The Honorable Knight

by Patrick John Donahoe

  Dylan, usually a man of few words, removed his hand from Ian’s shoulder and dug into his bowl of stew. After a few spoonful’s, he said, “You’ve progressed with sword, short knife and shield, and bow and arrow ‘till you’ve surpassed my meager skills. You could become a more skilled warrior than I, but I have to caution you, some stories are best left untold less you think me a monster. The reality of two men standing toe to toe hacking each other to pieces . . . to death . . . will not allow you to sleep well at night. The revulsion and guilt for maiming or killing another stays with you for the rest of your life.”

  “But you were a warrior on the right side. God was with you,” Ian protested.

  “I don’t think God delights in man killing man, even though it’s a necessity sometimes.”

  “You’re not an evil man, Uncle.”

  “No, I’m not; but a warrior, even one on God’s side, can get caught up in killing. The devil can defile a warrior’s soul until he becomes the thing he’s trying to destroy. It’s a dark pit to be avoided. If you have to go into battle, do it at the peril of your own soul. Be on the right side. Don’t fall in love with the fight. Be an honorable knight.”

  “Like a destroying angel?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Can we talk of more pleasant things now?”

  “Yes. In addition to continuing to improve your fighting skills, I have another area of training for you.”

  Ian groaned through a mouthful of lamb stew.

  “I know you think I’m over-preparing you. I know you enjoy learning hand-to-hand combat with weapons, but everything I’ve taught you so far, including running the farm, tending the animals, repairing the cottage, and even cooking meals are all necessary survival skills. You will need every one of these skills at some time.

  Friar McCarthy told me you’re making great strides in your French lessons and is planning to come by one day soon to celebrate with the gift cask of ale. I propose that you, Friar McCarthy and I translate your mother’s Book of Healing into Frankish as part of your training. Neither he nor I are versed well enough in Hebrew and Egyptian to translate her book into those two languages, but you will be after you’ve been in Jerusalem for a time.” Dylan smiled a sorrowful smile. “So what do you think?”

  “Of course, Uncle.”

  “Good. It’s late and we have both had a long day repairing fences, so let’s start translating tomorrow evening after supper.”

  “Yes, Uncle.” Ian mopped up the last of his stew with a half slice of bread. He knew in his heart his uncle was providing good counsel, but he was anxious to stop preparing and begin his journey.

  The bright late spring sun warmed the earth and steamed a fine mist from the ground. It’s a fine day to start a journey, Ian thought.

  “Are you sure I can’t convince you to tarry longer?” Dylan asked Ian while assisting him with packing two sacks of necessities.

  “I’m sorry to have to go, for your sake, but I need to do this,” Ian replied. “These past few months I’ve complied with all your requirements. I feel I’m ready to go. If there’s anything more I should do, say so now, and I’ll comply. Mother wanted me to be obedient. . . I’ll not depart without your blessing.”

  Dylan took a long look at Ian before replying, “You are, and have been a good son. I’ve tried to be the father that your father would have been had he lived. I’m impressed with how quickly you’ve learned to speak, read and write French as well as some useful Egyptian and Hebrew. Protect your Books of Healing in Frankish and Gaelic. There will always be a need for a good healer. Make your mother, your father, and me proud. That’s all I ask.”

  Dylan handed Ian the two sacks of travel necessities. The first sack contained a skinning knife, a small cooking pot, his mother’s chipped cup, bowl and pewter spoon, healing salves for cuts and abrasions, two curved bone needles, and some lengths of stretched cat gut for fishing line or stitching. The second sack contained dried goat meat, a brick of cheese, homemade berry jam, a few grain cakes, and a small bag of coarse salt. Ian tied the two sacks together and placed one on each side of Old Dun’s back.

  The left side saddlebag contained the two copies, one French, the other Gaelic, of the Book of Healing, two writing sticks, a small, stoppered jug of ink, and a few parchment pages rolled together. The right saddlebag contained tools for taking care of Old Dun, a pick to remove stones and debris from Old Dun’s hooves and a rasp and pair of clippers to trim them, and a brush for his coat and mane.

  Ian secured a third sack containing Dylan’s battered helmet, his chain mail collar, and upper body armor to the saddle pommel.

  Dylan tied his old ‘dents pounded out’ shield to the rear of the saddle. The gaping hole near the shield’s center indicated a story Dylan could have told, but never did.

  Ian wore a scabbard on a belt around his waist containing his father’s sword, and a leather pouch containing four small silver ingots around his neck. Ian tucked the pouch beneath his tunic and remembered the night before. Dylan and the Friar had gifted Ian the silver at Ian’s going away party. Ian protested, “I can’t take your money. You’ve given me so much already. I’ll work my way to Jerusalem.”

  Dylan had replied, “Take the money, or stay home,” with a slightly drunken slur.

  Ian had offered no reply, so he had hugged the friar and his stepfather, the two most important men in his short life.

  Loaded down as he was with the sacks of provisions, Ian thought he looked like either a down on his luck knight or a well off peasant. “Thank you for the better parts of yours and my father’s armor and equipment, the silver, the food, and everything you’ve provided,” Ian told Dylan, his uncle, his stepfather, and his best friend.

  Ian and Dylan hugged like two old bears and pounded each other’s backs with their fists.

  Old Dun stood placid as a Sphinx while Ian clambered aboard amidst his belongings.

  “I would prefer that you take my sword, rather than your father’s. Mine has the stronger and finer blade,” Dylan said.

  Ian patted the sword hanging at his right side. “Yours may be the better sword, but this sword has the spirit of my father, and I would prefer it, not to slight your offer.”

  “No slight taken.”

  Ian took one last look around at the farm and the surrounding countryside as a deep sadness crept into his heart. If he were an artist, he couldn’t capture the beauty of the gentle rolling green hills and the carefully laid out fields neat and tidily bordered with two-foot-high fences of stacked stone. He breathed in the earthy smell of plowed earth and green shoots poking up out of the rich soil. Even the animals seemed more like heaven’s creatures than poor Irish stock as they quacked, clucked, squealed, dusted up, and quarreled among themselves.

  Ian studied the prim and proper barn and cottage and stared at the straw dolly, the one his mother had made to welcome his father home. Even though his father had never returned, she kept the decorative figure all these years. One of the last acts of service Ian performed was to reattach it to the new thatching at the front of the cottage over the doorway. Now it was his turn to return home someday.

  Dylan broke into Ian’s attempt to memorize the farm as it was. “Are you ready?”

  “It’s best I leave now before I lose my resolve.”

  “Farewell, my son, and God’s speed. I’ll be here when you decide to return. This farm is half yours, the half willed to your father, and will be all yours when I return to my Creator. Bring back a bonnie lass and make your home here with many children. I love you.”

  Ian already felt traveler’s remorse, and he hadn’t left the farm proper yet. He did not want Dylan to see the sorrow in his expression, so he wheeled Old Dun around and headed off at a steady pace toward the east.

  Twisting to look back, he called out to Dylan, “I know, Father. I love you, too.” His heart felt heavy in his chest, but his mind was clear, and his spirit felt excited to be moving on.

  Three

  O
ld Dun, Ian’s gallant steed, plodded on steadily toward the east, but Ian’s prodding him with his heels to go faster proved counterproductive. Short of whipping him with a stick, which Ian couldn’t do to his friend, Old Dun’s best speed was only slightly faster than his plow-pulling gait. Ian resigned himself to be satisfied to travel at Old Dun’s pace and not his desired speed.

  The first day of the three-day fifty-mile trek from Killarney to Cork was uneventful. Dylan had counseled Ian repeatedly about the dangers of solo travel on the road - any offers made by strangers that sounded too good probably were too good to be true, and not to trust anyone. Ian’s confidence in his defensive capability hadn’t been tested. Even though he felt the thrill of adventure, he was unsure of himself.

  The setting sun and horse and rider’s weariness insisted that Ian make camp for the evening. Ian collected a pot of water from a spring trickling out of a pile of rocks. He warmed a small pot of morel mushrooms he picked from under an oak, a small cabbage, and a few bits of dried goat meat from his necessities sack in the clear water. After dinner, he secured Old Dun’s reins to his right ankle and bedded down for the night. The first day’s travel in the fresh air under the bright sun coupled with the relief he felt from finally being on his journey relaxed him into a deep peaceful sleep.

  Dreaming something was tugging on his leg, he startled awake to discover someone trying to free Old Dun’s reins from his ankle. Ian shed the reins, leapt to his feet, and spotted the would-be thief running away. Without thought, he ran toward the thief.

  He yelled, “Fanmar a bhfuil tu!” ordering Old Dun to remain where he was. The thief ran fast, but Ian ran faster and tackled the culprit to the ground. The thief was clothed in a ragged dress. Ian turned the thief over to face him and realized the thief was a girl. “What do you think you’re about?” Ian demanded.

  The dirty faced unkempt girl replied, “Forgive me, sir. I’m hungry. I smelled your supper as you ate, and couldn’t resist.”

  “You could have approached me like an honorable person and asked for food. I would’ve shared.” Ian stood and helped the girl to her feet.

  The girl slouched with head hung down, and said, “I’ve tried to appeal to the kindness of strangers and been attacked for my efforts. I barely escaped with my virtue and my life more than once.”

  “That’s no excuse for being a thief . . . I can heat some of my meat and vegetables for you.” Ian looked the girl over in the slight moonlight. He felt sorry for the girl who appeared to be about his same age, thin, dirty and poorly dressed.

  “Oh, thank you, sir.” Stepping back a step and seeming prepared to run, she asked, “You don’t expect some favor for your kindness?”

  Ian stood straight as a tree, “I’m on a holy pilgrimage to Jerusalem.” He waited a few seconds for her response, and when she didn’t reply, strode back to Old Dun. He retrieved some dried meat and vegetables and his pot from the food sack. He looked back to see that the girl hadn’t run off and said, “Gather some twigs and branches that I might rekindle my fire to heat your dinner.”

  Uncertain in her manner, the girl started to turn and complete her task when Ian said, “My name is Ian, what’s yours, lass?”

  “Fiona.” She flashed a dirty-faced smile at him and ran off to gather wood.

  Ian patiently heated a pot of soup for Fiona. He didn’t pry her for information. Whether she was ashamed of her life or afraid to talk to a man going on a pilgrimage, she seemed reluctant to reveal any details about her life.

  “You’re welcome to sleep by my fire, if you like.”

  “Thank you,” she replied, “there is a bit of a chill on tonight.” Fiona brought her bundle of belongings to the campsite and laid out her tattered blanket.

  As a precaution, Ian retied Old Dun’s reins to his ankle and slept undisturbed.

  The next morning Ian rolled up his blanket and washed in the nearby stream. He returned to camp to find Fiona sitting by the now dead campfire wrapped in her tattered blanket. “Would you like to share a meager breakfast with me?” he asked.

  “I would, thank you.”

  Ian took bread and jam from his provisions, and prepared them. He asked Fiona, “what are your plans?” and offered her two pieces of dry bread covered in strawberry jam.

  She devoured the first piece of bread as though she hadn’t eaten in a week and started on the second, then answered Ian with a mouthful of food, “I’m going to Dublin to make my fortune.”

  “How do you propose to do that?”

  “I’ll find and marry a rich widower.”

  Ian bit off a bite of bread, chewed it slowly, and washed it down with a gulp of spring water before continuing, “Sounds simple enough. What will you do to support yourself until you find this wellspring of riches?”

  “I’ll clean houses . . . serve as a maid, whatever I have to do,” Fiona replied, this time taking Ian’s example of speaking without a mouthful of food, “. . . not what you might be thinking.”

  “I never said you would do anything bad. You can travel with me until we have to part ways. We can travel as far as Cork together.”

  “Thank you. In return, I can cook, gather wood, and hunt fresh meat for our dinners if you’d like.”

  “I would like . . . also, before we start, I have one request.”

  “And what’s your request, pray tell?”

  “You need to bathe in the stream.”

  “Are you embarrassed by me?”

  “I don’t intend to be. Bathe, so we can move on. I have a small bar of my mother’s homemade lye soap.” Ian pulled a yellowish looking bar of soap from his sack of necessities and handed it to Fiona.

  She took it and hesitated a moment before asking, “You’re not planning to peek in on my bath, are you?”

  Ian blushed, and replied, “I’m on a pilgrimage. What kind of man do you think I am?”

  “A normal man. You’re all the same.”

  “Let me show you I’m not the same.”

  Grinning, Fiona trotted off in the direction of the stream with her bundle and the bar of soap. She returned after half an hour with her hair, face, neck, and hands scrubbed clean. She was beautiful even in her dingy clothes. Her face was oval-shaped with a fine nose, lush lips, amber eyes, and dark brown hair. She was much shorter than he was, at about five and a half feet, with a figure that appeared to be lithe and nimble beneath the ragged dress.

  Ian repacked his belongings and tied Fiona’s blanket roll of personal items to Old Dun’s already cluttered back.

  “Your Highness,” Ian mocked with a slight bow, “you may ride upon Old Dun, and I’ll walk beside you.”

  Without response, Fiona threw her right leg over Old Dun’s back and sat astride him as though she had been riding him all her life.

  Fiona surprised Ian with her horsemanship. “You’re used to riding,” was all he could muster.

  “My parents had a farm until my father died. My mother died shortly thereafter, and the creditors took everything for their debts, leaving me alone to fend for myself. I had a fine horse that I rode daily, until someone stole it.”

  “Old Dun is only an old farm animal, not a fine riding horse.”

  “He’s a dear.” She patted Old Dun’s neck, “And I’m proud to ride him.”

  Old Dun turned his head to glance at Fiona, wagged his head up and down, and snorted approval as if he understood what she had said.

  “Let’s be off.” Ian considered how walking to Cork would take longer than his original travel estimate, but with Fiona as company, he was in no hurry. He was on a pilgrimage.

  They rode and walked uneventfully all day, except for Fiona’s successful catches of two red squirrels. That evening they made camp beneath a large willow tree, and Fiona roasted the squirrels on a spit over the open fire Ian had started with his flint and stone. Ian made a salad of horse mushrooms, pine nuts, blackberries, and bilberries gathered out of the surrounding forest. Fiona studied the salad in her bowl and asked, “What are these
deep blue berries?”

  “They’re bilberries. They help ward off colds.”

  “You know a lot about herbs and berries don’t you?”

  “My mother taught me many things about healing, and I translated her Book of Healing from the Gaelic into Frankish.”

  “I’m impressed; a healer with knowledge of languages. You could go far in this world.”

  “I intend to go all the way to Jerusalem.”

  “I see. You’ve been kind to me. I could’ve run off with all your belongings, but you trusted me. . . Why?”

  “I consider myself a good judge of character. Besides, I enjoy your companionship.”

  “I’m enjoying your company, also,” Fiona said with downcast eyes.

  After washing Ian’s dishes and stew pot, and making their evening toilet, Ian and Fiona laid out their blankets in preparation for their night together.

  Within minutes after they had lain down on their respective blankets, Fiona asked, “Are you awake?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Would you like to lie beside me?”

  “Aren’t you afraid I’ll bother you?”

  “No.” Fiona unrolled her meager blanket, carried it to Ian’s chosen blanket site, laid her blanket on top of his, and folded it back.

  Ian, stunned by her closeness and possible intentions, asked, “What are you about, Fiona?”

  “The night air is chill and I don’t want to be cold again tonight. You can be my warmer.” She lay on Ian’s blanket and pulled her own up to her chin. She turned onto her side to face him and placed her arms around his neck, and said, “Hold me.”

  Ian put his arms around her waist and hugged her close to his body. She sighed and laid her head back on the ground. She fell asleep in his arms within a few minutes. Girls were a mystery to Ian. He hadn’t had a close relationship with any girl in his fifteen years. Ian had never considered courting even though several of his peers had married and started families before their fifteenth birthdays. Except for accompanying his mother on healing visits, and Sabbath services he had spent little time in the presence of girls.