ‘I fear your force will not be sufficient to break their hold at Winchester, where most of the rebel army is massed. They never would have succeeded in that, had Earl Cador been able to aid King Evan.’

  ‘And what held Cador back?’ the Count of Nevers asked.

  ‘They beset him at Tintagel before he could muster his forces.’ The local lord shook his head. ‘It is better, I suppose, that he didn’t march forth, or they would have attacked his column and slaughtered many. As it is, he is within his formidable walls, but cannot break free.’

  The Count of Nevers, not a man to dither, turned to Lord Burress. ‘We ride for Tintagel.’

  Oh, the countryside. The sight of the slate-grey stone reaching through the mottled green ground. The sheep here – who would have thought that sheep could look so different? But they did, with the long wool that curled over their eyes, and their faces white rather than black. These were Cornish sheep, and it was as if each one greeted Silence as he passed. Even the air smelled different, familiar.

  ‘You seem refreshed,’ Alfred said.

  ‘This is home,’ Silence replied. Home. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it.

  Ahead, the Count of Nevers debated routes with the lords who counselled him. Westerly? Where were the armies camped? And how many men?

  None of the local lords had any information. ‘If they were any sort of leaders,’ the Count of Never proclaimed in exasperation late that afternoon, ‘they would have set a raid that would have allowed Cador to break out. Idiots!’

  ‘What do you desire us to do, m’lord?’ asked Lord Burress.

  ‘Send out scouts. Get me numbers of men and horses. Where their forces are massed vis-à-vis Tintagel’s gate. We’ll do what these fool Cornish should have done weeks before.’

  The count called for camp to be made at the next river crossing. Silence and Alfred oversaw the squires and pages as they set up tents and unloaded gear. A few knights were readying for a quick hunt. Others were calling for a groom to help with a horse or for a page to get a fire going. In all, it was the usual cacophony of men in camp. Silence found it oddly soothing. He stretched his legs and back as the squires bustled around and tried to recall what the approach to Tintagel was like. Where would an army encamp? Where would they draw water? He had visited so many keeps over his time as a minstrel, they had all blurred together. Ringmar, he could remember to the finest detail – how many steps to his chamber, how many planks in the front gate – but Tintagel … he remembered only a heavy feeling of shame, of not belonging, of a pack of boys that taunted him … he remembered in detail only the highest walls and how the wind curled around him when he stood there. How the ocean crawled below.

  ‘Sir Maurice?’ A page ran up to him. ‘The Count of Nevers requests your company, with your lute.’

  Cookfires flickered throughout the encampment as Silence crossed to the count’s tent. A map lay spread out, and the count was bickering with his lords – sometimes Silence thought he kept them around just to argue with. He found a stool and tuned his lute. The Count of Nevers had prosaic tastes – for the bawdy when the wine was flowing, for the heroic when the mood was sombre. So Silence played the tale of the golden knight, keeping his voice low, the various strategies and doubts of the lords weaving in and out of his song about the knight all in yellow.

  ‘Enough,’ the Count of Nevers said at last. ‘Let me think in peace. We can’t know anything until the scouts return.’

  Silence broke off his playing, but the count waved a hand at him. ‘No, no. Keep on, Sir Maurice. I meant only to quiet their prattle. Food will soon arrive. Lift our spirits – never have I been so fortunate to have a knight who is also a minstrel. Play for us the famous story of Earl Cador and his dragon.’

  And so Silence sang of his father and King Evan and the forest and Merlin and the dragon …

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Lord Burress as plates of rabbit, mixed with wild greens and mushrooms, were brought to the table by pages. ‘Are there many dragons in these parts?’

  ‘Very few,’ said Lord Howell, furrowing his brow and trying to seem sage.

  ‘Pack of lies, I expect,’ Lord Burress insisted. ‘Very few dragons … more likely none.’

  ‘Now then,’ Lord Howell temporized, ‘there are very few kings in these parts, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.’

  ‘Yes, but people see kings. They go around about. People don’t see dragons.’

  ‘One might say that it is a king’s job to go around and be seen. I daresay that it might be considered that it is a dragon’s job not to be seen,’ Lord Howell protested.

  ‘Quite,’ the Count of Nevers said.

  ‘Very well on the dragon. But Merlin?’ Lord Burress scoffed.

  ‘My grandfather met him,’ the Count of Nevers said. ‘My grandfather was King Evan’s uncle, on his mother’s side, and he assuredly saw Merlin once, when he worked magic on the standing stones at Carnac.’

  ‘I’m not saying he didn’t exist,’ Lord Burress interjected. ‘Merely that he would be impossibly old.’

  ‘I daresay that it might be considered a wizard’s job to get impossibly old. That is one of the gifts of magic,’ Lord Howell said.

  The Count of Nevers speared a mushroom on his knife and chewed contemplatively. ‘It seems to me that there used to be more magic. That Merlin was about more often. At least, that’s what the stories say.’

  ‘Well, as we just heard, he’s imprisoned, as it were, in form and forest,’ Lord Burress said.

  ‘A likely excuse,’ Lord Howell puffed. ‘The old fellow has probably grown tired, perhaps even lost some of his skill.’

  ‘That would be a great shame,’ the count said. ‘For I have heard from my cousin, King Evan, that Merlin’s power is tied up with the royal house of England. Twined together since before Arthur’s time.’

  ‘They say he awaits Arthur’s return,’ said Lord Howell.

  ‘I take that to mean that he awaits someone like Arthur,’ Lord Burress replied.

  ‘What it actually says, as I have on good authority from my cousin the king, is that Merlin awaits the one true knight.’

  ‘Ah,’ the lords chorused. A pause as they considered this and ate more of the rabbit.

  ‘I still say,’ ventured Lord Burress, ‘that for a man who met Merlin and defeated a dragon, it is quite something for Cador to get cornered in his castle by a ragtag group of rebels.’

  (I should note here that the ‘Song of Cador’ that Silence sang made the earl seem much more courageous than the unexpurgated version that I shared earlier. You know how minstrels are with their songs.)

  ‘Not a word against Cador,’ the Count of Nevers said, slapping a hand on his table. ‘He is a fine knight, a courageous fighter. He has been bereft of his only son, his only child, lost these many years, and I do not doubt that has taken its toll on him.’

  ‘Yes, a tragedy,’ Lord Howell said. ‘And as we were riding here one of the local officials told me that Earl Cador’s wife recently died as well. Perhaps his mourning made him slow to muster his men to ride.’

  ‘Perhaps, perhaps. A sad state of affairs for a noble man,’ the Count of Nevers said.

  There was muttering at this, and squires poured more wine, and the tent grew darker, and everyone waited for the Count of Nevers to call for more tapers to be lit, but he did not and finally he rose and swept his arm towards the door. ‘Wake me when the messengers arrive,’ he said by way of dismissal.

  Silence, who had sat on his stool, stunned at the news, rose and walked stiffly from the tent. He did not feel sad, not truly. For he had never known his father’s second wife. If he was honest with himself (and a knight ought to be honest, even with himself), he had resented her, blamed her, even, for his being sent away from Tintagel, though he had no proof it was her fault.

  The messengers arrived a few hours before dawn, their horses snorting and blowing. Silence, who had fallen into a worried sleep, awoke as soon as he heard
the hooves, and shook Alfred’s shoulder. ‘The count will want us.’

  ‘Nnnnmmmm.’

  Indeed, the count already sat at his table, the messengers standing before him. Lord Howell, with a robe over his nightshirt, was the only counsellor to have arrived before Silence and Alfred, who took their positions on either side of the door.

  ‘… two groups to the south, and the main force before the gate. We could see no engines of any kind, only battering rams.’

  ‘And to the west?’ the Count of Nevers asked.

  ‘Foot soldiers, sleeping rough,’ one of the messengers replied. ‘A lot of them, but ill-equipped.’

  ‘Peasants,’ Lord Howell said.

  The Count of Nevers barely paused. ‘Make ready. Leave a few here to stand guard. Leave the tents as they are. We ride hard, to the edge of the woods of Trethewy. There the knights will put on armour and take a fresh horse, and there we will settle into battle formation. Make haste, now.’

  When the Count of Nevers asked for haste, it meant to do things yesterday. Silence offered the quickest bow and ran out with Alfred to spread the word to the knights.

  Squires and horses and armsmen hustled and squabbled and shoved past one another in the morning twilight. ‘This hour is suited to hedgehogs,’ muttered Alfred as he and Silence helped each other into the padded jackets and slabs of boiled leather that they’d wear beneath their plate.

  ‘You can sleep in the saddle,’ Silence replied. He grinned with amusement as their squires dashed about, carrying plates of armour to the packhorses. Ah, but a week ago he had been a squire, and now here he was, Sir Maurice, a knight at last …

  He belted on his sword, and stowed his still-blank shield behind his saddle. What would his crest show? And what would it hide? He mounted Wind, who frisked and snuffed at the morning air, and they lined up with the other retainers of Nevers.

  ‘Move on, now!’ Lord Howell called, and the sergeants at arms marshalled the foot soldiers and the pack animals, and with much creaking and clanking and a few bellows of complaint from man and animal, they moved towards Tintagel.

  They marched with all the haste and quiet possible for a force of their size, passing huddled crofts and flocks of sheep that stared impassively. The Count of Nevers led, his banner flapping, then falling limp once the sun rose and sucked the wind from the air. The morning smelled of manure and turned earth until a breeze brought the scent of salt, and Silence sat up in his saddle. They rode to the crest of a low hill, where the Count of Nevers sent back the order to dismount.

  Silence led Wind through the brush to the edge of the ridgeline. The road he’d taken on his first trip to Tintagel had angled over this same ridge; for when he pushed aside the final gorse bushes, he saw the castle just as he remembered it. The grey stone causeway, the guardhouse and the darker grey of the walls. How the path curved right around the cliff’s edge, out of view, and then, beyond, over the next humped green hill, rose Tintagel itself. Looming, brooding. Its arrow slits dark, seeming to stare at him, to see him. And past the castle? Ah, the sea. He could hear it, steady and patient and eternal, pushing at the bluffs. The sun dazzled and gleamed across its surface. Gulls wheeled and dived to brush against the waves.

  This was his. Silence felt it for the first time. Felt the pull of the stones. Felt the push of the waves. The call of the birds as they arced between sea and sky. He was stone; he was sea. He was as hard as the world could make him, and as soft as Nature had fashioned him. And he was home. Whatever of his mother’s blood ran in him sang loudly, a song that had no words, yet commanded him still. Aching, afraid, thick with desire, he turned and sought the Count of Nevers.

  ‘My lord,’ he said and sank to one knee. ‘I would speak to you.’

  The count waved away his advisers and said, ‘Speak, Maurice.’

  ‘I am not who I have said I am.’

  The count gave a small smile. ‘Truly, you have said very little.’

  ‘That befits my true name. Silence.’

  The count stood abruptly. ‘Silence? Son of Earl Cador?’

  ‘Indeed, my lord.’

  Seizing him by his shoulders, the count tugged him up, then placed a hand under his chin, turning his head one way, then the other. ‘They say that his son was stolen by minstrels …’ The count sucked in a breath. ‘Ha! You travelled with minstrels! You were their apprentice! How is it I never saw this truth?’

  ‘I did my best to hide it away. And now I come to beg you a favour, my lord.’

  ‘Ask it.’

  ‘Tintagel is mine, as is Cornwall. Mine through my mother, the Lady Roswyn. Earl Cador holds them for me in fief, according to King Evan’s ruling.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Tintagel is mine. I would go forth and claim it. Alone.’

  The count’s eyes widened and his moustache quivered. ‘You mean … single combat?’

  ‘Summon their leader. Have them send a champion.’

  It was Baron Milbroke who led the rebels, at least those surrounding Tintagel. He rode out, surrounded by knights, a squire carrying his banner, white with a boar and a tree, to the middle of the space between the ragtag camp of rebels and the ridge where Silence waited. The Count of Nevers rode out to meet him. Silence watched, noticing the distant figures who had flocked to Tintagel’s walls. The banners – lion and boar – snapped and fluttered. Milbroke threw back his head as if in laughter at one point. And then the two men reached out and seized hands. It was done.

  Alfred stood beside Silence, shaking his head as he watched the two lords. ‘I’ve never known you to be rash before … but then it seems I haven’t truly known you.’

  ‘I am sorry for my deceit,’ Silence said. ‘But you must understand …’ He tapered off, his mind mostly fixed on what transpired between the baron and the count, on what he himself would do in a moment.

  Alfred put a hand on his shoulder. ‘If you did it, then you had your reasons. I know you that well. Now, put me out of mind and focus on what is to come.’

  No sooner had the count trotted back to his lines, than Silence found himself surrounded. Gone was the splintery shield with which the armourer had supplied him; gone the battered sword, too. Retainers offered mail and greaves worked with filigree, a helm with a lion on the crest.

  ‘I do not need anything, please,’ Silence said.

  But they continued to fuss, and now they examined Wind, who flattened his ears and bared his teeth.

  ‘I have what I require!’ Silence insisted.

  The knights and lords fell quiet. Then the Count of Nevers cleared his throat. ‘You have more than you require. You have loyal friends, bravery beyond measure. You have God, who always strengthens the side of the righteous. Take but my sword.’ He unbelted it and held it out to Silence, who took it in both hands and fastened it to his waist.

  He tried to say, ‘I thank you, my lord,’ but the words stuck in his throat. He walked to Wind’s side, mounted, settled his plain white shield on one arm, stood his lance upright in its holder, and looked down towards Tintagel. With the sun high in the sky, he could almost believe that the rocks shimmered. A trick of light, no doubt. He closed the visor of his helm and prodded Wind gently.

  He heard Alfred’s voice behind him, but couldn’t make out the words. Wind trotted down the slope and then they waited at one end of the rocky field. A rider emerged from the rebel camp. His chestnut mount tossed its head; the rider bore a white and yellow chequered shield. His plate and helm gleamed in the noon sun.

  ‘Ho! Silence!’

  The husky voice sounded familiar.

  ‘I beat you once at Ringmar. A dozen times at Tintagel. And I shall beat you again. Perhaps when we have conquered Winchester, I will come back and claim this pile of rocks.’

  Wendell. Silence could recall one time that he had emerged victorious, but he didn’t say anything. We all must make our own stories, after all. He merely lifted his lance from its holder, raised it in salute, and trotted back, counting the paces. W
endell. His first enemy. He could still remember how rude, how brutish the boy had been, all those years ago. But he pushed the memories from his head and looked instead to Tintagel’s walls. It was no pile of rocks; even now, he could hear the waves battering the cliffs, the incessant haw, haw, haw! of a crow on the battlements. He turned Wind, couched his lance, and stared down at his target.

  Wendell gave a whooping cry and Silence dug his spurs into Wind’s side. The horse didn’t need the signal; he leapt with all his might, hooves drumming against dry autumn grass, thundering as loud as the sea. Silence tucked the lance under his armpit, clenched it tightly. The tip, dull grey, loomed steady before him, and he sighted along the shaft. Closer and closer. He braced for the impact, angled his shield.

  As the horses closed the gap, Wendell’s mount stumbled. His lance dropped, caught the bottom of Silence’s shield, while Silence’s lance rammed hard into the edge of Wendell’s white and yellow chequered shield, pushing past and landing in the horse’s flank. The horse screamed terribly, rearing up and then falling down, knees bending. Wendell dropped his lance and leapt free of his mount.

  In battle, Silence would have wheeled Wind about and taken the advantage of being on a mount while his opponent fought on foot. In a joust, he would have dismounted so the fight would be fair. But which was this? He couldn’t think of any instruction Sir Onfroi or Master Waldron had provided.

  Wendell drew his sword, holding it before him, and waited. The sword caught the sun and Wind whickered. That settled it. He knew that Wendell would go first for his mount, try to catch him in the hamstrings or gut him from below. Silence couldn’t bear to see that happen to Wind. So he tossed his lance aside and dismounted, slapping Wind on the flank. He thought he could hear a groan from the ridgeline.

  He drew his own sword and they faced each other. As they had all those years ago. What had happened to them in that time? How had they ended up here, blades bare against each other, they who had both sprung from Cornwall’s soil? Who can say what Nature births, what Nurture fosters?

  Feint and counterstrike and parry. Wendell splintered a wedge off Silence’s shield, stepped to the right; Silence landed a feeble blow to Wendell’s arm.