Squire's Honor

by Peter Telep

  “We can’t wait several days, let alone a week,” Christopher said, pausing to absently scan the seafront shops along Pier Street. The squire’s frustration flowed from the boy and infected Orvin, who thought harder and paced a little faster.

  “What about mounts?” Doyle asked Christopher. “Maybe we can track their progress from land. They probably aren’t too far off the coast.”

  Jennifer shook her head negatively even before Doyle finished his suggestion. “As you head north, the hills are rocky and steep, and if you decide to take the beach, you can only pass during low tide. There are points when the passage vanishes into the rough water and the cliffs. I’ve heard of a few who’ve drowned. But the inland path will slow you down.” She looked to Christopher, her eyes full of sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

  During Jennifer’s argument, an idea had come to Orvin. He’d rejected it at first but now it seemed like their only alternative. “I’m going to speak to Robert,” he announced. “I want him to take me to see the abbot.”

  Doyle and Jennifer exchanged a look that Orvin found hard to read. Doyle turned from her and said, “You think the abbot can help us”?

  “I know one thing,” Orvin began, aware of a faint smile passing over his lips. “Whatever the abbot wants, he gets. And if the abbot wants us on that Pict cog, we will be on it.”

  “You think he can order that captain to take us?” Christopher asked.

  “Very good.” The boy was bright. “Yes. Now, were I the abbot, a quiet threat would accomplish the task—as in bar the cog from trading in Blytheheart if the captain does not comply.”

  “Why would the abbot do that? What would he have to gain?” Doyle’s attack made sense.

  But Orvin was ready for it. “Robert is well respected at the monastery. The abbot would be doing a favor for one of his own. And it’s his nest he protects better than anyone else’s.”

  Orvin could tell from the boys’ expressions that they agreed with his reasoning.

  Jennifer’s face conveyed the contrary. “That favor you speak of might cost the abbot.”

  “In what way, dear?” Orvin asked.

  She twirled a finger through her blond hair, not absently but anxiously, Orvin thought. “The captain would surely be insulted by the abbot’s threat and hence, he might choose to exclude Blytheheart from his trading. He could very well do that.”

  “Which would cost the abbot a lot more than a few deniers,” Doyle said, stepping into the false light Jennifer had just shed on the conversation.

  “Only an assumption,” Orvin fired back at the young woman. “I don’t think the abbot would choose money over the niece of one of his monks.”

  “I wish you were right,” Jennifer said bitterly.

  “Orvin, if you would, go to the abbey and see what you can do,” Christopher said. “We’ll meet you back at the inn.”

  The old knight said his good-byes to the young folk, then watched them press their way up Pier Street and tangle into the crowd. He started for the intersection of Lord Street, and had only traveled twenty yards when he spotted a pair of sailors from the Pict cog walking toward him. Their gazes lit and their brows rose as they recognized him. Without the aid of the boys or a weapon at his side, Orvin’s pulse was spurred. Trying to be discreet, he turned around and pretended that the shop he’d just passed had caught his eye. He stepped back to the shop’s window, cupped hands around his eyes to shield the glare, and peered inside: a rope­ maker’s workshop. He turned and resumed his retreat.

  Orvin passed the door of the Customs House and considered ducking inside, but then thought better of it. He would feel awkward explaining his return to the customs master. He kept moving and came upon the alley between the Customs House and Chancellor’s House. He slipped down the passage, felt his heart stagger, then reasoned it was an exaggeration of his mind.

  He shot a look over his shoulder and saw that the sailors were not in the alley. He hustled to the far corner of the passage, then darted left to utilize the Chancellor’s House as a shield. He peered furtively around the corner. The sailors were paused at the mouth of the alley. He drew his head back, then whis­pered fervently to himself, “They did not see me. They did not.”

  After waiting another moment, he peered again and saw that the alley was clear. The incessant cry of a baby came from beyond the picket fence that was opposite the alley. The sound irritated him and he wished the child’s mother would pacify it. He paused a last moment to catch his breath.

  Orvin knew he was too old for such excitement. He’d been repeating that trite statement to himself since the first day he had met Christopher and had stitched the boy’s wounds. That day had marked a radical change in his life, and it was situations like the present that were breathtaking reminders of the change.

  Before he had met Christopher, life had been rela­tively peaceful. He had retired from knighthood and had been doing a bit of training here and there, helping his son Hasdale when he could. Then Donella had died. The illness had spent far too long inside her. That last bloodletting had been too much. He knew the doctor had been wrong. No one had believed him. It had been the bloodletting that had killed her, not the illness. With his love gone, he had partially retreated from Hasdale’s court. His son’s death had completed his withdrawal. He had no use for most of the realm.

  It was the loss that had made him tum inward. The loss had been just shy of too much to bear. And now what he feared most was that the young patron saint might experience the very same loss—only his would occur all at once. Here was life acting as a mirror into the past, with Christopher playing his role, Marigween playing Donella, and the tiny child Baines serving as the lost Hasdale.

  But there was still sand in the glass for Christopher’s bride-to-be and son. And if Orvin had anything to do with it, the past would not repeat itself. This time woman and child would be saved.

  7

  From the window in Doyle’s quarters,

  Christopher looked down on Bove Street, then up to

  Blytheheart’s sky, which was rippled with the orange­ veined clouds of sunset.

  “Do you see him yet?” Jennifer asked.

  Christopher returned his gaze to the street. The majority of the pedestrians were donned in drab browns and grays, and Orvin’s equally drab shirt and breeches would make him hard to find in the crowd. Christopher looked for one of Orvin’s more notable features: his shock of white hair. And there, ambling from St. Thomas Lane onto Bove Street, was the old knight. He looked a bit disheveled and wholly out of breath. Christopher answered Jennifer, “Yes, I see him. He’s coming now.”

  Just then the door opened, and Montague stepped into the room, followed by Brenna. Was Christopher’s vision failing, or was Brenna actually in the fat man’s presence and not trying to kill him? Indeed, Montague’s actions back on the wharf must have somewhat softened the raven maid. She had behaved rather civilly at their meal, but there had been a heavy wooden table between her and the brigand.

  “Well, this room’s suddenly gotten a lot smaller,” the fat man observed, eyeing the four people before him.

  “Did you see Moma and Merlin down there?” Doyle asked Montague.

  The fat man shook his head, his jowls trailing the movement. “No telling what’s keeping them.”

  Christopher’s gaze connected with Brenna’s, and he gestured with his head for her to come over to the win­dow. She did, and he whispered to her, “Is everything all right”?

  She nodded. “For now.” She looked to Montague, who was moving toward his bed to take the great bur­ den of his belly off of his feet. “But watch him, if you would.”

  Christopher nodded, then he saw Doyle and Jennifer come together for their own whispery conversation, leaving Montague to murmur over his tired legs.

  “How are you feeling?” Brenna asked, gaining back his attention.

  “I’m still sore,” he said, then reached for and rubbed a rib, “but I think—”

  “I meant here,”
she said, cutting him off and then placing an index finger on his left breast.

  He drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Orvin will be up soon. Say a prayer he convinced the abbot.”

  Brenna withdrew her finger, clearly resigned that she wasn’t going to draw true feelings from him. “What are you talking about? What happened?”

  Christopher gave her a brief summary of what had happened, after which she closed her eyes.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, eyeing her strangely.

  She tsked , opened one eyelid. “Saying a prayer for you.”

  He waited a moment. Her eyes remained closed. “Are you done?”

  Then, after another moment, she opened her eyes. “Now Iam.”

  “Did you find a doctor for Hallam’s rounsey?” he asked, then winced a bit as mention of her horse lit the memory of Arthur’s prized—and now dead—mare.

  She nodded. “He said the poultice we had made helped a lot, but it will take a long time for the wound to heal. The doctor said he had a stall available and offered to board the rounsey. Montague paid for it.”

  Christopher raised his brow in slight surprise. She wasn’t exactly speaking highly of the brigand, merely stating the fact of his generosity. Still, it was ironic to hear her utter the words. The paint on the picture of her lunging at Montague with the bolt in her hand was still wet, and here she was already accepting small tokens of forgiveness. It was a characteristic of hers that he hadn’t witnessed too often, but times such as this reminded him of it: she was not one to hold a grudge. In fact, Brenna was not one to hold in any kind of hostilities for very long. Christopher had completely shunned her, had broken her heart, and she had come back to him want­ ing to be friends. And then she had insisted on coming along to Blytheheart to help. He suspected she was here out of something more than friendship but wasn’t going to venture into hazardous emotional territory to confirm the fact. If she somehow still loved him, it was a love that might be doomed to misery.

  Christopher wished he could return to a fateful day, the day Arthur had made him squire of the body, the day that Marigween had stood behind that first trestle table in the great hall, gracing the scene with her radiant image, an image that had brought heat to his face. He wanted to go back to that day—

  And not see Marigween, the mother of his child.

  It was a dark thought, brought on by his rekindled feelings for Brenna. But what was done was done, and at least for the moment he could stay focused on Brenna in order to make sure nothing happened to her.

  He regarded her gravely. “Brenna, no matter what Orvin has to say, it’s going to be Doyle and I that go after Marigween. No one else.”

  She rolled her eyes. “We’ve been through this before, Christopher. I came along to help you. I’m not stopping here.”

  “You fought well down on the wharf, but you still could have … it’s just that if you die, I’ll never forgive myself. Never. I don’t want the responsibility of your life. It’s just too much for me right now.” He turned from her and looked out through the window to the peddlers’ tents across the street. His gaze was caught by a puff of smoke that rose above one of the tents. The smoke was part of a magic show, he supposed.

  “You’re being selfish,” she retorted. “You only care about how you feel.” He heard her take a step toward him. “What about how I feel?” She still stood a few feet away, but her words felt as if they’d been shouted at point-blank range into his ears.

  He craned his neck to regard her, his expression icing up. “How do you feel?”

  “I-I want to help.”

  “You’ve been saying that, and that doesn’t answer the question, does it?”

  He knew he wasn’t being fair, and he had just made the resolution not to wander into the land of her feel­ ings. He was supposed to be telling her that there was no way she would be going after Marigween with them, supposed to be ordering her to stay here with Orvin and Merlin and the rest. Why was he prying into her feelings for him? What was it that made him suddenly need to know? Had her coy behavior finally become so irritating that he had had to put an end to it? No. Then what? Was it a simple desire to know that someone loved and cared about him? He could daresay that everyone in the room felt that way about him; certainly all were very concerned and, like her, wanting to help. What was it?

  The answer to his pondering was so simple that he’d overlooked it. His love was responsible; it wanted to draw out Brenna’s feelings so that they could mingle with his own. He was a victim of his heart, the moment simply another occasion of looking too deeply into Brenna’s eyes. He had not forgotten Orvin’s old admoni­tion; he just repeatedly failed to observe it. The present course of his life was paved on that recurrent mistake.

  “Why did you ask me to marry you that night?” she asked.

  Brenna wasn’t the conversational master of say an Orvin or a Merlin, but she was fairly skilled at the craft. Before Christopher realized it, he squirmed to find his own answer. And then he remembered. “That was just mad dreams—you didn’t answer my question.”

  “Mad dreams? You didn’t sound mad.” He frowned. “Forget about that.”

  “No. I want to know.”

  Orvin saved the day—simply by entering the room. “Excuse me,” Christopher told Brenna, then strode past her to accost the old knight at the door. “Orvin.”What happened? Tell us. Speak!”

  But the old man was too winded to say anything, and he motioned with a hand toward a spot on the bed next to Montague. Christopher closed the door behind Orvin, then led him to the bed where he sat down with a wince, a crack of bones, and a moan. He took several more breaths before finally speaking. “Robert went in to see him. They wanted me to wait outside the door. But I heard the conversation.”

  Christopher noticed a flash of yellow on his periphery and craned his head to see Jennifer step to his side, her gaze intent on Orvin. He turned back to his mentor. “What did they say? Come on,” he urged.

  Orvin shook his head negatively, then let his gaze lift to find Jennifer’s. “You were right about the abbot, young lady. You knew exactly what he’d say.”

  Jennifer straightened and turned away from Orvin, her face lacking the self-satisfaction Christopher presumed would be there. She exchanged a mysterious look with Doyle, then strode toward the window.

  “I could’ve told you what he’d say,” Montague threw in. “And we would’ve saved a lot of precious time. But no. You lads had to go running off with your own plans before you consulted me. Don’t do that again.”

  Montague’s authoritative tone went unmissed. Christopher smirked. Doyle shook his head as he was wont to do every time the brigand opened his mouth.

  Orvin, on the other hand, wasn’t going to react to the remark with a simple display of countenance; oh, no. Christopher watched the old knight slowly tum his gaze toward Montague and fix him with a look so fiery that it appeared the big man would, in seconds, burst into flames. “These lads are trying to save a young woman’s life—not sitting on their fat rumps and asserting that they can read minds.”

  Christopher was taken aback by Orvin’s rebuttal. Unfortunately the fat man brushed it off as he would sweat from his forehead. “Listen to me, one and all,” the brigand began, then directed his attention to Christopher. “If we want to save that young lass, laddie, we must catch up with that ship. And we must set out after it no later than this eve.”

  “Tell us something new. Like how we’re going to do that,” Doyle challenged Montague. “Do you propose we take a little fishing boat and row up the coast? That’s about all we’ll find down there.”

  Christopher noticed a smile forming on Montague’s lips, a smile that made the shiny hairs of the highway­ man’s chin stand on end. Something was hidden beneath that grin, and it gave Christopher pause.

  Montague was brigand at heart. A highwayman. Plain and simple, a criminal. That life had been in his blood far too long for him to give it up completely. What he would propose
now was a course based on opportunity and necessity, one that would require great courage, skill, and the abandoning of guilt, and finally, one that was, to say the least, morally questionable.

  “We’re going to steal that Pict cog,” he confirmed. Orvin hemmed. “What?”

  “Steal the cog?” Doyle repeated as a grin split his thinly bearded face. “How?”

  “What do you know about cogs?” Montague asked the archer. Then he looked to Christopher before he got his answer. “What about you? Do you know how many crew members it takes to sail one?”

  Christopher shook his head, no, then looked to Doyle, who shrugged.

  Montague smoothed out his mustache. “Most cogs are ninety-eight feet long, sixty five and one half feet at the waterline, with a beam of twenty-three and one half feet, and a draft of ten feet. Their sail area is usually two thousand square feet.” He smiled. “I worked for a ship­ builder in my youth—can you tell? Never mind. All in all, most crews range from twelve to twenty-four, but I’ve seen as many as forty men crammed on board. But forget that. Here’s the important part—with six or seven of us, we can get that boat moving.”

  “He’s right. We can do that,” Brenna said, stepping into the conversation both figuratively and literally as she moved to Christopher’s side. ·

  “I don’t want to argue with you now, Brenna. I told you that you’re not going,” Christopher said softly, try­ ing to shield his temper from the others.

  “We’ll need her, laddie,” Montague said. “We can recruit sailors, to be sure. But I wouldn’t trust a one of them. Better we do it ourselves.”

  “There are probably as many as eight or ten sailors on board that cog at any one time. And we’ll have Picts on the wharf. And I could be wrong about all of that and the whole crew could be on board when we attack,” Doyle said, finding as many holes in the plan as would be in his body if they tried it.