The Orphan King (Merlin's Immortals)

by Brouwer, Sigmund

  Thomas left the hall as silently as his shadow. He paused outside until the noises inside told him that the three remaining monks were struggling with Monk Philip’s body. Then, to fulfill his parting promise, Thomas slipped to the rear of the abbey into the cool storage room dug below the kitchen.

  He departed shortly after into the darkness, climbing the valley hills with one fewer sack than he had planned.

  All stared at the soon-to-be-dead.

  Since dawn, three ropes had hung black against the rising sun. Enough time had passed for a crowd to arrive and develop a restless holiday mood, jeering when the prisoners were finally hauled in a wagon to the gallows.

  “Hear ye, hear ye, all gathered here today.” The caller, short and dumpy with middle age, made no effort to hide the boredom in his voice.

  His words had little effect on the hundred people crowded in front of the crude wooden gallows. Each person had eyes only for the soon-to-be-dead.

  “Get on with your blathering, you old fool!” The shout came from a woman with a hungry face near the back of the crowd. A skinny child held her hand.

  The man scratched at a flea beneath his dirty shirt and ignored her.

  “This punishment has been ordered by the sheriff under authority of the Earl of York,” he continued in a listless tone. “The crimes to be punished are as follows.” He unrolled a scroll and held it in front of him at arm’s length.

  “Andrew, you dimwit! We all know you can’t read. Don’t be putting on airs for the likes of us.” This from a fat man with jowls that shook as he yelled.

  The crowd hooted with appreciation even though none of them, including the speaker, realized the scroll was upside down. They grew quiet again.

  And all stared at the soon-to-be-dead.

  Six burly soldiers stood behind the man with the scroll. In pairs, they held three prisoners. Too often, even the weariest prisoners made a sudden struggle for freedom when finally facing the thick rope noose. It was the type of struggle the crowd hoped for. Hangings were as common as weddings or funerals, so without a final bolt for escape or howls of despair, it was a dull event. Indeed, this hanging only drew as many as it did because of the strange knight.

  “John the potter’s son. Found guilty of loitering with the intent to pick the pockets of honest men. To be hung by the neck until dead.”

  Most of the crowd shook fists at the accused boy.

  He grinned back at them. Ragged hair and a smudge of dirt covered the side of his face. “Intent!” he shouted in a tinny voice at the upraised fists. “Intent is all you could prove. I’ve always been too fast to be caught!”

  The hangman waited for the noise to end and droned, “The unknown girl who does not speak or hear. Theft of three loaves of bread and a bracelet of gold. To be hung by the neck until dead.”

  The crowd quieted as they stared at her. She in turn stared at her feet. High cheekbones and long dark hair hinted at a beauty to flower—if she were to live past the day.

  The tragic air about her forced a mumble from the middle of the crowd. “The baker could have easily kept her for kitchen work instead of forcing the magistrate on her.”

  The baker flushed with anger. “And how many more mouths should I support in these times? Especially one belonging to a useless thief who cannot hear instructions?” he asked his anonymous accuser.

  Behind all of them—below the small rise of land that held the gallows—the town known as Helmsley lay silent as the spring day began to warm. Although it was important enough to be guarded by a castle, the town was little more than a collection of wood and stone houses along narrow and dirty streets.

  The stench of mud and barn animals filled the air. Few of the people gathered on the rise noticed. They fell as completely silent as the town. The strange knight was about to be formally accused.

  “Finally”—the hangman in the dirty shirt felt the growing excitement of the crowd, and his voice rose beyond boredom—“the Knight Templar. Found guilty of blasphemy and the theft of a chalice. To be hung by the neck until dead.”

  The babble of the crowd renewed as each person strained to watch for reaction on the knight’s haggard face. To be so mighty and to fall so far …

  The darkly tanned knight did not acknowledge any curiosity. He had been stripped of all the wealth of his apparel except for his trousers, tunic, and a vest of chain mail. The bulges of his muscled arms and shoulders showed a man who had lived by the sword. He would die by the rope.

  He stared forward with a slightly bowed head that hid the features of his face.

  The hangman continued. “This on the twenty-eighth day of May in the year of our Lord thirteen hundred and twelve.” Finished with his painfully memorized words, the hangman scrolled the useless paper back into a roll and nodded at the soldiers.

  To the crowd’s disappointment, none of the prisoners resisted. Each had a reason for not struggling.

  The potter’s son did not believe he would die. At eleven years of age, death was simply not a possibility, even with the knotted rope less than a dozen steps away.

  The girl appeared too exhausted.

  The knight, resigned to death, perhaps was already back in his land of sun, speaking and laughing in his mind with old comrades.

  The crowd grew restless again. Some had neglected a day’s work and traveled as far as six miles. Others had brought their entire families. With all attention focused on the three figures slowly climbing the gallows, no one in the crowd noticed a figure approaching from the town behind.

  It wasn’t until the figure strode amid the usual cursing and jeering that anyone noticed him. Then, the awed silence was immediate.

  As it should have been.

  No man in the crowd stood higher than five feet and nine inches. This man was a giant, four hands taller than the tallest.

  His attire cast a frightened chill among them. The black cloth that swirled around him gleamed with richness and flowed like a heavy river. A hood covered his face; his hands were lost deep in the folds of the robe. He projected nothing less than the shadow of death.

  The figure did not break stride until it reached the gallows. Only then did he stiffly turn to face the crowd, confident even with his back vulnerable to the soldiers.

  Many in the crowd backed away.

  Andrew the hangman, frozen in shock and standing on the raised gallows platform, still appeared shorter than the dark and terrible giant who had walked into their midst.

  The huge specter of a man let the silence press down upon the crowd.

  Finally, he uttered his first words.

  “The knight shall be set free.” His voice was unearthly, a deep, rasping evil that sent the crowd back even farther. “He shall be set free immediately.”

  He extended his arms toward the crowd. One of the children keened high with terror.

  The black specter hissed. Blue and orange flames shot from the right sleeve of his robe.

  The silence, for several heartbeats, was such that the entire crowd seemed frozen. Then, as if time had resumed again, voices broke out.

  “Return the knight!” someone shouted. “Before we all die!”

  “Save us now!” pleaded another voice. “Set the knight free!”

  The hangman blinked twice, then did something brave for a short, middle-aged man. He pointed at the figure. “Seize the stranger!” he ordered.

  Two soldiers stepped reluctantly forward and drew massive, long swords.

  The specter turned slowly and waited until the soldiers were nearly able to strike him.

  “For your disobedience,” the specter rasped clearly, “you shall become blind as trees.”

  He waved his left arm as if passing a blessing over the soldiers. Both fled the gallows, screaming and pressing their faces in agony.

  “Do any others dare?” the specter asked as the soldiers’ screams faded.

  Andrew, who may have been brave but was not entirely stupid, issued fumbling orders to the remaining soldiers. The
y, too, drew weapons, but this time only short daggers to frantically saw at the ropes binding the knight.

  The specter held his position entirely without motion. His hooded face stared at the crowd.

  Then, before the knight was entirely free, a bent and white-haired man draped in faded rags stepped forth. He limped steadily the last few steps until he faced the specter with an unfearing upward gaze.

  “I have been expecting you,” he whispered so that only the giant specter could hear. “And if you want to live and conquer Magnus, you shall give the crowd my instructions as if they came from your own mouth.”

  Thomas did not reply. Did not move. He was balanced on stilts, and the shock of the old man’s words almost cost him his balance.

  “Do you understand me?” the old man whispered calmly. “Nod your head slowly, or I will lift that robe of yours and expose the stilts upon which you stand.”

  Thomas finally gave a nod. How could this old man know?

  “Good.” The old man’s whisper remained the same. “Order the release of the other two prisoners.”

  Silence.

  The old man smiled. “Surely, boy, you have no acid left to blind me. Otherwise you have would done so already. With nothing left to bluff the crowd, you must listen to me.” His whisper intensified. “Order the release of all of them!”

  How had the old man known, too, about the acid that Thomas used?

  The specter spoke above the head of the old man. “Release the others or face certain doom,” his harsh voice boomed.

  The old man chuckled under his breath. “As I thought. You are badly underequipped.”

  Thomas realized the hangman was unaware of the private drama between himself and the old man and grew brave at his continued safety.

  “All three?” the hangman protested. “The sheriff will hang me.”

  “Do as I say!” Thomas thundered, projecting the confidence that a specter should.

  Not a person moved.

  “You are out of weapons, boy,” the old man cackled quietly. “How do you expect to force them now?”

  His question immediately became prophetic as the hangman dared to protest again. “All three? Impossible.”

  Murmurs came from the people as they, too, began to lose their edge of fear. A rock, thrown from the back of the crowd, narrowly missed Thomas.

  He roared in anger, but without flame or the cast of blindness, it was a hollow roar.

  Another rock.

  “Old man,” Thomas hissed from black shadow, “this is your doing. Help me now.”

  The old man smiled and looked past the specter’s shoulder at the sun. “Raise your arms,” he commanded.

  One more rock struck the ground at their feet. Murmuring grew.

  “Raise them now,” the old man repeated with urgency. “Before it is too late.”

  Thomas raised his arms. He’d extended the arms of the cloak and used sticks hidden by the sleeves to make his arms appear longer than any human arms. The crowd fell silent as if struck.

  The old man continued quietly. “Repeat all of my words. If you hesitate, we are both lost. There is less time remaining than for a feather to reach the ground.”

  The black hood nodded slightly.

  “Do not disobey,” the old man whispered. “Tell them, ‘Do not disobey.’ ”

  “Do not disobey.” Thomas added heavy emphasis to his voice.

  “I have the power to turn the sun into darkness,” the old man instructed.

  “Impossible,” Thomas whispered back to him.

  “Say it! Now!” The old man’s eyes willed him into obedience.

  Thomas boomed his voice in measured slowness. “I have the power to turn the sun into darkness.”

  A laugh from the crowd.

  The old man whispered more words, and Thomas repeated each one slowly.

  “Look over my shoulder,” he said. “I have raised my arms and even now you will see the darkness eating the edge of the sun!”

  Another laugh, this time cut short. Sudden gasps and a few fainting spells in front of him startled Thomas. He fought the impulse to look upward at the sun himself.

  The old man gave him more instructions. Thomas forced himself to repeat his words. “Should I wish, the sun will remain dark in this town forever!”

  He nearly stumbled at the words given to him, because already the light of day grew dim. “What kind of sorcerer are you?” he demanded of the old man as he paused for breath.

  The old man ignored the question. “ ‘All prisoners shall be released immediately,’ ” he replied in a hypnotic whisper. “Say it now while they are all in terror.”

  Thomas did as instructed.

  In the unnatural darkness, he heard the hangman and the soldiers scurrying into action.

  Then he repeated the final words as given to him by the old man. “Send each prisoner from town with food and water. Tonight, at the stroke of midnight, the town mayor shall place a pouch of gold on these very gallows. The messenger I send for the gold will appear like a phantom to receive your offering. Only then will you be free of the threat of my return.”

  As Thomas finished these words—trying hard to keep the wonder and fear from his own voice—unnatural darkness completely covered him, the gallows, the crowd, and the countryside.

  “You have done well, boy. Go now,” the old man spoke. “Drop from your stilts and wrap your robe into a bundle and disappear. Tonight, if you have any brains in your head, you will be able to retrieve the gold. If not …”

  In the darkness, Thomas could only imagine the old man’s hunched shrug.

  “These prisoners?” Thomas whispered back. He wanted the knight more than he wanted the gold.

  “You desired the knight. As you planned, he will be yours. If you prove to him you are his rescuer.”

  As I planned? Thomas wondered. How did the old man know? In his confusion of questions, he blurted, “Why release the others?”

  Around them, moans of panic rose as the crowd fled in all directions.

  The old man answered, “Take them with you. It will guarantee you a safe journey to Magnus. And you must succeed to bring the winds of light into this age of darkness.”

  “You cannot possibly know of Magnus.”

  “You have little time before the sun returns.”

  “Who are you?”

  Thomas wondered later if there had been a laugh in the old man’s reply.

  His words came through the darkness. “The answer is in Magnus, boy. Now run, or you shall lose all.”

  Thomas slipped from tree to tree in pursuit of the knight, who cut through the forest like a roe deer. In contrast to the stiffness of the stilts Thomas had discarded less than an hour earlier, he followed the freed knight on the leather soles strapped to his feet. His tunic, crudely sewn and badly dyed coarse linen, fit him as tightly as his breeches.

  Normally that double reminder of poverty—clothes he must wear long after outgrowing them and the brown of monks’ charity cloth—irritated Thomas. On this occasion, while silently dodging branches, he was grateful for the brown that made him blend into the background and happy there was little loose material to snag on twigs and bark.

  Thomas glanced up, seeking the sun’s position by the light that streamed dappled shadows onto the moss of the forest floor. He made a rough calculation. Distance? Already they were five miles east of Helmsley and the abandoned gallows. Time? Shortly before the sext bells that marked midday. A half day of light remained. Yet were there enough hours left to secure the gold at midnight?

  Thomas decided he could not risk a delay. He must confront the knight soon. He calculated the knight’s forward progress and began a wide circle through the falling slope of the forest to intercept him.

  The deep moss soaked up the sounds of his footfalls, and he was careful to avoid dead and dry branches. Around him, bird songs echoed against the hush of the forest.

  On the trees, some leaves were still only buds, but others had been encourage
d by the warm spring air to unfold. The splashes of green among trees long since tired of winter gave the forest an air of hope.

  Thomas did not pause to enjoy the beauty. He concentrated on silent footstep after silent footstep, hoping he remembered the lay of the land correctly.

  Fifteen minutes later, Thomas grinned at the sight of a wide stream at the bottom of the valley. While it blocked him, it would also block the knight. A thick fallen tree appeared the only way to cross the water.

  Thomas reached the primitive bridge and scrambled to its center. He sat cross-legged and half-hidden among the gnarled branches that bent into the stream, and waited.

  When the knight finally appeared, Thomas saw his face clearly. It had been hidden on the gallows by a bowed head but was now revealed beneath the sharp shadows of the midday sun. Hair cropped short—no gray at the edges. Dark eyes. Most compelling was the ragged scar down his right cheek.

  Thomas waited for the knight to notice him.

  William merely raised an eyebrow when he reached the bank of the stream and saw a boy among the branches of the log.

  “This appears to be a popular bridge for a forest so lonely,” he said.

  It drew a smile from the young man, who added a touch of his own irony. “A shrewd observation, sir.” The young man stood and balanced in the middle of the fallen tree. “I shall gladly make room for you to pass, sir. However, I beg of you to first answer a question.”

  Most men who had fought long and hard to reach the status of knighthood would have been enraged at such insolence. Most knights would have responded with a menacing steel blade. William simply permitted himself the slight curl of a grin.

  “What’s your name?” William asked. He kept it casual, but this was a more important question than it appeared.

  “Thomas. And yours?”

  “William.”

  “You are a knight.”

  “Formerly a Templar,” William answered. A vision came to him of the days when he, like his brothers, could proudly wear the white mantle with a red cross, when they were known everywhere as the most skilled fighting units of the Crusades.