by David Noel
Next to the barracks were several pells for training with swords. The tall, wooden post was about six feet tall and five inches in diameter, set into the ground so that it was completely immobile. Some were designed with a larger barrel shape for the top half to simulate the body of a soldier, a few even had mock heads and shoulders, but most were simply a post. Normally one used a weighted, wooden sword when attacking a pell, but Portia wanted to do some serious damage to it, so she used her gladia instead. In a real sword fight the good warriors controlled their emotions because anger and fear wasted energy and caused you to be reckless or timid in combat. Good warriors also focused on thrusting attacks whenever possible instead of cutting attacks since a thrust concentrated the energy of the attack on the tip of the sword while the cut or slash attack spread the energy out over the entire length of the weapon, this meant that a sword thrust had a much better chance of penetrating armor and delivering a fatal blow. Cutting and slashing attacks had their uses, but thrusting was usually deadlier.
Portia knew all of this, but she didn’t care. She attacked the pell with fury and let all of her resentment and pain flow through her. She hacked and hacked and hacked without thinking and it felt good to see chunks of wood come flying off the post. Why was she the plain one? Why couldn't she be tall, slender, and beautiful like the others? Why couldn't she have the pretty face and the beautiful hair? The full bust and the curved hips? Why did she have to have her father’s physique instead of her mother’s? Why did she have such a low voice instead of pretty one, a higher pitched voice like the other girls? Why weren’t the boys interested in her as much as she was interested in them? Why didn’t they pay attention to her? Why did she have to be “The Squire”?
She would have to spend most of tomorrow sharpening her sword again and she would certainly get in trouble with her mother for all the damage she was doing to the pell right now but none of that mattered. Larger and larger chunks of wood began to come off the pell as she continued to hack at it. The Centurion steel of her blade was delivering what would be devastating damage if the pell had been a Hungarian. After a dozen blows, she sheered the top foot off the post and kept going. Another dozen of her strongest blows and she had cut the next foot off the top of the pell. She was slowing down but she kept going. Her sword was starting to lose just a bit of its edge and she was getting tired, but she wanted that next foot. She set her teeth and when her left arm grew too tired to swing, she switched to her right. Unlike most fighters of the day she had worked out a great deal with her sword in her off hand so that she was almost as good with it right-handed as she was left-handed. She even owned two gladia and sometimes practiced fighting with one in each hand, which wasn’t practical but was a lot of fun. A dozen blows with her right arm and her dull blade and she took off another foot of the pell. It had begun the day at six feet tall but now it was only three.
A feeling of victory surged through her, but it lasted only a moment. She sighed; she would pay for this tomorrow. Was it really worth it? She looked over at the barracks and saw half a dozen pairs of wide eyes peeking out at her from between the shutters. All the shutters snapped shut when they realized that she was looking at them. She laughed to herself, it was totally worth it.
Portia walked into the barracks trying her best to make it look like she had just gotten a good work out and not like she had been venting her anger. The other girls glanced at her nervously as they climbed into their beds and pulled the covers up to their chins. Unlike many people in the west, Centurions put a high premium on hygiene and regular bathing was a requirement, so Portia headed into the bathroom to bathe and found Aurora already there. Two young maidservants began filling a bath of hot water for her as she stripped.
“Miss Portia, would you like your clothes washed?” One of the girls asked.
“Yes, please, Miss Gretchen.”
“Would you like your back to be washed, Miss Portia?” Asked the other girl.
“Yes, please, Miss Frieda.”
Portia climbed into the tub as the first girl picked up her clothes and left and the second girl came around behind her and began gently scrubbing her back with a rag. After several minutes Aurora spoke to Frieda,
“Thank you, Miss Frieda, Miss Portia and I can take care of the towels, you may go back to your quarters now.”
“Yes Miss Aurora, thank you.”
“Thank you for your service, Miss Frieda,” Aurora said with a smile.
“Thank you for the opportunity to serve.” The young girl curtsied slightly and left.
Aurora was the closest thing to a friend that Portia had in the barracks even though she was a year older. Like Portia, Aurora was something of an outsider. Her father was a Centurion knight who had traveled to India on a trade mission and met the daughter of a Chinese merchant. They had been married and she had returned with him to serve in the Order. Nian Zhen had become a doctor and added her considerable knowledge of healing herbs from the east to the already impressive Centurion medical expertise. Being half-Chinese, Aurora had also felt the sting of Priscilla’s tongue about her appearance, but somehow, she was still able to keep her cool when dealing with the fake handmaiden. They should have been best friends, but Portia always felt that Aurora was too quiet and too serious about everything and, even though she never said it, Portia suspected that Aurora looked down on her for being too impulsive and too emotional.
"You will be in trouble with your mother for destroying that pell," said Aurora quietly.
"True, but Claudia is my shieldmaiden, she’ll be in charge of my punishment and she’s not as strict as my mother."
“Yes, I know.” Aurora replied curtly. Lady Evelyn was Aurora’s shieldmaiden.
“My mother’s worried about you.”
“Dr. Zhen? Why?”
“I push myself very hard, but you push yourself like a woman possessed by a demon to be the strongest, the fastest, the most skilled. Then you turn around and do incredibly reckless things like jump from the cliff path to the balcony on the keep. You will be the next Countess of Carinthia and you worry us.”
“Huh.”
“Do you know why you do these things? I asked my mom how I could help you and she told me her theory about you, do you want to hear it?”
“Please tell me,” Portia said sarcastically, “I’m sure that I have no idea why I am the way that I am.”
“Your brother.”
“You are not going to blame my brother for anything!” Portia jumped to her feet and stood dripping in the tub, ready to pound Aurora.
“I am not blaming Cyrus for anything. When he died in the stable fire, what did you do?”
“I tried to rescue him and failed.”
“You were ten and you ran into a burning building to save your eight-year-old brother. You found him, didn’t you?”
“I did, but I couldn’t get him out.”
“What actually happened?”
Portia sat back down in the tub, tears leaking down her face. She had been trying unsuccessfully to forget these memories for six years and they still hurt. She could still see her brother’s desperate face in the flames, hear the screeches of the panicked horses, smell the smoke in the air.
“I found him, and I was leading him out…” Aurora waited patiently while Portia found the strength and the words to continue. “The grooms were trying to get the horses out and some burning hay fell from the loft onto one of the horses. Its mane caught fire and it panicked. It broke loose from the groom who was leading it and bolted toward the side door that I was trying to lead my brother out of. It almost trampled us trying to escape the flames. Cyrus fell and I froze for a moment at the sight of a burning horse. I can still smell its burning flesh and hear its screeching. I finally managed to look away and I saw Cyrus laying on the floor a couple of feet from me. I started to go to him when part of the roof collapsed and a rafter fell on him. I tried with all my strength to lift it off him while he kept begging me to help. I prayed with all of my heart tha
t God would give me the strength of Samson and help me save my brother…” Portia sat silently in the tub for several minutes. “The next thing I remember was my father was carrying me out of the stable without Cyrus. They tell me that a rafter fell and hit my leg and burned me, but I don’t remember that. All I remember is that we came out of the stable without Cyrus.” Portia punched her own leg as hard as she could. She needed the pain; she was not going to lose it and fall apart in front of Aurora. She tried to crush the fear and frustration, the guilt and the shame. “The bottom line is that I froze, and he got trapped under the rafter and then I was too weak to save him.”
“I remember how everyone praised your courage for trying to save your brother. No one blames you for his death. He went into the fire to try and save the horses and you went in to try and save him. He was brave and you were brave, and nobody failed anybody. The fact that you froze for a moment probably saved your life, if you had immediately run over to help him up, the rafter would have landed on both of you. Don’t you see? This is why you push yourself so hard, so that the next time, you’ll be strong enough, or fast enough, or agile enough, or skilled enough to save whoever needs to be saved. You don’t look like a squire and you don’t wish to be a squire regardless of what Priscilla says, you are simply a young woman who wants to be strong enough to lift the burning rafter the next time that someone needs you to save them.”
Tears were silently running down Portia’s face while the ache in her heart confirmed that it was true. She pulled herself together. She didn’t really know Aurora well enough to totally open up to her, but it meant a lot that Aurora cared enough to be asking her mother how she could help Portia.
“So, you really think that this is why I do the things that I do?” She finally managed to ask.
“My mother does, and she understands people better than anyone else I know.”
“Really? Does she know why Priscilla is such a snake?
"My mother’s theory on Priscilla is that she picks on you because she’s scared to death and doesn't know how to deal with it."
"Scared? Of me?" Asked Portia, stunned. Portia could intimidate the other girls physically and in the men’s barracks that might suffice but in the women’s barracks, power worked a little differently. Everyone knew that actual violence would not be tolerated, and so Priscilla held all the social power cards among the handmaidens.
"No, not of you, of the Hungarians,” Aurora corrected, “The Hungarian raiding parties get larger every year while fewer and fewer join our cause.”
"We’ve always held them off before,” retorted Portia, irritated by the reminder of bad news that she already knew, “a Centurion knight is equal to five Hungarian horse archers."
"Perhaps, perhaps not, but even if that’s true it still means that when the Hungarians outnumber us ten to one, we’ll lose. Their numbers are growing much faster than ours are."
"Well, God’s on our side so we won't lose," responded Portia firmly, as if that answer trumped everything.
"God was on the side of ancient Israel and yet they didn't win every battle," countered Aurora.
The conversation was angering Portia more than she wanted to admit and it was these types of discussions that served to reinforce the differences between her and Aurora and why they weren't better friends.
"Okay, so what’s your point? What has this got to do with Priscilla and how she treats us? And I do mean us because I can remember some of the things, she’s said about your looks too."
An angry scowl passed over Aurora’s face, triggered by some memory of Priscilla’s words, as her hand fluttered toward her eyes. After a moment of staring off into the corner, her calm demeanor returned and she continued,
"The knights have left the castle twice in the last two months to meet Hungarian raiders and such raids seem to be happening more and more often. If a raid is large enough, all the knights and squires leave the castle and the shieldmaidens and handmaidens are left behind to defend the castle by ourselves. If it is exceptionally large, we ride out with the men and face the enemy in the field alongside them. Of all the handmaidens in our barracks, who would have the best chance facing Hungarian horsemen in the field or Hungarian warriors on the wall?"
Portia remained silent; the obvious answer was herself. Aurora looked at her expectantly.
"I think you could defeat a Hungarian warrior," Portia finally answered.
"You are kind to say so," replied Aurora," To be honest, I probably have the second-best chance after you but that’s not saying very much. Most of the girls would die very quickly in either situation. Our best bet would be to use our brains and our bows to keep them from getting close or gaining the top of the wall, but if a few did, it wouldn’t go well. You are the only one of the handmaidens who might actually survive such a fight. This is what Priscilla fears and why she is so jealous of you. She would rather be anywhere other than here. She would gladly marry some ancient, drooling, feeble-minded noble in any other castle in Europe, than to be in this one here in the borderlands of Carinthia run by the Order of the Centurion. Here she is actually expected to fight and here she might die in battle.”
“Centurions do not die gently,” Portia mused, quoting an old Frankish proverb.
“It’s funny to me,” Aurora reflected, “You are so frustrated because none of the boys show any interest in you that you actually wish you had Priscilla’s body. Priscilla, on the other hand, is so scared of having to fight the Hungarians and possibly dying that she wishes that she had your body.”
“Well, you’re finally wrong, I don’t want Priscilla’s soft body, I just want one that looks more like a shieldmaiden’s body than a squire’s body. I’m also pretty sure that Priscilla doesn’t want mine, just a version of her own body with a little extra muscle attached to it.”
Portia sat in her bath water, thinking. Aurora got out of her tub and began to towel off.
“Are you sure you want to be walking around in front of me without any clothes on? You know what the other girls are saying about me,” Portia said with a chuckle.
“I’ll take my chances, besides, if we keep taking bathes at the same time, they’ll start talking about me too.”
Portia laughed, then got serious, "Aurora, when that day comes, and we face a Hungarian attack, I want to fight by your side."
"Thank you," the other girl said with a nod, "and you are the one I want to fight beside as well."
"Let’s make a pact that we’ll work together to get the rest of the girls ready for that day, whether Priscilla likes it or not, we owe it to them to do everything we can to help them survive." Portia stood up and began drying herself off.
"Agreed. I’ll support you all the way.”
"Now you’re the one being kind," Portia replied. "You say that only because I am Sir Gerard's daughter. I may be the better fighter, but you’re the better leader. You understand the girls far better than I do and you can stay focused and make great decisions even in the midst of battle, you’re the one. You take the lead in this barracks and I’ll be your strong right arm."
“You mean my strong LEFT arm?” Aurora corrected her with a smile.
“Look at you! Making a joke!” Portia laughed, it felt good to really laugh, it had been a long time. She continued, “Yes, I’ll be your strong LEFT arm,” she said lifting her left arm and flexing it to show off her biceps. Aurora smiled and returned the gesture by lifting her own left arm and flexing her own, smaller bicep.
“If I have your full support, I’ll do it."
“We’ll make this work,” Portia said, nodding to herself as much as to Aurora. “Now just pray that the Lord will help me to forgive Priscilla so that I don’t accidentally break her neck during training.”
Chapter 7
“Dragons are the most unpredictable of creatures...”
The Centurion Book of Beasts – Folio IV: Dragons
She had waited weeks to dream again after what had happened the last time, but it was still one of her m
ost powerful weapons and not to be discarded lightly. She soared above the countryside again, but this time she would not think about the past, she would focus only on her objective.
The castle was much larger and better designed than she had expected and unlike any other that she had ever seen before. Its octagonal towers were of a type that was new to her and they projected from the walls, both inside and out, to provide overlapping fields of fire for archers and scorpions. The bailey was easily large enough to land in but that also meant it was large enough for many knights on horseback with lances. In a nod to the exhaustive planning that went into the castle’s design, there was even a small traction trebuchet standing in the middle of the bailey ready to fire over the walls at any attacking siege engines that might be brought to bear on the castle from the outside. The gatehouse and keep were larger than any she had ever seen before and well built. For some odd reason, the keep did have a small balcony on the north wall and another on the south wall but they were both too small for her to land on. A large ballista sat on the roof of the keep giving it an impressive field of fire in all directions and reinforcing the idea that it would be bad to try and land on one of the balconies. A tiny courtyard in the center of the keep would simply become a death trap for her like the narrow canyon had been for her mate.
She had not seriously considered attacking the castle directly, that was the act of a Red, not a Black, but she had toyed with the idea of making a nighttime visit to inspire a little terror. Even that idea seemed ridiculous to her now that she saw the castle itself. Flying into such a stronghold was beyond foolish and a fool she was not.
But a Black is known for its cleverness and an idea began to take form in her mind; maybe she didn't have to attack the castle herself to create a little chaos and terror. She flew on in her dreams over the mountains of Carinthia, deep in thought, turning the budding plan over in her mind, one that would set the stage for an even larger plan that would bring the delicious revenge her dark heart craved.
