The Rogue Knight

by Vaughn Heppner

  Cord desperately needed Old Sloat dead. He feared that Baron Hugh didn’t have the stamina left do to the deed. Nor did he think that a mere javelin could slay the pig. Also, he was worried that Sloat would gore Richard.

  “Come on,” he hissed at Sebald. Cord turned and slipped over the cliff. With his toes, he found purchase. Wearily, as he watched Old Sloat, he slid down a little more. Sebald whined from above. Then the dog lunged and made a controlled drop beside the squire.

  Baron Hugh laughed in dreadful glee. The monstrous boar with his small dark eyes breathed heavily. He bled from several dog bites. With a short hop, Sloat widened his stance and lowered his bloody tusks. Rage glistened in his inky eyes. His mane stiffened even more than before.

  The old white-haired Baron leveled his boar spear. His hands trembled. No doubt, he was very tired. Just then, Lady Alice shouted, rose up in the stirrups and hurled her javelin. The missile shot true, but it slid off Sloat’s callused rutting shield.

  Enraged, the eight hundred-pound beast charged Baron Hugh. As Cord dropped to the ground, the Baron set himself. The spear’s sharp head slid into Sloat’s shoulder. Then it bounced off the thick tissue of the boar’s rutting shield. Sloat darted his head down and up. Baron Hugh bellowed in outrage as his feet left the earth. Old Sloat trampled him, spun atop him, trampled some more, and then rushed Cord.

  Panicked, Cord picked up Richard’s boar-spear. Blood pumped out of Sloat’s wound. Through the blood peered the wickedly black eye of Old Sloat. The beast meant to slay him. It meant to trample his corpse and gloat.

  All the fear of losing his hand, all his hatred of Sir Philip and the injustices he’d had to bear all his life welled like a boil in Cord. The boil broke, and out oozed hatred. Cord roared as he backed up a step against the cliff. He knelt, ground the boar-spear against the hill and held on with all his youthful strength.

  As Sir Philip rode into view, Old Sloat smashed into Cord’s pike. The hardened pole buckled in Cord’s hands as the razor-sharp steel entered Sloat’s neck. The monster’s vast weight pushed the spearhead deeper. Squealing, Sloat tried to slash Cord. Sebald bit into Sloat’s throat and jerked the tusks from Cord. Cord shouted with rage and fear and twisted the boar-spear. The fat pig squealed, thrashing his stumpy legs as life drained from him. Then Old Sloat died and grew very still.

  A mighty feeling of victory washed over Cord. He let go of the boar-spear as he shouted, “Yes! Yes!”

  Huge old Sir Philip sat motionless upon his destrier, his mouth agape. He looked at Cord as if he’d seen a ghost or some other supernatural horror.

  Sebald growled as he shook Old Sloat.

  Sir Philip, his scarred face pale, worked his mouth. “You... You slew Old Sloat.”

  Cord grinned savagely.

  Philip gasped. Then he whispered, “Tostig.”

  Lady Alice glanced sharply at Philip.

  Cord cocked his head. Had Philip said Tostig? Had Philip spoken the name of his, Cord’s, long dead father?

  Philip blinked, and he glanced at the Baron. “Hugh!” he bellowed. “Hugh!” Philip alighted from his mount and ran to the trampled and quite dead Baron Hugh.

  Cord wiped sweat and blood from his face. He’d done the miraculous. He’d killed the monster that had reigned in Clarrus Woods for as long as he could remember.

  Old Sloat had been the King of Beasts, he thought. The knowledge stirred something in him. Cord ran his hands through his hair, staining it red with Old Sloat’s blood. The motion almost seemed like that of a king crowning himself. Cord’s shoulders squared without his being aware of it. His chin rose and his eyes flashed.

  The nearby palfrey screamed, breaking through Cord’s thoughts. He staggered to Richard’s struggling palfrey and put him out of his misery. Cord then pulled out an unconscious but still breathing Richard. Both his legs were broken. Cord knelt beside Richard and touched one of the thighs. Richard groaned. Cord went to work. He set the bones, splinted the legs and bound the wounds. He stood when he was done and looked around. Sir Philip studied him. The ugly set to the heavy knight’s face told Cord more than he wanted to know.

  “You’re going to pay for this day,” Sir Philip whispered.

  Cord was too drained to guard his response. “Old Sloat is dead. That means I’m the forester.”

  Philip roared an oath and drew his sword. He looked upon Cord with stark, unthinking hatred.

  The Lady Alice de Mowbray urged her mount between Sir Philip and Cord. She gazed questioningly upon the knight.

  Sir Philip said, “Maybe not today, dog boy, but someday soon I’m going to kill you. Then I’m going to put your head on a stick and plant it on Hugh’s grave.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Alice said.

  Old Sir Philip laughed; it was an ugly sound. “You’d better hope, you young filly, that Baron Hugh’s son doesn’t grant me the right to marry you.”

  “Touch me and I’ll kill you,” Alice said flatly.

  “We’ll see,” Philip said. Then, as the others knelt by dead Baron Hugh, Philip mounted up and rode off alone.

  Chapter Four

  Philip rode slumped in the saddle, dazed and disoriented by the day’s events. He was only vaguely aware that the sun sank into the western horizon, its bloated disc barely above the forest. The horror he’d witnessed yet lingered. It made him fearful. He urged his destrier on, tired though the stallion was. Philip hoped to reach the Iodo River soon. He didn’t like the idea of fording the swift stream in the dark.

  Too many strange things came out on nights like this.

  “…I’ve seen a ghost,” he whispered.

  Philip sat up when he realized he’d spoken aloud. A cursory glance showed him that no one had dared ride with or walked beside him. The others must have sensed his mood. And they’d stayed to help with Baron Hugh’s corpse. They couldn’t leave the corpse for the ghouls to gnaw, or for any goblins to tamper with it. On a more pragmatic level, he knew they couldn’t leave the corpse for wolves to feast upon. That would be blasphemous.

  Normally, Philip wasn’t superstitious. But how did a person fight superstitions when he’d just seen a ghost?

  Huge Philip Talbot shivered with renewed dread. It had all happened so quickly: Baron Hugh blasting his olifant, Cord reprieved from a hand chopping. Then he’d ridden around the small cliff Richard had so recklessly plummeted off—Philip scowled thinking of the squire. The boy had called him a Turk! Oh, there would be a day of reckoning. Philip assured himself of that. Then he shivered again, thinking of the frightening boar-slayer. The tall slayer with his bloody spear, with the grin Philip had never been able to forget, all these many years he’d tried.

  “Tostig,” he whispered, speaking the name of the man he’d hated more than any other. Speaking the name of the man he’d feared more than any other.

  It had happened many years ago—a lifetime ago. He’d only been a lad of seventeen then. He’d been a huge and clumsy youth with big feet and even bigger hands, although without the big gut that he had nowadays. Still, he’d been strong even then. Oh yes, he’d been stronger than any one of them. There had been the young baron-to-be Hugh and the almost Earl Roger Mortimer. He’d even been stronger than Terrible Tostig, who had been nineteen years old then and a bane to all three of them. Tostig and he had both been squires to the Earl of Wigmore Castle, Roger Mortimer’s father. Philip could hardly remember the Earl’s face anymore; it had been so long ago. He could recall the incident, however, as if it had happened this morning.

  It had all started because of that stupid barn, a perfectly built barn with its hidden stores of grain. How the old Earl how raved about that, eh? Oh, he’d raved long and fiercely, and then he’d sent his squires into the woods to find the freeholder who had dared hold back the dues owed his liege.

  ***

  Young Philip Talbot, a huge brute at seventeen, crouched low in the saddle in order to avoid the branches that whizzed past him at dangerous speeds. His palfrey, a spirited stallion that see
med to sense his master’s clumsiness, galloped uncomfortably close to the trees. The smell of pinesap was overpowering. Philip almost sawed back on the reins. He knew, though, that he’d yank too hard and that the palfrey would neigh in rage and maybe even rear back and throw him off. Philip knew he was strong. Why, he could bend horseshoes into twisted shapes that no one else could budge. For all that, he was still clumsy. He’d finally accepted that when he’d had to practice longer at the quintain than any other squire in order to get it right.

  He hated the quintain. He hated the heavy post with its straw man who held a shield with one stout wooden arm and a leather bag filled with sand dangling from a rope on the other. The straw man looked more like the Savior as he hung on the cross than a dummy knight. All the squires, one at a time, thundered on war-horses at the quintain, their practice lances held level and aimed at the quintain’s red shield. A perfect strike in the center of the shield, on the white spot surrounded by red, caused the shield to swivel harmlessly away. Any other strike made the straw man, the quintain, twist with brutal speed. The straw man, as he twisted, swung his leather bag filled with sand to smack the offending squire in the back. The blow hurt. Worse for Philip, because he was clumsy he was often knocked out of the saddle.

  All the other squires laughed at him then, all except Terrible Tostig. Tostig tried to give him hints on how to do it right. Philip hated Tostig for that. He, Philip Talbot, was Anglo-Norman while Tostig was a Saxon cur. He, Philip Talbot, had a banneret for a father, while Tostig’s father had barely made it into knighthood.

  Philip, as he thundered past the pine trees, endured his palfrey’s knavery all because he wanted to beat Tostig to the freeholder and his daughter. If his palfrey bucked him off, Philip knew he’d probably have to spend at least twenty minutes trying to coax the sly stallion into coming near enough again so he could remount. The cunning old stallion would play his stupid game of always stepping back just fast enough so he, Philip, would be reduced to cursing like an Irishman. By then Tostig would have found the pair.

  Only Tostig and he had been with the Earl in the barn. Apparently, the freeholder had bolted, no doubt having gained warning through his barking dogs. Philip had killed one of those brutes. He’d told the Earl he’d done so because the dog had snarled at him. The real reason was because he’d seen Tostig pet it.

  Terrible Tostig. He hated his fellow squire. He hated him because he did everything so easily. Philip hated him because of his smile, because of his good looks, and most of all, because Terrible Tostig didn’t fear him like the others did. Because Tostig didn’t fear him, he hadn’t been able to browbeat the other squires and pages into line as his mother had told him to do.

  Philip was grinning, even though he cursed as a branch thwacked him on the shoulder, ripped his costly shirt and almost tore him out of the saddle. The rich and insufficiently subservient freeholder had made a terrible mistake, building his barn with hidden granaries. Now Philip had his chance to make the man pay for the insults he’d thrown at him in the past, and through that he’d hit back at Tostig. For didn’t Tostig forever flirt with the man’s pretty daughter?

  Yes! And again yes!

  Philip spied the freeholder. The stupid fool sat on his two-wheeled cart as if he was out for a holiday drive, as if nothing was wrong back at the barn. Beside him sat his willowy daughter in a pretty yellow dress. She spoke earnestly to her father. She had a pretty, dark-haired face and long dark hair. Even better, her breasts were huge, always straining against her woolen clothes.

  “Halt!” Philip thundered.

  Both the freeholder and his daughter jerked back to stare at him. Surprise filled their faces. He saw them glance at each other, as if asking aloud why the Earl’s clumsiest squire rode so fast at them.

  In moments, Philip galloped up even with them. Only then did he dare to saw back on the reins. The palfrey screamed, as he’d known all along that it would. The stallion reared back. Philip fought to stay on, but one of his big feet slipped out of the stirrups. That twisted his leg back. Then his other foot slipped out and he fell back with a yell and landed on his back. As the palfrey’s front hooves thudded onto the ground, Philip groaned with wounded pride.

  The freeholder laughed, although he quickly strangled it. But the daughter laughed, too, for a little longer than her father had.

  Red with shame and rage, Philip scrambled up. A mounting fury swirled within him like a storm.

  “Are you all right?” the freeholder asked. He was a wiry man with a great bushy black beard and an expensive leather jacket.

  The daughter giggled.

  Philip turned even more scarlet than before. A vein on his neck throbbed and his thoughts became hellish.

  “What’s wrong, Squire?” the freeholder asked, a nervous quaver entering his voice.

  “Wrong?” Philip asked thickly. “Why, you stupid dolt, the Earl found your hidden granaries. That’s what’s wrong.”

  The freeholder paled. His pretty filly of a daughter threw a slim hand before her rosy-lipped mouth. Her giggles fled.

  “Step down from your cart!” Philip roared.

  The freeholder blinked stupidly.

  “I said: STEP DOWN!” Philip thundered, no longer feeling clumsy at all.

  The freeholder hastily jumped off his cart.

  Philip, his embarrassed fury close to the berserk rage of his Viking ancestors, punched the freeholder in the face before the other was even aware of what happened. Boxing was one of Philip’s favorite sports and he was good at it, if a little slow. The crunch of the freeholder’s nose startled Philip, and it gave him an almost insane sense of gratification. The daughter’s scream did something to him that was hardly aware of. He hit the freeholder again, smashing the nose to pulp. The wiry freeholder with his expensive leather coat staggered back. Then he collapsed onto his arse as blood poured onto his huge black beard. Philip laughed. The pretty filly screamed once more, her face red as tears streamed down her cheeks. Philip stepped behind the father, jerked the man’s hands together and lashed the wrists. He hoisted the man to his feet, pushed him back against a tree and tied him to it.

  The pretty filly with her long black hair and big breasts jumped off the cart and tugged at Philip’s arms. “Leave him alone!” she screamed. “Leave him alone!”

  Philip finally realized that his manhood was gorged with blood. Maybe it had already known what his berserk brain told him: Rape the girl in front of her father.

  “You beast, leave him alone!” the pretty filly screamed.

  Philip turned, towering above her, drinking in her womanly scent. “As you wish,” he rasped. He reached out with his big hand and ripped her blouse away. Huge breasts, impossibly big breasts, swung free as she stared at him in shock.

  Philip laughed, excited and entranced, completely taken with his power.

  “Stop,” the freeholder groaned, blood pouring down his face.

  “No,” the girl whispered. “Not in front of my father.”

  Philip grabbed her as she turned to run. With another yank, he ripped away the rest of her dress. A moment’s work tore off her underlinen. She had slender long legs and very little black hair between them. How grand.

  “Stop,” moaned the girl and father together.

  Philip somehow fumbled off his belt as he lowered his trousers.

  The girl stared down at him in horror.

  He pushed her onto the loam as the father struggled to free himself. She finally fought back. A swift backhand blow snapped her pretty head to the side and caused the struggles to cease. Then, as Philip pushed apart her smooth legs, he heard the whinny of another horse. Why he didn’t think it was his own horse he never figured out. Instead, as he lay atop the sweet-smelling girl, Philip looked up.

  Terrible Tostig leaned on his saddle horn, a look of disgust on his angular and oh so handsome face.

  “You’ll have to wait until I’m done,” Philip said thickly, even though his manhood began to shrivel. Something in Tostig
’s eyes stole his fury.

  “You’re done now,” Tostig said in a dreadful whisper.

  “Watch if you want,” Philip said, desperately trying to face Tostig down.

  Tostig laughed, and then he grinned in that terrible frozen way of his. It was a grin that Philip would never be able to forget. Tostig slid off his palfrey. Philip jumped up, pulling his pants over his withered manhood.

  “You’ve earned this,” Tostig said, punching straight and hard.

  Horrible pain exploded upon Philip’s face as his head rocked back. Tears welled in his eyes. He tried to wipe the tears away. Then another punch hammered in. Philip roared and swung a haymaker. Tostig dodged it.

  Although the Saxon squire was smaller, he was much quicker than Philip and almost as strong.

  “Are you learning your lesson?” Tostig grimly asked, circling, throwing in blow after blow.

  The fists felt like granite. Philip desperately tried to defend himself, tried to charge and grapple the older squire who maddeningly stayed out of range. Nothing helped. Nothing mattered but the granite-hard blows. Tostig was beating the hell out of him! Philip was hardly aware that he screamed, cursed, and pleaded all at once.

  “I’m not going to beat you to death,” Tostig said some minutes later.

  Philip swayed. His face was a bloody mess, with both his eyes swelled shut. A horrible fear had descended upon him, that he either would die or be maimed for life.

  “No, I’m not going to kill you,” Tostig said, as if he worked hard to control of himself. “Even a pig like you can learn. Am I right?”

  Philip swayed, hoping that the beating was at an end. A rock hard fist slammed into his gut, doubling him over as he groaned. His knees buckled.

  “I asked you a question, pig? Am I right?”

  Philip mumbled a reply. Another blow hammered into his side. A rib cracked.

  “Am I right, Pig Philip?”

  Philip nodded sickly.

  “Good, I’m glad you think I’m right,” Tostig said from somewhere far away. “I glad you learned your lesson. Rape is wrong. Abusing your strength is wrong. A knight must be noble. A knight must not be a pig.”