Knight Quests

by C. C. Wiley

  He sucked in the fresh air, tasted the salty tang on his tongue, and braced for Sir Darrick’s barbed words.

  “You’ll keep no secrets from me, Drem. Of this, I warn you.”

  “Aye,” he said. “I recall that conversation.” He leaned his arms on the railing and looked out across the rolling waves. The brooch and torn badge were etched on his mind. The reason for his trip to Dunstable Priory weighed heavy on his conscience. But he would keep his own counsel until he understood their meaning.

  * * *

  Days later, Drem joined the king’s soldiers and mounted up when Sir Darrick lifted his hand. There would be time for them to ride, a day or two to gain a foothold in the town of Harfleur. Once the town was captured, the stronghold would give them the defenses they needed. Then they would gain control of Paris or Calais. Then all of France.

  After ensuring that his longbow remained wrapped, protected from the drizzling rain, Drem settled into the saddle. He glanced back at the wagons. The archery boys would march together until they made camp. They would have plenty of time to practice before the real battles with the French would commence. Each would continue to be tested. Ten accurate shots in a minute. No easy feat. But he would ensure all who were able would be ready.

  Four days of riding, marching, and avoiding the French army. Four days to find their land legs. Four days to get over the seasickness that plagued so many of the men. The challenge had begun.

  * * *

  Brigitte did her best to change the way they looked and made short work of securing replacements for their own clothing. Piers had wanted to leave behind his old, threadbare shirt as payment, but she would not hear of it. They could not leave a trail for them to be followed.

  “Quiet, mon ami.” She wrapped her arms around his thin shoulders. They may have escaped Alexandre’s Nest, but they were not out of his control.

  They would have to bide their time before returning for the bag of coins she had hidden earlier.

  Something had made Alexandre wary of her movements. Somehow, he knew she could not be trusted.

  Weeks before, she had begun noticing one of Alexandre’s fledglings follow her from one stop to the next. She had felt the little one’s eyes on her, had even cut back a few extra times to try to trap him. When he’d scurried back to report her activities, she knew it was time to make another attempt at escaping the Nest. Once she knew she was safe from prying eyes, she had taken out a few coins to pad her account and then filled the third bag with a few coins to appease Alexandre when he decided she’d cheated him. Her plan had not included the shower of coins raining over Alexandre’s head, nor had it included Piers.

  Improvisations.

  Master Alexandre hated when she deviated from his plans. If he caught up with them, he would make her pay dearly. But trusting her instincts had kept her alive for this long. She thought she would continue listening to them until they failed her.

  Brigitte drew up, pressing her back against the brick wall. The market was bustling with busy shoppers. The sweet smells from the patisserie made her stomach grind with hunger. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was only a few days away. The women of the houses, their purses fat with money, were making their purchases for the holiday. Alexandre and his little fledglings would be very busy lifting all they could from the unsuspecting victims of chance.

  “Piers, turn very carefully and tell me if you see them,” Brigitte whispered.

  He peeked out from the folds of the charwoman’s apron Brigitte now wore. She had lifted it and the faded gray gown from the line of clothes hanging out to dry. It had been an extra blessing when Piers handed her a kerchief to cover her dark hair. She had thought to wear boy’s clothing but nothing fit. People were more apt to distrust a poorly dressed boy.

  Piers pushed the cap away from his face. The color was a striking match with his blue eyes.

  “Lucie is over yonder, by the fat lady haggling with the poulterer. She’s about to lift one of the eggs.” He muffled a chuckle. “Hope she doesn’t drop ’em this time.” He chortled. “She made a mess of it before, didn’t she?”

  “Hush!” Brigitte warned. “We don’t want anyone to notice us.”

  Shifting the basket they’d found on the tavern stoop, she gripped it close and struck out along the corridor of merchants selling their wares. They marched through the market square and headed for the outer wall. They could not leave the city until Brigitte returned for the cache of coins hidden right outside Master Alexandre’s door.

  The bells began tolling. Brigitte looked up at the sky, confused. Too early to call in the worshippers.

  Claudette, the old woman who took in laundry, ran past. Her eyes were wide with fear. “English soldiers are marching this way.” She grabbed at Brigitte’s wrist. “Come quick. Hide while you can.”

  * * *

  English ships blocked the harbor, cutting off Harfleur’s port. Despite Raoul de Gaucourt’s efforts to flood the land outside the walls, the English continued to pour over the fields and lay siege.

  Brigitte walked with the masses of infirm, who had been ordered to go out through the gate. Master Alexandre must have had the mayor’s ear again, advising him to send out the ailing for the enemy to deal with. The townspeople believed Gaucourt would be their defender against the horde of English curs. But there was a shiftiness in his eyes that made her skin prickle with apprehension. She would wager her last coin that he served only those who lined his own pockets and advanced his position.

  She slipped off to the shadows, working her way past the sick and dying. The wagons that carried the English army’s food supplies were not far. The foolish soldiers had thoughtlessly stopped them in the bog. Soon their wheels were mired up to their axles in mud. It would require a force of men to pry them from the sticky hold.

  A pity for the soldiers. A prize for her.

  The vision of Master Alexandre gnawing on an old chicken bone haunted her. If he found her again, it would be her bones he would devour.

  All the more reason to snatch some supplies before everyone ran out of food. They would have their stomachs filled and she would have bargaining power. Power was everything. Master Alexandre had taught her that much. ’Twas why he made sure his fledglings were the ones doing the stealing for him. He did not know it yet, but he was about to discover that he was not the only one with power in Harfleur.

  The driving rain kept the men huddled together like a pack of wolves on the cold, wet ground. The privileged, those born with title and power, had tents to keep their pretty arses warm and dry. She imagined those were the ones who would not notice anyone out in the rain. It was the miserable soldiers, those who knew how to fight for their food, who might give her trouble. She gave them all a wide berth until she reached one of the wagons.

  The bog sucked and smacked with each step. She kicked free from the mud’s grasping fingers and slipped under the canvas covering the wagon. On her hands and knees, she felt along the wooden planking.

  Her heart sank. There were no treasures to be found. Piers would whimper another night in his sleep.

  Only a few handfuls of grain left in their sacks. She stuffed the pockets in her skirt with the grain. Her hand bumped against something hard. She sniffed it. Sausage!

  The bounty clutched to her chest, she slipped over the side of the wagon. The savory scent of the meat tempted her to keep the treasure to herself. Her stomach grumbled in protest. Fearing someone would recognize that sound of hunger, she inched her way to the hidden passage in the wall. It would be so easy to turn away. To run from the town of Harfleur. That monster, Alexandre. But Piers was too young to fend for himself outside the Nest. He needed her until she found a safe haven. Just until then. And until she had retrieved her things hidden in the Nest.

  Her breath caught, her throat squeezing against the instinct to scream. A soldier walked toward her. In the driving rain? Did the lumbering ox have no sense to huddle with the other masses? Oh, why had he chosen this moment?


  Calling on the street skills she had learned as one of Master Alexandre’s fledglings, she blended into the thorny bushes. The folds of the cloak, wrapped tight against the wind and rain, made her undetectable. Rule One: blend in.

  Reaching down, she plucked up a handful of mud and smeared it slowly across her face. The hood over her head, she pressed into the wall and closed her eyes. The sound of his footsteps were heavy. They became louder as he drew near. Her heart hammered against her ribs. When he paused in front of her, she was certain he would hear it.

  She peeked out as he turned. He towered over her, making her stretch her neck to see his face. The rain had plastered his hair to his head. Dark auburn streaked across his cheeks. His lips were full and cut into a grim line. Green eyes, decorated with smile creases that belied his miserable countenance, searched where she stood.

  Then he shook out his cloak from his broad shoulders. Water sprayed from his head and body. A deep sigh carried the weight and consequences of his life. He turned to carry on his patrol.

  Brigitte shivered. The air in her lungs screamed to be released and she slowly let out her breath. Had he seen her? Had he set a trap for her?

  She waited until the cold dripped through her hood. Rain seeped into her shoes. Muscles aching from inactivity, she hobbled to the crevice cut into the wall.

  The dark tunnel held other dangers, but no more than what stood inside and outside Harfleur’s gate. She prayed for guidance to avoid the spiderwebs and began the journey back to the boy.

  * * *

  How many days would they be forced to sit outside the walls of Harfleur? When Drem had decided to pick up his weapons and pace the confines of the camp he had thought it would clear his brain. Instead, it must have fogged his mind, making him see things moving in the shadows. Did the French have faeries hidden in their lands? Were they mystical like the lands of Wales? That must be it, for he was certain he had seen a faerie floating over the bog. That had to be the answer, for no one would be able to walk on the thick mud without being pulled under. Too much like the bogs of Wales he remembered. The damn stuff would be the death of the Welsh, of that he was certain.

  He shook off the shiver that tickled its way up his spine. At one point he even thought someone had peered out at him, but when he’d blinked again it was gone. Perhaps his head was still jumbled from the attack in Southampton. The burning debris from King Henry’s ship had given his skull a mighty large knot.

  Drem felt for the blade hanging at his hip. He did not carry his broadsword. Damn thing was too heavy to wear on an evening stroll in a storm. The blade he wore tonight was half the size of his fighting sword. It gave him comfort knowing it was by his side.

  He continued his prowl, letting the relentless rain pelt him in the face. The muscles around his eyes twitched until he drew in a breath and focused on removing the frown burrowing between his brows.

  When the rain soaked into his leather jerkin and bore into his underclothing, he called pax and returned to camp. He sat beside the men to warm his hands over the fire.

  Steam swirled from their shoulders, heads, and hands. No one was safe from the drenching rain. Even the men in the makeshift infirmary were damp from the leaking tents.

  What reason did they have for staying here? Why not move on to Calais? Or Paris? This far from home, from England, they needed a base. Harfleur was that base. They had laid siege to the town as soon as they arrived. The parameter of the outer wall was squeezed until nothing could enter or leave. And they waited for the moment until the people began to give in to their demands. This, after they did not receive the welcome Henry had hoped. Henry looked at the claiming of France as his birthright. Isn’t this what they had fought for over the last years? However, the people of Harfleur did not see it in the same light. They saw it as an invasion, not a deliverance from the useless, mad king of France.

  “How much longer?” The soldier next to him poked the fire with a stick. “We’d do best to launch the trebuchets and burn them out.”

  Drem looked up from the fire. “You think you know more than those who command us? Have you information they do not?”

  The soldier rose, tossing the stick into the flames. Embers scattered in the air. “I know we are dying off. Better to move on than die of dysentery.”

  “Aye,” another groused. “I swear the fekkin’ French are sending out the ones with the pox, stealing our food and infecting us before they go.”

  The soldier squatting next to him spat in the dirt and rose. “I’d rather die with a pike in my gut.”

  Silence stretched over the remaining men. Awareness of who sat with them at the fire made them increasingly uncomfortable. Isolation was not an uncommon event. Drem had known it the first day he was taken from his family. A Welsh boy in an English army found it difficult to make friends. But soon he was honored as a skilled bowman. An archer the young Prince of Wales admired. And now that Henry was King of England and soon to be of Normandy and then France, he appreciated his skill even more. But that was not all that kept Drem separate from the other men.

  Although the burns on his head and hands were healing and the bandages were no longer needed, there was a strangeness about him that kept the men at arm’s length. He’d heard the stories about his involvement in the attack on the king’s ships in Southampton. The men whispered, unwilling to trust in his innocence, eyeing him warily. Drem ap Dafydd, son of the traitor, Dafydd ap Hew. The man who plotted with Owain Glyndr and the French. All but the king’s select knights regarding him with as much distrust as the person who brought the plague into a castle. Those men gave him a chance to prove his worth. Once. Now, they, too, even after delivering the king’s offer of freedom, regarded him with an unreasonable dislike and distrust.

  There was much to be said for moving on. Although his jerkin was barely dry, he took his own advice and searched out the few men who did know what the king planned. Drem had to make them aware of the restlessness.

  He found the king’s men ensconced in a tent. They fared little better than the rest. He had to admire that they did not demand special treatment, even though most were knighted or held a position as lord of a castle.

  Drem knew his place. He’d been a boy from the Welsh countryside and barely admitted into their midst. Had he not saved those on the king’s ship, he would be one of the archers laid out in the open, enduring the never-ending rains.

  Sir Darrick looked up from the maps stretched out on the table and waved him close. “Drem. Come.”

  Drem hesitated, waiting to see if the rest of the men welcomed him. His belly was full of dread and he was wearily hungry for food. It made the decision for him, pushing him forward. The information he had to deliver would be unwelcome.

  Nathan swept his hand through dark auburn waves of wet hair. “Best get in here before lightning strikes your arse.”

  Drem noted the sparkle of humor hidden beneath the comment. “Not the first time I get a jolt.”

  “Right. Must be what made you addlepated and think you could go off on your own,” Nathan muttered.

  The men bent over the map rose, cocking their heads to listen to Drem’s response. His skin itched, warning him to tread lightly. “Aye. I don’t wish to repeat that mistake.” He stepped into the tent. The relief to be out of the rain was palpable. He caught the sigh before it embarrassed him. What he would give to stretch out like a cat in front of the brazier heating the tent. Instead, he warmed his hands and joined the men huddled over the map.

  At Sir Darrick’s nod, the map disappeared almost as quickly, rolled tightly into a tube and tucked away. Once again, an uncomfortable silence stretched inside the tent. Drem squashed the pain it caused him. There had to be a way to regain their trust.

  “Sir Nathan.” Drem bobbed his head, tilting his chin away from the group. “A word, if you please.”

  He stood in the corner of the tent, as far from the brooding men as it allowed, and waited for Nathan to join him. It might cause him more trouble, bu
t he had to share the soldiers’ concerns. It appeared Nathan was the only knight in their encampment who seemed to believe in his innocence. At least he hoped this was the truth.

  Nathan’s frown deepened. His brow furrowed. “What is it that you can’t speak of among all of us?”

  Drem swallowed. He should have left things as they were. But if they were to succeed, the commanders of the army had to know what really went on among the ranks.

  “We have to make a move,” Drem said.

  “I know the men are restless.”

  “They are more than that. They’re hungry.”

  “Then we’ll bring in more food.”

  “There’s sickness. It’s spreading.”

  “We’re aware. What would you have us do? We can’t march a sick lot of men.”

  “Sir Nathan, I hear the talk.”

  Drem flinched when the knight grabbed his shoulder. “If we are to be brothers, you’ll need to call me by my given name.”

  “Autumn is near upon us.” Testing the waters, Drem added, “Nathan. Morale is failing. The men are missing their families. If we’re to move, it should be soon.”

  Nathan folded his arms, glaring into his face. “The king decides.”

  “I know. ’Tis himself I have followed all these years.” Drem gripped the hilt of his blade. “My honor should not be at stake here.”

  Nathan sighed. “It’s not, lad. Not with me. But you need to fix it with the others.”

  “My father—”

  “—is a man who doesn’t deserve even the sweat off your arse.”

  “I can’t condone what he’s done. Nor can I ignore it. His actions have brought suffering on my family.”

  “Aye, and we all remember how you came to us. We wonder how we would feel toward Henry if we were abducted from our families. We carry that bit of doubt, wondering if we would be as strong as you. And therein lies the trouble. The doubt is where the fear resides. We would forever feel the need to retaliate. What better opportunity than when you are in the safety of those closest to the king?”