The Knight's Secret

by Jeffrey Bardwell

  “It's too strange,” she cried, throwing the rest of Granfa's clothes at me. “Don't say such things. Not with that face, not with that voice. You are Corbin Destrus, Hero of Jerkum Pass . . . and my old man.”

  I nodded, repeating the name over and over in my mind. Corbin Destrus. Corbin Destrus. You're Corbin Destrus.

  My mother took a deep, ragged breath. “We both need to act accordingly. It's like a play. Pretend we're in a play and last night was our rehearsal.” Ma . . . no, Miranda . . . shook her head and started unhooking Krag from the cart. The warhorse surged forward, tearing the reins from her hand. The twin shafts hit the ground as the cart pitched forward. The coffin and my supplies crashed to the front of the cart. Krag stopped several paces away, glanced over his shoulder, and snorted.

  I laughed and whistled. Krag came prancing over, ready to wear a proper saddle .

  Miranda's lips hooked as she grabbed the reins, wrapping them around her fist. She smiled, mocking me . . . him with that familiar grin. “Well? Are you going to take control of that horse, you old fart?”

  I struggled with the pants. They smelled like horse hair and dust and they sealed my suddenly ungainly private parts behind a wall of stiff, sweaty leather. “Tie him to a tree for the moment. Can your,” how would Granfa phrase it , “your poor, little pony take the strain of pulling that great big cart? I've told you time and time again that you need a bigger horse, Miranda.”

  “Yes, sir! You think every horse should be a cavalry charger.” Ma winked at me. “Doing great, Sweety. I almost want to punch you . . . him.”

  I gave her Granfa's best crooked smile as I shook the wrinkles from his treasured velvet crimson cloak, folding it carefully, and stowing it away. “But of course! Who would want to ride a wimpy little palfrey when they can feel a proper charger thundering between their legs?”

  “The only thundering old Krag's done these last ten years is out his ass,” Ma snorted. “And he's not the only one. Forgotten how to put on that armor, old man?”

  Putting the saddle and tack on Krag and tying Jenna to the cart were both long practiced activities. Except my fingers were too large and less nimble. And my hands kept shaking. And there was a persistent itch on the small of my back that would not go away. I glanced at the stasis box and forgave Granfa his eternal litany of little aches and pains, which until now I had only experienced vicariously.

  “You should choose a sapling in the woods and cut a pennon,” Ma . . . no, Miranda nodded towards the forest. “Give those old muscles a chance to ease into things before you try riding. When was the last time you clambered up on that bag of bones with hooves? The saw is in . . .”

  I waved her away, like Granfa used to do. “The day I need you to tell me where to find my own saw is the day they stick me in the . . . ground.” My face froze.

  Miranda paled. She shook her head and stared into my eyes. “You have a long, happy life ahead of you,” she said, patting my hand. “Never forget that in the days ahead.”

  “Not even death can stand against the great, the mighty Sir Corbin.”

  “The five gods must have salt-cured you, oh mighty ham,” she chuckled weakly. “Not even the grave can keep you down. Well, you don't need a fretful daughter standing here holding your hand. I'll be on my way after I've finished hooking Jenna to the cart. I know it's been a few years since you've seen the old gang and you're excited to get back to them. I'm sure they're just like their stories . . . even the exaggerated ones.”

  “Worry not! Even my little nudist granddaughter could wrangle the truth from those wild tales. What little there is of it.” I finished adjusting the stirrup straps from Kelsa's height to my own and patted the saddle. “Mere facts should never trump a good story.”

  “Goodbye, old man. I will miss you.” She hugged me. I wrapped Granfa's arms around her and nuzzled her cheek with his grizzled face. “Maybe tone down the gusto just a bit,” she whispered in my ear.

  “Goodbye, Miranda.” What else could I say? What would a hero say? A memory surfaced of an old army vow. I steepled my fingers in a position of formal prayer and peered at the heavens. I felt that Grandfa would have approved. “I swear beneath the five gods. To protect the weak. To deny the strong. To honor the sacred dead. I will save you.”

  Her eyes glistened. “I know you will. I would expect nothing less of the granddaughter of the Hero of Jerkum Pass.”

  I flashed my best Corbin smile. “Until I return, if anyone hassles you over that witchery business, you spit in their eye, ya hear? Never forget that I, Sir Corbin, am bursting with . . .” No, too much. “I'm proud of you and will always be a part of you, my daughter.”

  Miranda smiled and nodded. As I hacked through the trees to find a straight sapling, I reminded myself it was vital that I act like Sir Corbin Destrus, not a twisted minstrel version of some girl's Granfa. For all his . . . my swagger, I had a sweet, quiet core beneath all that bombast. One without the other was just an empty shell.

  I did not look back at the casket as Miranda carted it away. And it was a casket. Corbin Destrus faced the truth, even when it struck like a lance. That was just a body, now. The heart of Sir Corbin beat within my own chest and Sir Corbin needed a pennon for his helmet. The story explaining the regimental tradition of tying the helmet to the top of the pennon came unbidden, another tale an old man told a little girl, and I squashed it. What need had I to remember an old man telling stories? I had lived through it.

  I absently scratched the birthmark on my butt. Scratching the big, hairy mole was an easy, practiced motion. My fingers moved by themselves to that precise spot. They were Corbin's fingers, but Kelsa's mark and Kelsa's itch. I withdrew my hand. I didn't need Kelsa interfering with the mission.

  I'm Sir Corbin Destrus. Sir Corbin. Forget Kelsa. Forget you ever heard the name Granfa. Miranda is your daughter, not your mother. I took a deep breath. Focus on finding a pennon. One step at a time, you old warrior.

  4. CORBIN, YEAR 198

  I trotted my faithful steed along the forest trail, my eighty-six year old body weighed on my twenty-two year old brain. The familiar aches and pains were settling in for the ride as Krag's lopsided gait sent jarring pulses into my thighs and straight up my spine. My armor shuttered and clattered with every hoof beat. Krag was bred for the thunderous charge of a proper warhorse, not a leisurely, ambling stroll through the woods. I would never admit it to her face, but the gentle gait of Miranda's sweet-tempered palfrey was much more suited to traveling long distances in the saddle. The wussy little nag.

  My butt readjusted to the familiar curves and hollows of the saddle, and my armor nestled into old dents in the padding, but my back remained slouched. It was an effort to straighten myself, not from any aches—though my body had those aplenty—but from old habits. Kelsa sat in the saddle like a sack of potatoes. I had often nagged the girl about her posture, but the great Sir Corbin? The Hero of Jerkum Pass always perched in his saddle like he had a spear shoved up his backside, and with agonizing creaks and pops I made it so.

  As I adjusted my posture, my thoughts also ventured down well-worn grooves. Procrastination is the only enemy I never defeated. I gave the speech to poor Kelsa to 'proofread' when we both knew I meant 'finish it.' Sometimes, that girl knows me better than I know myself.

  A branch dipped across the path and I absently smacked it with my gauntlet before it could smack me. I laughed as the branch stubbornly whipped back into place behind me. Alas, not all looming obstacles are so easily brushed aside.

  I reviewed the speech in my mind: rough, short, and riding off a cliff. Maybe seeing my old companions would inspire me. Maybe after I bought the first round of ale, I could persuade some half-drunk comrade to help me finish writing it.

  Now that's thinking like Corbin Destrus. I twisted my fresh-cut pennon in its holster beneath the saddle and angled the helmet, laughing as my steel face smashed through the trees. Birds scattered in all directions, screeching and flapping. Fly, my tiny, feathered heralds. F
ly! Tell the world Sir Corbin Destrus rides again.

  Krag and I emerged from the forest path into a wide, sunny field. A gentle breeze ruffled the grass as I spurred him to a canter. The horse's rough gait transformed into a rolling, undulating motion and his hooves tore the sod as we sped through the field. I ignored my creaking knees as I posted in the saddle, matching the rhythm of Krag's back rising and falling. What a day to be alive. With the wind blowing through my hair, I felt like I would reach the capital in no time at all.

  I gently tugged the reins as we reached the end of the field and the shade of the trees as the path continued back into the forest. Krag snorted, turning around for another run. I laughed as I bent forward and patted the old boy's neck. “Not today.”

  Krag pawed the grass. The charger resisted as I pulled the reins toward the dark forest, side-stepping back toward the sunshine.

  “It's a long way to the capital.” I sighed. “If we canter back and forth across every field we find, we're never going to reach it. Come on. I'll feed you a nice warm oat mash tonight when we find an inn. If we find an inn. We need to find the Northern Road first, eh?”

  Krag's nostrils widened, but he responded to my light touch on the reins leading him back to the path. I ducked beneath the brambles and low branches on the edge of the field and was back in the woods again.

  I reached the crossroads to the Northern Road as the sun reached its zenith. Krag's steel shod hooves clopped on the smooth, dark pavement. I nodded with satisfaction as a large cart pulled by a team of two oxen rumbled past, creaking under the weight of assorted pots, boxes, and trinkets.

  Several red and black painted warriors marched alongside the cart, their dusky arms bare, vests open to expose the tribal tattoos splayed across their chests. They were a head shorter than the young men of the village and had long, dark blonde hair tied back with strips of leather where most of the villagers had short-cropped black or brown hair. I glanced at their chests and arms as something nagged the back of my mind. It was the body hair, I realized, or the lack of body hair. The skin on their arms was as bare and sparse as a woman's.

  I raised my arm and glanced at my own hairy wrist. I stared between the bristles as the warriors swung their arms to the rhythm of the march, thick, ropy muscles rippling beneath their skin. I had heard countless stories of their prowess in battle of course, and even used their wares, but I had never seen one in person. The elder never let the merchant caravans anywhere near the village. I coughed and tried to avert my eyes. Proper soldiers did not go about admiring the graceful details of other men's arms, just their armor.

  I didn't know where to look. The barbs had no armor, but the designs of those tattoos were achingly beautiful and—I grunted and made myself focus on the large cart behind the warriors. The craft was as different from my daughter's tiny one horse cart as lizards from dragons. I dipped the helmet on the end of my lance, saluting the painted barbarian driving the thing and his fellows. The man responded with a curt nod and continued traveling south. The warriors all ignored me.

  I harrumphed, but recovered when I espied a flash of red cloth in a small cart over the next hill heading toward me in the opposite direction to the north. Those would be priests, hoping to convert the barbarian heathens in their own lands. I glanced at the sign post with the weathered words 'Sylvana' pointing back toward the village and peered after the barbarian drover as my heart swelled with imperial pride. Would a deer path in the Northern Territories boast of such a sign for a mere village or know the use of it?

  Never forget that they are a great people despite their odd beliefs, I chided myself. Why can't the warriors be literate as well as formidable? The shamans are certainly literate. Not that they would ever travel south in peacetime. Surely, there are as many books in the merchant's cart as there are in the priests' cart?

  I turned from one cart to the next as they passed each other on the road. Both groups pushed literacy for different reasons: the one to serve needy markets and the other to serve needy souls. May the five gods forgive me, I tended to favor the barbarian motives. One can only read Blessings of the Five so many times.

  I saluted the priests. They hailed from some provincial temple by the rough cut of their robes and simple design of their cart, but I still dipped my helmet near to the ground. They ignored me, too. The ignominy of it. Does nobody recognize the Hero of Jerkum Pass? I chucked the pennon and helmet into the woods from whence I came. It was a stupid custom.

  None of this was getting old Corbin any closer to the capital and proper, civilized folk. I lightly touched Krag's withers with my heels, and we followed the merchants south. The jewel of the empire lay waiting for me. There were friends waiting, too, of course. The necklace jangled against my cuirass like a tiny bell, a reminder of a past I could not quite remember.

  Ah Corbin, you're getting senile in your old age. The bright sunshine soaked up all worries. I closed my eyes as the ring kept rattling, pulling the reins as Krag approached the end of the field and the next stretch of woods. The tiny bell eased and then silenced. There's another story here , I thought, smiling, and I can't wait to hear it. One of my friends waiting for me in the capital will remember the story of the ring, but I must be subtle.

  Can't have the scuttlebutt going around that old Corbin was losing his mind. “Names and faces,” I muttered, massaging my brain with metal fingers as I tried to recall the details of the letters I had read last night, trying to match each letter to an image in my mind. Most of those names had visited our house at one point or another. “I may have forgotten a few of the old stories, but I will never dishonor their names nor forget their faces.” But despite the mantra, I could not escape the feeling more and more of my memories were slipping into an abyss. I attempted to marshal my thoughts.

  Wasn't there something else I was meant to do in the capital? Money. My penniless son-in-law is worried about money again. Heroes don't worry about money. They just save damsels in distress and hang the expense. Now why does Miranda's sweet face come to mind when I think that? Ah, the coming mage pogrom. I will die before I let those bastards lay a finger on my little girl. We just need more money to escape this blasted country. By the gods, I'm turning into my son-in-law.

  I tried to scrimp when I found an inn outside a small town for the night. Saddlebags slung over one shoulder, I nodded to the short man behind the counter in the homespun apron and examined the premises. The innkeeper appeared to keep the building trim and clean. Unlike so many roadside establishments, the plaster on these walls had a fresh coat of lime, the wooden floorboards had been recently swept, and sprigs of dried herbs hung from the rafters, giving the place a pleasant aroma of thyme and rosemary .

  I sniffed the air and smiled. Then I coughed and made my face smooth. Surely, a doughty old soldier would not derive pleasure from a room scented with anything but beer and beef? I smacked one of the dried bouquets aside and approached the counter.

  The man startled, then gave my face a second, discerning glance as I stepped into the lamp light.

  “The Hero of Jerkum Pass at my little inn,” the little man bubbled. “Welcome, sir. A thousand welcomes! Will you be staying long?”

  At last! A proper hero's welcome. “Only one night, my good man.” I set my saddlebags down and slid a handful of coppers across the polished, wooden counter.

  A warm, metal color gleaming in the wood gave me pause. A large brass edifice sat on one end of the counter with its odd-shaped singular backwards spiraling dial pointing up. I leaned forward to examine my reflection in the mirror surface as the innkeeper pocketed most of my coins and slid two back across the counter.

  “Will you be wanting fresh fodder for your horse this evening, sir?” the man asked, his fingers still on the coins.

  I nodded. The man slid the coins into his hand with a happy little sigh.

  The ring clanged against my curiass and the brass box hummed at me and the dial dropped. A magic detector, then, which I had assumed presented no danger of
detecting me. Miranda had explained that the machines responded best and absorbed fresh cast, direct attack spells. Passive magic wrapped in a talisman in close contact with the spell's recipient should not trigger much of an effect.

  Still, the stupid thing hummed. Did the innkeeper look nervous? I rapped my knuckles on the brass and moved the dial to its original position. “Old model here,” I said. “Seems in want of some repair.”

  “They're heavy to move, sir, and repair costs dear.”

  An old story flashed through my mind. In the days of my youth, I had strapped one of these infernal contraptions to my back once. Then I lugged the thing into battle and saved the day. I reached over and patted the brass edifice, keeping the ring at a distance. “Heavy indeed. I know from personal experience.”

  The innkeeper nodded and turned to select a key off the rack behind the counter. He offered it to me.

  “No need to ready a room.” I waved him away and flashed a smile that was unfortunately more gums than teeth. “I'll bunk down with my horse. Done it often enough on past campaigns.”

  “Past campaigns, sir?” He placed a disturbing emphasis on the word 'past.' The little man dusted the wood with the corner of his apron as his eyes flickered past my tin dress armor and ornate cape. I could see the obvious thoughts marching through his skull. I was dressed more for a ball than a battle. “Surely, you cannot expect us to house a gentlemen of your mature years and advanced . . .”

  Just what is he implying? I propped my elbows on the counter and glared at the innkeeper. It was the dark, cloudy expression I borrowed from my son-in-law. The skinny, little miser always looked like a storm was about to break across his face when he caught someone in the family daring to spend coins instead of earning them. I had certainly seen that glare often enough to mimic it: those hooded eyes, that angry, slanted brow, and a forehead you could use as a washboard .

  “ . . . stature,” the man coughed, “with the horses? The Hero of Jerkum Pass cannot sleep in a barn.”