The Rogue Knight

by Vaughn Heppner

  In fact, so ancient was this particular custom of keeping the war-horse to the right that the word destrier came from the Latin word dexter, or right.

  The groom was on his own palfrey. Like a squire, he kept several painted lances ready. He’d long served Philip and seemed to know his master’s wants to a nicety.

  Hob only had one horse, a brown stallion grown strong carrying his master’s fat, ale-fueled frame. Hob carried his lance in a holder, resting the butt on his left stirrup. His armor didn’t shine like Philip’s, nor was it as finely crafted or as strong. The sword slung onto his belt, however, was fully as long and as thick as Philip’s sword. Whether the steel was as good or the edges as sharp remained to be seen.

  “Should we rest the peasants?” Hob asked as their steeds plodded along together.

  “Eh? What?” Philip asked.

  “The peasants, milord. If you’ll look back, you’ll see them straggling. I wondered if we should rest them.”

  Philip studied Hob closely before he asked, “Is your arse sore?”

  “It’s always sore, milord. But that isn’t my concern at the moment. If the peasants are weary then they won’t put up much of a fight.”

  Philip showed surprise. “Do you expect a fight?”

  “I always expect a fight, milord. The infidels taught me that.”

  Philip rolled his eyes. “Infidels, eh? Do you mean Turks?”

  “What if thieving Welshmen should drop out of the trees, milord?” Hob asked. “Or what if Earl Simon should ride up and catch us by surprise?”

  Philip stared at Hob in surprise, and for a moment, he had to concentrate. He asked crossly, “Must you always croak doom?”

  “We cart wealth, milord. To croak doom is wiser than to be ill-prepared.”

  Philip shot the carts and the peasant footmen behind them an ugly glance. “You may be right,” he admitted. “But I want to push on as far and fast as possible. Let those farmers walk themselves into the ground. Then maybe Sir Guy will see reason and ride with us to Pellinore.”

  “I’m not so sure, milord. Sir Guy’s like a bear with a honey tree. To leave the prisoner in the cart, or to let the prisoner sit upon a mount, I don’t think Guy will do either.”

  “Hmmm.... Neither do I,” Philip said.

  “So we might as well stop and rest the peasants, milord. Once they’re footsore, nothing will move them.”

  Philip doffed his chainmail hood and let the breeze dry off his sweaty bald dome. If the truth were known, he was concerned about this trip and concerned about what he’d learned about Sir Guy. Nothing at Castle Gareth had been as he’d expected. What he’d learned had made him fearful for his future. Then, as he’d carefully considered the ramifications, he’d finally bid his last farewell to his old companion-in-arms, Baron Hugh. More importantly, he’d considered his oath of loyalty to the house of Clare as no longer binding.

  The decision still left him uncomfortable.

  Long ago, when he’d been young and the ladies had smiled at his good looks, he’d stood before Baron Hugh. At the signal, he’d knelt heavily and put his thick hands into Hugh’s strong palms. The oath of fealty had been spoken: “I am your man, Baron Hugh de Clare. I will serve you, obey your summons to war and help pay your ransom if ever you are captured. I pledge my sword to you, Lord. I am yours to command. By God’s grace and His Son Jesus Christ I swear this to be true.”

  Now you’re dead, Hugh. Now I serve no man but myself. For I cannot pledge myself to what your son has become.

  Philip shivered. Sir Guy sickened him, and scarred him in a sinister way. Frankly, it wasn’t right that a man in Guy’s condition could stand, let alone ride in the saddle and soon take control of the barony. And that old crone Guy kept near him.... Surely, she was in league with the Devil! Philip spat over his shoulder and muttered an Ave Maria for protection against evil. The old crone was a witch. That had to be it. Surely, she gave Sir Guy potions or chanted incantations over him at midnight to give him strength. Where else but from the Devil could a living skeleton of a man like Guy find the strength to do what he did?

  “At least he isn’t a leper,” Philip muttered to himself.

  “Milord?”

  Philip shook his head, shivering once again. He hated lepers and had a sick dread of leprosy. Whenever he saw a leper wearing his mandatory red hat and gray coat or heard the leper’s horn, Philip took a wide detour or sometimes turned around and rode back the way he’d come. The horrible sores, the stink of corruption and the terrible memories of his mother—Philip dreaded wasting away, dreaded losing his strength and becoming a shell of a knight. To see a leper not only reminded him of what had happened to his mother, but also that one bad accident could lose him everything—as Sir Tostig had almost lost him everything.

  Leprosy had struck his mother down. She’d been a stern woman, and had run her husband’s tower with a sure and heavy hand. Alms went there, bags of forged horseshoes here, the cart-fulls of cabbage into the root cellar. All those decisions and more his mother had made with decisive thoroughness. Then, after a week where she’d helped clean the moat, a curious white spot had developed on her brawny forearm. The spot grew, and in three weeks, everyone within the fief knew that she’d contracted leprosy.

  Philip had only been a lad of nine then, and his father had seldom been home. He’d loved his mother, and he’d feared her wrath and her sharp, stinging boxes to his ears. Worse, he along with everyone else in the tower had feared her acid tongue.

  Leprosy had changed all that.

  When her sickness could no longer be hidden, a delegation led by the tower priest had met her by the stable.

  “You have leprosy,” had said the priest, a weak man permanently bowed by rickets.

  Philip’s mother glared at him, and glared at the men-at-arms and at the smith, the tower mason and at the chief huntsman who’d tried to hide behind the rickets-bowed priest.

  “Leave me alone,” she’d said.

  The priest had stubbornly shaken his head.

  That moment when fear had finally entered her eyes, oh, Philip had never forgotten that. He’d sat upon one of the palfrey’s, ready to go riding with his mother. A terrible haunted look had entered her stern eyes. The tower folk no longer feared her. Well, maybe they feared her, but they feared the dreaded leprosy more.

  “You must go,” the priest had said.

  His mother had swelled as a cat sometimes does when faced by hounds.

  “If you don’t go,” said the priest, “then we’ll force you to leave.”

  A moment of rage had given her a last dose of power, but it too had finally wilted under generations of custom. She’d hung her head and let her brawny shoulders sag. That evening she’d left the tower a broken woman, a shell of what she’d been only that morning. She’d been banished to death in life, to one of those lonely, filthy, leper’s cabins hidden in the woods.

  Philip shuddered at the memory. In the entire world, he feared nothing so much as to be driven into one of those cabins. He had nightmares about it, and from that, he’d learned to fear any sort of bodily harm.

  He automatically tested his right hand, his sword hand. His shoulder constantly hurt, and that caused a twinge of pain to shoot down his forearm and into his hand. He’d never told anybody about the injury. He’d sustained it hunting, when a bear had torn his boar spear out of his hands. Sometimes, when he was alone in the woods, Philip practiced swinging his sword with his left hand, but it wasn’t any good. The right hand would always be his sword hand. To not be the knight he’d once been—he wanted to grind everyone into the ground because of it. He wanted to crush their unharmed hands and stamp out their secretly jeering smiles. He was Sir Philip of Tarn Tower, a warrior-born! To be less than that galled him. It made him want to weep with the terror and unfairness of it. If he could no longer fight—

  “No,” he whispered. “I can fight. My shoulder will soon heal. And even if it hurts, it doesn’t matter. My cunning will make up for whate
ver strength I’ve lost.”

  “Milord?” asked Hob, riding closer than before. “Did you say something?”

  “What?” Philip snarled, embarrassed at being caught talking to himself.

  “I thought I heard you say something, milord.”

  “I did,” Philip said, thinking fast. “I asked you if one of those crusading kings hadn’t been a leper.”

  “Ah! You mean Baldwin the Fourth,” said Hob, who was known as something of a scholar when it came to the crusading kings and kingdoms. “Yes indeed, Baldwin was called the Leper King. He was a doomed and tragic figure, milord.” Hob warmed to his subject, even allowing himself a ghost of a smile. “Baldwin was the last of Jerusalem’s good kings. He was only a lad of thirteen when his father Almeric died. Baldwin’s fingers dropped off one by one and then his toes. But at Montgisard he inflicted a terrible defeat upon the infidel Sultan Saladin. Not even King Richard the Lion Heart defeated the noble Saladin better. The Leper King at last became too sick to rule his kingdom. When his sister married the Frenchman, Guy of Lusignan, the end was near. Guy striped the many castles and cities of their garrisons and led the Kingdom of Jerusalem horde into the desert where Saladin slaughtered them. In the Third Crusade neither Richard the Lion Heart nor Philip Augustus of France could win back for the Leper King what Guy of Lusignan had lost for him.”

  Philip shook his head. To lose ones fingers and toes, to wait as they dropped away, leaving one defenseless and weak.... He wiped sweat off his brow and thanked God that at least Sir Guy wasn’t a leper.

  But Guy was wasting away nevertheless. The very fact of that had set Philip to thinking. He, like any wily noble, knew the truth of fiefs and fealty. The truth was this: A fief was a living entity. It either grew or shrank, but it never stayed the same. It either was fed with new additions or was starved as chunks were cut away. During his lifetime, Baron Hugh had proven this truth. Pellinore Fief had only been a middling-sized fief upon Hugh’s rise into the barony. The hills which Rhys ab Gruffydd lived upon had been an early addition to Pellinore Fief. Later, in the fifth year of Hugh’s rule, he’d feuded with a fellow baron. Hugh had handily won the feud and added one of the losing baron’s outlying castles to Pellinore Fief. His greatest acquisition, however, had been Gareth Fief, won from Alice’s father. Old Sire de Mowbray had been forced to pledge fealty to Baron Hugh. In return, Hugh had given him Gareth Fief back, but it had henceforth legally been part of the greater Pellinore Fief. Yet just as a fief could grow, so could it whither away under weak rulers. Philip believed that under Guy, or for as long as Guy lived anyway, Pellinore Fief would shrivel and wither. Right now Pellinore Fief stood at the pinnacle of power and prestige. The baron of Pellinore had become Earl Roger Mortimer’s greatest vassal.

  The question Philip kept asking himself was how to use this foreknowledge to best advantage. There had to be a way.

  “Look at that,” Hob said, interrupting Philip’s thoughts.

  Philip looked where Hob pointed. The rutted track they followed left the woods and dipped down into a grassy glade. At the end of the glade, about a half-mile away, stood a black and sooty grove. The air smelled smoky and felt heavy, and there hung above the blackened grove the feeling of death and destruction.

  “That was an apple grove,” Hob said.

  Philip knew the area. “Yes,” he said, “the orchard belonged to a landlord who sides with King Henry.”

  “Pillagers did that,” Hob rumbled, his dark eyes scanning the terrain. “The feel of murder is heavy there.” He nodded tightly. “Wrongful killing has been done.”

  From the rear of the column came shouted orders. Philip saw men-at-arms rally around a man in a red silk coat. The man rode Tencendur. The big white stallion was the largest war-horse here and carried the frail Sir Guy with contemptuous ease. In moments, a cavalcade of horsemen galloped past Philip and Hob. They rode toward the burnt orchard, Sir Guy signaled Philip to hurry the column after the riders.

  Philip rode back and shouted orders. Some of the burly peasants moaned at the increased pace and complained about marching through ashes. They quickly wilted when Philip roared at them. He drew his sword and waved it above his head.

  As the column crossed the glade, Hob and Philip rode together at its head.

  “What do you think Sir Guy plans?” Philip asked Hob.

  The sergeant shrugged his fat shoulders.

  “He seems to fear something,” Philip said.

  Hob grunted in agreement.

  Soon the column left the glade and entered the sooty orchard. About halfway into the orchard they saw Sir Guy pacing his steed. Of the others, the cavalcade, there was no sign, although tracks led outward on either side of Guy, to the right and to the left.

  “Does he plan to stop here?” Philip asked in wonder.

  Sir Guy made urgent motions. He seemed to be gesturing to the old crone who rode in the lead cart. Guy looked agitated.

  As they came into hailing range, Sir Guy whispered in a tortured, almost strangled way—his illness had injured his ability to speak. “Look!” he hissed. “Devils! A mighty flock of devils!”

  Sir Philip followed Guy’s quivering, pointing finger. Through the burnt branches above flapped a flock of crows. The crows cawed loudly, and seemed to look down on Guy with abnormal interest.

  “Those are crows, milord!” Philip shouted. “Crows come to feast upon carrion.”

  Guy turned a thin, almost skeletal face Philip’s way. The young baron-to-be looked terrible. He had lank red hair that hung around his sickly face. The cheeks were shallow and the pale green eyes hollow. A feverish light seemed to shine there. He had a sweaty high forehead better reserved for a Churchman than a wasting fighting man. Guy licked chapped lips, and with bony, huge-knuckled fingers, he tugged at the scarf wound around his thin throat.

  At least he isn’t a leper, Philip thought for what could have been the hundredth time today. Maybe he’ll conquer this wasting disease.

  Philip didn’t believe that. Young Sir Guy was dying. It was just a matter of time. The trouble was, the wretch seemed so terrified of death that he clung to life with the fever of a mad dog.

  “Crows?” whispered Sir Guy. “Those are crows I see?”

  Despite his loathing for the man, Philip urged his mount closer. The stallion’s hooves stirred the black ashes that lay like dark snow upon the ground.

  “Do you see that, milord?” Philip asked, pointing out a bloated corpse hidden in the ashes. Once perhaps it had been a woman.

  Sir Guy peered closely as if his eyesight had dimmed. Suddenly, he jerked back as he hissed, “Knave! What joke is this?”

  Philip was too perplexed to be angry at being called a knave. He watched in amazement as Sir Guy turned paler than he’d thought possible and then turn a sickly hue of yellow. Guy swayed in the saddle, trembling, although he managed to bring the huge Tencendur closer. More amazed than ever, Philip watched Guy grind his teeth, as his eyes seemed to expand almost out of their sockets.

  “I am your liege!” Guy shrieked, his voice cracking from the strain. “You may not torment me with sick jokes!” He snatched the long leather gloves off his belt and struck Philip across the face.

  Philip stared at Guy in shock.

  A few of the men gasped, Hob among them.

  “You struck me,” Philip finally growled. For all his frailty, Guy had slapped hard, the leather gloves leaving a red mark across Philip’s scar-strewn face.

  Guy blinked rapidly, and some of the sickly yellow hue left his skin. Some of the shine seemed to have left his eyes, too, and he looked away from Philip.

  “You struck me,” Philip said, louder this time. Anger tinged his words.

  Guy opened his mouth and worked his lips, but no sounds issued.

  “By all the saints above, you struck me!” Philip thundered. He leaned toward Guy and grabbed a fistful of red silk coat. “Stupid bastard!” he roared. “No man strikes me and gets away with it.”

  “You-you-you,
” Guy stammered in his eerie whisper, desperately trying to say something.

  “Leave him be, Sir Knight. He didn’t know what he did. But he just saved us from them black devils.”

  Philip’s lips curled, and his huge fingers clenching onto the silk coat unconsciously tightened.

  Toward Guy’s war-horse hobbled the old crone, a hag in a miss-match of brilliant colors. She was tiny, with a riot of gray hair and a rumpled face of wrinkles and warts. Huge copper bracelets jangled upon her bony wrists, while in her gnarled left hand she held onto a peeled stick. Green, red, yellow and strips of purple cloth made up her gaudy gown, while old feet kicked up ashes.

  “Release him,” the crone said in a surprisingly strong voice, a rough voice filled with the blunt knowledge of the world. She fixed Philip with a stare of hypnotic intensity.

  “He struck me,” Philip growled, still holding onto Guy’s jacket.

  “He tried to warn you,” she said. “But you shrugged off his warnings. Next time you’d better listen.”

  “What warnings?”

  She pointed at Guy with her hickory stick. “He saw them black devils.”

  “The crows, you mean?” Philip asked.

  She turned, and pointed up at the noon sky. The crows flew in a large circle, their caws quite audible.

  “Do you see?” she asked. “Them crows search out for souls to steal. That’s cause they aren’t crows, Sir Knight. Them are devils! Devils, I say, searching for a usurer so they can wing his soul down to Lucifer.”

  Many of the men-at-arms crossed themselves at her unholy words. The peasants, who stood further back, moaned in fear.

  “If you’d continued riding,” the old crone said, closing upon Philip, pointing her peeled stick at him, “then you’d have ridden under their influence. Then maybe them flying devils would have alighted and snatched away your soul!”