In spite of himself, Claude felt the sound cutting through his ill humour. This de Moreaux, Gilles, the third of his line to rely upon the old retainer’s good offices, was the first to have taken care of his own weapons. And when Claude’s rheumatism had bitten deep, curling and crippling his hands, Sir Gilles himself had ordered the older man to rest whilst he foraged and rooted for the herbs needed for a cure. Not many knights would have lowered themselves so far as to serve a servant.
On the other hand, not many knights would still be traipsing around the Massif Orcal at this time of year for any reason, let alone an apparently never-ending quest for a trophy large and impressive enough to return with.
Claude, stooping to lift a dry twist of wood from the debris that littered the forest, grimaced at the thought. True, the sun was still warm on the leathered skin at the nape of his neck, and even this mild exercise of bundling firewood was beginning to dampen his brow. But despite the comfortable heat the leaves on the trees of this valley were already beginning to redden with an autumnal fire. A thousand traceries of red and gold raced and tumbled through the green sweeps of their boughs, a final explosion of colour before the skeletal days to come. He knew that in a fortnight, a month at the most, those leaves would be gone, mulch beneath the ice and rain of winter.
He also knew that in a fortnight, a month at the most, the rheumatism would be back. Claude’s fingers twitched at the thought. If he were still out here when the ice came there would be no escape from the pain. It would eat into his bones with a fervour beyond the powers of any poultice to soothe. Every movement would become an agony, every joint would ache like shattered glass. It was too much.
Still muttering to himself, the old man claimed a length of splintered branch to complete his load then turned back towards their makeshift camp. He found Sir Gilles sitting cross-legged by the edge of the clearing. Apart from the repetitive whisper of the sharpening stone along the blade of his sword, the young knight remained as upright and as silent as one of the Lady’s stained glass saints.
Claude surreptitiously watched the blank mask of his master’s face as he built their fire. Not the slightest hint or ripple of emotion stirred the even symmetry of his dark Bretonnian features, yet still the old man knew what lay behind the shuttered windows of the youngster’s eyes. He knew, and in knowing despaired of a return to their demesne before winter’s misery began.
It was all the fault of Gilles’ brother, Leon. Leon the brave. Leon the fair. Leon who, after a scant two weeks of questing, had returned with a massive troll’s head the size of a cartwheel and the blessing of the Lady.
If only Sir Gilles had found a prize to match that, Claude thought unhappily, we’d be home by now.
He struck a shower of sparks into the tinder heart of the fire and stooped to blow them into life, his sigh lost in the operation. A few tiny flames leapt up and Claude tended them, fed them, watched them grow. After a few moments the kindling was a fist of fire, bright even in the light of the setting sun. He imprisoned the blaze within a latticework of thicker sticks and swung the pot containing the evening’s stew into the heat. Only then did he realise that the sound of the whetstone had ceased. He glanced up at his master. The knight had sheathed his sword and slipped into that deep breathless trance that seemed to be the mark of his kind.
Knights! Claude shook his head resignedly. Thirty-four years as an equerry and his masters still remained a mystery to him. Perhaps it was because the Lady asked so much of them. Perhaps it was because they truly were a different breed. Who knew?
Claude shrugged and turned his attention back to the pot. As he stirred the glutinous soup, a sudden gust of wind sprinted down the valley, rustling through the falling leaves with a thousand chill fingers. One more harbinger of winter. Silently cursing the fate that seemed set to keep him here, the old man pulled up his collar and waited for the stew to boil.
“The Lady is beauteous indeed,” breathed Sir Gilles.
The quiet intensity of the statement twisted Claude around in his saddle to follow the knight’s gaze. But a quick glance around was enough to still the sudden, startling burst of hope that had flared within his chest. The Lady had not appeared. All that could be seen from the eyrie of this valley pass was the usual panorama of the Massif Orcal. Claude pulled the tattered blanket that now served him as a cloak around his scrawny shoulders and studied the scene.
Beyond the distant heights, the slopes were shot through with a thousand shades of wintry dawn sunlight, the colours a sharp contrast to the depths of the valley floor, now a grey sea of morning mist. Claude pulled his threadbare blanket tighter around his shoulders and yawned.
“If you don’t mind me saying so, sire—” he began.
“We should make the most of the fine weather remaining to us,” Sir Gilles completed for him. The look of rapture faded from his face and he turned to regard his old retainer. “You are correct, of course, Claude. First, though, I will sit a while in this place. I feel her presence here, I’m sure of it. Why don’t you wait for me over the slope, and perhaps brew some of that filthy Empire tea of which you are so fond?”
This last was with a smile, the first crack in the knight’s iron mask for days. The expression was as fleeting as the rise of a trout, yet in that brief moment Claude had read the lines of frustration and exhaustion that his master’s composure had so well concealed. For a moment the old man felt his own worries swamped in a swell of sympathy.
“I’ll wait as you say, sire,” he assented, turning to lead their horses over the crest of the ridge. Behind him Sir Gilles sank to his knees, hands clasped together in silent prayer before the upright hilt of his sword. As he set to beside the fire once more, Claude snatched a quick glance at the tableaux. He felt a sudden burst of affection and shook his head.
“You’re getting sentimental in your old age,” he scolded himself in a mutter as he split the kindling sticks needed to boil his water. “Too sentimental by half.”
The ripe globe of the autumnal sun climbed into the cloud streaked depths of the sky. Claude sat and drank his tea. When he had done that, he lay back and let the warmth of it sink into him.
Sharp-edged shadows stalked across distant slopes and valleys as the sun began to rise higher. The light was bright but unnatural, thin and brittle like before a storm. Claude was watching a hawk spiral overhead on the first of the day’s thermals when a furtive movement from below snatched his attention. He lowered his gaze to where a grove of stunted bushes below rustled and moved jerkily against the wind.
Claude froze and watched the undergrowth for any further sign. Perhaps it was just a trapped deer, or some sort of mountain hare. He didn’t want to disturb his master for such a—
With a sudden snap the bushes burst apart and a ragged creature sprang out.
“Sire!” the old man bellowed, leaping to his feet with adrenaline-fuelled agility. He fumbled at his belt for his dagger, struggling to unsheathe it in time, and snatched a glance at the tattered form that even now approached him. Only then did he realise that beneath the layers of dirt and bracken it was human, a man. He found himself fumbling for words of greeting or warning but, before he could find either weapon or challenge, Sir Gilles arrived.
His appearance was silent, marked only by a sudden rush of displaced air. Gone was the man, the youngster Claude had known since his swaddling days. Gone was the tiredness, the yearning. Gone was the humanity. All that remained of Sir Gilles now was the knight, the steel-clad killing machine. The dark stormcloud of his cloak whipped around him, driven either by the wind or by the corona of terrible energy that radiated from him. Claude, without even noticing that he was doing so, flinched away from his own master.
Despite the layers of metal which encased his form, Sir Gilles bounded forward with all the grace and poise of a big cat. With the hiss of steel slicing through air, his sword was in his hand as he leapt towards the newcomer.
“Thank the gods!” the man said, his features wild with a confu
sion of fear and happiness. After a moment’s hesitation he threw himself to his knees. “Our prayers have been answered.”
The knight hefted the length of his sword, flicking it upwards in an effortless arc that sent a wink of sunlight flashing along the edge. And for a moment, just one moment, Claude was certain that the blade was about to guillotine down across the newcomer’s shoulders. But of course it did not. The Lady, bless and protect her, would not have allowed it.
Yet how would it be, the old retainer suddenly found himself wondering, if the knights of Bretonnia should lose their respect for the Lady?
Claude shuddered, suddenly cold, and switched his attention to the stranger who still knelt before Sir Gilles.
“…prayed for you to come for weeks. It’s become too much, far too much,” the man continued to babble, tears glinting unashamedly in the corners of his eyes. “None of us can sleep at night, none of us can work. Where are they going, where? One more and we’re leaving, I swear it.”
The man’s voice was beginning to edge upwards into the realms of hysteria. Seeming to realise it, he paused and took a deep breath. Then turned his red-rimmed eyes back to the knight.
“You will help us, sire, won’t you?”
Sir Gilles, who until now had remained poised for combat, suddenly relaxed. He sheathed the wicked length of his sword and raised his visor to reveal a hungry, wolfish smile.
“Have no fear. I am sworn to help men such as yourself,” he reassured the peasant, whose grubby features split open into a wide grin of relief. “How far is this village of yours?”
“In the next valley, sire. If you have horses it will take a few hours at the most.”
“Yes, we have horses. Perhaps you can help Claude here saddle up… ah, how are you called?”
“Jacques, sire, Jacques de Celliers. And thank you.”
Sir Gilles waved away the man’s gratitude and turned to face the bright rays of the mid morning sun. Claude led the newcomer to the horses. It took them a few minutes to saddle the beasts and lead them back to where the knight still stood.
Somehow Claude was not surprised to find his master’s head bowed and his lips moving in a silent prayer of gratitude.
The inn was packed.
Even with the trestle tables pushed back into the shadows there hardly seemed room to breathe. Claude had even considered slipping back outside, away from the choke of this room, but somehow the tension of hope and fear that sawed through the smoke-filled air kept him still. That and the presence of Sir Gilles, of course.
The knight sat comfortably within an almost tangible sphere of personal aura that none seemed willing to invade. He looked as calm and serene as always as he chatted to those around him about their crops, their children, the first signs of change in the season.
Claude saw the awe that washed across the features of those being spoken to, watched it being reflected on the faces of their neighbours. In a gesture that he would have denied even under torture he straightened his back and smiled with pride. Sir Gilles was, after all, his knight.
Not until Francois, the village elder, made his entrance did the meeting come to some sort of order. The inn door was thrown open by a burst of cold, eastern wind and the old man stalked into the warmth of the room. He had hooked one claw-like hand onto the shoulder of his nephew for support or perhaps guidance through the chill darkness that now laid siege to the building. Favouring Sir Gilles with what could just about have been taken for a half-bow, he then studied the depths of his guest’s face with yellowing eyes as puffy as poached eggs. For several long moments the two men regarded each other until, with a grunt of satisfaction, Francois lowered himself onto one knee. Claude could almost hear his bones creaking.
“Please,” Sir Gilles said earnestly, “there is no need to kneel, especially for one as steeped in the grey hairs of wisdom as yourself.”
“Thank you, lord,” Francois said curtly. His nephew helped him back to his feet and led him to the cutaway oak barrel that served as the old man’s seat of office. Knight and elder faced each other across the few feet of swept earth which lay between them and, in place of any common currency of small talk, smiled.
“I thank you for coming to our aid,” Francois began. “I only wish I could tell you what we need that aid against.”
The knight shifted in his chair, eyes beginning to sparkle with a quickening interest.
“Your man Jacques here told me something of your dilemma,” he said, gesturing towards the peasant. Jacques, who had become something of a local hero since his return this afternoon, puffed himself up with pride at the mention. “Perhaps, though, you could tell me the full history of these, ah, events.”
Francois nodded and sighed. Staring past the knight’s head into some invisible point beyond the inn wall he began to speak, the years seeming to weigh down on him as he did so.
“It began after the first of the year’s harvests, just after the festival of the summer corn,” he started, his voice dull and hopeless. “This year we took a goodly crop, thanks to the brightness of the sun and the depths of the rains. In fact, after we had filled the granaries we had a surplus. We felt rich so, for the first time in years, we stopped the river trader and exchanged a few bushels for gold. At first I thought—we all thought—that was what had led to Pierre’s disappearance.”
“How so?” the knight demanded. He leant forward eagerly, elbow rested on one knee and eyes locked on the elder’s tragic countenance. His right hand, seemingly of its own accord, had stolen down to brush against the hilt of his sword. Claude regarded his master with a wry smile. Now that action beckoned he looked more warrior than gentleman, and more wolf than either.
Francois, though, seemed oblivious to this change in his guest’s character. His attention had wandered far beyond the present murky depths of this world and into the past. He sighed and, with an obvious effort, dragged himself back to the here and now.
“How so? Well, because when a man has gold in his pocket and the sun is warming the stone of the high passes it’s only natural for him to consider straying. Especially when…”
Francois eyes flickered upwards with a sudden guilty start and he broke off in consternation. Claude wondered what had caused his host’s evident discomfiture until, from behind him, a woman’s voice rang out.
“Especially when he’s married to such a shrew. Isn’t that what you were going to say, Francois de Tarn?”
Claude turned to regard the speaker. She was, he thought charitably, a solidly built woman. The black cloth of her smock looked hard-pressed to contain the bulk of her hips and chest. Despite her impressive girth, though, her face look pinched, sharp and hard even in the dull glow of the rush lights.
Shrew-like indeed, thought Claude sadly, and felt pity welling up inside of him. He could guess how it must have been for this woman when she tried to tell her neighbours of her husband’s disappearance. How they must have frowned and talked of search parties in public whilst privately wishing the runaway all good speed.
“No, Celine, I wasn’t going to say that,” the elder rallied, cutting through the thread of Claude’s speculation. “I was going to say that when a husband and wife have problems… well, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” the widow sighed, suddenly deflated. Francois shrugged uncomfortably and ploughed on.
“Anyway, about a week after Pierre was taken we lost Charles. Then Alain the smith. Then Bastien. Then Fredric and Sullier right afterwards. And then… then the children, Sophie and Louise…” His voice trailed off into nothingness and he swallowed painfully.
As the old man had recited the terrible litany of the lost it had been punctuated by choked sobs or low, miserable moans from the assembled villagers. Claude shifted uncomfortably. The air felt greasy with the grief and fear that was tearing this small community apart. The tension, almost unbearable, crushed down on his chest.
But if the weight of their misery had made any impression on Sir Gilles he wasn’t showing it. The only
emotion visible on the knight’s face was a terrible hunger, an eagerness that reminded Claude of boar hounds straining at the leash. For the second time in as many days the old retainer faced the gulf that lay between them and shivered.
“So,” the knight said, his tones crisp and oblivious to the pain around him. “What sort of intervals are we talking about between disappearances?”
“It varies.” Francois shrugged his shoulders. “Between Pierre and Charles ten days. Between Sophie and Louise only three.”
“The children. Not as much meat on them, I suppose,” Sir Gilles mused aloud.
Behind him Claude heard a stifled cry and a rush of feet to the door.
“And you found no sign of a struggle? No smashed doors, no cries in the night?”
“No.” The elder paused for a moment, his eyes flickering over the assembly before he continued. “Charles was taken from his very bed whilst his wife lay sleeping beside him.”
Sir Gilles nodded. One moment crawled slowly into the next, the time marked only by the rise and fall of the wind outside and the spluttering hiss of the rush lights within. When the knight finally spoke it was with a cry that sent those nearest to him lurching backwards.
“Of course! Where do you bury your dead?”
“In the crypt behind the shrine,” the elder replied, puzzlement adding a fresh tide of wrinkles to his brow. “Why do you ask, lord?”
“And tell me, do you have a store of garlic here?” the knight continued uninterrupted.
“Of course, my lord. What kitchen doesn’t?”
Claude shared the old man’s confusion until, with a sudden flash of inspiration, he remembered a tale from one of the castle grimoires. A tale of nocturnal vanishings and blood black in the light of the moon. A tale of strange weapons, garlic and water and…
“The only other things you’ll need are sharpened staves.” Sir Gilles rubbed his hands together and sighed with satisfaction. He looked, thought Claude with a touch of awe, like a man contemplating a feast or a day’s hunting.
Tales of the Old World Page 48
