by Peter Telep
“It’s nothing to grin over,” Christopher replied. “Especially when Doyle killed him,” Leslie added. Every emotion that brought with it a sense of fulfillment instantly exorcised itself from Christopher. In the blink of an eye he was empty. And that empti ness was pregnable. In another blink shock entered. Then horror. Then a state of paralysis.
Somehow, a scintilla of hope sneaked back in, the hope that Leslie was mistaken. He regarded the junior squire, demanding to know more.
Leslie sighed and lowered his gaze in contempt. “I saw him do it. He put an arrow in Innis’s back when he thought no one was watching.”
“You lie!” Doyle screamed, then climbed clumsily down from his horse and ran toward Leslie.
Christopher maneuvered his courser to block Doyle, but the archer palmed his way around the horse. Doyle yanked Leslie off his mount and wrestled him to the ground. A scant boot’s length away from the two, a stray arrow thunked the earth. Christopher hopped from his mount and fell to his knees before Doyle and Leslie. He had to pry them apart and sort the rest out later, for the battle in the valley was snarling and clawing its way closer.
His friend fought voraciously, but Christopher tugged him off Leslie and rolled him away. He pinned Doyle’s arms under his knees, then smacked him across the cheek. “Did you do it?”
Doyle closed his eyes and tightened every muscle in his face. Christopher felt Doyle’s knees hit his back, then the archer’s boots connect with his ears. Doyle locked his heels under Christopher’s chin and slammed him backward. Christopher fell onto Doyle’s legs. Stunned, he felt Doyle climb out from under him.
“I killed the wretch,” Doyle confessed as he stood. “I’ve been waiting too long for this. He would’ve killed me and then you if we had let him live. And you didn’t have to listen to him for these past moons. The very sound of his voice drove me mad!”
“It was wrong,” Leslie said.
Christopher sat up, rubbed the fire under his chin, then fingered his sore ears.
“Let’s go,” Doyle said. “It’s too late to know if it was right or wrong. He’s dead and I’ll find a pyre to dump him on.” He turned his fiery gaze on Christopher. “I just wanted you to see him. He’s dead. Aren’t you glad?”
“I’m going to report this,” Leslie promised. He got to his feet and brushed himself off. “And if you try to stop me, Doyle, I’ll fight you.”
Doyle ground his teeth and nodded. In the gloomy light that flickered with dust motes and cut the angles of his features with shadows, Doyle looked demonic. The archer was a man so thoroughly engrossed in his actions, so thoroughly numbed by ale that he had lost who he was. And whatever it was that drove Doyle, Christopher knew at least part of it was evil.
“You go ahead and report it. Go now,” Doyle told Leslie.
“I will,” Leslie snorted, then jogged to his horse and mounted.
Doyle stomped toward his rounsey as Christopher rose. “Was this your plan all along? Did you know from the beginning you were going to kill him?”
“Our problems with him are over,” Doyle hissed. “They’ve just begun!” Christopher cried.
Doyle reached his mount and lifted his longbow from its saddle hook. He drew an arrow from the quiver tied to one of his riding bags.
“What are you doing, Doyle?” Christopher’s heart leapt into a dash as Doyle nocked the arrow and pulled back at least sixty pounds of draw.
He turned to spy Doyle’s target, but had already guessed it. Christopher bolted toward Doyle, his arms outstretched, his fingers itching to grab the arrow and bow from the archer’s hands.
Fwit! The arrow tore through the night air as Christopher tackled Doyle.
Their arms became twisted in the bowstring, but Christopher ignored that. He cocked his head and strained for a glimpse of Leslie.
The junior squire, the thirteen-year-old boy, slumped forward onto his horse’s neck, Doyle’s arrow embedded a finger’s length below his right ear lobe. In the seconds that followed, beads of blood trickled down the wooden shaft, soaked the fletching, then dropped to the cool, dampening earth.
Christopher rolled off of Doyle and collapsed onto his back. He gazed absently at the blinking, uncaring void above and wished it would take him, hide him, lose him in its endless bowels. All the hope and desire he had for Doyle conquering his problems was lost an instant ago. There was only blood now. And pain. How could this have happened?
He felt Doyle fumbling with his bow; the archer freed the weapon from Christopher’s arm, then sat up. “We have to move,” Doyle said. “Now.” There was not even a feather-thin trace of remorse in his voice.
Christopher flexed to a sitting position, then cocked his head to face Doyle. He seized Doyle by the collar of his blue surcoat and drove the archer onto his back. He sat on Doyle’s belly and pressed his thumbs under his murdering friend’s chin, ready to bury them in his neck.
Doyle choked as Christopher’ s rage expelled from his lips: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHO ARE YOU? YOU KILLED THEM! YOU KILLED BOTH OF THEM!” He paused to catch his breath, and shuddered through it. “What if others saw you kill Innis? Are you going to kill them, too? What about me? I know all about it!” Then his words came slower, softer, laced with sorrow. “And I watched you kill Leslie. Do you have to kill me now? Do you have to kill everyone, is that it? Do you want to kill the whole world?”
Christopher released his thumbs from Doyle’s neck, but the archer still gagged. Isolated tears leaked from his eyes. “Maybe I do. Maybe I want to murder everyone.”
“No, you don’t,” Christopher said. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
And then Doyle bellowed. A resounding cry-not of pain-but perhaps of guilt.
Doyle wrapped one arm behind Christopher’s neck, the other around his back. He pulled Christopher down and held him there, crying into his chest.
Christopher was frightened for his friend. Doyle was married to his desire to prove himself on the battlefield; to the guilty and lost feelings his inability to have a relationship with his parents extorted; to ale, that faithful friend who always listened, never criti cized, and turned past and present pain into a truth less bliss. He was alone, needing acceptance, and most assuredly, love. He lacked these assets, and that hole in his heart was sieged by violence. And he killed. He should have never come on the campaign, for all the world of good that realization did Christopher now.
What to do about the mess? Leave the bodies and blame stray arrows? That would save Doyle from the gallows tree. But it would be a lie. How much did he value his friendship? He had always said he would never be able to cope with Doyle’s death. Orvin and Doyle were the only family he had left in the world.
Could he lose Doyle as he had his parents and Baines? He had so few left, so few who loved him.
Christopher would do it. He would help Doyle. There would be no more killing. But win or lose, this had to be Doyle’s last campaign.
An arrow flew past the muzzle of Doyle’s rounsey, and the animal neighed its fear and surprise, kicked up its forelegs, then retreated a few yards.
“Archers! Fall back! Fall back!” The voice was pitched with fear.
Christopher pushed Doyle away from his chest and shifted to see a jagged ribbon of dirty, terror-struck longbowmen wildly retreating over the top of the hogback. The bowmen were so intent on their escape that they regarded Leslie and his mount as merely an obstacle, rushing past the dead squire without a sec ond glance. It was foolish for Christopher to even think they would suspect something. This was a war. This was havoc realized. Dead men were as much a part of the landscape as the grass, the jagged lime stone, the stands of oak and beech.
Doyle and Christopher joined the archers in their breakneck withdrawal. Innis’s body was dumped on the dew-slick grass not far from where Leslie still sprawled on his horse. Stray arrows. Damned, horri ble stray arrows.
Poor Leslie, you big-eared squire. Doyle, you killed him. You killed Innis. And now I must
protect you because I don’t want to see you die too. But how could you do it? You make me feel as guilty and as miserable as you do right now. Maybe you deserve to die-no, no you don’t. You’ve just gone mad for a while. It will pass. And I will try to help you. But now you make me live with this bloody secret. Is this the true test of being a blood brother?
9
The door, a scorched, flame-riddled, crum bling mass, its hinges heated to a dull orange, was smashed in by a trio of Seaver’s men. The garrison on the other side had soaked the door in defense, but the Saxon-induced fire had gone too long unchecked.
Four Celts across the hall of the quarters fingered the triggers of the their crossbows. Bolts flew and found the foreheads of the first two Saxons coming through the door, and they died before having a chance to scream. But in the dusty cloud of sparks and ash, ten more of Seaver’s men rushed the cross bowmen, drove them back into the wall, then thrust their spathas into the Celts’ leather-covered chests. The blades passed through the men and chinged the wall behind them. As the Celts wailed and slumped, a broken dam of Saxons poured into the room and swept away the lives of the remaining garrison holed up there.
Blades arced and heads tumbled.
Knifed men gurgled and raised arms that were hacked off.
Celts cursed and Saxons answered with spears. Death yelps split the air.
And as the slaughtering inside the tight quarters continued, Seaver took four men with him to the first floor supply rooms. There, they cornered the squires, hostlers, and chambermaids hiding behind the grain sacks and ale barrels. The squires came into the open, raised their thin arms, steadied their spathas, and flexed into fencing positions. Seaver was delighted. The game was on. He left two of his men to try to remove the squires’ weapons without killing the boys-a challenge, indeed-and took the other two down & moldy staircase that led to the . dungeon.
The deep, wheat-colored hues cast by a pair of torches picked out the butlers, pantlers, leather dressers, cooks, ewerers, cupbearers, mat weavers, pages, spinners, grooms, sweepers, armorers, and every other serf who worked in the castle. Nearly fourscore men, women, and children had jammed themselves into the cells and had locked the doors behind them. The serfs sent a clear message that they wished to be spared, and if Seaver could, he would tell them that they would enjoy serving their new master. But he could only walk up and down the nar row hall that divided the cells on either side of him, and simper his overwhelming delight. Once again, for a little man, he felt very big. He left his other two men to convince the serfs to come out. His men frowned. How could they do that without knowing the Celt language? Seaver chuckled. Another amus ing game. He strode out of the cellblock.
He met Kenric in the great hall, where a score of bowmen who had surrendered stood in a line under the vigilance of four Saxon guards.
Kenric sat in his newly plundered high-backed chair before his rectangular dining table, a meat cleaver clutched in his right hand. As each bowman on the line came forward he was blindfolded and forced to place his right hand-palm down-on the table in front of Kenric.
Seaver knew Kenric had been deprived of combat, and this practice was his lord’s form of release. Kenric did not risk himself in battle, as Garrett had. No, he was too smart for that. But Kenric possessed the same desire to inflict pain. And he could not satisfy his appetite for blood by standing in the rear and watching. Yes, any one of Kenric’s men was capable of this bloody task, but Kenric needed to do it himself.
The Saxon leader lifted the cleaver and brought it down in a perfect swipe, expertly chopping off the bowman’s thumb and forefinger so that he would never draw a bowstring again. Moaning, writhing like an oak buffeted by a squall, and still blindfolded, the bowman was escorted to the hearth in the middle of the hall. A rag was stuffed into the Celt’s mouth as his raw wound was slapped onto a cherry-hot spatha. Blood boiled and flesh hissed as the wound was seared closed. The bowman fainted and was dragged out of the room by one of the two Saxons attending the hearth.
“Next man!” Kenric yelled.
Seaver paralleled the line of pale Celts, rounded the table, and arrived beside Kenric, just as he cleavered another pair of fingers from another bow man’s hand. Kenric swiped the fingers off the table into a basket that sat on the stone floor. It was a curi ous sight, that basket, half-full with a pile of fingers that looked almost like sausages to Seaver.
“If, by chance, Lord Woodward survives on the Mendip Hills, I want to see his face when he returns here.” Kenric looked up, eyes distant, reveling in the vision.
“His mouth will hang open,” Seaver said.
Kenric nodded, then regarded Seaver. “Are the serfs in the dungeon?”
“As expected.”
“Good. Now send a messenger to West Camel. want to know if Durwin has taken the castle of Rain.”
“Done.”
Kenric was distracted by the next bowman in line, seeing how the Celt sweated, trembled, swallowed, wrung his hands, and paused to stare at the two fin gers he was about to lose. This delay in his pain brought tears to the Celt’s eyes. Kenric hemmed, then assured the man, “Do not fret, you’ll get your tum!” He followed his words with a cackle.
The Celt did not understand Kenric, but the Saxon leader’s laugh menaced him back several steps.
Kenric regained his composure. “Little man, Seaver. Not such a little man anymore, eh? I entrusted the duties of a battle lord to you during this siege, and you have done better than my best. Manton is dead. Now you will be my second-in-command.”
Seaver exhaled very hard, sheathed in sudden thrills that bore into the very core of his being. This was his greatest moment ever since coming to this land. It was his epoch, his time to rule. This was the night he would pillow his head on a mountainside, pull down a piece of the heavens, and sleep under a gleaming blanket of stars. And when he snored, it would rumble as thunder to those in nearby villages, those whose entire bodies would fit on one of his fin gernails. And when he awoke, he would eat a field of com for breakfast and wash it down with a lake. By midday, he would scoop a bit of honey out of the sun and savor it on his tongue. By nightfall, he would do it all over again, only this time he would be joined by a woman, a lady as perfectly proportioned as he; a woman whose breath carried the scents of powder and dayflowers, whose eyes shone like sapphires in moonlight, and whose sole existence was to love and worship him, to tend to his every need. He could have anything he wanted now. Anything. He con trolled the world and the world snapped at his every command. Oh, the power he had now. The control. Kenneth had told him how delightful it was, how much larger than life it would make him feel. But to experience it! To live it now! He was drunk with glory.
“Have you nothing to say?” Kenric asked.
Seaver, looking down on the castle from a thou sand yards up, the stars tickling the backs of his ears, suddenly found himself back in the great hall. “Yes!” he blurted out. “Thank you. Thank you, my lord. I will be your best fighter. I will.”
“I know.” Kenric scratched the stubble on his chin. “Take care of one last bit of business. Once the serfs are removed from the dungeon, tell them they will prepare a feast for us, as lavish as any given by Lord Woodward. Now be off, Battle Lord Seaver.” He tipped his head toward the Celt on line. “Our friend waits very patiently here.”
Seaver bowed in respect, spun on his heels, then paraded toward the doorway. With his wings of greatness spread, he could not feel his feet touch the stone as he walked.
10
If the sun had a choice, it would not choose to birth a new day over the Mendip Hills. To illuminate such butchery was an act against nature.
But nature would have to be forgiving.
Groans of the wounded echoed around Christopher and Doyle as they galloped toward the heart of the now-dying battle. The clankings of sword and shield, pole arm and link-mail had diminished with the night. A mist prowled the lower valley and created islands out of the tops of the tall
er hogbacks, hillocks, and slopes. The scents of wet grass and leather, horse dung, and his own perspiration com bined into a rank miasma. His mouth tasted of some thing bitter and dry, and his thighs and rump ached from riding.
Doyle was the same, silent, his mount in perfect alignment with Christopher’s courser.
Everything that had passed seemed a lifetime away. Both had seen so much, been through so much that they were physically and mentally conquered by the very experience. If they decided, they could reflect on it now, shiver at how unreal it all was. But all they could do was ride.
And then they saw it. It came from the west, dawn’s lambent glow flittering effortlessly over it: a wall of men-at-arms, the expanse of which shocked them. Christopher looked right, then left, and could not see where the horizon of Celts ended.
Nearby, the ground began to quake, and Christopher knew it could not be from their horses. It might be from the myriad of men ahead. But they were too far off. He looked over his shoulder.
A rampart of cavalrymen from the east descended the slope behind them, and in seconds they were swarmed by lance after lance, score after score of Celts. The men rode with such furor that they nearly dismounted Christopher and Doyle.
Now, even if Arthur’s forces had been defeated, Lord Wyman and his Saxon comrades would not escape. A new day produced the fresh armies of Leondegrance and Uryens closing from the east, Woodward and Nolan from the west.
“The messengers got through!” Doyle shouted, new life in his voice.
The sudden rush of horses and men rejuvenated Christopher’s weary bones, and lifted the fatigue from his head. “Yes! Yes!”
One of the cavalrymen, whose red surcoat inscribed with a silver cross marked him as a mem ber of Leondegrance’s lance, a senior squire, reined alongside Christopher. “Is the king alive?” he asked. “I don’t know. But we’re searching for the Main
Battle. If Arthur is alive, he should be there.” “Has your force won the night?” Christopher shrugged.
