Harald-ARC

by David Friedman

  "Last summer, at Lord Stephen's, they let me practice with a wooden blunt. He said I was pretty good—the lord did. I beat one boy two years older. But father won't give me a real sword. He says I'd get killed."

  "In a real fight you probably would. If a strong man—Rorik, say—swung at you as hard as he could, what would you do?"

  "Block with my shield."

  "Ever have someone that big hit your shield hard?"

  "No. I could duck."

  "Ducking a sword's easier to say than to do. Did you manage it with the blunts?"

  "No. But if I had to ... "

  "Had to's a bad time to do your learning."

  "He can't hit me with a sword if I'm up on the castle wall with a bow and he's down below trying to batter the door down."

  Harald nodded approvingly.

  "Killing safe as you can. Much to be said for it. Ever shot out of an arrow slit?"

  The boy shook his head.

  "Tomorrow."

  The next day, Harald and one of the guards carried a bundle of hay out the main gate, left it on the ground five feet from the wall. Hen watched.

  "Enemy with a battering ram. Where do you shoot him from?"

  The boy ran up the stairway to the top of the wall, leaned far over trying to find a way of shooting down. The guard caught the back of his tunic, hauled him back in.

  "I could have done it."

  Harald answered:

  "Could be; some day show you how. Way you were doing it, only question is if you fall out and break your neck before or after someone on the other side puts an arrow through you. They can shoot too. Think, boy. Don't want them breaking down the door, killing us all."

  Hen thought; Harald and the guard watched. The boy got up, ran along the wall to the door into the tower of the old keep. Harald gave the guard a satisfied look, followed. Inside, he heard the voice of one of the women asking Hen what he was doing in their room. Hen said he was stopping someone from breaking down the front gate and killing them all.

  While Harald explained, Hen carefully examined the arrow slits, ending up in one cut into the wall part way up the spiral stair to the chamber above. Harald looked through a lower slit; there was nobody near the hay. When Hen had shot his arrows, the two went back down together. Two were in the hay bundle. The boy collected all eight, went back to his arrow slit; Harald remained behind to be sure nobody went out the gate at the wrong time. After the fourth round, he heard a step behind him, turned.

  It was Yosef. Harald held up a finger to his lips, pointed at the hay, waited. An arrow sprouted out of it. Another. Another. When the last went home there was a yell from the tower, Hen out the ground floor door and running for the gate. He stopped when he saw his father.

  "Might be some use yet, boy, ever comes to it."

  They went out together.

  Harald's strength came back slowly, but it came. Alone at night he uncased his bow, warmed it by the fire, strung it, drew, held at full draw for long seconds before his arm began to shake. By the flickering light he checked over the lacing of his lamellar war coat, replaced frayed thongs more by touch than sight. He oiled the ring shirt, patched the padding under it. Spring was a month away, perhaps longer. It too would come.

  Visitors

  Safe to tell a secret to one,

  Risky to two,

  To tell it to three is folly.

  "The trumpet blew, the king's men in the middle started rolling boulders over and down. Imperials weren't happy when they saw them coming."

  "The rocks wiped out the legions?"

  "No such luck. The rocks tore holes in the shield wall. The rest was up to us."

  "You charged them? Didn't you tell me that was stupid?"

  "Would have been. We poured in arrows from just outside javelin range. Cats on the left, Order on the right. They tried to reform, but it was too late, and the rocks kept coming. Legionaries are good, but they die just like other people."

  "What about —"

  They heard voices in the courtyard below. Hen was on his feet first. Harald paused to pull his cloak around him.

  Yosef was there already, Rorik beside him. One of the guards was opening the gate. Two riders came into the courtyard through the falling snow. The smaller spoke:

  "Elaina ni Leonor, my sister Kara ni Lain. We come in peace."

  Yosef stepped forward:

  "I am Yosef, castellan of Forest Keep for Stephen of North Province. In peace be welcome."

  Harald saw her swaying in the saddle, stepped forward. The Lady swung one foot over, slid down; he caught her as she fell.

  Yosef spoke:

  "The hall is warmest; can you manage her?"

  Harald nodded.

  "Hardly weighs anything." It was true. Despite the mail hauberk, he had carried boys who weighed more.

  The other Lady was off her horse but on her feet. At a glance from his father, Hen took both horses. Harald carried Elaina up the stairs, through the door Yosef opened. Kara followed.

  Yosef pulled one of the straw pallets in front of the fire; Harald kneeled, put her down gently. In the fire light, the stump of an arrow stood out from her side. He heard a gasp behind him.

  "She didn't tell me."

  Footsteps. Hen answered his father's unspoken question.

  "Old Jon has them, is rubbing them down."

  Harald spoke.

  "In my room, the open saddlebag. A bundle, so long, tied with a red cord."

  While he waited for the boy to come back with his kit, Harald looked over the wounded Lady, peeling back the wet cloak, careful not to disturb the arrow. Besides the rent in the hauberk where the arrow had gone through, there were three more, sword slashes by the look of them, two oozing blood. He looked at her pale face in the firelight. His breath caught in his throat.

  When it was all over, Elaina was unconscious but bandaged and alive, wrapped in blankets in front of the fire, Kara sitting beside her. Harald washed the needle, the small knife, dried them, threaded another strand of sinew, assembled the kit, tied it, his mind elsewhere. Someone put a warm mug in his hand.

  He looked up at Yosef.

  "You'll want to leave them here tonight; it's too soon to move her. I'll get my things down from the guest room tomorrow morning; with luck it'll be safe to carry her up by then."

  "I'm not leaving my sister."

  "Of course. You'll want a pallet on the floor next to her; she might wake in the night."

  Someone came in with a tray of food up from the kitchen. Harald's eyes met Yosef's. Yosef broke a piece of bread, sprinkled it with salt from the bowl, handed it to Kara. She took it, eyes still on the huddled body by the fire, tasted it, looked up startled.

  "Thank you."

  Yosef looked at her a moment, spoke.

  "Are you wounded too?"

  "I don't think so. Something here?"

  She felt by her neck; her hand came away sticky with blood. The wound was shallow, a glancing arrow between cap and mail. While Harald was washing and bandaging it, Kara started to talk in a low voice.

  "After the ambush, when they were chasing us. She said to let her do it, hold back with the bow. I usually do what she says. She didn't tell me she was wounded. Besides, she's better than I am at hand to hand. Better than anyone. Was."

  "Will be." Harald spoke softly. "She's young, strong."

  The Lady's face softened a little. She put her head down in her hands.

  The next morning Harald separated his bedding and the saddlebag with his clothes, shoved everything else in a corner of the guest room, went downstairs to claim a space by the wall. Elaina was still sleeping, Kara watching her. Hen, silent for once, watched both while two of the guards ate quietly.

  "You'll be going up to the guestroom on the next floor, soon as it's safe to move your sister. Want us to fetch your things up?"

  Kara thought a moment, nodded.

  Hen jumped up:

  "I'll go."

  Harald took an absent minded bite from a ch
unk of bread, leaned over the sleeping girl, put the back of his hand to her forehead. It was hot.

  "Has she eaten, drunk anything?"

  Kara shook her head. He put a little wine in a goblet, laid it near Elaina's head.

  "Wakes while I'm gone, see if she'll take that. I'll try for broth up from the kitchen." He went out.

  Elaina woke, slept, woke again; her sister spooned warm broth into her when she could. While she slept Harald checked over Kara's wound. He made her take some of the broth too, bread dipped in it. Before dinner he carried the sleeping girl carefully up the stairs in his arms, laid her on the bed. Hen brought the bowl of broth; Harald put it on the hearth, almost into the fireplace, spoke to Kara:

  "She needs to stay warm too; that's why I moved the bed so close to the fire."

  "I'll lie with her."

  "Of course. Lie still if you can; she needs the sleep."

  Kara got up to put another log on the fire, wincing a little, noticed Hen staring at the two longbows leaning up against the wall. She kneeled, warming her hands.

  "Have you killed people?"

  "Tried. Didn't stay around to see."

  "I'll be in the next room, with father. Anything you need, just call; I sleep light."

  Kara nodded her thanks; they went out. Harald closed the door.

  * * *

  Two days later, Harald brought in a platter of food, Hen a pitcher of beer, both to the small table that someone had found and placed by the bed. Elaina spoke. "Harl, stay a minute please."

  Hen hesitated, went out. Harald sat down on the hearth near the head of the bed, warming his hands at the coals.

  "You've been very kind. Everyone has. I, we, hoped you could tell us things."

  He waited.

  "Yosef, your lord, he welcomed us, gave Kara bread and salt, that's three days. But he's the man of the North Province lord. North Province lord is the King's man."

  Kara spoke: "King isn't exactly our friend, lately."

  Harald let himself look up at the face above him for a moment. Not easily frightened or turned. The cheeks were unscarred, eyes clear, hair, washed clean by her sister the night before, dark. He forced his gaze away, turned to Kara, sitting at the other end of the hearth.

  "Yosef is not my lord; I'm a guest here as well. A good and generous man, else I might have died in the snow three months back. He will not turn you over to your enemies, or send you out for them to hunt down, saving a direct order from his lord. Maybe not then; Stephen chooses his people well. And his hall is a long day's ride from here; Yosef has no reason to send there, or Stephen here. Not much safety in the world, this side the grave. More here than most places."

  The two girls said nothing. He got to his feet slowly, went out.

  The weather warmed towards spring, the snow melted. Harald took the opportunity to exercise the mare, riding in the woods near the castle. Once Elaina was on her feet again, she let Hen show her and Kara around Forest Keep, looked curiously at his archery range in the stable, fingered the target, gave Kara an inquiring glance. Kara looked at the target, shook her head. Hen looked at her, protested.

  "It works fine."

  "For you. At this range, our bows would shoot right through it. Stone walls aren't good for arrows."

  "We have lots of hay."

  Hen and Kara spent the afternoon rearranging some of the stored hay to make a head-high stack of tightly bound bundles at the far end of the stable, where Hen had his target. They were almost done when Harald came in, looked around, then at Hen.

  "Haven't been practicing much lately, but you won't miss by that much."

  "It's for the Ladies. Their bows would shoot right through my target."

  "Ladies tried it yet?"

  "I'll get our bows." That was Elaina.

  "I'll get them; mine too." Hen went, Kara with him. While they were gone, Harald braided some of the loose straw into a palm sized circle, pinned it to the hay with a long splinter of wood, then rummaged around the corners of the stable looking for something; Elaina watched curiously. At last he came up with a chunk of broken spear shaft, a scrap of old leather.

  When Kara and Hen came back with the bows and quivers, Elaina glanced at the haystack, the circle, her sister. Kara strung her bow; the others stood back. The first arrow went into the circle. The second. The third an inch outside. Hen watched in awe. Harald spoke.

  "Good enough, if you find an enemy who stands still while you shoot at him. Hold up and we'll try something more interesting."

  He stuck the wooden piece into the middle of the pile, well to the right, pinned the leather a foot lower on the left. Kara looked at him.

  "You sound like my mother."

  Harald looked straight at Elaina, did his best to look puzzled.

  "Don't look much like her."

  Hen looked from one to the other, a blank expression on his face. Elaina laughed.

  "She's Kara ni Lain—Harl heard it when we came. That's Kara daughter of Elaina. I'm named after her mother—she and my mother were friends. Like us. She died when Kara was twelve."

  "You mean she isn't your daughter? I thought you looked a little young." Harald kept a straight face as long as he could. Hen figured it out, laughed.

  "But you do sound like my mother—Elaina ni Liana not Elaina ni Leonor." Her sister gave her a worried glance, looked away.

  "Yes. So I'll say what your mother would: stop talking, start shooting." Kara looked startled, nocked an arrow, stared at the piled hay.

  "Wood. Straw. Leather. Leather. Straw."

  At each word Kara drew, released. The worst was a hand's breadth from its target.

  Kara waited a moment, lowered her bow.

  "Straw."

  Arrow to the string, bow up, arrow into the circle.

  "You'll do. 'Laina?"

  Shooting at the straw circle, Elaina did almost as well as her sister. But one of the shafts called for leather went to wood instead, another wild. She put the bow down, pale faced, breathing hard.

  "She's still recovering; it isn't fair. She needs to rest."

  Harald looked at Hen.

  "Won't be fair if an enemy arrives tomorrow, either."

  Elaina nodded.

  "I'll rest now, after we eat shoot again, again tomorrow. Harl's right."

  They had two more weeks. She used them.

  A different story this time, a larger audience—Hen sitting with the two Ladies on their bed while Harald, on a cushion by the hearth, told how the quick wit of a Lady saved herself and a treasure. Her lover had just found the hidden bowstring, restrung his bow, when Elaina held up her hand. Harald stopped. In the silence he could hear voices in the courtyard.

  A mounted man just inside the gate; looking down from the door at the top of the stairs Harald could see the patch of red on the breast of his cloak. He stopped, Kara and Elaina behind him; Hen squeezed by to see better. Yosef and Rurik were in the middle of the courtyard. One of the guards was swinging the gate closed, two more hurrying up the stairs to the top of the wall. The stranger was speaking.

  "They came here. They are here."

  Yosef was calm.

  "Who guests with me is my affair."

  "I speak in the King's name. They are rebels against their order, to be handed over to us and delivered by us to their superiors."

  "I am North Province's man. When Stephen of North Province commands me to deliver up guests to their enemies, I will consider the matter. For a voice out of the night, no."

  The Wolf gave a long look around the little castle.

  "Open the gate again, then. I must to my companions. I return in the morning; think on it before you set yourself against His Majesty's commands."

  Yosef looked at Rorik, Rorik called up to one of the guards on the wall above the gate. The man looked out, turned back.

  "Clear."

  The gate open, the Wolf out, the gate closed again, barred. Yosef spoke with Rorik then came up the steps into the hall, leaving the guard captain behind
in the courtyard. Harald stepped forward.

  "They may send to Stephen's Hall, but I think not. By my counsel we sleep armed."

  "Rorik's as well. He does not think it will be at night, I have doubts they try us at all; Stephen is a bad enemy. But better safe. The guards watch while we arm, eat, then we watch while they take their turn."