The Baron's Ring

by Mary C. Findley

  “Do you dare to threaten the soldiers of your liege lord?” Captain Agman spluttered.

  “Nay, I do not,” Tristan spat. “How could a poor blind man threaten Lord Drokken’s finest? Why, I am so pathetic you scorned to protect my people, and instead began to let your men worry them like the rats in a grainhouse you and your lot are. Pack up your vermin and cart them off home, Captain. I have no need of them.”

  “You have no authority,” the captain blustered. “Lord Drokken gives our orders.”

  “Lord Drokken told me I might do as I pleased with you,” Tristan said. “So I choose to tell you to go. If you stay, as I said, you might find our definitions of harmless really very a great deal.”

  “If we return to Lord Drokken, he will want to know why,” Captain Agman protested, suddenly becoming uneasy. “He would demand an explanation from me.”

  “And what would you tell him?” Tristan asked quietly. “Captain, even a blind man can see that you have a problem on your hands. Unruly soldiers on the one hand, angry villagers on the other, a very unhappy baron here in the middle with you. And I am sure you haven’t forgotten Lord Drokken, just over those mountains, trusting you to protect Tarraskida’s prime tax revenue site. What will you do?”

  “Tell me what you wish me to do,” the captain said humbly. “I beg your pardon for these wrongs my men have committed. I beg another chance to do my duty, and to see that they do theirs.”

  “Will you search out the men who are guilty and punish them?” Tristan asked.

  “As you wish, Lord Baron,” the captain said, relief evident in his tone. “I know there are men I can trust to help me ferret out the wrongdoers. Will you wish to decide their punishment, once I have them?”

  “Only to the extent that I want them brought before my people publicly,” Tristan replied, “and that everyone shall have ample opportunity to see their faces. As for the man who attacked the girl, him I wish to deal with personally.”

  It took several days to round up the troublemakers. Tristan was made more than a little uncomfortable by the fact that the captain chose to line the fifteen men up in stocks in the town square and flog them, afterward leaving them throughout the day until the next morning. Tristan had to be present at the flogging. He made sure Mayra was not. She had been bloodthirsty enough when there had been abstract soldiers and an abstract punishment, gleeful enough at the village’s retaliation, but the reality of the sentence carried out he kept from her, declaring a holiday from work and setting her about visits to the workers in their huts, whom she loved to mother and give gifts of food and clothing to anyway.

  Tristan perched on Brentin’s porch, which he had helped Gringus the carpenter add to the front of the inn during his odd job and cloak-bartering days, to witness the event. The captain marched the guilty men into position and had them stripped to the waist while their crimes were read off. Tristan couldn’t see them, but he could hear the ripping of fabric, the fall of the lash, the moans, groans and outright cries of pain. He could smell the blood, the sweat, the fear, and he wondered how anybody could bear to see it. Yet he knew there was a crowd, shouting encouragement, enjoying the spectacle. He recognized many voices. Of course, the men deserved the punishment. But this particular punishment was hard for Tristan to sit though.

  “My Lord Baron,” whispered a voice. “I need t’ speak t’ y’ private.”

  “Bettany,” Tristan said, startled, rising quickly from his place as Alex’s sweetheart stood before him, breathless as if she had run all the way from her home a mile distant. “I assure you no one will be listening to our conversation here, with so many other interesting things going on. What do you have to say to me?”

  “Alex is goin’ t’ punish the soldier who – the one who – You’re gonna to let Alex decide what happens t’ him?” Bettany stammered.

  “You’re talking about the soldier who attacked you,” Tristan said. “Yes, I thought it was right to let Alex choose what was done to him. Why? What did he say he was going to do?”

  “He won’t tell me,” Bettany said. “I begged him t’ tell me, but he says it ain’t fit for a young girl’s ears. I’m afraid he might – I don’t know what he’ll do. But Baron, I have t’ tell you – I have to – The soldier – he didn’t –”

  “Bettany, what is it?”

  “He didn’t really hurt me,” Bettany said. “He didn’t touch me, or even chase me, really. I saw – I saw somethin’ in th’ woods, an’ I ran, an’ I fell an’ tore m’ dress. He never come out o’ th’ woods.”

  “Bettany, are you sure this is the truth?” Tristan asked sternly. “No one’s threatened you, or told you to say this?”

  “No, no,” Bettany insisted. “My Lord Baron, I didn’t mean t’ lie. So many things was happenin’, and I thought they’d never stop ‘less there was somethin’ bad, somethin’ t’ really make people angry. I don’t know what the soldier meant to do. I don’t think he even knew I was there. I’m sure he never meant me no harm. I’m so sorry. Please, don’t let Alex hurt him. You know what a temper he’s got.”

  “Bettany, what do you think Alex might do?” Tristan asked.

  “Oh, Baron, I don’t know,” Bettany quavered, “but the captain’s bringing the soldier to you now. I’m sure it’s him. Oh, he’s so young. He’s just a boy.”

  “Bettany, you have to go to Alex,” Tristan said sharply. “Go right now, and tell him what you told me. Hurry.” She fled, and Tristan heard footsteps approaching.

  “Here’s the man you asked to deal with yourself, Lord Baron,” Captain Agman said a few minutes after the whips had fallen silent. “He’s confessed to responsibility for the incident with the girl.”

  “What’s your name?” Tristan demanded of the soldier.

  “Private Warrick,” came back a disturbingly young voice, and a very frightened one. “Sir – My Lord – I never went for t’ hurt that girl. I on’y went to the farm t’ let some pigs out, an’ there she was, an’ she yelled, and ran and fell. I never even come out of the woods once I seed she were there. But I done wrong, My Lord, I own it. I’ll take my floggin’.”

  “Private, come with me,” Tristan said stonily. “I need to put my hand on your shoulder, and then we’ll walk toward the blacksmith’s forge. You see it, don’t you?” He put his hand on a thin, small shoulder.

  “Aye, My Lord,” the lad said. “Am I not to be flogged, then?” He seemed vastly relieved.

  “I don’t know the answer to that question, Warrick,” Tristan said. “We’re going to visit the blacksmith, and he’ll tell us what he’s going to do to you.”

  “What?” the boy halted in mid-stride. Tristan almost collided with him. “My Lord, I’ll take justice from my captain, or from you, but how is it the blacksmith decides what happens to me? I tell you, I didn’t hurt the girl.”

  “The blacksmith decides,” Tristan said, pushing the boy onward, “because the girl is his sweetheart, Warrick.”

  When he had conducted Warrick to the forge he discovered that Alex waited, and so did a pair of his strapping comrades, boys whom Tristan knew by their voices had participated in the raids.

  “This the yellow coward who came after my girl, Baron?” Alex demanded.

  “He’s confessed to being at the farm, yes, Alex,” Tristan replied. “He says he didn’t touch her, though. He says she fell.”

  “Aye, Bett just told me as much,” Alex conceded. “Sorry the report got about that there was more done than truly was, Baron. Still, laddie, she’s my girl, and even if she wasn’t I’d want to teach you a lesson about skulkin’ around in the dark and frightening helpless girls. I expect it’s something you’ll remember all your life. If you ever forget, just look in a mirror.”

  “Alex, what are you going to do?” Tristan demanded.

  “I’m gonna brand him on the cheek. I think a ‘c’ for coward would look nice. Hold him, boys.”

  Tristan heard a scuffle and a scream. He lunged forward and somehow managed to grab Alex by
the arms.

  “Alex, look at me,” Tristan commanded. “Look me right in the face. Are you looking?”

  “Aye, Baron,” Alex grunted.

  “What do you see?”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say,” Alex grumbled. “I see your face, like I always see it.”

  “What you see,” Tristan said, “is a face that used to be rather pretty, if I can put it so vainly, but it got burned and now it’s not so pretty. What do you think people see when they look at that, Alex? They think, ‘That fellow either did something stupid, or something dangerous. He got paid for doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing.’“

  “Everybody knows what happened to you, Baron,” Alex said uncomfortably. “No one would think such a thing.”

  “Well, you’re about to mark this boy for life for something he really didn’t do,” Tristan said. “Yes, he tried to do something wrong, and there ought to be a punishment for that, but not so much wrong he needs to spend the rest of his life paying for it. He’ll have no military career, no work at all, he’ll die of starvation or somebody’ll beat him to death just because you were angry about something that didn’t really even happen. Is that a fit punishment, Alex?”

  “What should I do, then?” Alex cried. “I wanted to protect my girl, to show her I was a man. I wasn’t even there when this happened, and now two seconds ago I find out it didn’t really even happen at all. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Warrick will work for you for one month,” Tristan said. “I’ll arrange with the captain for him to take a leave. You can give him any humiliating or disgusting job you choose. And you can make him work for Bettany’s parents at their farm, too. Maybe he ought to clean up after those pigs he tried to set loose. That’s up to you. But he works, he does well, and at the end of a month, he’s clear. All right?”

  “All right.” Alex’s breath exploded out of him and he pulled Tristan away from the others. “I never been so mad, Baron. You know me. I never wanted to really hurt anybody before. Then it was all kind of blown away, when Bett told me the truth, but I couldn’t let go of bein’ mad.”

  “At some point, we’ve got to control the anger, Alex, or it’s going to control us,” Tristan said softly. “I recommend chopping wood if you don’t know how else to sweat it out of you. Warrick, let’s go back to your captain now, and arrange for your leave. It’s going to be without pay, by the way, so you’d better hope our friend the blacksmith gets over his anger enough to feed you.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Alex called after them. “I can put some meat on those bones of his.”

  Another sodden spring had burst into warm, fragrant summer. Tristan had all but forgotten what his life in Parangor had been like, that he had ever been a prince, since he had forbidden anyone but Mayra to call him that, because there was nothing he could forbid Mayra to do. Instead they were all contented to call him Baron.

  Tristan had begun to train his own soldiers after what had happened with the men Lord Drokken had sent. Of course he no longer had any cause to complain of the garrison soldiers. Captain Agman had allowed Tristan to make suggestions about how to occupy his soldiers’ idle time, even while on duty, because Tristan could not deny that the duty was dull. They helped repair roads and farm equipment, lent their equipment wagons to market day loads, and played taxi to the elderly or infirm or any who needed help crossing the valley. The soldiers learned to love Larcondale, as Tristan had learned to love it. Some requested to return after their tour was up. Some brought their wives and families, or married a local girl. To Tristan’s astonishment, young Warrick became engaged to Bettany. Alex was philosophical.

  “I kept sending him to help her, so it’s my own fault,” he said to Tristan. “Anyway, Baron, I was starting to feel like I wanted something different. Restless, like, as if I’m not always going to be a blacksmith or live in Larcondale. And Bettany’d never want to leave here. She hardly wanted to go to school or learn about other places. Someday, if you ever go back to Parangor, I think I’d like to see it. Will you let me tag along?”

  “I’ll be sure to let you know if I do,” Tristan laughed.

  Tristan’s first private recruits included Alex and about a dozen of the other young men he had taught as boys at the school. Tristan brought to the estate to handle the actual work of training his young soldiers two or three excellent men from Drokken’s guard and a sergeant who took his position in Larcondale very seriously.

  As he listened to the training exercises, heard the exchanges between the participants, and concluded that the village boys were making him very proud, Tristan found himself unable to escape an idea that terrified and irresistibly drew him. As soon as the sergeant reported that recruit Alex had mastered the basics of swordfighting and in fact showed unusual promise as a swordsman, Tristan approached him with a proposal that made Alex cry out in disbelief.

  “Oh, aye, My Lord Baron, you want me to be your sparring partner so that you can recall your skills at swordsmanship,” the young man said. “People will say I’m encouraging your madness in thinking you can do things you can’t do, to be a fighter, to join us in battle. Nay, Baron, I can’t put my sword up against you. Don’t ask it of me.”

  “Alex, walk me out to that bench beside the vineyard fence,” Tristan asked. When they arrived, Tristan felt his way to a seat.

  “I haven’t forgotten that I’m blind, Alex,” Tristan said as the young man sat stiffly by his side. “In fact, I can’t find my way to this bench without help. I don’t mean to be a soldier, to go into a battle and make men’s jobs harder trying to protect me, or have men’s lives depend on me. I don’t mean to make your training harder by setting you a task you don’t want to do and probably shouldn’t have to. Back when I lived in Parangor, as a prince I had to learn skill at arms. I hated it. I wanted to read books, not practice swordfighting. I wasn’t any good at it, and when they matched me with my brother, who loved it and excelled at it, he never lost an opportunity to humiliate me and beat me to the ground. I was so glad when it was over and they stopped making me do it.

  “But Alex, I can’t read books anymore. I make my wife hoarse trying to read to me, and I am so grateful for her and for all the others who do things for me. If I didn’t have such help I’d spend my days in bed. Do you know that I even used to enjoy chopping wood? Of course you do. I did it at the forge when Mickle got to be too much for me and I wanted to do something worse than pinch his ear with the tongs.”

  “I remember one day you chopped a month’s worth of firewood in a morning,” Alex laughed. “I guess Mickle never knew how close he came to a thrashing, and how that firewood saved him. I don’t think I’d miss chopping wood. Got my own apprentice now, and I make him do it.”

  “Well, I’d give almost anything to be able to do it again,” Tristan said soberly. “Alex, I want someone who loves the sword and has learned to use it, but who also loves me and will be kind to me, to let me redeem a little of the time I squandered and get enough skill so that if all my other defenders are gone and it’s ever just poor blind me I can make a stand between death and what I love most in the world.”

  “Just let me put one more mark upon our baron’s face,” Alex said feebly, “and people get to know of it, and I’ll have my hand chopped off, and rightly so. I understand all you’re saying, Baron, but there must surely always be some of us to stand between you and Lady Mayra and whatever comes. There can’t be that much trouble in all the world.”

  “Alex, we both know all that happened the day I met you. I’d never throw that up in your face and say you owe me a return for it. Just remember what it was like to be helpless when so much needed doing. Then remember that I caused you more pain than anybody ought ever to cause anybody else and made you able to do those things.”

  “God’s mercy, Baron,” Alex whispered, “I never thought of it like that. I see you do so many things every day that I can’t do with two good eyes. I guess the darkness must get to be more than you can
bear some times, and for all the help you get you want to fight it off yourself now and then.”

  “You have stated it exactly,” Tristan said, clasping Alex’s hand fervently.

  He built up his private army gradually; as the young men of the village grew up and he was made aware that a new likely trainee had come of age. Soon he had twenty picked troops. He didn’t want the gaudy yellow tunics with black dragons that Drokken’s men wore. Instead he got Mayra to come up with a tunic of forest green with a cluster of purple grapes on it. The people of Larcondale were pleased.

  Tristan remembered the pagan signs and prayers he had found when he first came to Larcondale, and all the herbs and chimes Gregor’s wife had used to sway people to her will. He and Mayra put their heads together and came up with banners and carvings and painted plaques that they encouraged the servants to put up around the estate, bags of sweet herbs that released comfortable, enticing scents, carvings of Scriptures and scenes from Bible stories made from fragrant cedar and balsam. Tristan could listen to his grape banners flap in the wind and recall the One who was the Vine and the vineyard owner. He could feel the raised letters and thereby touch the words of a Scripture verse as he entered his house. It was almost like being able to read again. This pleasant task gave work and income to many of the town’s artisans, seamstresses, woodcarvers, sign-makers, and so made the town better once again as others followed the baron’s example.

  Tristan always challenged new recruits who had finished learning the basics of swordplay to a duel. The boys who didn’t know him as well as Alex thought it was a joke and tried to play tricks on him at first. Although Tristan had definite limitations as a swordsman, his skill at detecting the presence and position of his opponent had become uncanny. And he learned a few tricks of his own from the pranksters he fought.

  But no one offered him serious battle. They all worshiped the baron, like Alex, and would never dream of hurting him. Tristan couldn’t get them to put their hearts into it. It was Alex who suggested a twist. The new recruit had to wear a blindfold. The boys still thought it was a joke, but under these conditions they went at it eagerly, because they thought now it was fair, until the combat actually began. Then they got a small taste of what their beloved commander went through every day of his life. They never won, though they had to try, because Tristan offered no quarter. At the end of it every boy went away sober and awed, and devoted to Tristan to the last drop of blood.