“Parzival was the son of a knight,” Henri said. “Unfortunately, before he was born Parzival’s father died in battle before Alexandria. His mother, a young woman, was determined that her son wouldn’t die so young in life as his father. She therefore took him into hiding and kept from him his royal heritage. She never allowed him to be taught the use of arms.
“Young Parzival grew up to be a handsome man, but ignorant of who and what he was. One day, however, he chanced upon two knights in gleaming armor. He thought they were gods and fell down before them, worshipping them. They informed him who and what they were. Parzival immediately decided that he too should be knight, so he set out for King Arthur’s court. He’d learned that the mighty king made men into knights.”
Henri, his eyes wide and shiny, leaned toward Cord and tapped him on the knee. “Don’t you see? You’re just like Parzival.”
“Me?”
“But of course. You’ve lived a simple and ignorant life as Pellinore’s dog boy. In reality, however, you’re the son of knight. You’re strong and handsome, just as Parzival was. Even more importantly you’re not entirely ignorant on the use of arms or of your heritage.”
“Maybe that’s so,” Cord said slowly. “But I’m real, not a person in a story.”
Henri violently shook his head. “All stories have some basis in fact, Cord. The fact is that determined men, especially those of noble blood, can become knights if they so choose and let nothing stand in their way. You, Cord, can be such a man. But you must set your face in that direction and never turn back.”
“How can I possibly become a knight?” Cord asked in a sarcastic tone. “Where is the present day King Arthur who will knight me?”
Henri asked, “Do you truly need a king when you have the Lady Alice de Mowbray?”
“I don’t understand,” Cord said. “Alice can’t knight me.”
“Free Alice and marry her, Cord. Then you’ll have the money you need to buy as many hauberks, swords and destriers as you desire.”
Cord sat back stunned. What Henri said was insane. “I could never marry her. I’m not a—”
“But of course you can marry her,” Henri said, interrupting. “You’re noble born. First, however, you must free her from captivity.”
Cord shook his head. “That’s a base reason to help someone.”
“Nonsense,” Henri said. “It’s a purposeful and helpful reason. There is none better.”
Cord wrung his hands. “This is silly. Firstly, Alice de Mowbray would never consent to marry a dog boy. That’s what I am, you know? Secondly, it’s impossible to free her. She’s stuck up in the tower, guarded by armored sergeants utterly loyal to Guy. Thirdly, no one would ever dub me even if I were able to do all of the other things. So you see, your advice if folly, the fluff of minstrels.”
Henri studied Cord. He finally nodded, then made a sad face and said, “Poor, poor Cord. Oh, poor, little Cord the weakling dog boy. Everybody treats him shabbily. All he can do is crawl on his belly for the evil knights. And if they scowl at him fiercely enough he might even piss himself like a terrified little dog.”
Cord roared as he leapt up and grabbed Henri by the lapels of his coat, hoisting him up against the post. “I’ll break your head for that!”
Henri grinned down at Cord in a frozen smile. “That’s it, dog boy, pummel the little minstrel. That’ll show everyone what a man you are. Yes, that’ll show Philip you’re someone to reckon with.”
Cord snarled, and the kennel dogs barked and growled with rage. But he let go of Henri and turned his back on him. Soon Cord shouted at the hounds, and he even picked up a bucket and threw water at one particular hound that wouldn’t listen to his commands. The hounds quit barking. They’d never see their master like this, and it appeared to scare them.
With the bucket in hand, Cord ground his teeth together at his impotence. He trembled with rage and shame and with the sick knowledge that he couldn’t do a thing about any of it. He almost turned around to beat Henri with the bucket.
Small Henri put his hand on Cord’s shoulder. “Listen to me, Cord,” the minstrel said in a low and intent whisper. “The Lady Alice de Mowbray has strong feelings for you. Believe me, I understand women. If you fan those feelings, you might even be able to turn them into love. She knows you’re a knight’s son. And she was excited before about the idea of you traveling alone with her to Gareth Castle. She took a haughty tone with you only when you foolishly refused to escort her.”
Henri chuckled softly, to himself perhaps. “She thought that she hid those feelings from me. But I’m a minstrel and I understand love, even if such feelings are myths and illusions.”
Cord said nothing, although he stopped trembling. A bit of the impotence seemed to have drained away.
“You’ve lived with a dream, Cord, the dream of becoming a forester and marrying Bess. Now that dream has been shattered. Very well. Let it go, completely. But remember this. While you had that dream you acted decisively.”
Cord still said nothing.
“Why wallow away the rest of life as a dog boy?” Henri asked. “You’re the one who slew Old Sloat. You’re the one who trains fierce hounds better than any man alive. Do you think any lowborn lout could do that? Only a man who is really a knight at heart could do those things. Only a Parzival, you see, could have done all the things you’ve done.”
With a perplexed frown, Cord turned and asked the minstrel, “Why are you so insistent about all this?”
Henri gave Cord a mocking grin. “Aye, why does little Henri believe in all this nonsense, eh? Everything is myth and illusion anyway.” Henri thrust out his jaw. “Maybe I’ve wandered the world because I’ve been searching for the perfect knight and the perfect lady.” He laughed harshly. “I’ve seen treachery, deception, cruelty and downright baseness from so-called nobility. But….” Henri took a deep breath. “I went to Greenland and back for a unicorn’s horn. I went there to find a unicorn to bring back to my ladylove. But I found in Greenland something utterly different. And it all turned into ashes once I went back to Normandy and to my ladylove’s castle. However, for all that I still had a unicorn’s horn.”
Henri stepped up. “Don’t you see, everything isn’t quite myth and illusion. I...I mean...” The small minstrel took another long, slow breath. He no longer peered into Cord’s eyes, but looked off into the distance. “Maybe there is such a thing as good knights. And maybe there really is a Parzival, or a blood and guts human who rises above his situation in life. I...I want to see that. I want to know that there’s more to life than myths and illusions.”
Cord’s thoughts were in turmoil. The minstrel was deeper than he’d realized. It also touched him deeply that such a thinker, such a knowledgeable man strove with him to try to make him achieve something noble. Henri wasn’t just a wandering minstrel, a vagabond who simply chased loose women. No, underneath lay something more.
Something suddenly jarred Cord. “Where did you get that book?”
Henri picked up the book. It was titled, Reynard the Fox. “It’s Alice’s.”
“When did you get it?”
“This morning.”
“You’re allowed up into the living quarters?” Cord asked in surprise.
“I’m summoned in order to tell Richard tales in order to drive away his boredom.”
“Ahhh.”
“I spoke quietly to Alice,” Henri added. “She slipped me the book when I requested it. You see, I told her we’d help her escape.”
“You what?”
“She thinks that we’re going to help her,” Henri said. “She’s desperate. Sir Philip has been making lewd hints to her, and she thinks that Sir Guy has already told Philip that he’ll let him marry her. I told her that I’d need the book in order to convince you that she truly wants our help.”
Cord sat down heavily on an upturned bucket. Slowly, he took his father’s signet ring out of his pouch. Without a word, he slipped it back onto his finger. The moment he did so,
he felt grand. It came to him that ever since he’d taken off the ring he’d felt defeated and impotent. Then it came to him as well that when he tried to achieve something, like slaying Old Sloat, like helping Alice escape, like binding Richard’s wounds, that he felt good. But when he did nothing but feel sorry for himself, then he was miserable.
So if I try to become a knight I should feel greater than ever, he thought to himself. When he had been thinking that way before, he had felt great.
He sat straighter, and said, “Let me ask you something. How does one keep up one’s resolve?”
“Ah, an excellent question. Yes, a wise question in fact.” Henri tapped his teeth together, soon saying, “I suppose by telling yourself that quitting won’t be allowed. That no matter what, that you’ll see your decision through.” Henri paused, and then added thoughtfully, “And I suppose by having one single goal. By putting that single, hard to achieve goal up before you and striving for it with all your strength. By making that goal the most important thing in your life. By making the goal you. Yes, that’s how you keep up your resolve.”
Cord laughed, clapping Henri on the shoulder so he staggered the smaller man. “Remind me, before I ask you anything again, that you’re the longest-winded minstrel I know.”
Henri grinned, and there was nothing wry or self-mocking about it. “Do I tell Alice we’re going to help her?”
“Yes.”
“And do you plan on marrying her?” Henri asked.
“As to that I can’t say. But surely if I help her then she’ll turn around and help me. Surely it’s proper to think that way?”
“Yes, very proper,” Henri said.
“I mean, it isn’t grasping or ignoble, is it?”
“No, never,” Henri said. “For it will be in her interest as well to help you become a knight. She’ll need knights more than ever once she’s free.”
“Yes,” Cord said. “I can see that.”
“So what do you plan?” Henri asked.
Cord’s smile drained away, and soon he sat back on his bucket. “Next time you see her,” he said, “you should ask her if she has any ideas.”
“I will. But for now let’s cudgel our wits. Surely we can think of something.”
Cord grunted, which could have meant anything.
-5-
Sir Philip snarled. Guy had been putting him off, saying that it wasn’t yet time to announce the betrothal of Lady Alice de Mowbray to him, Sir Philip Talbot of Tarn Tower. Nor had Philip enjoyed the spectacle of Guy’s sergeants smashing open Alice’s chests. The confiscated silver should, by rights, have belonged to him (or it soon would have belonged to him) not to the sickly scarecrow of a baron-to-be. If that wasn’t bad enough, now he sat in the armory listening to the complaints of Jack Hangman.
Jack Hangman, who was often referred to as Pellinore’s hangman, was a mousy little man with dolefully sad eyes and only wisps of blond hair to cover his baldness. His small shoulders were permanently hunched and his upper lip tended to suck into his mouth as he talked. Years ago a prisoner went berserk and knocked out most of Jack’s upper front teeth. Luckily, a man-at-arms had rushed in and killed the prisoner before more harm could occur. Jack Hangman wore a distinct yellow gown as befitted his station and was one of the most shunned persons in the fief.
Jack was Pellinore’s official executioner. He administered any tortures, was the head jailer, used his heavy, one-sided axe at beheadings and slipped on the rope at hangings. His father had been Pellinore’s hangman before him, and for a wife his father had been forced to marry a different fief’s hangman’s daughter. By custom, and one scrupulously followed in most of Western Europe, hangmen and their children could only marry those from other hangmen families. For all that, food and lodging was assured because of their trade and the work was never backbreaking.
The light was dim down here in the armory, which was on the ground floor of the tower. The only way in and out of the armory was through a trap door that led up to the Great Hall above. A torch gave crackling illumination, while several bundles of spears lay to one side and several caskets of crossbow bolts to the other. In the only other room on the ground floor were vats of boiled and heavily salted pork, barrels of smoked herring and countless tubs of cabbage and turnips. That particular room was the storage room, the food there only to be used in winter or during a siege.
Jack had wished to speak privately with Philip. Philip had consented and now sat on a low-built barrel. The dungeon was below the armory, and was built underground in solid rock. The locked door leading down to the dungeon was hidden in the shadows to Philip’s far right.
“Slow down,” Philip told the excited hangman. “You’re speaking so fast I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
Mousy Jack Hangman nodded quickly, something that was entirely unlike him. Usually he moved deliberately and spoke only in monosyllable sentences. Now his small hands twitched and his mouth quivered with indignation. Thus, as he spoke, he sucked in his upper lip to such a degree that he made his words unintelligible.
“He took away my keys, milord,” Jack lisped, finally slowing his speech enough to be understood. “He said he didn’t want the prisoner’s words scattered throughout the castle. You know me, milord. Old Jack Hangman never speaks to anybody but his wife. I would never repeat secrets the Baron wanted quiet.”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure that’s true,” Philip said. “Now what I think—”
“It isn’t right, milord!” Jack interrupted. “He can’t take old Jack’s keys! He can’t keep me out of my own dungeon!” Jack Hangman turned a bright red as a vein on his forehead throbbed and as his voice reached a higher pitch than Philip had thought possible.
“Easy, man. Calm yourself,” Philip said.
“How can I be calm, milord?” Jack sputtered. “I’m the hangman, aren’t I?”
“Of course you are.”
“I’ve never lost a prisoner, milord. Never!”
“I know you haven’t.”
“So why has my dungeon been taken away from me, milord? Why has that damn Gascon been given the keys?”
Sir Philip nodded sympathetically. That stupid fool Guy had gone too far this time. He’d given Jack Hangman’s duties, or that of the dungeon, to his Gascon mercenary he’d brought from Gareth Castle. Didn’t Guy know that one didn’t upset the old castle servitors that way? Of course, it was all because of Sir Lamerok of Dun. Guy didn’t let anyone but Aldora or his mercenary Gascon crossbowman near Sir Lamerok. Philip hated that, too. It had originally been his plan to pump Jack Hangman for information later this week.
“Do you know what I heard?” Jack asked with growing anger. “That damn Gascon has thumbscrews. Thumbscrews, milord!” Jack made an inarticulate hiss of rage. “What good are thumbscrews when we have the best rack for miles around? I tell you, milord, no fief in the Western Marches can match our rack. Baron Hugh bought the very best, and no one can use it as well as me. If Sir Guy wants the prisoner to speak, then the prisoner should be left in my care, not in the damn Gascon’s!” Spittle flew from Jack’s mouth, so great was his excitement.
“I quite agree, Hangman,” Philip said solemnly. “Yes, I quite agree.”
“What are you going to do, milord? You’re the seneschal, and you’re his uncle to boot. Surely you can make Sir Guy see reason.”
“Hmmm.”
“Otherwise....”
Sir Philip raised his bushy eyebrows. “Otherwise what, Hangman?”
Jack wrung his hands and sucked in his upper lip. “Oh, milord, I’m at wits end. I can’t even go into my own dungeon. What’s a hangman supposed to do?”
Sir Philip laid one of his huge hands on Jack’s shoulder. “I’ll settle things. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. You always were a good servant. I know of several times when I heard the old baron say so.”
Tear dribbled out of Jack’s sad eyes. “Bless you, Sir Philip. Oh, bless you. You’re a knight of the old ways. A proper gentlemen, you is.”
Philip nodded compassionately. If done right, with old Jack administering the tortures, he’d soon learn what Guy so desperately wanted to know from Sir Lamerok. Yes, now it was a good thing that Guy had smashed Alice’s chests. For a new lord could only do so many improper things. Surely, he could make Guy understand that.
***
It had finally stopped raining. After two days, Philip was heartily sick of being cooped up in the castle. A moldy wet odor now pervaded most of the tower and at times, a wicked draft had stirred up the latrine smells below, enough so one gagged. Therefore, Philip was glad when Sir Guy followed Lady Eleanor, his mother, out to the garden.
Philip didn’t bother to pin on a cape, chilly as it was, although he buckled on his huge and heavy sword. It clanked satisfactorily as he strode toward the drawbridge. His clanking sword heralded his coming so the busy peasants, the grooms and stable boys, the dog boys and smiths, the pig herders and cow hands, the laughing maidens, the playing children could one and all straighten up as he approached and give him a respectful bow as he passed. He didn’t see the sulking Cord anywhere. He’d noticed that the chief dog boy had stayed carefully out of his way since the incident with Guy. Cord the fool, he’d been so easy to set up. It had been so easy to get him to talk about killing Old Sloat and witnessing Baron Hugh’s death. By now, most of the castle folk knew about Guy’s aversion to such words, about the madness that overtook him when they were spoken aloud.
Philip chuckled as he tramped over the drawbridge and toward the barbican. Cord would never be the forester, nor would he ever marry sweet little Bess Miller. The ghost of Tostig would be crushed with brutal thoroughness. But he mustn’t hurry this. He wanted to make Cord grovel. He wanted to savor each of Cord’s defeats. He wanted the dog boy to know that life was hopeless and that he, Philip, had caused the terrible wreckage.
“Oh, you’re going to suffer, Tostig. You’re going to pay me a thousands times for what you did,” Philip whispered to himself.
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