by Shutta Crum
For Princess Eleanor and for Peter
(who is really very tidy), love
—S.C.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Book I - The Trials of Thomas
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Book II - A Blade from a Distant Land
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Book III - Toward an Ancient Evil
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Book IV - Tilting Toward Doom
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Book V - Trespass and Treasure
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Book VI - Of Toys and Talents
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Thomas staggered through the clearing gripping one of his arms. “Arrgh,” he moaned. Then he collapsed in the grass, kicking his feet in the air and pretending to wrestle with a sea monster. Around him eight of his brothers and sisters clapped their hands or complained, “That’s not how it happened!”
Their da had told a particularly good tale last night about a wounded knight who had managed, with his dying breath, to kill a sea beast. The next day the little ones had begged Thomas to act out the story. He did not mind doing this, for it gave him a chance to think about what to do if he should ever really come face to face with a sea monster, or what to do if he had only one breath left to live. Furthermore, he’d used the request to get his brothers and sisters to promise that they’d follow him to the river afterward.
It was now warm enough to bathe in the river, and Thomas, as the eldest, was in charge of their much-needed summer scrubbing-up. After shushing all arguments about his retelling of Da’s tale, he put baby Isabel on her bottom in the middle of the ankle-deep stream and then got busy chasing down several others to get them washed.
From behind him he heard Isabel cry, “Horsey!”
“We left your toy at home, Izzy,” he called over his shoulder as he made a grab for his dirtiest little brother, Peter.
“Horsey!” The little girl giggled.
It was a new word for Isabel, who’d just gotten a carved wooden horse from their father. Since she used the word often, Thomas did not bother to look when she laughed and said, “Horsey!” a third time.
It was not until another sister pointed toward the stream and cried, “There’s a knight!” that Thomas turned and saw a great black warhorse coming quickly around the bend of the rocky riverbed. It was bearing down upon his baby sister. The knight on its back seemed to be looking down, not ahead of him where Isabel sat in the shallow water and clapped joyfully.
“Is-a-bel!” screamed Thomas as he let Peter loose and raced toward the riverbed. “Stop!” Thomas shouted at the knight. He waved his arms frantically.
The knight did not look up; instead, he lurched in his saddle and almost fell off.
He can’t hear me! Thomas felt his heart tearing in two. He flew toward his sister—but there were boulders and tree roots in the way. He’d never make it in time. She’d be trampled. “Is-a-bel!”
“Horsey!” She pointed. “Me want.” Her hands opened and closed as she leaned toward the oncoming animal.
Thomas’s shin smacked against a boulder and he went tumbling headfirst over it. He scrambled back up. As he did, he grabbed a stone and hurled it with all his might at the horse, and missed. He was limping now, and he moaned as he grabbed another large stone. He saw his brother Albert and his sister Margaret racing toward Isabel as well. They would not make it in time. His arm arced back and the stone shot forward. It hit the horse on its muzzle.
The horse reared—its big hooves almost above Isabel’s head, its mane, as black as midnight, whipping back—and a high-pitched eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee split the air.
Isabel’s lower lip quivered. She screwed up her face and bellowed a cry of baby-temper that echoed the horse’s cry of panic. “Ah … eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
The knight slipped sideways into the stream, and the frightened animal bolted up the opposite bank—nostrils flaring and eyes rolling. Snorting and stamping, it got tangled in the brambles along the bank.
Thomas bent forward and grabbed at his side. He tried to catch his breath and thought he was going to be sick. A second later, he raised his head and saw his baby sister safe, but bawling big disappointed tears as she turned on her bottom to watch the horse. Her little hands were still opening and closing—demanding, Give me. The knight, perhaps knocked to his senses by the fall, was struggling to rise.
Thomas picked his way through the remaining tree roots and climbed over the last boulders along the streamside. He was followed by his brothers and sisters. He swallowed hard and panted as he told Margaret, “Get Izzy.”
Then he paused to get his strength back, turned, and limped to the knight’s side. With Albert’s help, Thomas got the knight to his feet. The man was groggy and holding his head. Thomas walked him around the scattered boulders to an especially broad tree root that lifted out of the bank. There the knight sat down and leaned against the trunk of an alder.
He was a big man, with a broad chest—broader than Da’s. He seemed to be an all-over mishmash of browns and reds. His bushy hair was red. His beard was red, also, and a bit raggedy. It barely covered a scar or two on his chin. His armor had rusted. And his laced-up leggings and boots were covered with brown mud.
Thomas looked into the man’s face. “Begging your pardon, sir, are you all right?”
The knight tried to focus on the boy in front of him. “I think so. My head hurts. What … happened?”
“It looked like you were asleep on your horse. My baby sister was about to be trampled, so I hit your horse with a stone and he threw you into the river.”
The knight swayed as he peered past the boy to the stream, across at his horse in the brambles, and around at the disheveled group of children who had gathered close. One of them carried a squalling, red-faced baby balanced on her hip.
“I must have nodded off,” the knight said. “I’ve been traveling for two days. I didn’t hurt her, did I?”
Thomas shook his head. “No. She’s screaming because she wants your horse. Whenever she sees a horse, she wants one.”
The knight nodded wearily and closed his eyes. A moment later he opened them and tried to push himself up. “I should see to Eclipse,” he said. Then he collapsed against the tree.
“I’ll do it,” said Thomas, already turning toward the stream.
“Stop!” cried the knight. “He’s a warhorse. If he’s frightened, he might hurt you.”
“That’s Thomas,” a small, particularly dirty child pointed out. “He likes animals.”
“Lots of horses come to our house. Da makes saddles,” explained an older boy. “My name’s Albert.”
“Thomas is brave,” added another child helpfully.
“Just this morning he got wrestled by a sea monster,” whispered the dirty child.
“No he didn’t!” said Albert. “He was just pretend—”
“Please,” interrupted the knight, raising a hand and halting the discussion so he could watch Thomas.
Thomas splashed across the stream and slowly and cal
mly approached Eclipse. He made no sudden moves and was careful to stay where the horse could see him. He spoke soothingly, as he might to Isabel when she was upset. It was only a matter of a few moments before Thomas managed to quiet the startled creature. Then he carefully began to untangle the horse’s reins from the briars and vines that grew thick upon the riverbank.
Thomas held the reins firmly and continued to talk and cluck to the horse as he led it across the stream. It had lost a shoe in its frightened dash, and Thomas stopped to retrieve the horseshoe from the water. Upon his return, his brothers and sisters moved back from ogling the knight so Thomas had room to tie the horse to the other side of the alder.
“Well done!” exclaimed the knight. “And you’ve even found the shoe.” The knight sat up a bit straighter. He was still holding his head, but he seemed to be doing better. “Your … um”—he made a guess indicating the dirty child by his elbow—“your brother here tells me your name is Thomas.”
“Yes,” Thomas answered as he took Isabel from Margaret. Isabel had stopped wailing and was now staring wide-eyed at the great sweating horse standing nearby. Teardrops plopped from her eyes, but a smile was starting on her face.
She looked up at Thomas. “Mine!” she said. Most of the group around the knight put their hands over their mouths and giggled shyly.
“I’m sorry,” said Thomas. “Right now, everything she likes is hers.”
The knight laughed and winced at the same time as he forced himself to rise. “I suspect she’ll grow out of that. Well, Thomas, you seem to have everything in hand. I’ve met some of your family, so now let me introduce myself. I am Sir Gerald of Wellsford. I was on my way to the castle with news for the king. But now Eclipse is minus a shoe.”
“Da is very clever with leather,” Thomas offered.
“He can do anything!” said the dirty child. “Da were at the castle.”
“That’s Peter,” said Thomas, nodding at his littlest brother and adding, “Da was in training once.”
The knight turned to Peter. “He was, was he?”
Peter inspected his thumbs, stuck the cleanest one in his mouth, and nodded vigorously.
Thus, the children convinced Sir Gerald to follow them home. They were sure their father could help by fashioning something for the horse to wear until the knight was able to have its iron shoe refit. So Thomas, followed by his still-unbathed siblings, led a grateful, limping Sir Gerald and his horse toward their home. Peter proudly carried the horseshoe.
Thomas’s father tended Sir Gerald’s horse. By the fireplace in their cottage, Thomas’s mother fed the knight fresh bread and milk. Then she left Sir Gerald to be the center of attention among her young ones while she and Thomas prepared a poultice to apply to the lump on the knight’s forehead.
He was a real knight—or so said Thomas and Ma and Da. The children could see the scrollwork upon the scabbard of his sword, which he had brought with him into the cottage. Da could work designs in leather, but they’d never seen anything this fine before. And in the scabbard was a real sword. They could see that as well.
They’d never gotten a good look at a knight before. A couple of the youngest ones hadn’t even been sure such things as knights existed outside of Da’s bedtime tales. Peter sidled close again. He plucked at Sir Gerald’s arm and asked, “Have you ever been wrestled by a sea monster?”
Sir Gerald laughed and said, “Not of late.” Then he told them of fighting with his brave warhorse for the king on the northern borders. And he spoke of how amazed he’d been when Thomas managed to calm Eclipse at the river.
“Oh! Aye, that’s our Thomas all over,” said Thomas’s mother. “He cannot stand for any creature, big or small, to be suffering. Once, he walked all the way to Millford to set an injured gander in the pond, he was that stubborn about it. He’d taken the notion it would be better tended there by the miller.”
“It was our own geese that had pecked it,” explained Thomas.
“He walks with me to the little house,” said Peter. He shivered, adding, “When it’s night.”
“Me too! He holds my hand,” another child told the knight.
“To the privy,” whispered Thomas’s mother to Sir Gerald just as she tilted the knight’s head back to get a good look at the large bruise that was forming.
Very shortly thereafter, Thomas turned from the poultice preparations. When he did, it was just in time to snatch up Isabel. She had crawled across the floor to Sir Gerald and was about to poke him with a stick.
“Stop that, Izzy!” Thomas said. “No poking.”
“That’s her sword,” said Peter. “You need a sword to be a knight. He’s got one,” he finished, pointing to Sir Gerald.
“Well, he is a knight,” said Albert, rolling his eyes.
“And Izzy is not,” put in Thomas as he lifted Isabel high to head off an infuriated scream.
Peter leaned against the knight and, looking into Sir Gerald’s face, informed him, “Someday, Thomas is going to be a knight.”
“Is he?” asked Sir Gerald, who didn’t seem to mind Peter’s dirt.
Thomas blushed and turned to tuck Isabel into the basket that served as her bed.
Peter nodded. “And he’s going to bring home treasure. Real dragon treasure!”
“Our Thomas, a knight! Don’t be silly,” Albert scoffed, and made a face.
“He is too going to be a knight. He told me so!” Peter shouted.
“Da coulda been a knight,” Albert said, “if he wanted to. But not Thom—”
“Hush!” said their mother as she bent to apply the poultice of pressed herbs to Sir Gerald’s forehead. “Enough of that. We best stop bothering Sir Gerald and get the lot of you ready for bed.” She pushed back a strand of hair. “Albert, stop bickering and take Peter outside. Douse him from the bucket and see if there isn’t a boy under what washes away.”
Later, after outfitting Sir Gerald’s horse with a temporary shoe, Thomas’s father entered the cottage. Sir Gerald sat at the table and spoke openly with the good man.
The northern borders were overrun, and almost every able-bodied man who could be spared from the King’s Company was doing his best to protect the borderlands from invaders. Even some squires, not yet knighted, were engaged in reinforcing the king’s ranks. Sir Gerald was riding back to make his reports and to gather more men to post in the villages in the north. “In truth,” said the knight, “I can see that you are an honest man, nimble on your feet, strong, and a talented leathersmith. We need men such as you.”
Thomas’s heart skipped a beat. What was this? Could it be that his father might see service as a knight after all?
But Da only harrumphed good-naturedly and spread his arms to indicate the little ones around him. “And who would tend to my rioting horde? I’ve nine children now, and the good woman reports we’ll soon have another. I do not know what we would do without the help of Thomas and the older ones to tend to the youngest.”
“’Tis true. You’ve almost a company of the King’s Guard of your own!” The knight chuckled. “Still, the children tell me you trained well at the castle.” Sir Gerald let Da gather his thoughts a moment, and then added, “And you’ve Albert and Thomas and the older girls to help your goodwife.”
“Aye. I excelled at archery and lance work,” Thomas’s father replied. “Since I was stout, I could keep the lance couched low and securely under my arm and up against the lance rest, so my mark was true. And I’m as good a horseman as you’ll find in these parts. Still …” Da shook his head and looked away. “I were never knighted. ‘Twere not the need for so many knights then, and … well, my da before me was a leathersmith as well, you see. I had a rough go of it against boys from landholding families. Suppose I’d gotten a fancy in my noggin, that’s all. Mists and dreams.”
“No! No it wasn’t, Da,” Thomas interrupted, leaping to his father’s side. “He’d make a great knight, Sir Gerald. He’s very strong. He—”
Thomas’s mother turned fro
m the fireplace, where she’d been stirring some broth. “Thomas! I’m surprised at you,” she admonished. “You know better’n to interrupt yer elders.”
Thomas’s father touched his son’s arm to silence him. “Son,” he said, “it takes more than strength to be a knight. I know.”
Sir Gerald agreed, explaining to Thomas and the children, “Much more. Prior to being a knight, most men go through years of training, starting as young as seven. As a page, they must learn about court life and tending the animals. Then, when they’ve got about fourteen years, they become a squire and learn how to handle a sword, joust, plan a battle, and lead men. Your da, here, has already been through a good part of that training. It’s very hard work.”
Thomas backed away from the two men. “I’m … I’m sorry.” And then he got an idea and he couldn’t help himself; almost before he knew it, he’d said, “I’m a hard worker! Ask my da. I’d like to learn all those things. I could be one of the king’s men.”
Sir Gerald smiled at the boy. “I’m certain that you are a hard worker and a help to your father and mother. I’ve seen that today. But right now we need older … ah, lads.” The knight glanced back at Thomas’s father. “Though I do think the King’s Company could use some new boys; our ranks grow smaller every day as we send ever-younger squires to the borderlands. How many years has your eldest son, Albert?”
“Our Albert is not yet twelve,” said Da. “But Thomas, he be our eldest.”
Sir Gerald looked surprised. “He’s your eldest son?” The knight surveyed the group in the room. Albert was still outside with Peter. Even so, several of the children in the cottage stood taller than Thomas. “I hadn’t realized that!”
“He’s”—Da cleared his throat and leaned in toward Sir Gerald—“on the short side for having twelve years. But he’s right enough about being a good helper. He is that. Whilst I’m afraid our Albert hasn’t settled down much yet.”
