Squire's Honor

by Peter Telep

  “The sea,” Merlin answered. “We’re not far.”

  “You’re wrong,” Orvin said grimly. “We’re still at least a day or two away—three or four on foot. But if you’d listened to me, we could’ve stayed with that Saxon army back there. Maybe we didn’t see Marigween with them, but she could’ve been bundled up and stuffed onto the back of one of their supply carts—or hadn’t that crossed your mind? And stop sniffing! It’s annoying!”

  “Magic is in the mind, in the earth, in the senses. Let’s return to the mind, and more precisely to mathe­ matics. Calculating the army’s movements and the estimated time Marigween left the cave, the odds of her encountering the Saxons lessen the slower she rides.”

  Orvin shook his head negatively. “You’re speculating on the army’s original position and how fast Marigween is traveling. The product of your calculations is as good to us as—” he paused again, this time watching Merlin as the druid bent over and drew something from the short, yellowed grass. “What have you got?”

  Merlin held it up between his thumb and forefinger: the dark brown, rotten core of an apple. “She was here. She made it past the army.”

  Why was it that Merlin had to continually prove what a nincompoop he was? Why couldn’t the old man just retire into his cave to a life of private insanity? But the better question, Orvin realized, was why God was pun­ishing him. Why Orvin? “You’re telling me that apple core belonged to Marigween?”

  “Indeed. She took it from my cave. It’s a special vari­ety from the East. A dozen of them were given to me by Leondegrance. Here.”

  Merlin tossed the core; it fell into Orvin’s palm but bounced out and dropped to the grass. Orvin made the mistake of bending over to retrieve the core. Pain shot from the muscles flanking his lower spine. He gave up and straightened. “Forget this game, Merlin.”

  The druid started toward him, waving a finger, and his beard was a snowy scarf whipped over his shoulder by a sudden gust. “If you’d look down at the stem, which is still attached, you’d see how thick it is. I noticed it the very first time I received the apples. I repeat, Marigween is in Blytheheart. And we’ll be there before nightfall.”

  Orvin wanted to believe Merlin, but everything that made sense in the realm told him the druid was strain­ ing to prove himself and was wrong on both counts. He lifted his head, let the wind play over him, then closed his eyes. “We’ve reduced ourselves to rotten apple cores, druid.” He opened his eyes. “Strike that. It’s you who is—” Orvin abandoned his reproach, since Merlin was already walking away from him. Even from the back Orvin could sense the old man’s gait had purpose, definite purpose.

  He didn’t want to resignedly follow the druid because there wasn’t anywhere else to go; Orvin wanted to have a plan of his own. But even if Merlin was wrong about Marigween and she was back with that Saxon army, it would be suicide to go after her now—with no food or mounts. And even if Merlin was wrong about the prox­imity of Blytheheart and it was, indeed, three days away on foot, the chances of making it there were far greater than those of getting anywhere else. So, even though it had appeared to make no sense at all, the druid’s argu­ment now burned with an ember of credence.

  If Orvin needed a plan of his own, it would be to go along with Merlin—for the time being. Once in Blytheheart, if they discovered Marigween had not made it to the monastery, then he would find a way to get a mount and supplies and go after that Saxon army him­ self. He would leave Merlin at the monastery, for he knew how much the druid loved the monks. It would be Merlin’s time for penance.

  With the crack of an ankle, Orvin took a step for­ ward, then paused to guide his booted foot onto the apple core; he heeled it into the grass and soft earth.

  5

  The Yeo River wandered across southwest Britain like a serpent in search of a mate; it found two brides in the forms of the Parret and Forves rivers.

  Their union created the swift current that formed the southern and eastern lowlands of the Quantock hills.

  Christopher stood staring at the sight where the three rivers converged. White water sparkled in star and moonlight. Brenna was on the bank at his side. Neither of them spoke, their silence born in a small part from the long ride, but predominantly of Christopher’s relent­ less insistence that she return to Shores. She shouldn’t be with him.

  “We’ll camp up past the reeds,” he finally said. “Is that all right?” His voice was weak, unenthusiastic.

  She looked at him. “I think you’re doing the right thing and I want to help. I’m sorry about Woodward.”

  He threw her a wide-eyed, scolding look. “Stop saying that.” He softened a bit, swung his head back to gaze at the rivers. “It’s difficult for me right now. It’s hard to battle all of the different things going on. Marigween running off, Woodward murdered, you wanting to come along.” He realized his breath was labored, and his agi­tation dug furrows into his heart; it was through those channels that all of it rose to the surface. “I lied to the king, Brenna. To the king.”

  She shifted closer to him, and from the comer of his eye he saw her lift an arm to wrap it around him; but she stopped and instead drew back to scratch an itch under her ear. “I keep telling you I’m sorry and you keep telling me how you lied to the king, and I keep wanting to tell you I’m sorry—and you keep telling me to stop saying that.”

  She’d done the impossible: raised a faint smile from him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Let’s not talk anymore.” He yawned, turned, and crossed in front of her, then headed up shore toward their grazing horses.

  “It will be all right,” she said.

  “No one really knows what will be,” he muttered.

  Christopher awoke in the middle of the night. Restlessness was something he had grown used to, not that he liked it any.

  The Saxon spy Kenneth had come in the wee hours to bury his dagger in Christopher’s throat.

  He had seen his first master, Hasdale, talk in his sleep the night before he had been killed. And Hasdale had spoken in a voice that was his father’s—Orvin’s.

  Then there had been the dream in the stone forest, the dream about Orvin and Arthur, the dream in which they had given him advice.

  Dreams, nightmares, murder attempts. Was a quiet night too much to ask?

  ·Christopher knew he wasn’t meant to live a normal life, and Orvin had reminded him of that on more than one occasion. But couldn’t the extraordinary happen during the day?

  The night was full of humidity and rhythm that had earlier put him to sleep. He sat up from the blanket that served as his mattress, and the other blanket on top of him fell away. He swatted at a mosquito that buzzed at his bare shoulder, then listened: rushing water and crickets. Both there. Both soothing. No noise had awakened him. What was it?

  He drew in a long breath, let it go in a yawn, then stretched his arms and arched his back, sensing the bones of his spine crackle as he did so. He yawned again, then turned to look at Brenna. She slept soundlessly on her back, one arm at her side, the other crossed over her chest. Her blanket was tucked neatly under both arms, picture-perfect. Her long, black hair was an ebony halo of restless curls. Ah, the raven maid. There was a time when he would have leaned over and kissed her.

  The thought was shattered by a sigh; the noise had not come from Brenna, but from over his shoulder. He turned around—

  And there beside him, sleeping faceup on her own blan­ ket was Marigween. Her eyelids fluttered open, and, as her gaze focused on him, she pursed her lips and smiled.

  Christopher shot a look to Brenna on his left, then another one back to Marigween on his right.

  He reached out and grabbed Marigween’s hand; it was warm. Jolted by the sensation, he dropped the hand as though it had burned him.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Christopher shushed her, then stole a glance back at Brenna to make sure she still slept.

  But now he could see her neck move as she swal­lowed, then saw her tongue swipe acr
oss her lips. Her eyes opened. “Christopher?”

  He crawled to Brenna and sefzed her hand. Flesh and blood, healthy, real, warm.

  “What is it?” This time the question from Brenna. She sat up and looked to Marigween. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Christopher whipped his head to Marigween.

  The former princess narrowed her thin brow as she looked at Brenna. “I don’t know. He looks like he’s seen Lucifer himself.” She shifted her gaze to him. “Are you all right?”

  He just stared at her, then looked to Brenna, who wore the same look as Marigween.

  “He must be having a dream,” he heard Marigween speculate.

  “But how?” Brenna asked. “His eyes are open.”

  There was nothing as bizarre as hearing Marigween and Brenna talk about him in such a casual manner. They were puzzled by his expression, and behaving in a very uncatlike way. They should be clawing each other’s eyes out.

  “Marigween,” Christopher began, and he heard the tremor in his voice. “How did you get here?”

  She looked at Brenna, rolled her eyes, then looked to him. “On a horse.”

  “No, I mean have you been with us?” “Yes. You asked me to come along.” “And me as well,” Brenna chipped in.

  He gazed at the raven maid, felt the incredulity once again warp his countenance. “I asked both of you along? Brenna, are we not going after Marigween?”

  If Christopher wore a look of puzzlement, Brenna’s was even more questioning. “No. We’re all going to Blytheheart to be married.”

  A hand warmed his shoulder. He craned his neck a bit to find Marigween kneeling next to him. “You love both of us,” she purred, “don’t you”?

  He drew back a bit from Marigween and studied her face, her wonderful eyes set into her smooth, fair skin, her red hair pulled back into a neat tail for sleeping. Then his gaze moved to Brenna, and her equally alluring appearance. But there was more to both of these women, much more, and Christopher had explored the deeper beauty of both of them. He had wandered within both of their hearts.

  If only he knew his own heart half as well.

  He did love both of them, each in a unique and incredible way. It seemed his life would not be complete if he did not have both of them.

  But the laws of God, knight, squire, and man were too ingrained in him. To desire such a union was evil and absurd. Why then did he crave it? Why did they tempt him with it?

  “You both want to marry me?” “Yes,” they answered in unison.

  Two wives. Where had he heard of such a practice? Was it the Romans who had taken many brides? The Saxons? He’d forgotten. What did it matter? It wasn’t for him.

  But wait. He’d admitted something. He loved both of them. No, he didn’t. He’d said good-bye to Brenna.

  And there it was. He’d said good-bye, but he’d never stopped loving her—even in the face of Marigween and his son. Was it cruel and horrible that he still held feel­ ings for Brenna? He’d tried to submerge them, but her presence now stirred them all back up. If she only had stayed in Shores.

  He stood, pulled the drawstring at the waist of his breeches and knotted it, then walked away from the wo­men toward the shoreline, hearing them talk behind him.

  Christopher waded into the river until his feet were covered. He looked down and studied the bubbles cre­ated by the minnows, noted the way they blossomed into larger and larger ringlets. It was a hot night, and his upper lip itched with sweat. He reached down and caused the minnows to scatter. He cupped a bit of water, splashed it over his face, then groaned.

  Christopher heard the sound of grass being crunched and turned toward it.

  Brenna rubbed an eye as she approached. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  “Is Marigween still back there?” he asked.

  Brenna blinked a few more times to clear her gaze. “What?”

  “Do you want to get married?” he asked.

  Her gaze averted to the mud and weeds. “I … don’t understand. What about—”

  “Wait. Where are we going?” “Are you all right”?

  He grabbed her by the shoulders. “We’re looking for Marigween and my son and Orvin and Merlin, yes?”

  She looked at a ghost, or at least her expression said so. “Yes.”

  Christopher released her, closed his eyes, then breathed a shuddery sigh.

  When he was young, he had usually been able to sense when a dream began and when it ended. Since becoming a squire, that minor luxury had evaporated into the thin air of his imagination. Sometimes reality did not seem as real as the dreams.

  Brenna added something about being worried about him, that he needed sleep, that he had too much on his mind and had to relax if they were to find Marigween.

  Though he agreed with her words, he knew he could not heed them. “I cannot sleep anymore. Let’s go,” he said, then turned abruptly from the water. “We have an army to find.”

  If Brenna had any complaints about riding in the mid­dle of the night, she kept them to herself as they packed. Momentslater, mountedandaboutto leave, Christopher gazed one last time at the convergence of the three rivers, a marriage as natural and God-inspired as any he had witnessed.

  They arrived in the Parret River valley at sunrise.

  Christopher reined Llamrei to a halt and inspected the ground. “They were here, all right.”

  “Do you think they got Marigween?” Brenna asked.

  Christopher ground his teeth and spoke through them. “If they did, she’s three or four days west of us now—if she and Baines are still alive.”

  “You named your son after—”

  “Yes,” Christopher confirmed before she went on with it. He scanned the orange-hued horizon with the serendipitous hope that he’d see a cookfire somewhere, the fire of Orvin and Merlin, or even Marigween. Then he spotted the quay, a flatboat docked at it, and a figure that stood on the pier. The figure waved an arm at them.

  “I guess he wants to take us across,” Brenna said. “What do we do? Do we head back, or hope they’re all in Blytheheart?”

  “This is a shot from a thousand yards, but I’ve an idea. Come on.” He heeled his mare toward the river.

  In a few moments, Christopher’s hunch was borne out. Indeed, the flatboat master had taken a young woman and child across the river—as well as two old men. He was happy to tell Christopher all about it as they floated downstream, even happier it seemed that the young man on the white mare could, to his surprise, speak rather fluent Saxon. The words came back to Christopher with relative ease. Were it not for his time spent with Garrett’s Saxon army, he and Brenna might have wandered for moons in the wrong direction.

  Christopher gave the master an extra denier for his trouble, then he and Brenna coaxed their mounts into a canter over the foothills of the Quantocks. It took the rest of the day and a good part of the early evening for them to reach the bluffs just south of Blytheheart.

  Christopher followed Brenna, and the two wound their way west through the broad wood atop the bluffs. Over the raven maid’s shoulder, Christopher thought he saw the port’s lights past the last stand of trees. Something shimmered in the sunken distance.

  He leaned over and tried to peer around a trunk blocking his line of sight when something fluttered past his ear, something that sounded like a bird. He smacked his ear but connected only with his own flesh. He cocked his head, searching for whatever it was that had buzzed him.

  Brenna had heard it too. She stopped and turned. “What was that?” Her attention went to the air above him.

  “Bird?” Christopher hazarded. His eyes rolled up, and he lifted his head to scrutinize the shadowy tree canopy for a definitive answer. Sensing that something was not right, he swung himself out of his saddle and dropped to the ground.

  A winged silhouette swam silently out of the darkness and dipped to careen into the back of Brenna’s head. She screamed as she frantically reached up to grasp the unseen demon. The thing shot away before her finge
rs touched it.

  She shivered aloud.

  “Dismount. Now,” Christopher ordered her.

  It wasn’t a bird. It was black, its wings membranous, its head that of a rodent. Christopher had seen them before in Merlin’s cave, and as he probed the darkness overhead, he slowly discovered many, many more of them.

  The bats seemed to claw the air by the elongated fin­gers attached to their wings rather than glide through it as a bird would. Their legs worked in unison with their wings, causing a strange swimming action. Whether they clawed or glided through the air didn’t matter; the fact that he knew they had razor-sharp teeth did.

  He covered the back of his head with his hands and ducked for cover under Llamrei. He watched Brenna drop down and move under her mount.

  “What are they?” she asked

  “They’re bats,” Christopher told her, feeling the hairs rise on the back of his neck.

  “What do we do? How do we get rid of them?”

  Before Christopher could reply, Llamrei bucked and neighed and threatened to step on him. Christopher slipped out from under the horse, chanced a glance above the mount’s back and saw two or three or yes, four bats dart just over the animal.

  Then the white mare bucked and suddenly charged north through the trees. She was headed for—

  “No!” Christopher bounded after the horse.

  “Stop her, Christopher!” Brenna’s shout was all but lost in the clatter of hooves and the mounting thump of his pulse.

  Ignoring the moment and all feeling, he ran. He caught a flash of white through the brown and green: the mare’s rump vanishing behind a trunk. He leapt over a fallen limb and felt locked into the pursuit.

  The bluffs came up too fast. He sensed more flutter­ ing at his ears. His skin crawled. He slapped the air above him, hit a bat, knocked it sideways, hit another with a lucky strike that brought the flying rat to the ground ahead of him, but it sprang into the air before he could step on it.

  Llamrei neighed again, but he couldn’t see her. He reached the edge of the wood, then heard the sound of pebbles and rock being rolled together, then another call from the horse, one which came from below him. He stepped to the edge of the cliff and looked down.