The Knights Dawning (The Crusades Series)

by James Batchelor

  “Milady,” he said formally. “I thank you for troubling yourself over such a trivial matter as this.” He took her hand and kissed it.

  “I would not have missed it, Sir Henry,” She said in her customary guileless manner. Henry could not fathom this woman. If their roles had been reversed, he would not have set foot anywhere near Dawning Castle. But here she was, and she seemed just as happy to be here as if nothing untoward had ever passed between them. Perhaps this was a sign after all, he thought.

  “Trivial thing?” Thomas interrupted. “And what about all the time and trouble of those assembled here do you consider trivial?”

  “Very nice, brother,” Henry said to him sardonically.

  “I’ll tell you what had better not be trivial,” he said. “The food.” He rubbed his hands together as he surveyed the room full of servants piling the tables high with all manner of fruits and meats. “Mother, I am wasting away to nothing. Did you intend on eating that food or only looking at it?” he called to her.

  ***

  “… I thought Henry was going to have to change his leggings!” Thomas said, and the table roared with laughter. Henry colored in embarrassment but tried to appear unruffled. The feast at Dawning Court in Henry's honor passed off smoothly. Most of the nobles and knights of Dawning Court were in attendance. Thomas, as usual, played a prominent part in the entertainment of the evening with his boisterous jests and his larger than life personality. Henry often wished he were more like Thomas. He could so easily make people laugh. Henry had tried on occasion to carry that same flippant attitude about life, but it was just not him, and invariably he ended up offending. Thomas also tended to get too carried away, but somehow family gatherings never seemed to be complete without him.

  Henry enjoyed watching his old friends and family back together. Sitting in the warmth of the company, he told himself that the nightmares that haunted him for the last few months were just that, nightmares and nothing more. But it was one particular figure half way down the central table that kept his attention for most of the night. Why was she here? Of course, where else would she be? Surely she could not be that good and kind. Only a devil could seem so angelic. She was captivating. Every movement, every word, every note of her light, musical laugh stirred his heart.

  As the evening wore on, most of the friends, family, and well-wishers began to make their way out. Eventually, even Martha Dawning, having said farewells to the last of the guests, had retired for the evening with a kiss on Henry’s forehead. Henry sat in the mostly empty dining hall watching the servants scurrying about, cleaning up the remnants of the repast. He noted that Edith, Leah’s handmaid, had momentarily disappeared. Leah rose to go also. “Uhmm, milady,” Henry said formally, standing to address her. “I wonder if you would not tarry for a moment.”

  “Of course, Sir Henry,” she said, betraying no hint of what thoughts she might be hiding behind her beautiful eyes. She dutifully took the seat to the right of the head of the table where Henry again seated himself.

  “I trust the intervening years have kept you well,” Henry started awkwardly. It was maddening to be so formal with the one person in the world he most wanted to be close to.

  “I have been very well. Although,” she said sweetly, “it has been rather quiet with the Dawning men all but absent.” Henry searched her words for some sign of something other than plain good breeding—some indication of some deference to him.

  “Yes, well, such is the life of a knight. His destiny is not his own.” He tried to sound dismissive.

  “Oh, please do not take my own selfish expressions as reproof. My pleasure in your noble family’s willingness to serve the Pope’s divine cause is equaled only by my joy at your safe return.”

  Was that it? Henry wondered urgently. Was she showing him deference with that remark or merely being her sweet, thoughtful self? He chewed his lip thoughtfully as he tried to work out how best to proceed.

  “Sir Henry?” Leah prodded him gently.

  “Hmm? Oh, sorry, I was just reflecting on my own time serving the Pope’s divine cause.” He could not entirely keep the bitterness out of his voice as he echoed her expression.

  Leah hesitated for a moment. “Are you quite well?”

  He was not well at all, but he could not tell her the real reason for it, at least not yet. “It’s just that phrase, ‘the Pope’s divine cause,’ that gave me pause,” he admitted. While this was not the matter on his mind, they were real doubts that had been plaguing him since that day of his defeat on the battle field.

  “When you left, I had never known a more fervent desire in any man to do the Lord’s will,” Leah said gently. “Has something happened to hood your noble desire?”

  Henry snorted. “Has something happened? Nothing at all except being abandoned by the Lord while I watched my men be slaughtered around me.” Leah’s hand came to her mouth.

  “Surely you still believe in the divine nature of your calling to serve in the Crusades?” She said. “You must know there was a reason for the work you were undertaking.”

  “What was the reason for my entire company being wiped out in Persia?” Henry was suddenly heated as the terrible mass of fear, resentment, and guilt was tapped into for the first time since that fateful day.

  Leah was surprised by such vehemence and unsure how to respond. “I imagine the reason was superior numbers. As I understand it, your men were outnumbered. Is that correct?”

  “Why should that matter? If I was on God’s errand, why wasn’t He with me? Why wasn’t He with us when we needed him most? Like ancient Israel defeating Canaan with three hundred soldiers? If those old legends are true, where was He when we needed Him?”

  “I think perhaps you are confusing God’s condoning an act with destiny,” she said gently. “God wants us to reclaim the Holy Land from the Saracens, but if I were to try to take it alone, I would not prevail.” Leah hesitated again, afraid she would sound like she was accusing Henry of some miscalculation or wrongdoing. “It is incumbent upon us to be adequately prepared for the challenge at hand. And if the Lord wants to use us to make a point as he did in Jericho, so be it. But it is far more common in scripture that the blood of the righteous makes the more poignant point.”

  “Well that may be, but I am certain that my men died for nothing. Though they were acting in the service of God, they are just as dead as they would have been if they were acting on selfish or evil designs. We lost every bit of ground we had fought for, and their bodies were burned on a foreign land by unclean hands. Their lives were wasted.”

  “It saddens me to hear you speak of your sacrifice as wasted,” Leah said with genuine emotion in her voice. “No life given in the service of the Lord is ever wasted. And we expect that those soldiers were received to the bosom of the Lord for their willingness to sacrifice.”

  “You are aware, I trust, that the Moors use that same language to justify themselves. They are saying that they are being received to the bosom of Allah for their service and defeat in battle. So, who is right?”

  “Who is right?” Leah asked incredulously. “Sir Henry, the Lord has seen fit to spare your life. I, for one, am very grateful for that, but instead of your experiences heightening your gratitude and greater devotion for God, as one might expect, you seem to be angry and embittered. How can that be?”

  “Are you so certain I was spared by divine intervention?” Henry challenged. “Were you present? Was I carried to safety in a heavenly cloud blown by a divine wind? Or did I fight through the day and only when my last men were being cut down did I flee from the field like a cowardly dog? What is divine about that?” He slammed the table with his fist and jumped to his feet. He walked a few paces away and stood brooding. The silence was palpable.

  ”Is it the loss of your men and the defeat that is gnawing at your soul?” Leah asked softly. “Or is it the fact that you were forced to flee?”

  ”It is everything! We were supposed to be divine warriors that swept off the enem
y before us, but instead we were like lambs at the slaughter.”

  ”Do you believe your call to crusade was divine?” Leah asked again.

  ”No, I don’t believe it was divine!” Henry yelled in exasperation. “Nothing about the experience was sacred. It was abysmal, dark, and horrible. I would never go back and I would never do it again.”

  Leah did not respond. As Henry’s emotion cooled, he realized that he had just accomplished the opposite of what he had set out to do. Instead of letting this sweet, beautiful creature know that he still cherished feelings for her, he was using her as an outlet for his most lurid thoughts. He dropped his eyes, unable to meet her gaze. He had surprised himself with the vocalization of the doubts of the divinity of the Church and the correctness of the Crusades that had been swimming in his mind since that day. But he did not regret saying them. Expressing the pain he was in and the horror of that day was cathartic for Henry. He felt justified in lashing out against the organization that had put him in that situation but realized that Leah may take it as lashing out against her. “Forgive me, milady,” he said, seating himself again. It seemed to him there was a space between the two of them suddenly, and he rushed to try to remove the discomfort. “I guess I did not realize how hard on me the ordeal had been.”

  Leah was silent a moment. “It must have been truly terrible.”

  Henry only nodded as Edith reappeared through the doors that led to the kitchen and servants’ side of the house. Henry realized his opportunity had passed and he had wasted it. He stood formally as Edith approached to remove the appearance of any impropriety. “I do hope it will not be long before I see you again,” he said loudly enough for Edith to overhear.

  Leah also stood as Edith approached. “Oh, Sir Henry, I am sure we will see each other frequently,” she said sweetly. There was no indication in her voice or manner that their conversation had been anything but a pleasant discussion of the weather. He marveled at her as Edith encouraged her to return with her. “It has gotten quite late, Leah.” Henry could not help scowling at Edith. He felt that she was a constant wedge between Leah and himself, as though she were trying to keep them apart. He wondered if she knew of his erstwhile professions of love to Leah and her sound rejection of him. As she was Leah’s closest confidant, he had to assume that she did. How mortifying to know that she was discussing his most personal humiliations with anyone she saw fit. He found himself really disliking the small blond girl.

  “My goodness! You are correct, Edith. We should be off at once.”

  She said her farewells to Henry, and they departed through the main doors. Henry sat down again, drinking long into the night, thinking about all that had happened, all that he had become, marveling that after three years in grisly combat he could be exactly where he was prior to his departure from Dawning Court—stewing over a woman. Henry needed to rest. He was exhausted, but he was too afraid to sleep.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “I was very grateful to see you,” Henry said to Roland as they walked through the gates of Dawning Castle toward Dawning Court’s outer wall. The memories poured in as Henry and Roland meandered past the estates and cottages that dotted the land, through the vast fields of grain interspersed among the cottages, estates, and roads. It seemed that every inch of this place was tied to a memory for Henry. Closer to the castle there was a fifty-foot wall that surrounded Dawning castle and courtyard. This was intended to be the primary defense of Dawning castle. In the event of an attack, most of the local residents could take refuge within these walls for safety. In times of relative peace, however, both the gates on the inner and outer walls remained open most of the time. Within the inner wall only those closest to the Dawnings resided. Certain nobles, knights, and servants as well as the church were here. Leah's family was one of the prosperous families of Thanes that lived here.

  The outer wall of Dawning Court, which surrounded a vast tract of land immediately around the castle wall, was built a generation before, and because of the scope of the project, it had been built only fifteen feet high and offered only marginal protection to those that took residence around Dawning Court. The area within this wall was populated by the tenants of Dawning Court: yeomen, villeins, and serfs who worked the land in exchange for food, shelter, and protection. Minor nobles and knights that were pledged to the barony also resided within the outer walls. Outside the walls was another large group of tenants who had spilled over the usable land within the walls during the Dawnings’ more prosperous times under the reign of Braden Dawning, Henry’s father. Around this population a town of sorts had sprung up, with a small market square occupied by permanent shops.

  “I was very glad to see you, but I must confess, I had expected to see more than just you upon my return. Shall we not call upon Adler, Colin, and the others?” Henry’s lanky friend was lean like himself and a head taller. And though Henry had never felt himself particularly agile or dexterous, Roland’s coordination was even more challenged. He was thoroughly awkward in manner and speech, and any discomfort felt in a given situation only served to exacerbate this awkwardness; but he had proved a faithful friend to Henry, and Henry felt deeply the absence of friends at the moment.

  “Oh—Umm…” Roland hesitated.

  “Roland, what is it?” Henry asked, amused by his friend’s discomfort.

  “It’s just that…” Roland stopped and scratched the back of his corn silk hair.

  “What are you are trying to say?”

  “I assumed you would have already been made aware.”

  “Made aware of what?” Henry snapped impatiently.

  “Well, Adler is dead.”

  “What?” Henry stopped and looked at his friend, searching for some sign that this was an ill-judged jest. Roland fidgeted nervously under the scrutiny. “I had no idea!”

  Roland nodded. “He never returned from the Crusades.”

  Henry resumed walking again to combat the nauseous feeling in his stomach. “What of Colin, and Zachary, and the others? Are they dead too?”

  “No, no,” Roland assured his friend. “They are not dead. At least, not so far as I know.”

  “So where are they? Are you the only friend I have left?” An uncomfortable silence followed. “That was a jest!” Henry protested in dismay.

  “No, no, I am certain their friendship is as true and abiding as it ever was,” Roland said placatingly.

  “So where are they?” Henry asked, suddenly in a sour mood.

  “They are gone, Henry. They have all moved on. Dawning Court’s economy has been struggling, and they have been forced to offer their swords elsewhere."

  “Are they so mercenary that they sell their allegiance to the highest bidder?” Henry growled.

  “Well, Henry, they came back from the Holy Land ready to be knighted and take an oath of fealty, but Dawning Court would not offer them anything. They would have had to stay on out of goodwill, and that is difficult to live on.”

  “That doesn’t sound right,” Henry said defensively. “My father is reputed for his generous nature almost as much as his thundering hand.”

  “Yes, well . . .” Roland said awkwardly, scratching the back of his head again and averting his gaze from Henry.

  “Well what?” Henry demanded.

  “Your father is not in charge any longer, is he?”

  “Just what are you implying?”

  Roland held his hands up defensively. “Whether real or imagined, it is taken for granted by the locals that the Dawning largess ended with the death of your father.”

  “Are you suggesting that my mother—” he sputtered on the words.

  “I am not suggesting anything or accusing anyone of anything,” Roland said quickly. “I am only saying that the local economy is depressed and that there is very little remuneration offered to knights that would otherwise willingly align themselves with Dawning Court.”

  “You seem to be doing well enough,” Henry accused him.

  Roland only shrugged. “That
is incident to my family’s prosperity more than my own choice of benefactors.”

  Henry opened his mouth to argue again but closed it without saying anything. Nothing he was hearing made sense to him, but Roland had no reason to lie. There must be more afoot than he realized. He could not imagine his mother selfishly depriving the chivalry their just rewards.

  “It's not the same, is it?” Roland asked knowingly as he again fell into step with his old friend. “Coming back, I mean. I remember when I came back. I felt like I had learned a great many things and changed as a person, but everyone here wanted me to be the same person that had left, and they weren't happy when I wasn't. I couldn't be me, but I wasn't the person that had left here any longer either. I wasn't happy, and they weren't happy. It was rough for a while.”

  “I guess that’s it,” Henry acknowledged, grateful for his friend’s empathy. “I just never imagined it being so different when I came home. It is like I am a stranger here and nobody really knows me. What did you finally do?”