“Maybe for French peasants, but not for ours. Now be gone, before I have you pilloried for interfering with my affairs.”
“No receipt, no taxes. Besides, what do these people receive in return for all the money you extort from them, the ability to see how well you live versus how meagerly they have to scrape by from year to year?”
“Enough of your insolence. Seize them!”
The Chieftain’s henchmen circled about Jacques and Ian, and started to close in.
Ian lowered his visor. Ian and Jacques moved apart facing opposite directions and waited until the hired men came within reach of their long staffs. Ian and Jacques swung the six-foot-long oaken rods in 360 degree circles about their persons knocking several of the men to the ground with blows to the chest, arms and legs. The attackers halted momentarily, unsure of how to take Ian and Jacques down without injury to themselves. Ian shouted, “We do not wish to kill, or seriously injure, any of your men, so we recommend you cease your attack!”
Ahearn replied, “You heard me, men, kill the two knights, especially the one with the Arab sword. We’ll turn them on a spit at nightfall and feed them to the swine.”
Three henchmen advanced again with swords drawn, so Ian and Jacques battered the men again with the staffs. The rest of the henchmen joined in the fight, so Ian and Jacques dropped the staffs and resorted to their swords. They each engaged two to three of the men at a time. Ian captured one’s sword with the curve of his scimitar and flung it away, he snapped another man’s sword in twain, and stabbed a third man as the man lunged at him. The man fell at Ian’s feet, mortally wounded. Between sword slashes Ian shouted out, “You’re outmatched by us, desist or die.”
Ahearn and Kane seeing the hired men start to falter in their attack, joined in the melee. “I want the Arab!” The Chieftain shouted and attacked Ian. Kane attacked Jacques with his henchmen’s assistance.
A young man from the village shouted above the grunting of the combatants and the clanging of swords, “Come men, help our champions!” He leaped into the battle with a pike. He jabbed one of the Chieftain’s men in the rump with the pointy end of the pike, and as the man fell jabbed him again in the back.
With the villagers as allies, attacking the Chieftain’s hired men from behind, Ian and Jacques focused on Ahearn and Kane.
Between sword brandishes the Chieftain yelled, “I am not one of your country bumpkins, sir knight.” The Chieftain hacked, parried, and lunged as someone who had fought to the death before, and lived. Ahearn pressed toward Ian, sword swinging right to left, left to right in swordplay akin to scything down a wheat field only at head level.
Ian parried each blow and barely avoided two slashes that could have beheaded him. The Chieftain fought to kill, not to maim or injure. Ian did not want to have to kill the Chieftain to stop his onslaught, but realized the Chieftain’s power over the people was fear. Maybe he could only be stopped with a fatal blow.
Ian dodged the attacks, letting the old man tire his arm, then in mid swing struck out with his scimitar clashing swords with his assailant. Ahearn, a large powerful man in his own right, pressed his sword against Ian’s scimitar to no avail. Ian was the stronger of the two. Ian did not want to have to kill the man if he could avoid it, but Ahearn pulled back and then lunged sword point first at Ian, whereupon, Ian turned aside and let Ahearn follow his lunge. As he passed in front of Ian, Ian thrust his scimitar point into Ahearn’s rib’s cage, killing him instantly. Ahearn fell face down onto the ground.
Ian glanced over at Jacques to see how he was faring, and saw he was holding his own against Kane and two of the hired men, taking turns backing off one man, then the other, as they took turns attacking. Kane fought with increased fury when he witnessed his father killed.
The young man from the village challenged two hired men and demonstrated a unique skill at alternately blocking sword thrusts and poking the hired men with the pointy end of a pike.
Jacques turned his now one-on-one fight with Kane into a grand display of swordsmanship, taunting Kane with his superior skill.
Another farmer with a pitchfork assisted the young man in his battle with the two hired men. The young man was now free to fight one-on-one with the hired man who wore a metal studded leather sleeve on his sword arm.
The second hired man sliced the tines off the farmer’s pitchfork and attacked the pole, until in frustration, the farmer lunged at the hired man and stuck him in the neck with the chopped off end of the pole, but received a rap on the head for his efforts. Both men fell to the earth critically injured.
The young man backed enough away from his adversary to be able to throw his pike and bury it deep in the hired man’s chest. He then leaped on the downed man, pulled the pike from the man’s chest and using it as a club bashed him over the head so hard, Jacques could hear the man’s skull crack above the din of battle.
The other villagers taking heart from Ian’s, Jacques’, and the young man’s success against their oppressors began soundly thrashing the rest of the hired men with their farm implements.
One of the elderly men from the village, who had lost his farm to Kane for a hefty trumped up tax debt, struck a hired man over the head with a shovel. The hired man fell forward into the dirt; dead before he hit the ground. The farmer spat out the words, “Take that you thieving bastard.”
The villagers delivered their cruel justice to the rest of the hired men, flailing their bodies after they were down into bloody pulps. Two hired man tried to run, but one was chased down by a trio of villagers and beaten, then hacked to pieces with two shovels and a hoe. Another villager chased the last hired man with an axe, and when he caught up with him stuck the axe in the hired man’s back, felling him on the spot.
Jacques, and the young man, stood over Kane, while Jacques turned him over onto his back with the toe of his boot. Kane, the tax collector, was dead. The Chieftain was dead. All the Chieftains’ hired men were dead, except one who ran away holding the stump of an arm.
Seeing the need to bring the villagers down from their blood lust, Ian faced the frenzied crowd and shouted over the din, “Friends, we’ve won. Please settle yourselves down.”
The men in their fury continued to wave their shovels, axes and pitchforks and yelled, “Down with the tax collectors. . . . Down with the Chieftain and his evil helpers . . .”
“Please, I beg of you, give me your attention!”
One enraged villager continued his frenzied attack, but the rest, their blood lust for revenge sated, threw their bloodied farm implements to the ground and turned their attention to Ian. Ian, a veteran of many violent and brutal battles, felt sickened at the ferocity he saw in the normally peaceful and kind farmers.
Someone in the crowd asked the man who was still brutalizing the bodies of the fallen henchmen to desist, and he did. The man looked around at his fellows, looked down at the body he had pulverized, staggered to the edge of the clearing, vomited, and fell to the ground.
Finally, the villagers turned and faced Ian waiting for his instructions. They were sorry looking messes in torn clothing, soiled with dirt and blood.
“Please, calm down, we are not savages, we are men. Fellow villagers, farmers, gather around, please,” Ian implored. He removed his helmet and noticed the man who had calmed down the last of the villagers was Friar McCarthy. “Friar McCarthy! Welcome. Could you please stand here by my side?”
The Friar, confused by all the sudden violence he had witnessed, came forward. When he was within a few feet of Ian, he asked, “Ian, is that you?”
“It is, Friar. We came to pay Dylan’s taxes and the Chieftain took offense with us.”
“What do you plan to do now?”
Speaking to the large gathered crowd, Ian said, “Congratulations my friends, you’ve freed yourselves from your oppressors, so be of good cheer. We must now move on. A few of you need to remain to help bury the dead, and the rest of you please return to your homes and reflect on your blessings. Consider the wo
rth of a man’s life, then ask forgiveness for your hatred and viciousness. Return here tomorrow at mid-morning with suggestions for someone to take over as your new Chieftain. Someone you can trust to settle your grievances, and lead your village as you would have it led.
I want each of you to return here and tell the Friar and myself how much taxes you have had to pay this year, and those of you who lost your farms to taxes tell us your story. The Friar, my brother, and I will study whatever records the Chieftain kept, and try to make right whatever evil he may have done to you.
In the meantime, consider who you would like to serve as your new Chieftain. My brother and I will be on our way soon and would like to see you have some community leadership before we leave.” Ian turned to Dylan, and said, “Recruit several of your friends and neighbors to help us bury the dead.”
Dylan began calling on those to help, the first was the young man who jumped into the fray, “Jared, Shane, Kevin, Shamus, Devin. . .” until he had called out the names of eight men to assist with the burials.
Ian removed some of his bulky armor and laid it and his scimitar on the cottage step.
Jacques asked, “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to assist the burial group, then we’re going to search the cottage.” Ian approached Friar McCarthy, and asked, “Will you perform the last rites for all of these men? Even the evil ones?”
“Of course I will. Even though Brian, Kane and their hired men deserve to burn in hell, we cannot judge, but only serve.”
“So be it.”
The men dug eight graves in a clearing beyond the cottage.
Friar McCarthy said a few words over all the graves, “Oh Lord, please accept these men who have been sent to you to be judged, and give a fair assessment of their souls. We regret having had to dispatch them with violence, but were given no choice. Amen”
Ian asked the men in the burial party if they knew the names of any of the dead men, besides Kane and Ahearn. Only five of the dead men’s names were known.
Friar McCarthy fashioned simple crosses with their names scratched on the horizontal bar for the five who were identified by name. The other three were each provided with a plain wooden cross.
Ian approached Jared, the young man who had rallied some of the villagers to battle alongside himself and Jacques, turning the tide of the battle against the Chieftain and Kane. “Halloo, Jared, you fought well this day, and brutal.”
Jared studied Ian’s face for a moment, then replied, “I had much to fight for. Brian Ahearn tried to take Moira, my intended from me. My intended’s father was wrongfully slain by Ahearn when she refused to marry Kane. My intended’s mother and my intended had to flee the village to avoid further violations from those evil men.”
“I mean not to condemn, but to urge you to lose your hatred and return to the life you had before their intrusion.”
“Are you some sort of priest?”
“Let us say, I am concerned with the souls of men, their physical and spiritual health.”
“Thank you, I will. I intend to fetch Moira and her mother, Gwendolyne, and bring them home this day.”
“Congratulations. I expect you to help restore order to our village and live in peace.”
“Our village?”
“I feel a kinship to all of you. Now go fetch your lady love.”
Jared gave Ian a quizzical look, shrugged his shoulders, then departed.
Jacques led Ian and the Friar into the cottage. The Chieftain and his son had the finest furnishings, all stolen from the villagers. Their pantry contained a considerable store of food. The beds were unmade, with the finest sheets and fur blankets scattered about. The three men searched every nook and cranny, moved the furniture and beds until Jacques found an iron ring protruding above the hard dirt floor. Pulling on the ring, Jacques lifted a wooden cover to a stone lined storage space. Jacques retrieved a large leather pouch and loosened the drawstring.
“I found the tax money,” Jacques announced.
Ian and the Friar ran to Jacques’ side, “Look for a ledger,” Ian said.
“There’s no ledger.” Jacques sat on the edge of the unmade bed and poured out the contents of the pouch. A small fortune in gold, silver, and gemstones mounded up on the yellowed blanket.
“How do we give back this money to the deserving without any records?” Jacques asked.
“Besides the money, we also don’t know how much hay, grain, livestock and land they stole,” added Friar McCarthy.
“Brian Ahearn and Kane probably had no reading nor writing skills, so even if they were inclined to record their thefts, they probably couldn’t. We have to rely on the villagers’ testimonies and the new Chieftain’s power of discernment to sort this all out. We’ll take the pouch of treasure to Dylan’s and set up an overnight guard on the cottage to prevent looting. Tomorrow, we’ll return and oversee the selection of a new Chieftain,” Ian replied.
Jacques said, “It will take well beyond our visit here to make things right.”
“You’re correct. All I think we should do is help them install a new Chieftain, then move on.”
“I, for one, am ready to return to Jerusalem as soon as possible,” said Jacques as he put the small ingots of gold and silver, and the gemstones back into the pouch. I wonder how Desiree and Serena are faring. It’s difficult for single Arab and Jewish girls to survive in Jerusalem, and we’ve been gone for three months, Jacques thought.
At sunrise the next morning, Ian, Jacques, Dylan, and Friar McCarthy returned to the tax collector’s cottage, and relieved the three-man guard Dylan had assigned to prevent looting.
As the villagers descended on the cottage, Ian said, “Dylan, please join in with your people.” Ian, dressed in farmer’s garb of tunic and pantaloons, addressed the large crowd, “My friends, we are here to help you select your new Chieftain. He will address your grievances and lead your village in its affairs. My brother and I will be leaving in a few days. I turn the conduct of this meeting over to Friar McCarthy.”
The Friar stepped forward from between Ian and Jacques.
A bewhiskered farmer asked, “Where were you, Friar, when these evil men were stealing from us?”
“I regret I was not able to stop them. Brian Ahearn and Kane and several of their hired men stormed into our church and violated holy ground when they first arrived. They threatened to burn the church with all of you inside during the next Mass if I interfered. I might have been able to defeat one or two of them by the sword, but not the whole band of rogues. We needed these two holy knights to turn the battle in our favor,” the elderly Friar’s expression of guilt and regret clouded his face. He appealed to the assembled crowd of men, women and children, “so let’s move forward and select a new Chieftain, one who will put our best interests first. Who do you select to lead you?”
A murmuring rose from the crowd near the man who had challenged Friar McCarthy. “Leave the Friar be. He’s a good man.”
Another voice said, “Let’s move on.”
A toothless farmer, named Shamus, standing next to Dylan, raised Dylan’s right arm and shouted out, “Dylan O’Donoghue! I nominate Dylan.”
“Why him?” another farmer asked.
The toothless farmer replied, “Dylan has warrior skills to protect us, and is an honest man of common good sense. I say Dylan,” and lowered Dylan’s arm.
Ian responded, “Are there any other nominations?”
A woman pushed forward to the front of the crowd, “I second the nomination. Dylan and his wife Sharon, bless her soul . . .” the woman crossed herself, “have always been kind and generous to us . . . and almost everyone else we know. He will make a fine Chieftain.”
“Anyone else have a nomination?”
“Many of the villagers shook their heads and indicated they had no better suggestions. An attractive red haired woman said, “I was going to forward Dylan’s name myself.”
“Would you like to call a vote?” Ian asked.
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p; “I would,” the red haired woman replied.
“What is your name, my lady?”
“Gwendolyne, my Lord, I am the widow of Aedan Barbour, the previous Chieftain killed by the evil Brian Ahearn. Thank you for what you have done to rid our village of that man and his son.”
A beautiful young woman stepped forward and stood beside Gwendolyne.
“What say the rest of you?” the Friar asked.
“One by one the villagers began to shout out, “Dylan,” until the entire group was shouting, “Dylan, Dylan, Dylan . . .”
Friar McCarthy raised his hands above his head, and announced, “So be it!” over the din of the crowd.
Dylan raised his right arm to quiet the crowd. “I will serve as your Chieftain until we complete the fall harvest, then we will have a village council to revisit the role of Chieftain. Until then our two knight friends, the Friar, and myself will review your claims of unfair taxation and the theft of your farms and try to make things right again.”
“Hear . . . hear,” the crowd roared.
Dylan waited for the shouting to die down. “All of you will get back most of the tax money you’ve paid this year.”
Ian stepped forward and handed the money pouch to Dylan.
Dylan held the pouch up for all to see, and shouted, “We found a pouch of tax money in the cottage. We will hear and record each of your grievances of unfair taxes and loss of property. I enlist Jared and Friar McCarthy to assist me in seeing justice is done. Do you all approve?”
“Aye . . . aye,” the crowd roared.
“Jared, come stand beside me.”
Ian watched Jared, the young man who had rallied the villagers, release Moira’s hand and step forward to stand by Dylan. Jared looked back at his intended with obvious love in his eyes, and she reciprocated. So these are the young lovers who started it all, Ian thought. Many wars have started over less than a beautiful woman.
Dylan gripped Jared by the shoulder, “I want you to serve as my aide, at least until we have settled most of the grievances. Will you do this?”
The Noble Mercenary Page 9
