She turned to leave again with the Avangarde close behind her, but Philip spoke up. “If I may make a suggestion.” He spoke gruffly but formally. “I would like to invite Sir Patrick, Sir Corbin, and another man of their choosing over for... dinner. Naturally we can make an exchange of men so no harm will come to you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, hmm?” Teodorico growled. “They gave us their response. You will attack them in the morning as I command, hmm, yes?”
“And so I shall,” Philip responded without looking at his employer, “but you have given all tactical control of the siege to me, ja? It serves my purposes to hold my own dialogue with them. Plus, it pleases me to do so.”
“Bah!” Teodorico scowled, waving a hand. “If it pleases you to toy with your meat before you devour it, so be it, so long as you clean the plate.”
“What say you, men of Greensprings?” Philip asked.
Corbin exchanged a look with Patrick. Time. Patrick shrugged.
“Very well, though I promise you will not gain anything by it,” Corbin responded.
“Perhaps,” Philip smiled. “I will send three men over to your gate at dusk for exchange, and then you can be my guests.”
“I will pick the three men,” Patrick warned, “for three men of little value just won’t do. Is Jon de Lorraine still with you?”
“Ja, he is.”
“And Jeremie Le Beau?”
“Ja, he is, as well as Diego from the old days. Are those the three you wish to exchange?”
Patrick barked a laugh. “You can keep Diego. I’d wager you’d be happy if we were to kill him for you. Honestly, I’m surprised that little sodomite is still alive.”
Philip laughed a genuine laugh.
“Very well then,” he said, “Jon and Jeremie, and one of my lieutenants.”
Patrick and Corbin nodded and left.
At the edge of the tent as they passed, Lilliana spoke to Katherina.
“You’ve broken my heart,” she said.
“You’ve broken my trust,” Katherina responded, and tossed the scarab brooch at her feet.
#
As promised, at dusk three unarmed figures approached the gate.
Before Patrick, Corbin, and Bisch went out to meet them, Corbin had reassuring words for Katherina.
“You did well,” he said, “as well as can be expected. I fully expected him not to entertain any real discussion, yet you still managed to buy us some time. Plus, you managed to enrage him, and an enraged enemy is an unbalanced enemy. Unbalanced enemies make mistakes. So, all in all, it went well. Fret not.”
Katherina thanked him, wished the knights a safe return and saw them out the gate.
On the grass, Patrick dismounted Siegfried and approached two of the Lost Boys who also had dismounted. They embraced strongly to the clink of gear and the creak of leather.
“Well met Patrick!” the taller man cried. He had eyes as cold as marble, but his greeting was genuine. “How long has it been? Two, three years?”
The smaller man had curly hair and a lantern jaw, and he complained, “You just had to insist on us. How are we supposed to catch up if we are locked up in yonder keep while you drink our ale?”
“You’ll be treated well enough, I promise,” Patrick responded, smiling, “and God willing there will be other opportunities to talk old times.”
“I truly hope we don’t encounter each other on the battlefield,” the tall man said. “I’d hate to kill you.”
“I’d hate to be killed by you,” Patrick returned, “God, what an embarrassment!”
They laughed and talked some more before Corbin cut them off.
“Gentlemen, we best be going our separate ways,” he said, then added with a frown, “before you start kissing each other.”
They laughed some more and they mounted their respective horses. The Lost Boys disappeared into the mouth of Greensprings’s gate and the Avangarde rode the short distance to the enemy encampment. There, someone took their horses and another led them through the sprawling camp.
The smells of campfire smoke and cooking meat engulfed them, making Corbin pat his hungry belly. But to Patrick, the odor of camp was unmistakable. Along with the smoke and food were the musky smells of body odor, urine and excrement—human and animal alike.
Even though the sun had barely set, the camp was already in full festival mode. Men carried mugs and cups of ale, running hither and thither among the tents, chasing women of dubious occupation who had come with the mercenaries. Brash music filled the air, some of which came from the outlandish horns that had announced the arrival of the Lost Boys on their first day.
Conversations paused as the strangers passed the mercenaries. The hostile gazes made Corbin profoundly nervous. He grasped at empty air where his sword normally hung. He shot Patrick a glance laden with meaning; that he hoped these miscreants showed enough discipline to follow Philip’s orders, and not attack.
Eventually, their guide brought them to a roaring bonfire.
“Wilkommen!” Philip der Rhinelander called from its edge. With a foot on a log, he leaned casually on his knee with mug in hand. “Come, have a drink!”
Urged to the side of the fire, they accepted mugs thrust into their hands. Waves of heat and smoke stirred around them as they took seats on logs destined for the flames.
“This is aphelon,” Corbin said, sniffing at the drink in his hand.
“Is that what it’s called?” Philip asked, taking a drink. “We found the village full of it. I’m surprised you left it all behind.”
The Lost Boys gathered around the Avangarde, watching their visitors with the curiosity of children studying insects.
“Well, we did piss in it,” Corbin pointed out.
They made faces and looked at their drinks.
“I jest,” Corbin laughed and took a drink.
Laughter erupted around the fire.
“I like these people!” Philip guffawed, slapping Corbin hard on the back, causing the knight to cough up his mouthful of drink. “Bring them some dinner!”
A rotund man with an eyepatch and leather apron came forward with boards heaped with sausage and cooked apples, and he thrust them at Corbin and Bisch.
“I appreciate the hospitality,” Corbin said, taking a long sniff, “but I don’t see what you hope to gain by having us here tonight.”
“Nothing to do with strategy,” Philip admitted, “not strictly speaking, in any case. I merely wanted to satisfy my curiosity, to see who it is I am fighting. Also, to agitate the holy man. He pays well, but I like him not.”
The fat cook returned with a board for Patrick.
“Your curiosity?” Corbin said, biting into a sausage. He made a favorable face. “Certainly Dragonetti and Victor or any number of others have given you all the intelligence you need to attack us. They were guests inside our walls long enough.”
“He means me,” Patrick spoke up for the first time. Until now he had only silently watched Philip.
“Ja, that is it,” Philip said, putting his mug down and taking a bucket from the cook. He came forward and personally ladled a pale, stringy substance from the bucket onto the plates of his guests. “I asked myself, ‘What kind of people would defy a pope and face certain death? What kind of people would our brother Patrick join? More curiously, what kind of people would accept him, a Lost Boy, among them?’ These things I had to learn before I kill you all. Not secondhand, but from you directly.”
“Former Lost Boy,” Patrick said coolly, taking a bite of cooked apple.
“Once a Lost Boy, always a Lost Boy.” Philip tsked, waving the ladle at Patrick. He then continued around the fire, ladling the substance onto waiting plates.
“It is simple, we protect the cup. God has spoken. The cup chooses to remain at Greensprings and not be exploited by a pretender pope,” Corbin explained, turning up his nose at the steaming pile deposited on his board. It smelled rancid. “As for Patrick, he has been nothing but a fine Avangarde, despite hi
s former associates. What on earth did you put in front of me?”
“Former associates!” Philip laughed, then added, “That is sauerkraut. Das ist gut!”
“Gut-gut!” Bisch agreed, eating the stuff up. Strands of it hung in his beard.
“Ah, aus bayerischen?” Philip asked Bisch.
Bisch replied in the affirmative and the two exchanged amicable words in German.
“Be careful what you say around this one,” Philip called to the crowd with a smile. “He speaks the tongue and we don’t want too many of our secrets slipping out.”
Laughter came from a smallish, dark-complexioned man with a manicured goatee. He approached Bisch and put a friendly arm around him.
“No worries,” he said with a laughing Spanish accent. He produced a dagger and held it to Bisch’s throat. “I will cut that tongue out before any secrets escape.”
More laughter filled the air. Bisch found none of it amusing and shoved the little man away. He went sprawling, but popped back to his feet and rushed Bisch who rose to meet the attack.
A mix of laughter and concerned agitation erupted in the crowd. Corbin stood, and not for the first time reached for his missing sword.
Philip, however, stepped in and grabbed the little Spaniard by the wrist and violently twisted it, taking the dagger away. He pushed him aside and glowered at him.
“Diego, listen up!” Philip yelled at his comrade, pointing the dagger at him. “These people are under my protection.” Philip then turned round and addressed all the Lost Boys, gesturing with the blade to make his point. Corbin realized for the first time Philip’s eyes shone brilliant green and they blazed in the firelight. “No harm will come to them while they are here! This is my word! Tonight, we feast! Tomorrow, we kill each other like civilized men!”
A roar of approval rose around the bonfire along with mugs hoisted to the heavens.
Satisfied, Philip tossed the dagger back to Diego who slid it into its sheath.
“I only make jest,” Diego said, approaching Bisch with his hand held out. “No hard feelings.”
Bisch reached to take the hand, but Diego withdrew it at the last moment and danced away, laughing. Bisch bared his teeth and glowered at the capering little man, then muttered, “Bad-bad.”
“So you fight for God?” Philip asked, leaning again on his knee and taking up his position on the log with a fresh mug. “I’ve heard such words before—even fought for God myself on crusade, as I’m sure Patrick told you. But this is a relic. A simple cup. Really, who cares if this pope or that pope has it? We are simple men, are we not? We are fighting men. Let men in robes and fancy jewels decide what to do with relics.”
“Normally, I might be inclined to agree with you, especially if these things happened in a distant land,” Corbin admitted, finishing off his board, except for the sauerkraut. “Yet these things happened before my eyes. I saw the cup raise the dead. This tells me it is the Cup of the Last Supper. I also saw Teodorico attack a child to possess it. This tells me it doesn’t belong with him. You say you went on crusade, so surely you must understand what it means to fight for something bigger than yourself.”
“Bah,” Philip said, waving the notion off. “I went on crusade just long enough to have the excommunication removed from me.”
“What do you fight for now?” Corbin asked, and glanced at Patrick as if wondering why the Irishman held his silence. Patrick knew the look. Corbin was wondering if he’d be honest. If he had, shouldn’t Patrick have more to say? But Patrick only regarded Philip with narrowed eyes over the rim of his mug every time he took a sip. Philip, too, went out of his way to not address his former comrade.
“Treasure, of course,” Philip responded, “and to regain my father’s kingdom. To have an excommunication removed is one thing, but to regain the kingdom my family lost before the excommunication is quite another. If I put the cup in yonder irritable holy man’s hands, I regain my family honor.”
“Then I guess you can say we fight for a kingdom, too. A Kingdom of Heaven,” Corbin replied, giving a pleading glance to Patrick. The Irish knight held his silence.
Philip scoffed and took a drink from his mug. “Good luck with that.”
Most everyone finished their meals, but the cook set roast fowl and pork on tables. The tables were fashioned from doors from Aesclinn cottages. New barrels of ale and aphelon appeared next to the fire as well. The Lost Boys lost no time relieving the village and countryside of its wealth.
“So Patrick has been a fine example of an Avangarde, you say,” Philip asked.
Patrick stiffened between Corbin and Bisch.
“Yes, quite so,” Corbin replied, “an inspiration in knighthood, though I have to admit he has been the occasional hothead.”
Patrick’s eyes narrowed.
Philip guffawed at this. “Yes, our Patrick has always been a nonconformist. It took a very long time to tame him. Why, when he first came among us he ran up a tree to avoid our little rite of initiation. The nerve! And he never submitted to the final test.”
“The nerve?” Patrick growled angrily, breaking his silence. “Because I did not want to have my arse branded with a hot iron? Forgive me for wanting to keep my hide intact.”
Laughter erupted from the crowd as the cook opened the barrels and passed fresh mugs around.
“All you had to do was say no,” Diego laughed taking a swig of his drink.
More laughter.
“What?” a smallish voice from the crowd said. A young man with wide eyes looked about with shock and indignation. “You mean I didn’t have to be branded?”
The laughter rose to a new height as the boy’s comrades slapped him on the back and rubbed his curly head. Diego tackled the boy and threw him over one shoulder and Lost Boys pulled his trousers down to reveal a scar on his lily-white backside in the shape of a square with a line through it.
“Enough, enough,” Philip laughed, and they put the hapless young man back on his feet. The young man, despite the revelation and ribbing, smiled good-naturedly. As he pulled up his trousers, Philip put an arm around him. “This is Jean-Jean. I like to call him my Little Patrick, because he reminds me of a certain someone. He too knows his letters and likes to put on airs. We rescued him from a boring life in a monastery. He’s turning out to be quite the little warrior, though he has yet to become the ferocious fighter or ravisher of virgins as his namesake.”
“Ravisher of virgins?” Corbin scoffed at the description. “Surely you’re mistaken.”
“What?” Philip said, raising his eyebrows. “Why, you didn’t know your virtuous, holy knight was a rapist?”
Patrick’s back went ramrod straight and his mouth twitched between a firm line and baring his teeth. Philip matched his baleful stare.
Corbin and Bisch looked to the Irishman in disbelief.
“That’s right,” Philip continued, “our favorite son, our favorite brother, who came to us lecturing us on the virtues of knighthood, turned out to be far worse a villain than any of us. Certainly, we were murderers and scoundrels, one and all.” Philip moved about the fire, addressing the crowd, telling his tale with a malicious grin. This, perhaps, was the true reason for inviting Patrick to the camp with his closest comrades: to shame him. To sow doubt. “But none of us dared to commit the sacrileges perpetrated by this fellow. Why, you might say he was an inspiration of sorts to us. He showed us there were no bounds, no bottom to the depths of depravity. Our adversaries shrank from us in horror. What more could a band of mercenaries hope for?”
Philip made the full circle of the bonfire and again stood near Patrick and his companions.
“Yes,” he said, making eye contact with Patrick, “we’re all rapists, no doubt there, but a nun? Who among us would rape a nun?”
Patrick leaned forward with clenched fists, a murderous look in his eyes.
Corbin and Bisch still stared at him in disbelief. Philip threw back his head and laughed.
“What was her name?” Philip said,
wiping a tear from his eye in his laughter. “Oh, that’s right, Yvette, Yvette La Petite.”
To punctuate the story, Philip gyrated his hips in a lewd manner drawing more laughter from the crowd.
Patrick rose suddenly and struck Philip across his huge jaw. The Rhinelander flew back into the dirt. The crowd went deadly silent, leaving only the crackle of flames as an immediate comment on the incident. A few men reached for weapons, but otherwise made no move.
Corbin and Bisch rose slowly to stand next to Patrick, not sure what would happen next.
Chuckling rose from the dirt as the mercenary leader rubbed his jaw.
“Das ist gut!” he cried, his chuckle escalating to a full-throated chortle and the crowd laughed nervously with him. “That is the brother I remember!”
Philip brushed himself off and threw up his hands, crying, “Now it is a party!”
The Lost Boys roared with approval and more drink flowed.
“I didn’t rape her,” Patrick shouted to Philip over the clamor of people moving about the fire to dance and play musical instruments.
“You still de-flowered a nun, whether you used the silver of your tongue rather than the iron of your sword,” Philip shouted back. “Details, details.” He gathered Patrick up in a bear hug and shook him merrily.
#
For the next few hours the party escalated to a fevered pitch, proportional to the quantity of drink poured. Bisch, who had spent years in near silence, now chatted non-stop with the Lost Boys, learning news from Germania and singing their songs. Corbin loosened up as well, competing in feats of drinking and strength.
At one point in the night, from across the fire, Philip made eye contact with Patrick, jerked his head in one direction, and disappeared into the darkness.
Patrick caught up to Philip who looked up at the brilliant starry Avalon sky.
“Is it true?” he asked. “Is this place truly Avalon? The place of König Arthur?”
Ripples in the Chalice: A Tale of Avalon (Tales of Avalon Book 2) Page 39
