by Dave Duncan
But if this sinister Sage Quentin truly was conjuring up prophecies, then he had probably foreseen Sir Neil also. Neil was a belted knight, sworn to risk his life for his king. Eadig wasn’t. What horrors had I sent the boy into? I must just hope that the Battre le tambour would warn him in time for him to escape the trap.
And I could see that I had misjudged the problem. “What sort of person is Sheriff Alured?”
Harald shook his head. “I have not met him. He seems to be honest and fair in his judgments—well-thought-of so far, although most people are reserving judgment.”
“And Constable Richard?”
“Ah.” He shook his head sadly. “Not the man he was. I have not been consulted, of course, but by all accounts his decline has been so rapid that I fear he must have had a fit this summer, or perhaps more than one.”
“His condition has worsened since the new sage arrived?”
They all knew enough about enchantment to understand what I was hinting. Now even Harald seemed convinced.
“You think he could have been cursed also?”
“I misjudged the problem,” I said. “I thought the traitor must be either the sheriff or the constable, but now I see that the new Sage Quentin is much more likely. He came with Sheriff Alured?”
Again Harald shook his head. “No, just after. According to what Bjarni told me, he came alone, a healer looking for employment. Bjarni made him welcome. A week or so later, Lord Richard dismissed Bjarni and replaced him with Quentin.”
That was not quite what I had been told by Lovise or Healer Fulk the previous evening, but Harald probably had much more reliable information.
I sat for a moment, tapping my fingers on the table . . . then I realized that I was beating time with a very faint rhythm—a drum? Da-dum-da-dum . . . It was soft, and yet it did not seem far away.
“Can you hear something? A drumming?” I asked, looking at Lars and Lovise, whose ears were younger and sharper than Harald’s or my own. They both shook their heads.
Came a loud knock on the street door, and the drumming faded away. I had been warned, so it was no longer needed.
We all jumped, even I, who had predicted it. Harald, naturally assuming that my accomplice had arrived on time, gave me the sort of look a genuine enchanter gives a mountebank who uses sleight of hand to work fake magic. He heaved himself to his feet.
“No, please!” I said. “Let Lovise answer it, just as she has been responding all day. If it is a serious malady she can call you. Otherwise, I don’t want the enemy to know that you have been helped.”
I thought he was about to refuse me and insist on his duty as a healer, et cetera, but his daughter reacted faster. She jumped up, reached the door, and went out to answer the summons, just as the knock was repeated, even louder.
chapter 9
(Eadig’s account, faithfully transcribed without censor)
it was almost noon before Sheriff Everard was available to sign the letter of introduction that Sir Neil d’Airelle needed. By then the valiant knight was in such a fever of impatience that he left without waiting for dinner, galloping out the castle gate with Squire Piers at his side, followed by the man-at-arms Francois and his new, pretend page, Eadig.
The sun was so hot they could not push the horses hard, and whenever their pace slackened, hordes of flies rushed in to pester them. The d’Airelle brothers talked together and rarely even looked back to see if their followers were following. Eadig was annoyed to see that the others had all acquired fresh horses, borrowed from Sheriff Everard, while he was still riding poor Bon Appétit. Granted that he wasn’t much of a load, the gelding was weary after two very long days’ travel. He was neither built nor trained for such long distance labor.
Francois was a grizzled old warrior of about forty winters, due to hang up his sword soon. His French was hard to understand and he had trouble with Eadig’s, but he was quite good company. For the first few furlongs they chatted about nothing, like the hills they couldn’t see because there weren’t any, but eventually they got down to predictable nosiness.
“So you’re really a sorcerer?”
“I’m an adept. That’s like a squire. I mix ink, clean off writing blocks, sweep out sanctums, gather herbs, grind potions.” Eadig tried to make it sound as dull as possible.
“But you’ll be a sorcerer when your balls drop?”
“They’re already hanging too low for this damned saddle, thank you. And I don’t think I’ll ever be an enchanter. See, my old man sent me to Helmdon to learn reading and reckoning. He’d sent my brother, Ereonberht, to monastery school to be taught his letters, but they taught him to be a monk instead. Now he’s Brother Pious.”
“Easier to spell, I expect. And the sorcerers are teaching you to be a sorcerer?”
“They’re trying, but I think the old man will haul me back home soon.” Annoyed at all the questions, Eadig recalled Durwin telling him that the best method of defense was attack. “How many men’ve you killed?”
“Three or four. Wasn’t no older than you when I started.”
“G’wan! Don’ believe you.”
Thus began a long and entertaining account of Francois’s early life, first as a mercenary and later as a king’s retainer. Eadig didn’t believe all of it, but the most incredible part of it was the campaign of 1147, which Eadig knew to be true, because I had told him the same story. Francois had actually been there, beginning his warrior career by helping the young Henry invade England.
It was back when his mother, Empress Maud, had been forced to abandon her effort to drive King Stephen off his ill-gotten throne. That was when her precocious son, aged all of fourteen, had raised an army of his own, mostly mercenaries, and invaded England. He had met with very little success, trying to besiege castles when he had no proper siege engines and not nearly enough men.
“Pretty soon the lads were drifting over the skyline,”
Francois said, “on account of them not being paid. No man wants to fight on an empty belly. The prince, as we called him back then, couldn’t even afford a ship to take us home again. He wrote to his mum, and his dad, and they both refused to help. So then he wrote to Stephen, his uncle, the man he was trying to depose, and asked him for money. Took some nerve, that did! But Stephen sent it to him, just to be rid of the nuisance.”
They both guffawed. “That might’ve cost less than sending an army after him,” Eadig said.
“Never thought of that. Whatever the reason, I was sure glad to get back home.”
Eadig made an effort to learn a thing or two about Sir Neil d’Airelle. Turned out that there wasn’t much to learn. He traced his lineage back to Julius Caesar and some Gaulish queen, but Caesar was known to have fathered half the inhabitants of France. Neil was admired for his maniacal, suicidal jousting and boar hunting, but that was about all. The king, Francois hinted, had sent him off on a bootless errand to get a rival out of the way while he—Henry, king of the English, count of Anjou, count of Maine, duke of Aquitaine, duke of Normandy, duke of Brittany, et cetera—tupped a certain winsome maiden.
Eadig was pleased to hear this low opinion of Sir Neil, because it implied that the king hadn’t put much stock in the story of treason and magic, which would be a very nasty mixture. But the English liked to think better of their liege lord. “He’s married! Do kings really do that?”
“All the time, sonny. Even more than other men, ’cos they’ve got more money. Why do you think he sent Pretty-boy Neil all the way over here?”
“He’s supposed to be recruiting archers for the war.” Francois said, “Oui?” making it sound very negative. “His brother’s been spreading stories about you being able to kill crows with magic. ’S that true?”
“Naw, I just stun ’em. They taste better that way.”
That set Francois off on a long story about a time he’d been in a city being besieged, and how he’d been forced to eat rats— and raw at that.
“I don’ think I’d ever get that hungry,”
Eadig said.
“You try it, sonny. After three days without food, you’ll eat cockroaches. So tell me about this boss of yours, the gimpy sorcerer.”
“Durwin’s dad was a hostler and he helped tend the horses. One day he tried to put one over a fence. They fell and the horse crushed his leg. Didn’t stop him riding again as soon as it healed, though, and he’s the best enchanter in Helmdon.”
“So why’d the king send him along with Sir Neil? Just to identify the archers he’s pretending to be recruiting? Or to bewitch them into volunteering?”
“Maybe because he’s smart and Neil isn’t?”
“That could be,” Francois agreed. “Could very well be.” But he was mad because he’d guessed that Eadig knew more about Neil’s real purpose than he’d been told, and Eadig was holding out on him. The conversation languished after that.
At Newark, which was roughly halfway, they stopped to give the horses a break and grab a very hasty and skimpy dinner of bread and cheese at an inn. There Eadig confronted his leader. “Sir, I never lived in a castle and don’t know nothing about being a page.”
Sir Neil rolled his eyes at such ignorance. “Then Piers will instruct you.”
So, for the first hour or so after the journey resumed, Eadig rode beside the squire and was given a long firsthand account of a page’s duties. Basically, he was expected to stick close to his master and see to his needs, so usually he would just obey orders—clean his boots, empty his chamber pot, sleep on the bedroom floor, fetch hot shaving water, et cetera. At table, when they were on public view, he would wait on Neil—load up his platter as he directed, or hold dishes for him to help himself, keep his goblet filled, and so on. And make his sleeve available if Neil wanted to blow his nose. At that point Eadig began to entertain hopes of one day turning Sage Durwin of Helmdon into a toad for putting him into this job.
And then he would make him eat cockroaches.
Piers’s less-then-compelling descriptions of Eadig’s duties continued. Also, when “Page” Eadig was eating in the kitchen at Lincoln Castle with the other low life, he must keep his eyes and ears open, but he’d better not ask any questions in case he gave away secrets. What good was he supposed to do, then, Eadig wondered, apart from serving as an ambulatory snot rag?
The shadows were growing long when the four horsemen emerged from a long patch of woodland and saw Lincoln ahead of them on its ridge—the twin towers of the cathedral, and the castle’s two keeps.
Old Francois had been there before, which was undoubtedly why Neil had brought him, and Francois enjoyed giving Eadig a lesson on castles. Most consisted of a curtain wall, enclosing an open space called the bailey, and an inner keep, usually built on top of a mound. That was the most defensible part, which could hold out even if an enemy broke in through the curtain wall. Lincoln was so big, however, that it had room for two keeps.
Eadig had known all the first part and he could see the second part with his own eyes. He hadn’t known that the big, round one was called the Lucy Tower, and the smaller square one was the Sheriff’s Tower, so he had learned something.
Neil and Piers had seen many castles, but both admitted to being impressed by the size of Lincoln’s. Eadig was quite simply amazed. He had never imagined a building of such immense size, with great stone walls reaching to the clouds. It made even the cathedral look small.
The newcomers reached the castle’s east gate—which opened into the heart of the town close to the cathedral—not long before it closed; they were challenged, of course, and Piers had to proclaim his brother’s name, station, and mission.
There must be a parade going on inside, because Eadig could hear a faint sound of drums, or perhaps just one drum . . . Da-dum-da-dum . . . It surely was monotonous. He surely was hungry.
Just before he died from lack of nourishment, word came to admit them. They others had to turn in their swords, but nobody took a second look at Eadig. That was one advantage of looking like a baby. There weren’t any others.
The drumming was louder in there, but still same monotonous da-dum . . . Oh, Hell’s sewer! It wasn’t until he was inside the walls that Eadig realized nobody else was looking around to see where the noise was coming from, and in fact it was my Battre le tambour working, warning him of danger! Following the d’Airelle brothers, who were following a herald, Eadig dithered. The drumming was still faint, so perhaps there wasn’t very much danger. He could turn and flee, but the guards on the gate would want to know what he was up to and stop him from leaving. He could just imagine himself trying to explain the enchantment to a furious Sir Neil.
That simply wasn’t an option. No he couldn’t.
Francois was sent off with the hostlers and the horses. The inside of the castle was almost as impressive as the exterior. As well as the two great towers, there was a whole village of lesser buildings in the bailey, plus enough space left over to encamp an army. Horses were grazing there, and there were people everywhere: men-at-arms, laundry maids, half-naked serfs, a few priests and gentlefolk in elegant robes.
Having been ordered to stay close, and having no desire to wander off and become lost in the maze in case he ran into the unknown danger all by himself, Eadig stayed very close as Neil and Piers were led to the Lucy Tower, where they climbed a long wooden staircase up the mound to a postern door. Francois had told him about that stair, and that its purpose was to be set on fire if the enemy was able to break in through the curtain wall.
The drumming grew louder, closer, faster. And then, once he started climbing, it faded away to just barely audible. Like a sulky friend, maybe? “Well if you won’t listen to me . . .”
The inside of the tower was very poky and narrow. More stairs inside led eventually to what was obviously a top-floor room, because the ceiling sloped. It was dim and stuffy, with only an arrow-slit in the massive stone wall to let in light and air. Two men had been seated at a small table beneath it, playing chess, but they had risen to honor the newcomers. One was elderly and one younger, and they were so very alike that they must be father and son.
Opposite the window was a door, on which the usher rapped so loudly that he surely hurt his knuckles. Then he gently opened it a crack and listened. He knocked again, and a quavery voice bade him enter.
He bellowed, “Sir Neil d’Airelle to pay his respects to Lord Richard,” and stepped aside.
Piers and Eadig followed Neil in, and the door thundered shut behind them. The drumming was still there, very quiet and slow: Da . . . .dum . . . .da . . . .dum . . . .da . . . .dum . . . This chamber was obviously the castle solar, for it had large windows overlooking the interior of the shell keep, and the shutters stood wide. It faced south, to the battlements on the far side of the interior yard. Men on watch over there must have a view all the way back to Newark Castle, at least. A drape covering an arched doorway moved gently, suggesting that there must be more windows beyond it.
The furniture was sparse, just two oaken chairs, a couple of stout chests, and a stand-up writing desk, but there were rush mats on the floor and some effort had been made to paint murals on the plaster walls—saints and martyrs, peeling badly.
The spidery, gray bearded man humped on one of the chairs was presumably the constable, Lord Richard de la Haye. He rose stiffly and peered uncertainly at his visitors. Despite the heat, he was wrapped in a heavy woolen robe with a fur collar; that, combined with his stoop and a smell of medicinal herbs, suggested that he was not in the best of health, but his smile seemed genuine enough, and he had retained most of his teeth.
“Welcome, Sir . . . I’m afraid I didn’t catch . . . Ah, yes. Have we met before, sir?”
In a very loud voice, Neil admitted that they had not.
Lord Richard nodded. “Thought not. Your face reminds me of someone, though . . . That’s why I asked.” He flapped a spidery hand to indicate that his guest should take the other chair, while he sank gently down on his own. Piers stepped back against the wall, and Eadig copied him, feeling badly out o
f place in such company and wishing he could fade all the way into what was left of the mural. He would prefer to be a saint, but would settle for a martyr under the circumstances. He was very hungry. Not cockroach-hungry, but getting there.
The constable was staring at Eadig, though, fixing him with two very bleary eyes. “Boy! The wine!”
Wine? What wine? Oh, one of the chests held a tray with a flagon and two goblets, all of silver. Eadig said, “Pardon, my lord,” and rushed over there to pour. Then he handed one goblet to the constable and the second to Neil, who gave him an ominous Look to tell him he had blundered already.
“Idiot!” the constable declared. “Don’t they teach you anything down there? Always the guest first! And kneel. Tell the bottler to give you a good thrashing, or I’ll see he gets one.” The old goat thought Eadig was one of the castle servants. “Yes, my lord.” Eadig went back to his place against the wall, wishing he dared to whisper, “Hic non sum,” so as to disappear altogether. It wouldn’t work, though; he was trembling so hard he would just pop back into view. But he was a qualified cantor now, and he had identified two of the scents in the miasma: sage and rosemary. Both were prescribed to improve memory, but neither was likely to do much good for Lord Richard, who was obviously senile.
The two knights drank to each other’s health.
“Excellent wine, Lord Richard,” Neil said. “I bring this letter from Baron Everard.”
“Who?”
“Baron Everard, the sheriff of Nottingham.”
“Of course he is. Know that, just didn’t hear the name right.” The constable took it and held it at arm’s length to view the seal. “Quentin? Where is the boy?”
The drape was pushed aside, and a much younger man entered. He was unusually tall and even a scholar’s robes did not conceal his leanness. He also wore a sage’s green cape and a matching skull cap. His eyes impressed Eadig, for although he had a large, bony nose and a close-trimmed beard, he had the stony gaze of a grass snake like one Ereonberht and he had found and kept as a pet when they were young.
