‘Pray, may I speak with the proprietor?’ he demanded.
‘What would a boy like you want from Oladen?’ Yet again his slight stature put him at a disadvantage.
‘Alex Deverne sent me here.’ He said no more. He had learnt it was best to keep his own counsel with strangers or enemies who could send him to the stocks or the gallows. The men’s faces changed to a grudging welcome.
‘Ring the bell,’ said the more loquacious one. ‘What do you want of Oladen?’ Blake shrugged. He didn’t want anyone to know his direction. ‘I don’t know if he can help me. I need employment and Alex suggested I ask him.’ Blake rung the bell hard. A large broad chested man appeared from the corridor before the man could interrogate him further.
‘You called me, Boy?’
‘I would have words with you Sir. Alex Deverne suggested I spoke with you.’ Again, her name had the desired result.
‘Follow me.’ The rough fellow turned on his heel and lumbered toward a parlour off the corridor leaving Blake to move quickly to catch him up.
‘Sit. You look exhausted. Have you eaten today?’
‘Only what I could scavenge along the way, Sir. I left before I could break my fast.’
‘A runaway, huh? Another of Alex’s waifs and strays?’ Blake nodded. Contradicting him seemed dangerous when he might help him if somewhat reluctantly.
‘That girl should wear skirts and get a husband. She will get herself hung one day,’ he grumbled. Blake was interested. The offhand, indifferent attitude of the girl had irritated him but intrigued him at the same time. She must be strong to have shot that bow and have as sharp an eye as the warriors he had met at the castle. Blake checked the door was shut tight. No eavesdroppers. He had learnt the hard way that listeners were often one’s enemies and information could be bought for a small purse.
‘Alex said you might give me directions to the castle of Lord Brunskire where I might find work.’ He produced the talisman to show his authenticity.
Oladen opened the door. ‘Food for the boy and ale and a bed made up.’
‘Please Sir, food is enough. I need to get away.’ Blake hoped that if he could gain a post at the castle he would be protected from the wrath of his lord. Oladen saw real fear in his eyes. This boy was terrified of staying here and being captured by his pursuers. He knew their lord’s reputation.
‘Very well, you leave tonight. I will ask my son to take you to Brunskire’s castle. He will protect you.’
‘How much do I owe you?’ asked Blake.
‘No friend of Alex pays here.’
‘I do not eat and not pay Sir.’ He knew a gentleman always paid his dues, even if it would leave him short of coin for the future.
‘Save your foolish pride, Boy. You may need the monies later. You can do some chores for me in lieu of payment if you are strong enough. Eat now and don’t argue. You leave in two hours when night falls.’ A buxom wench appeared with bread, meat and cheese and ale. Blake ate quickly relishing the good solid food. Often, he had been given the scraps at the inn, James making sure he was treated as the lowest of the low. Some of the maids and bar girls had smuggled him food feeling sorry for him.
He was shown to the stables where he mucked out for an hour and then washed at the stand-pipe shivering but grateful he had been fed and was free of the evil influence of his step-father at last.
A huge bulky lad, the image of Oladen, led him down a track which paralleled the road.
‘We will be safe from nosy eyes here but not get lost,’ he muttered and that was the end of the conversation until they arrived at the entrance to the castle.
‘Thanks for your help.’ Blake held out some coins, but the lad shook his head. ‘I may need your help sometime young Blake. And forget your foolish pride. It will get you hung one day.’ He shook his hand and led him to the portcullis where a soldier stood on entry duty.
‘Oladen sent this boy. He looks for work. He is stronger than he looks and is good with horses. Ask Danton to give him a trial.’
‘He looks puny to me,’ observed the guard. How Blake wished he was tall and strong and could thrust the man’s teeth down his insolent throat. Not long now. His muscles were developing and his shoulders starting to broaden. Slowly he was turning into a man.
‘Come on. I’ll take you to Danton if Oladen vouches for you, but you had better work your arse off or you will be thrown to the wolves. Danton stands no nonsense from insolent boys.’
Blake nodded, said thanks to Oladen’s son and followed him, happy when the portcullis groaned and shut behind him. He was safe for a short while and now had to prove himself to this Danton who seemed to call the shots around here.
Danton looked the new boy over. He stared back at him, confidently, almost arrogantly for a boy barely thirteen years old. From the moment he had set eyes on him this stripling had intrigued him. Quiet and thoughtful, he had taken orders and kept his thoughts to himself. All he seemed to care about was doing his job as quickly as he could and resting in his quarters reading books he had borrowed off the older pages and knights.
The other boys had made fun of him and teased him, bullying him and playing jokes on him. Fighting was prohibited on pain of a lashing and he had ignored them and taken the beatings until one day he could take no more. Danton had watched from the tower as the biggest and strongest boy, a stupid ill-mannered oaf had pushed his head into a barrel and held him under. He had risen spluttering coughing, vomiting the bracken water until his head was pushed under again and again.
Danton signalled to the stable foreman to intervene. The boy was one of his best workers. He didn’t want to lose him to this dim-witted dolt. Before his foreman could intervene, the boy’s shoulders had heaved, and he had forced himself upwards.
Coughing still, he didn’t waste an instant wiping his eyes. Instead he had spun round and kicked the boy hard between his legs and taking his crumpled foe by his hair he had first smashed his head thrice against the barrel and then kicked him again in the same place. Not finished, he had lifted the idiot to the shallow water trough and pushed him in face down.
Danton had never seen such anger before in a young boy. His pupils had darkened and narrowed. His orbs had turned red. Sparks had appeared to shoot out of the cavities, spearing the bully before he had entered the trough. He had thought the boy puny when he had first appeared before him. He had been pleased to have been proven wrong when Blake had done the work of much larger and older boys without complaint, but this time he had lifted a boy thrice his weight and mass and was drowning him.
‘Halt! Stop the boy. I will have no killing here,’ yelled Danton. The foreman pulled Blake by the hair and others grabbed his waist and tugged him. It was to no avail. The devil was in him. ‘Let me kill the bastard!‘ snarled Blake. ‘He’ll bully no boy again if I have my way.’
‘You’ll be hanging from that tree, Boy, if you do,’ warned the foreman and punched him in the back. ‘He’s not worth it. Have sense.’ The pain pierced the red haze preventing rational thought. No longer did he burn up from inside. He felt cold and shook. It was as if his body had been taken over and now he was at peace again. He had felt this anger before with James but had managed to control it. He feared loosing it again. Would he be able to control it, or would he kill a man and lose his neck?
Danton watching, swore the sparks receded and his pupils lightened. It was if the devil had resided in him but had left him. The boy stood up straight as if waiting for his punishment. He had to punish the lad, but a lashing seemed extreme in this case. He was right. The foremen had allowed the bullying to go on for too long. A boy had to take some teasing to become a man, but the oaf had made some boy’s lives a living hell. It was time to stop the tormenting.
‘Bring both boys to my bureau,’ called Danton.
The oaf was dragged, half carried up the stairs and stood indignantly before his master waiti
ng to complain.
‘Your explanation, now, Boy,’ snapped Danton. The bully turned to Blake and complained. ‘He was bone idle as usual and left the stables dirty, half the shit there still. I was giving him a lesson in obedience. He has to follow orders, or the rest of the lads will become lazy.’
‘You, Sir,’ he demanded of Blake. ‘What is your story?’ Blake stood fearlessly. He would accept the lashing and not complain providing he was allowed to stay. He was safe here. Only once had his lord sent men to the castle and they had been turned away. He was getting bigger and stronger and pulled his weight as much as any other boy there. He must be allowed to remain.
‘I feared I would drown Sir. And then I am ashamed I let my anger take me over as I feared other boys would be hurt. I was wrong. I should I have complained to the foreman.’ Danton smiled inwardly. The boy pretended to be humble and was clever. He knew the foreman would have ignored any complaint. The bullies kept the smaller and younger boys under control and made them work harder than was necessary. It was dog eat dog in these stables. It was time to restore better and fairer order.
‘You will both be punished.’
‘You,’ he said to the bully. ‘Twenty lashes for you and then you will leave this castle and bully no more of my boys.’
‘Take him and deal with him,’ he ordered one of his men. The oaf wriggled and tried to beg for mercy. ‘I only enforced the orders of the foreman Sir. It was his idea.’
‘Get the cur out of my sight,’ snarled Danton.
‘And you, Boy. What shall be your punishment? What is fitting for a boy who can’t keep his temper and nearly killed another?’
Blake blenched. He would take his punishment without complaining and prove he was more man than boy, but he feared the foreman’s whip. That man hated him. For some reason he had taken a dislike to him on first seeing him, as if he recognised his face from somewhere. He could not do anything right and had been beaten until he worked harder than any of the other boys and completed his jobs in record time and then was given more to do. He retired to bed early each night, only reading books by candle until exhaustion took him over to sleep restlessly, nightmares waking him with vultures pecking his eyes out.
‘I know not Sir. I will take any punishment I deserve.’ He would not beg for mercy from this man. He needed to appoint a fairer more efficient foreman. Bullying would always exist but not to this extent. One boy had run away, and another threatened to kill himself.
Danton sighed. He would have done the same himself if the bully had hurt him, but this lad had to learn to control his temper. He was incredibly strong and would be a good ally when he grew to be a man. Danton wanted him on his side, but he had to be disciplined and to show he was fair.
‘Down to the yard with you.’ Blake stepped down quickly wanting the punishment to be over fast. The other boys stood around muttering watching the oaf shriek after the tenth lash. The punishment finally over, his shredded back was tarred, and he was carted to the gates and thrown out. Blake felt sick. He hated watching the boys being punished, even his enemy. He waited his turn.
Danton waved his hand. ‘Tie him to the tree.’ He would administer the punishment himself. He spoke loudly so the boys would hear him.
‘Both parties were wrong. The bully has been sent away and the bullying will cease today. You boy had good intentions but like the child you still are you let your temper take over.’ He took his whip out and lashed Blake thrice across his behind. ‘A punishment for a child,’ he explained. ’One day you will be a man and understand.’ Blake winced but then blinked. Danton stopped and walked away.
‘Come to my bureau at six the morn tomorrow, Boy. Until then do both your work and that of the bully’s before you retire.’
Blake breathed a sigh of relief as the man walked away. He was to stay. His behind felt like fire but Danton had acted fairly.
‘Well done,’ said one of the braver boys patting him on the shoulder. ‘You sorted the bastard out and got rid of him.’
‘I only did what I had to do to save my life. I am no saint. I would have killed him if I had had the chance.’ He wanted no hero worship from these boys who had in turn ignored and tormented him. Two-faced cowards, he thought them. Only a few had shown kindness to him when the foremen and the bully were not watching. To hell with them!
A pretty maid came over with water, rags and balm. ‘Let me help you, young Master,’ she said. This was better thought Blake, running an appreciative eye over the maid’s buxom curves. He had grown four inches in six months and filled out and the wenches in the castle were noticing him now; not before time he thought as his loins burnt whenever they sashayed past casting flirtatious glances at him. The stable lads were forbidden from liaising with the girls in the castle, but illicit meetings took place and the foremen turned a blind eye until the girls’ waists expanded and they forced the boys to wed them.
Later in his rough bed he swore, the pain preventing the exhaustion from sending him to sleep. What is in store for me tomorrow, he wondered. What does he want of me?
Chapter Three
Danton sat behind his large desk. Usually decisive, he was wondering if he was doing the right thing. The boy was brave, strong and hard-working but there was something that made one think he believed he was surrounded by idiots. He was sharp quick witted and decisive, a natural leader. One day he would make a good warrior if he could take orders and show loyalty.
He had made inquiries. No-one in the castle knew his background except for the fact that Oladen vouched for him. He was clearly a runaway. The only time he shown real fear was when he had been threatened once with being turned out of the castle by the foreman. Danton had seen his face turn pale and his eyes narrowed, dark like cobalt stones. He was scared to death. Oladen was unavailable when his men had asked for him. His son had said the boy had turned up on the advice of a friend, the name of whom not one of Danton’s contacts had recognised. Vagnon’s men had asked for a boy in the castle. Danton had put two and two together and guessed the boy had run away from that lord’s village. His men would soon find out who Vagnon’s henchmen were looking for and if it was the boy, what crime he had committed to make him leave.
Blake climbed the stairs, each step sending sharp pains through his backside. His muscular master could hit hard. He had fought as a warrior knight before he had become steward of this castle. He stood before the desk and bowed. Danton looked him over from top to toe, noting the boy’s straight back and proud countenance. His eyes were narrowed, shrewdly assessing, his face impassive. Not for the first time did he think this boy appeared older than his age, wisdom showing in those now slate blue eyes. Only a fast blink of those dark lashes showed the boy’s contained tension: he was worrying what was in store for him.
‘Sit Boy.’
I am not a damned dog, thought Blake, his arrogance nearly showing. He contained it and sat down. This man held the key to his future and he had better show some humility although it went against his nature. His nails dug into his palms. Danton perused some papers, letting him suffer a little longer. The boy was all arrogance, his humility feigned. He needed a sound lesson every so often and a little fear would be good for him.
‘You wonder why I sent for you.’ It was a statement rather than a question, but Blake answered, ‘I am all anticipation, Sir,’ in his grown-up way. Danton was amused. The boy had a natural grace and dignity and spoke like a gentleman and yet his clothes were ragged when he had appeared at the castle gates and he was skinny to the point of emaciation. He had clearly not been fed well for months. His background was clearly poor.
‘Well, before I put you out of your misery I must ask you some questions, Boy and if you want to stay you will answer them truthfully. You understand?’
‘Perfectly Sir.’ The boy looked wary. He had something to hide. Danton had to win his trust.
‘Oladen vouched for your honesty and hi
s son said you had been sent by a friend to him.’
‘That is correct, Sir.’ The eyes grew narrow as if the boy appeared uneasy. He looked as if he would bolt.
‘I am not your enemy, Boy. I need to know if you can be trusted.’ Blake hesitated and then asked, ‘What do you want of me Sir?’
‘Are you running away from Lord Vagnon’s demesne?’ Blake blinked as if shocked by this direct question.
‘I do not wish to lie to you Sir.’
‘You answer honestly, or you are out these gates instantly.’ Danton spoke softly but the threat was in his tone. Blake had no choice. He capitulated.
‘Yes Sir, I left and made my way here.’
‘The men at the gates who came looking for a boy were looking for you?’
‘Yes Sir.’
‘Why?’ The boy looked sick for a moment, his natural olive complexion paling. He was terrified of being taken back. Danton knew his lord was renowned for his vicious punishments. He himself used the noose and the lash to maintain his rule but Vagnon inspired terror in his servants and peasants and took pleasure in inflicting pain on those under his control. Blake faced with this implacable man, knew he must tell the truth and face the consequences.
‘My stepfather, the landlord of the tavern was killed, and I ran away. I thought they might blame me. We did not get on.’
‘Who killed him and why?’
‘He was attacking me as he used to do in his drunken rages. A person in the forest slew him with a bow and arrow.’
‘You knew the person.’
‘No Sir. I only later found the name out when he left me at Oladen’s tavern. He is called Peter Donan.’ This was the made-up name Oladen had told him to use to protect Alex from being caught. He was scared James was going to kill me.’
‘And you did not conspire with this Peter?’
‘No Sir, it was the first time I had met him. My Step-father used to provide for my Lord’s needs Sir. He would be angry I had deprived him of his services.’ He looked embarrassed. Danton looked amused.
Tricks or Treats: An Anthology for Charity Page 2
