by Glenda Larke
“True enough.” Ambrose slapped his pupil’s steel-clad shoulder. “And shame be on his tiltmaster. But for all that, he be a brutey jouster. You’ll be kissing dirt, my lord, if you don’t have a care.”
“Then shame be on my tiltmaster,” Balfre said, flashing Ambrose a swift smirk. “If I do kiss the dirt, I’ll have to find myself a new one.”
Because this was no formal tourney they lacked judges to keep time or award points and penalties. There was the lone hornblower, though, for the sake of the ragged crowd. As Hughe remounted his restive stallion, one of his squires ran to the man and gave an order. Obedient, the appointed villager blew his horn to alert the crowd to the next joust.
Balfre nodded at Ambrose, then crossed to the wooden mounting block where his destrier was held fast by two squires. As he approached, one of them was doltish enough to shift too far sideways. The stallion lashed out its foreleg and caught the man on his thigh with an iron-shod hoof. Squealing, the squire crumpled.
“Maggot-brain!” said Ambrose, hurrying to drag him clear. Then he gestured at turnip-head. “Don’t stand there gawping, you peascod. Hold the cursed horse!”
The excited villagers set up another din of handbells and rattles and whistles. Stood at a distance in their second-rate armour, Ennis and the vanquished mudder knights cast envious looks at the stallion. Quivering with nerves, eager for the joust, the horse tossed its head and swished its thick black tail. As Balfre reached the mounting block it bared its teeth and snapped, strong enough to rip fingers from an unprotected hand.
“Bah! ” he said, and punched the stallion’s dish-round cheek. “Stand still!”
Walking to and fro, the hornblower sounded another rallying blast, coaxing more raucous cheers from the crowd. On the far side of the tourney ground Hughe kicked his roan destrier forward, scattering his squires like beetles. One tottered behind him, awkwardly carrying his lance.
Rolling his eyes, Balfre picked up his reins, shoved his left foot into his stirrup and swung his right leg up and over his jousting saddle’s high cantle. The moment he settled on his destrier’s back he felt the animal tense beneath him, its breath coming in angry grunts. Not even his heaviest gauntlets muffled its throttled energy, tingling from the curbed bit to his fingers. Through the steel protecting his thighs and lower legs he could feel his mount’s barrel ribs expand and contract, and the pent-up furious power in the muscular body beneath him. This was his best horse, and they were well-matched in both temper and skill. Only for Black Hughe would he risk the beast here. But Hughe was owed a mighty drubbing, and to be sure of it he’d chance even this animal.
With a decided tug he closed his helmet’s visor then held out his hand. “Lance!”
The weight of the carved, painted timber woke old bruises and strains. Stifling an oath, he couched the lance in its proper place, pricked spurs to his horse’s flanks, then softened the bit’s sharp bite.
The destrier leapt like a flycatcher, snorting. White foam flew from its mouth. Prisoned within his gold-chased helm, his vision narrowed to a slit and the crowd’s roaring a hollow boom, Balfre laughed aloud. Aside from a writhing woman pinned on his cock, was there anything better in the world than a lance in his hand, a grand horse between his legs, and a man before him a handful of heartbeats from defeat?
No. There wasn’t.
Snorting, ears pricked, the destrier settled into a stately, knee-snapping prance. He sat the dance with ease, guiding the stallion to the start of the tilt-run with nothing more than his shifting weight and the touch of his long-shanked, elaborate spurs. There he halted, and paid no heed to the crowd’s wild cheering or the stallion’s threatening half-rears.
“Black Hughe!” he called, loud enough to be heard through his helmet. “You stand ready?”
“I indeed stand ready, Balfre!” Hughe shouted back. “Do I have your pardon now, for the unseating of you later?”
“You’ll have my pardon once you answer for your slur.”
“My lord,” said Hughe, defiant, then closed his own visor and demanded his lance.
As the hornblowing churl took his place midway along the rough tilt-run, horn ready at his lips, the watching villagers and mudder knights fell silent. Only the blackbirds kept up their squabbling, seeking the last grains of seed.
The horn sounded again, a single trembling note. Balfre threw his weight forward as he felt his stallion’s quarters sink beneath him, felt its forehand lift, saw its noble head and great, crested neck rise towards his face. It bellowed, a roaring challenge, then stood on its strong hindlegs. Night-black forelegs raked the air. He loosened the reins, gripped the lance and spurred the stallion’s flanks. The horse plunged groundwards, bellowing again… and charged.
Blurred, breathless speed. Pounding heart. Heaving lungs. Nothing before him but Black Hughe on his horse and the memory of his hateful taunt, dagger-sharp and unforgivable.
Seven thundering strides. Six. Five.
He tucked the lance tight to his side, closed his thighs, dropped the reins. Blinked his eyes free of sweat… and took aim… and struck.
A double shout of pain, as his lance-head impacted Hughe’s armoured body and shattered, as Hughe’s undamaged lance struck then glanced harmlessly aside. Pain thrummed through him like the ringing of a great bell, like the clashing of a hammer against the anvil of the world. His fingers opened, releasing the splintered remains of his lance. Then they closed again, on his dropped reins. He hauled on them, unkindly, and his destrier shuddered to a head-shaking halt. A tug and a spurring, and he was turned back to look for Hughe.
Herewart’s youngest son was sprawled on the tilt-run’s dirt like a starfish, his fancy breastplate dented, his helmet scratched, his brown eyes staring blindly at the sky.
“My lord! My lord!”
And that was Ambrose, the old, scarred man, running hoppy and hamstrung towards him. Turnip-head and another squire scurried at his heels. Hughe’s squires were running too, the ones that weren’t dashing after his ill-trained horse.
Ambrose, arriving, snatched at the destrier’s reins. His pocked face, with its faded sword marks, stretched splitting-wide in a tottytooth smile.
“A doughty strike, my lord, doughty! The best from you I’ve surely seen! Lord Grefin will bite his thumb, for certain, when he’s told what he missed.”
Grefin. A curse on Grefin and his milksop mimbling. Balfre shoved up his visor, then kicked his feet free of the stirrups and twisted out of his saddle. The jar in his bones as he landed on the hoof-scarred ground made him wince. Ambrose saw it, but nobody else. He held out his hands for the squires to pull off his gauntlets, and when they were free unbuckled and tugged off his helmet for himself.
“Take the horse,” he commanded. “I would speak to Black Hughe.”
“My lord,” said Ambrose, holding stallion and helmet now. “We’ll make ready to depart.”
The villagers and mudder knights were still cheering, the ragtag children shaking their rattles and handbells and blowing their whistles. He waved once, since it was expected, then turned from them to consider old Herewart’s son. The lingering pains in his body were as nothing, drowned in the joy of seeing his enemy thrown down.
“Lord Balfre,” Hughe greeted him, his voice thin as watered wine. His squires had freed him from his helmet and thrust a folded tunic beneath his head. “Your joust, I think.”
With a look, Balfre scattered the squires who hovered to render their lord aid. Then he dropped to one knee, with care, and braced an aching forearm across his thigh.
“Hughe.”
Black Hughe was sweating, his face pale beneath the blood seeping from a split across the bridge of his nose. More blood trickled from one nostril, and from the corner of his mouth. He looked like a knifed hog.
“I’m not dying, Balfre,” Hughe said, slowly. “I bit my tongue. That’s all.”
“And to think, Hughe, if you’d bitten it the sooner you’d not be lying here now in a welter of your gore, unhorsed
and roundly defeated,” he said kindly, and smiled.
Hughe coughed, then gasped in pain. “My lord—”
“Hughe, Hughe…” Leaning forward, Balfre patted Black Hughe’s bruised cheek. Mingled sweat and blood stained his fingers. He didn’t mind. They were his prize. “I’m going now. Without your horse and armour. I didn’t joust you for them.”
“My lord,” said Hughe, and swallowed painfully. “Thank you.”
“Not at all. And Hughe, for your sake, heed me now. Remember this moment. Engrave it on your heart. So the next time you think to slight my prowess with my lance? You think again—and stay silent.”
Hughe stared at him, struck dumb. Balfre smiled again, not kindly. Pushed to his feet, spurning assistance, gave Hughe his armoured back and walked away.
Temper sour as pickled lemon after his fractious dealings on the Green Isle, Aimery of Harcia disembarked his light galley in no mood for delay. Not waiting to see if his high steward and the others were ready, he made his way down the timber gang-plank, booted heels sharply rapping, and leapt the last few steps with the ease of a man half his age. The surety of steady ground beneath his feet at once lifted his spirits. Ah! Blessed Harcia! Never mind it was little more than a stone’s throw from the mainland to the Green Isle. He’d stick a sword through his own gizzards before confessing to a soul how much he hated sailing.
“’Tis good to be home, Your Grace,” said his high steward, joining him.
Staring at the busy harbour village of Piper’s Wade crowded before them, Aimery breathed in the mingled scents of fresh salt air, old fish guts, people and beasts. Some might call the air tainted, a stench, but never him. It was the smell of Harcia, his duchy, sweeter than any fresh bloom.
“We’re not home yet, Curteis. Not quite.” He smiled. “But this’ll do. Now, let’s be off. I can hear the Croft calling.”
His party’s horses had been stabled against their return at nearby Piper’s Inn. With their baggage to be off-loaded from the galley and transported by ox-cart, he led his people to the inn with purposeful haste, greeting the villagers who greeted him with a nod and a friendly word in passing, making sure they knew he was pleased to see them but alas, could not stop… only to be halted in the Piper’s empty, sunlit forecourt by a wildly bearded man in embroidered rags.
“My lord! Duke Aimery!” Skinny arms waving, the man shuffled into his path. A soothsayer from the old religion, half his wits wandered off entirely. Lost, along with most of his teeth. Twig-tangled grey hair, lank past his shoulders, framed a seamed and sun-spoiled lean face. His pale grey eyes were yellowed with ill health, and sunken. “A word, my lord! Your pardon! A word!”
It was held bad luck to spurn a soothsayer. Aimery raised a warning hand to his four men-at-arms. “Keep yourselves. There’s no harm here. See to the horses and you, Curteis, settle our account with the innkeeper.”
They knew better than to argue. As he was obeyed, and his scribe and body squire hastily took themselves out of the way, Aimery turned to the ragged man.
“You know me then, soothsayer?”
The soothsayer cackled on a gust of foul breath. “Not I, my lord. The stars. The little frogs. The wind. The spirits in the deep woods know you, my lord. But they whisper to me.”
“And what do they whisper?”
Those sunken, yellow-tinged eyes narrowed. “I could tell you. I should tell you. But will I be believed? Do you honour the spirits? Or…” The soothsayer spat. Blackish-green phlegm smeared his lips. “Are you seduced by the grey men, my lord?”
The grey men. The Exarch’s monks, harbingers of a new religion. It had barely scratched the surface of Harcia, though its roots grew deep in other lands. The soothsayer stared at him, hungrily, as though his reply must be a feast.
“I’m seduced by no one,” he said. “Every philosophy has its truth. Speak to me, or don’t speak. The choice is yours. But I’ll not stand here till sunset, waiting.”
The soothsayer cocked his head, as though listening. Then another gusting cackle. “Yes, yes. I hear him. A needle-wit, this Aimery. Prick, prick, prick and see the blood flow.” A gnarled finger pointed to the early morning sky, eggshell-blue wreathed in lazy cloud. “Three nights past, my lord. As the moon set. A long-tailed comet. The sign of chaos. Were you witness? It made the black sky bleed.”
Three nights past at moonset he’d only just crawled into his borrowed bed on the Green Isle, head aching with arguments. “No. I didn’t see it. I was asleep.”
“Asleep then, asleep now.” Eyes stretching wide, the soothsayer shuffled close. “Time to wake, my lord duke, and see the trouble festering under your roof.”
A clutch at his heart. “What trouble?”
“There was a man who had three sons. Lost one. Kept one. Threw the third away. The fool.”
“What do you mean? What—”
“Be warned, my lord duke,” the old man wheezed. “Unless you open your eyes you will sleep the cold sleep of death.” A rattle in the scrawny throat, a sound like the last breath of a dying wife. A dying son. “And no right to say you were not told. You have to know it, Aimery. A long-tailed comet cannot lie.”
But a man could. A mad man, his wits scattered like chaff on the wind. Aimery stepped back. “Be on your way, soothsayer. You’ve spoken and I’ve listened.”
“Yes, but have you heard?” The soothsayer shook his head, sorrowful. Or perhaps merely acting sorrow. Who could tell, with a mad man? “Ah well. In time we’ll know.”
It was nonsense, of course. He had little time for religion, old or new. But the soothsayer looked in a bad way, so he pulled a plain gold ring from his finger.
“Take this, old man. Buy yourself a warm bed and hot food. And when next the spirits whisper, whisper to them from me that a faithful servant should be better served.”
The soothsayer’s eyes glittered as he stared at the ring. Then he snatched it, and with much muttering and arm-waving hobbled out of the forecourt.
“Your Grace,” Curteis murmured, arriving on soft feet that barely disturbed the raked gravel. “Is aught amiss?”
Aimery frowned after the soothsayer, an indistinct bundle of rags vanishing into the high street’s bustle. Mad old men and their ramblings. Throw a stone into any crowd and you’d likely strike at least three.
“No. Can we go?”
Curteis nodded. “Yes, Your Grace. As it please you.”
They rode knee-to-knee out of the inn’s stable yard in a clattering of hooves, with his body squire and his scribe and his men-at-arms close at heel.
“Be warned, Curteis,” he said, as they scattered pie-sellers and cobblers and fishwives before them along Piper’s Wade high street, “and share the warning with them that ride behind. I wish to sleep in my own bed under my own roof sooner rather than later. Therefore we shall travel swiftly, with few halts, and should I hear a tongue clapping complaint I swear I’ll kick the culprit’s arse seven shades of black and blue.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” said Curteis, smiling. He was well used to his duke.
With the past two weeks fresh in mind, Aimery scowled. “I tell you plain, man, I’ve heard enough clapping tongues lately to last me till my funeral.”
“The lords of the Green Isle were indeed fretsome, Your Grace.”
“Fretsome?” He snorted. “Snaggle-brained, you should call them. Vexatious. Full of wind. Especially that cross-grained fuck Terriel.”
“Your Grace,” agreed Curteis. “Lord Terriel and his noble brothers farted many noisome words. But you set them well straight.”
Yes, he did. And woe betide a one of them who again dared defy his judgement. That man, be he ever so lordly, even the great and grasping Terriel, would find himself so handily chastised there’d be scars on his great-grandson’s arse.
Bleakly satisfied, still impatient, Aimery urged his iron-dappled palfrey into a canter, then swung left off the high street onto Hook Way, which would lead them eventually to his ducal forest of Burnt Wood. If the rai
n held off and no mischance befell them, with the horses well rested they’d be in and out of the forest by day’s end. Spend the night in Sparrowholt on its far side, leave at dawn on the morrow, ride hard with little dallying and with fortune they’d reach the Croft before sunset.
And so it proved. But when he did at last trot beneath the arching stone gateway of his favourite castle’s inner bailey, feeling every one of his fifty-four years, he found himself ridden into yet another storm. For standing in the Croft’s torchlit keep, clad head to toe in unrelieved black velvet, was old Herewart of nearby Bann Crossing. He trembled in the dusk’s chill, tears swiftly slicking his withered cheeks. Waiting with him, stood at a wary distance, Balfre and Grefin.
“What is this, Balfre?” Aimery demanded of his accidental heir, even as his gaze lingered on his youngest son. His favourite, now that Malcolm was dead. “Why am I greeted with such confusion?”
He’d sent a man ahead, to warn of his arrival and stir the castle’s servants to duty. As they hurried to take the horses and relieve Curteis and the scribe of their note-filled satchels, and the men-at-arms waited with their hands ready on their swords, he saw Balfre and Grefin exchange disquieting looks. But before his heir could answer, Herewart let out a cry cracked-full of grief and approached without leave or invitation.
“Your Grace, you must hear me! As a father, and my duke, only you can grant me the justice I seek!”
“Hold,” he said to the men-at-arms who were moving to protect him. Then he looked to his steward. “Curteis, escort Lord Herewart within the castle. See him comforted, and kept company in the Rose chamber until I come.”
Very proper, though he was also weary, Curteis bowed. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“Your Grace!” Herewart protested. “Do not abandon me to an underling. My years of loyalty should purchase more consideration than that. I demand—”
“Demand?” Summoning a lifetime’s worth of discipline, Aimery swung off his horse to land lightly on his feet. “My lord, be mindful. Not even a lifetime of loyalty will purchase a demand.”
