Hope and the Knight of the Black Lion

by Mary C. Findley

  “But my lady, did I not tell you that God healed that knight?” Sir Chris laughed. He turned around and came toward me, with Tahira following behind. “This is that same lady who saved my life. But you told me your name was Tamar.”

  “I could not be called Tahira then. It means purity,” Tahira said softly. “But after I was converted and came to serve Lady Godwin she learned my true name and insisted that I must not be afraid to bear it again. She said Christ has made me pure again and would call me nothing else.”

  “How could God bring us back together again?” Sir Chris marveled.

  “‘Tis wonderful,” Lady Godwin said. “Oh, if only my husband knew this. It would gladden his heart. How we have thrilled to hear our sweet Tahira praise your courage, friend knight. We were glad to be English and we longed to know what had become of you.”

  “Lady, we must save our reminisces for another time,” Sir Chris said. “I almost forgot your husband, and all my duty. I need clothing, and I need to be about my business.”

  “It is impossible,” I exclaimed. “Sir Chris, the earl will not let you out of this room. Surely you understand that. Besides, you were so much hurt. You must rest.”

  Sir Chris subsided with a great sigh. “It is Lady Hope who keeps all our feet planted on the earth. You are right, of course. I think we must all be prisoners here.” He glanced out the window and we both saw that soldiers watched the room carefully. The sky had grown blacker and lightning flickered across the towering thunderheads. Sadaquah snorted and swung away from us to another part of the room. “Lusto adri. What shall we do then?” Sir Chris asked me.

  “Was it really you? You wrote that book, and spoke of yourself?” I whispered to him as we stood a little apart from the others at the window. “These scars ...” I touched his wrist hesitantly. The shackles in the earl’s dungeon had rubbed him raw, but the rope marks were far deeper and I could only imagine what he must have suffered. I looked up into his face and saw that the memory of it all washed over him again. He did not try to answer me. He looked out the window across the landscape and I saw the effort he made to bury the terror and pain again.

  “Why did they do this to you? If you would not work in the salt mine as they wished, would they not just kill you?” I asked. I hated to make him keep remembering it, and I hated to think of these things myself. But something seemed wrong with the story. He allowed me to lead him over to the bed and he sank down on it. “Sadaquah and that other man … “

  “Rasoul,” Sir Chris supplied.

  “Rasoul, yes. They both said it was not the Arabs’ way to torture helpless men.”

  “No, it is not, except as punishment for crimes under their laws,” Sir Chris agreed, speaking with difficulty. “Most Christians were killed in battle or captured and ransomed. They were never treated well, of course, but you are right. Something was different about the mines. They never killed anyone outright. In fact, anytime someone did not just suddenly drop dead, but only collapsed or became ill, they would take him away as if to care for him but he would never return. I believe now it had something to do with the Frenchman. I know not how he ruled over them … the Frenchman … it was he … it is…” He whirled around suddenly and stared at Tahira.

  “Hugo Brun!” He exploded. She started violently. “It is the same man. He is the one who…” Then he saw the look on her face. She crumpled like a wilted flower. “It is him. And you knew it. Lady, how could you stay here, knowing he was here?”

  “I had to serve Lady Godwin,” Tahira murmured. “I did not know he was here at first. I heard of a Frenchman and how Lord Godwin was to come here to look into something concerning him. Only when I saw him … then I knew.”

  “It was the same with me,” Sir Chris said angrily. “All spoke of this Frenchman, but I had never seen his face. Even when he fought me here, he wore a helmet. But in the dungeon, I saw him, and I heard him, but it was all a muddle with what had happened before…”

  “The man Hugo Brun?” Lady Godwin gasped. “He is the one who made thee a slave … who forced thee … He is the one who ran the salt mine and enslaved Christians?”

  “He is, my lady,” Tahira said with great reluctance. “He oversaw the torture of many, many Christians. If you have heard of any poor soul who never returned from the Crusades, it may be that he lies in a burial pit in the desert.”

  “Why did he do it?” I came back to my earlier question. “Why did he torture those men? Was it just because he got pleasure from it? Tahira, do you know?”

  “He got pleasure from it,” Tahira shuddered. “But my lady, there was another reason for it as well. He scarcely spoke to me at all, and his Arabic was very bad. But I think … he meant to get … something from the men. He never participated in the torture. When we were at the mines he kept to his tent. The Christians thought it was the Arabs’ doing. When they were close to death the Arabs would take them away from the mine and bring them to the oasis. I saw him sometimes pretending that he would help them ... He would make me give them a little nursing, and I think they believed he had saved them from the Arabs. He made them … tell him things … and then he killed them … I could not understand what he wanted … I do not know…” She trailed off and sank down into a chair.

  “Robert told me he came back with messages from dead Crusaders for their families,” I said. “He called it a Holy Quest. You remember, Sir Chris, that he was doing this.”

  “When they brought me to the oasis he never asked me anything,” Sir Chris said slowly. “He only said he wanted to stop my singing and praising God. But I was not broken down enough for him to force anything out of me. Mayhap he thought I never would be, and so only wanted to be rid of me. All the time I was there I tried to understand what happened when they attacked the old pilgrim’s camp. They killed the old pilgrim and all his Arab converts. But they took the Christians to their mine.”

  Sadaquah shrugged. “Whatever his plan was, it had to do with those who came from the lands of Europe … the Crusaders. The old man they saw was too weak to be worked in the mine, or perhaps he did not recognize him as a European. As for the others, he wanted to break their wills and force them to give him something.”

  “Gil said that Sir Hugo Brun was stripped of his land and titles in France,” I ventured. “Could he have hoped somehow to force them to give over their lands to him … to make him heir to their holdings?”

  “He cannot do that,” Lady Godwin said firmly. “Thou dost know the earl hath been trying to get the Frenchman lands and a title here. It is not so simple. The king holds the land and the title, and if a man dies without heirs, only the king can bestow it on another person.”

  “Then he must have hoped that by contacting the families of these men and bringing them messages from their lost knight, he would earn their gratitude and some kind of reward ... Perhaps those living would arrange for the king to gift him with the holdings he wanted so badly,” I said.

  “But none of the families were grateful enough to suit him,” nodded Sir Chris. “So he has befriended the earl, probably with a staged rescue, to try to get his land with his help.”

  “God be merciful, Sir Chris,” I breathed. “Do you not see what he has done to my uncle? He has taken him, and he is doing again that very thing he did in the desert. He knows Baron Colchester can control his own holdings. He is torturing him to force him ...”

  Sir Chris sprang out of the bed with a cry of pure rage. He lunged for the door, half-naked, unarmed. The door was bolted on the outside. He grabbed a lampstand and began to pound on the heavy door with unbelievable strength. I believe he would have smashed through it in another moment. All of a sudden the fit left him and he fell backward, powerless. We hurried him back into bed.

  Chapter Thirteen: A Desperate Plan, A Butterfly Palace, A True Defender

  Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul.

  O My God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.

  Yea, let none th
at wait on thee be ashamed: let them be ashamed which transgress without cause.

  Psalm 25: 1-3

  A guard thrust the door open and warned that Sir Chris would be returned to the dungeon if there was another such outburst. He stared in fright at the half-splintered-through door and Sir Chris’s furious expression and quickly retreated.

  “My brother, you cannot stop him,” Sadaquah cried. “You can do nothing.”

  “This cannot be,” Sir Chris hissed. “This cannot be. I cannot stay here while my – while Baron Colchester endures that man’s torture. It cannot be.”

  “It must be for now,” Lady Godwin said. “The earl is set in his evil way. He would not believe us even if thou and Tahira both spoke of what ye know. We will have to wait until the rest of the tribunal arrives.”

  “When will that be?” Sir Chris demanded.

  “We came fast, but they would not see the urgency. It may be some two or three days before they arrive,” Lady Godwin said.

  “Nay, so long we cannot wait,” Sir Chris said. “It has been too long already.”

  “What about your mother, Lady Hope?” Lady Godwin asked. “Can she not say she saw this Frenchman attack the manor?”

  “She is too sick to know what she saw,” I said. “They have poisoned her mind by planting that foul seed of Sir Chris’s guilt. She believes my uncle is dead, and that Hugo Brun came to help.”

  “The Lady Ada was feverish and very worn down,” Tahira said. “She could scarcely have told you anything in that condition and anyone could have influenced her and made her believe an untruth. The draught I gave her should have cleared her mind by now. You may find her more able to answer your questions, lady.”

  “What if she was kept in the same place with Baron John, but did not know it?” Lady Godwin ventured. “Now that she is better perhaps she remembers something about where she was.”

  “Lady Hope, you must ask to see your mother,” Sir Chris said. “They cannot deny you. Who shall go with you?”

  “They will not let me,” Lady Godwin said ruefully. “I am surety for my husband as he is for thee, good knight.”

  “Sadaquah?” Sir Chris ventured.

  “Do not talk foolishness,” Sadaquah snorted. “You may as well ask if they will let you go with her.”

  “I will go,” Tahira said. “There is no other choice.”

  “But surely they took pains to keep her from learning where the place was,” I said. “She told me her head was covered as they traveled.”

  “Somehow we must learn where Baron John is,” Sir Chris said. “We must learn it immediately. It may be that the lady can give us some clue – something she saw or heard or knows not that she knows – that will lead us to him.”

  “All right,” I nodded. “But why must Tahira go? If I am only going to my mother, why must anyone come along?”

  “Aye, sir knight,” Lady Godwin said, “Methinks thou dost forget the danger to Tahira if Hugo Brun should see her and know who she is.”

  “Lady, I do not forget it,” Sir Chris murmured. “I know there is danger to both these ladies from that man. I cannot … I cannot puzzle out another way to do this, though. Hugo Brun roams this castle free and we are trapped here. We must be sure Lady Ada has not been harmed. Tahira must be there to give Lady Ada more medicine if she still needs it.

  “Together these two may be able to protect each other. I will not have Lady Hope go alone. None of us are safe here either. I heard the earl and the Frenchman talk in the dungeon. The earl knows all is not right in what the Frenchman does. But he is in too deep, and must share the blame if it comes out. Hugo Brun has told him all will be lost if the tribunal convenes and discovers what has been done.

  “But what if there are no witnesses to accuse him? What if he can do away with all of us here by some ‘accident’ like the fire at Colchester, or even blame it on a certain mysterious knight of the black lion? What will there be to investigate?”

  “God help us,” whispered Lady Godwin. “What hope is there in any of this?”

  “Sir Chris is right,” I said. “If we can find Baron Colchester, and if the Frenchman truly has been trying to force him to give over title to Colchester, he can give a sure word against Hugo Brun. None can deny the Frenchman’s guilt if we have my uncle’s testimony. If my mother can give us a place to search, then we may all be saved.”

  I ran to the door and knocked on it. “I pray you, let me go and see my mother!” I called out to the guards beyond. “She is ailing. Let me speak with her and see if she is well.”

  For some time there was no answer. I pounded and shouted again. “Tell yon knight he must stand far clear of the door,” called out a voice in answer to my pleas. “We have archers and will shoot him down if he tries to break out. Make the Arab do the same,” the voice added, almost as an afterthought.

  Sir Chris grunted. He got up, walked over to the opposite side of the room and stood with his arms folded. Sadaquah reluctantly joined him. I called out that we had done what they asked and the door creaked open. A guard looked warily in. It was almost comical to see how fearfully he looked to see where Sir Chris was. Satisfied, he beckoned me to come out. Tahira hastened to go with me and the guard stopped her.

  “The permission was given only for Lady Hope,” he said.

  “This lady is a skilled healer,” I pleaded. “She was asked to tend my mother. Please, she must be allowed to go with me. I fear for my mother’s life.”

  The man softened. “I do not see the harm,” he said gruffly. “A guard will escort you. You will go straight there and come straight back, and you must not stay long.”

  “Thank you,” I said meekly.

  Tahira and I hurried out. The guard was hard-pressed to keep up with us. We ran almost all the way. We burst into my mother’s room and I ran up to her bed.

  “Mother,” I gasped, “Are you all right?”

  “Hope, my darling,” she said, surprised. “Why, yes, I am a good deal better. I thank you, lady, for the medicine you gave me. It helped wonderfully,” she added to Tahira. Tahira bowed slightly.

  “Oh, mother, I am glad,” I said, hugging and kissing her fervently. “Mother, can you tell me all you did the night of the fire?”

  “Yes, Hope, I have wanted to talk of it,” my mother said faintly. “There were things that were not clear when I was sick, and things the earl said that confused me more…”

  “Tell me what you remember, mother.”

  “It was so late when I heard the crash at the door,” she began listlessly. “Then I heard Simon cry out. I leaped from the bed and looked across the great hall. I saw men on horses riding into the hall.”

  “What did they look like, mother?”

  “I could not see their faces,” mother said. “I was too far away. They were coming toward the dais when I ran to warn you. As soon as you were away, a man grabbed me from behind. He was not there to help me. He spat curses when he saw that you were gone. I fought free of him and ran out of the solar. The fire had already been started … a dozen fires ... It could not have been an accident. In the smoke and confusion I saw through the windows men chasing the servants. I saw your uncle on the dais, struggling with a man. He cried to me to get out. Outside I found … I found servants dead everywhere…” She broke off and hid her face.

  “Mother, go on,” I prompted.

  “In the front yard I saw Simon struggling with a giant man. The man turned to look at me.”

  “Mother, you must have seen his face then,” I prompted. “Who was he?”

  “Yes ..., “ she said. “Yes, there was so much smoke, but I know I saw something … I saw long pale hair … I saw … his face was pale and harsh …his eyes.… Why … why Hope … it could not have been the stranger … the knight who wore the black lion, could it? His hair was dark. This other man was fair, and had no scar. Why did I think it was he? It was because of the earl. He kept asking … kept insisting that it was the knight of the black lion. I could not think. I became
so confused.”

  “Mother, you must tell me the rest.”

  “I saw them carry my brother out of the manor. John was …unconscious, I think. The giant man had given Simon into someone else’s charge. He was senseless too. I heard the man say something in French …The other man did not understand him, and so he shouted angrily in English. The man still did not seem to understand. The tall man got very angry.”

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “It made no sense to me, either,” Lady Ada said. “He said ‘Plas de Papillion’ the first time.

  “And when the man did not understand, he said, ‘Butterfly, Butterfly you fool. Take him to the place of butterflies!’“

  “What could he have meant?” I asked. “Oh, mother, did you see or hear anything else?”

  “No, my love,” my mother said sadly. “They captured me then, and I have told you everything else. You believe my brother is alive, then? But who will help us find him?”

  “Pray, mother, and God will help us.” I squeezed her hand.

  Tahira quickly checked her condition and gave her another draught of fragrant herbal preparation. It smelled like the herb tea Sadaquah had made for Sir Chris.

  “Will you promise me something?” I demanded of the guard who had come with us.

  “If I can, lady,” he said uneasily.

  “Protect my mother,” I said. “You cannot love the earl or the Frenchman so well that you would let them harm a helpless, sick woman.”

  “Nay, my lady, who says anyone will harm your lady mother?” he demanded stoutly. “I will keep her safe. Not all of us suck at that Frenchman’s teat. But I … I must conduct you back.”

  “Stay here and watch my mother. Please.” He hesitated, then nodded.

  I grabbed Tahira’s hand and we ran back toward Lady Godwin’s chamber. We had rounded the last corner when a man stepped out in front of us. I ran full into him, and saw to my horror that it was Hugo Brun. I looked up at him, clad in full armor, his helmet on his arm, and shuddered. He stepped back and looked down at me. He did not even notice when I pushed Tahira into a niche around the corner out of sight.