Ironfoot

by Dave Duncan

  “Who told you that?” I asked.

  “Squire Kenric. He was annoyed that he missed seeing Archibald struck down at dinner. He was part of the priest’s escort, attending his knight. He had to stay and tend to his horse, so he missed the meal. The rest I just worked out for myself. It was so obvious that I thought you had seen it and didn’t care as long as you had Randolf ’s confession.”

  “You didn’t think to warn me when I went upstairs with her?”

  For once William hesitated. Then he admitted, “I thought you were collecting hush money. And I certainly wasn’t about to stop you cuckolding my sire.”

  So Matilda had been telling the truth about the priest, or largely telling the truth. I had misled the king. And I should have seen that the priest was lying. He’d implied that both Archibald and Rolf had died from the same poison, which wasn’t true. I’d missed that, too.

  “Then everything’s explained except the missing wine flask,” I said. “Matilda says she left it here so that Archibald wouldn’t get suspicious. So . . . so that evening, or the next day, whenever it was that she told Randolf, he realized that anyone entering the sanctum—the replacement sage, most likely—might suffer the same fate, and that would scream ‘Poison!’ to everyone. Or else, when he decided to poison the new sage himself and came here to get the nightshade . . . That doesn’t make sense. Why did he not just take the flask that Udela had poisoned? Why take a new poison for Rolf?”

  William shrugged. “Because it was already half empty?”

  “No . . . probably because of that tomb-effigy bottler, Wacian. If his precious flask number seven had turned up beside Rolf ’s deathbed instead of here in the sanctum, he would have complained to the countess that the world must be coming to an end and they wouldn’t have needed me to tell them what was going on. Randolf knew it was poisoned and didn’t want the wine restored to the general supply, so he probably just dropped the bottle in the privy outside.” Even a murderer could have some decency in him, perhaps.

  William was happy again. “So my new brother or sister will be a priest’s get?”

  “Worse than that,” I said. “A child of incest. Randolf and Matilda are first cousins. That was why she was so frightened of bearing his child and why he murdered the boy Colby. The Church will usually overlook a priest’s fornication, but first cousins are within the fourth degree of consanguinity. His career would be ruined if their affair became known.”

  Someone hammered on the door. I sat down at the table as William went to answer, combing his hair with his fingers. He barked “Wait!” to stop the visitor just barging in, and turned to me. “William, Baron Weldon, Adept.” His eyes were ablaze with mirth.

  “Admit His Lordship, of course!” I stood up and bowed as the weather-beaten graybeard bounced in. “My abode is honored,” I said. This was going to be a dramatic family reunion. I would happily watch, but I vowed not to get involved.

  That decision was not contested, for the king’s chief forester barely glanced at me before turning to address his son, who had closed the door.

  “See where your contumacy has landed you—flunky for a Saxon clerk! Have you no honor, no shame, no sense of your ancestry?”

  “It was your idea to—”

  “Silence! I was utterly appalled when I was asked if I was any relation to William Legier, the adept’s helper from Helmdon. Your brothers will probably kill you.”

  “They’ve all tried before now,” William said with a smirk. “I’m ready whenever they are.”

  “Well, even though you have no honor, I still do. I have decided to give you one more chance. Since His Grace has conferred a barony on me, I shall need a larger train. I’ll take you on as squire again, but strictly on probation, understand? One word of back talk and I’ll disown you completely.”

  If this was the sort of treatment young William had been forced to put up with in the past from a tyrannical popinjay of a father, I could reconsider my past judgment of him. Any lad of spirit would fight back against that sort of humiliation, and his options had been very limited at Helmdon. I held my breath, waiting to hear him reveal the truth about Lady Matilda, his future stepmother; then the tables would be thoroughly turned. Evidently he wasn’t quite ready yet:

  “I thought you’d taken the king to Rockingham for some hunting?”

  “His Grace changed his mind when he saw the flooding. He is returning to Winchester, and I shall join him there right after my marriage. You will accompany me.” Baron Weldon glanced disapprovingly around the sanctum. “In fact you will come away with me immediately, this instant.”

  William strolled over to the corner, picked up the broom that stood there, and began to sweep the floor in front of the fireplace, where chips of bark and stray ash had collected. This was undoubtedly the humblest task he could find at the moment, the best way to infuriate his father even more.

  “No,” he said. “I won’t. I’m going back to Helmdon with Adept Durwin to complete my training in philosophy, as you instructed me.”

  The elder William spat out some obscenities that I prefer not to remember. He almost screamed, “You will do as I say!”

  Young William continued to sweep the floor, progressing until he was working around his father’s feet. Now I knew how he had honed his ability to unhinge the sages at Helmdon.

  The madder and louder the father became, the quieter the son did. William was obviously happy at the way the discussion was going. I still expected him to denounce Matilda at any minute, but still he didn’t.

  When at last the baron paused for breath, the squire said, “I am doing exactly what you said, Father. ‘Go back there and finish what you started for once,’ were the exact words you used.”

  “I am giving you fresh orders!”

  “You can’t. You signed a contract with the academy. As long as I do as I am told there, or accept punishment when I don’t, they cannot evict me. And you can’t withdraw me without breach of contract. That would be right, wouldn’t it, Adept?”

  “Absolutely,” I said, although I had no idea what the contract’s actual terms were. “Your son is the most promising recruit to come along in years, my lord, and the academy will resist to the full extent of the law any effort to remove him. As I told the king this morning—”

  William Senior had no interest in my legal expertise. He went back to screaming at his son. “Ingrate! Serpent in my breast! The worst cur won’t bite the hand that feeds it as you do. I disown you—”

  “Then go to Hell,” William said, raising the broom like a club and advancing on him.

  The noise of Baron Weldon slamming the door was probably audible all the way to Northampton. The building shook with the violence of his departure. My squire and I looked at each other and then burst into laughter.

  “You mean it?” I asked.

  He grinned. “Absolutely. I shall obey my dear daddy’s orders. I shall grovel on my knees to Dandelion Head and Sage Guy and swear to be a model pupil in the future.”

  “I am glad! You’ll make an incredible sage. What changed your mind?”

  He shrugged and went to replace the broom. “Watching you. I decided that if a lopsided, lowborn Saxon dung-shoveler can learn to work miracles, then I certainly can. Satan take me if I don’t graduate sage before you do, Adept Durwin of Pipewell.”

  I doubted he could quite achieve that, but underestimating William Legier was never wise. I said, “You’re on! I am delighted. And if your father refuses to pay your fees, then I will, out of the money the king gave me, because I couldn’t have done all this without your help.”

  William snorted. “You really are soft in the head, but I’ll take over your stable duties. How soon can we leave?”

  Then my nightmare returned. I sat down.

  After a moment William joined me at the table. “What’s wrong?”

  “You are. You didn’t tell your father the truth about Matilda.”

  “Oh, I will. After the wedding.” He grinned diabolically. Re
venge must be very sweet after a lifetime of frustration.

  “Have you forgotten the fifth commandment?”

  He pouted. “I couldn’t honor my mother because I never knew her, and my father has never honored me.”

  “The commandment only says that you must honor him, not that he must honor you. The implication is that you must earn his respect. William, you are going to let your father marry a killer who still owns enough poison to kill again, perhaps several times. Suppose he dies soon after the wedding? Your eldest brother will inherit the baronetcy, but I’m sure she’s negotiated a big chunk of everything else to support her and raise her son. Will you be able to live with yourself after that? Will you be able to face your brothers or make confession?”

  “Why would she do that? She’s won herself a home in London. Her husband’s a valued servant of the crown, with all the social status and corruption opportunities that brings. Why throw it all away by risking another murder?”

  “That’s the sane way to think,” I retorted. “But she poisoned Archibald because he tricked her into bed. I don’t like your father’s chances of ever seeing her child born.”

  William glared at me, teeth bared. “And what do you suggest I do about it? Go and tell my father his bride murders people? Tell him she’s a slut and half the knights in Barton have broken a lance with her? He will never believe me. The priest confessed to all the killings. You’ve already told the king so. How can you back away from that now?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I do know that I must try. If I can find a way, will you help me?”

  He sat for a few minutes in rebellious silence, arms folded, teeth clenched. Then he said, “I suppose I must. The thought of Arnolph becoming a baron makes me puke. But I’ve got to see my sire’s face when he finds out.”

  I handed him one of the grimoires and took another for myself. “Start looking, then. The answer’s got to be in one of these.”

  chapter 36

  it must have been an hour or longer, and we were both into a second spell book when William said, “Does Oculos deceptus mean what I think it does?” I saw that he was working his way through The Wisdom of Abbot Tomas, which contained a lot of very dark spells. They scared me and I would have forbidden him that grimoire had I thought of it in time.

  “‘Eyes deceived.’ What are you thinking?”

  “They won’t believe you if you try to denounce the bawdy baroness now,” he said. “And they certainly wouldn’t believe me. Who would they believe?”

  I knew enough by then to shiver when William Legier grinned that way.

  We literally put our heads together so we could both read through Oculos deceptus.

  “You are utterly out of your skull,” I said.

  “No. Think about it.”

  “Look at these glosses in the margin! Six, no seven, of them, and all disparaging. It doesn’t work in sunlight, that’s obvious. And most of them say the result isn’t believable even by candlelight. ‘Mountebank trickery, no more.’ ‘Good only to deceive children in a churchyard at midnight.’ And here, ‘The image ripples.’”

  “That’s what we want, isn’t it?”

  “Matilda’s not going to fall on her knees and howl out a confession. She may be young but she’s tough as chain mail, much tougher than Randolf.”

  “She’s not the one we’re trying to warn off. My sire is. He’s gullible. If he sees a black cat, he runs home to bed and stays there for the rest of the day.”

  For the third or fourth time I said, “It’d never work!”

  An hour later I was still saying that, but William had the bit between his teeth by then and there was no stopping him. He kept telling me to suggest something better and I couldn’t. He also reminded me that I was the one who’d insisted we must warn his father. I protested that the count would hang us.

  “He won’t dare hang you, now you’re one of the king’s men. The priest lied to everyone, but we can’t make people believe it. This will.”

  I could feel myself weakening. Oculos deceptus was a Release spell, meaning that it could be chanted in advance and then activated by speaking a single phrase, like pulling the trigger on a crossbow. So in theory we could spring it at any time, but the chances that we could make it work at all were very slim. I could see no trip wires in it, perhaps because the scribe had considered it too trivial to guard.

  “We’d need help, because we don’t know what Archibald looked like.” I did know what he’d sounded like, though.

  William admitted the point with a frown. “Um . . . who, though? Who could we possibly trust?”

  We were saved from having to solve that problem just then by a hearty thump on the door. William opened it and invited the visitors to enter: the brothers from Stane, Kendryck and Kenric. The sanctum was suddenly crowded.

  “We have come,” Kendryck proclaimed in sepulchral tones, “to invite you to join a wake before all the ale gets drunk.” The normally ebullient Saxon looked and sounded as if he had only hours to live. His squire was no more cheerful.

  “Bad news?” I asked.

  “Terrible. The king has ordered the castle razed. The stockade has to be torn down, the moat filled in, the keep demolished.”

  I felt no guilt. My counsel to the king had been lukewarm, but what I had said would have made no difference. He had known exactly how he was going to decide before he even left Northampton. He had probably been surprised to learn that any private castle, even a tiny one like Barton, had survived his purge. Who did Count Richard think he was? Why did he need a fortress manned by so many knights and men-at-arms in the very center of England when the kingdom was at peace?

  “Did you ever think he would decide otherwise?” I asked.

  Young Kenric nodded, but his brother shook his head sadly.

  “Probably not. He’s done it to thousands of others. But what are we to do, huh—Kenric and me? There isn’t a decent war going on anywhere in Christendom just now. Turn our swords into plowshares and teach my destrier to pull a hay wain?”

  “You’re good at jousting,” William said. “Kenric told me.”

  “Huh! That’s a hard way to make a living—one loss and there went your horse and armor.”

  Jousting back then was not what it has become since. It was much less formal, usually a general melee, close to a real battle. Men could be mutilated or killed. The prizes might be good, but I suspected that Sir Kendryck would have trouble hanging on to his winnings for long. Brewers and trollops would empty his purse in very short order.

  “The king of Jerusalem is always happy to swear in good knights to kill Saracens,” I suggested.

  The brothers looked at each other and mirrored each other’s miraculous joy.

  “Hey!” Kendryck roared. “What did I tell you? King Harry knows a good sage when he sees one.” He thumped his squire’s shoulder hard enough to make the lad stagger. “Let’s go and drink to loads of dead heathens.”

  “We’ll try and join you later,” I said untruthfully. “Right now William and I have some serious work to do.”

  “Glad I never have to do that. Come on, then, killer, let’s go and empty a keg or two.” Knight and squire disappeared out the door.

  William closed it. “Matilda’s making a smart move—getting out of here before it’s demolished, I mean. She may be crazy but she isn’t stupid.”

  “She’s cunning as a vixen. Let’s leave the problem of an accomplice until later. Kendryck would be my last choice. Let’s see if we think this incantation is worth the parchment it’s written on.”

  “We have time enough, don’t we?” William sounded wistful at being deprived of the chance to get roaring drunk with some like-minded thugs. “If the wedding isn’t until next week, we have several days to plot our move.”

  I admit I was tempted. I had no desire to join in any mass carouse, and I doubted there was enough ale in the county for what Kendryck was planning, but a horn or two of the stuff would have gone down nicely about then. Co
unt Richard and his men might have much to mourn; my day had been one long triumph. Before I could change my mind, we were interrupted by yet another knock on the door.

  “Nice to be popular,” William grumbled, going to answer. “Sir Bertrand! Enter, sir, and welcome.”

  The steward stepped over the threshold, but no closer, so the door remained open. His manner implied he was not planning to stay, and the way he glanced around at the crocodile and other gimcrackery suggested that they worried him. That might not mean much, because I had never seen him not look worried.

  I had risen in respect for a man older than myself and a senior member of my host’s household. “You honor us, sir. How may I help you?”

  He glanced at the slate he was holding. “A couple of requests from Her Ladyship, Adept. Firstly, she wonders if you would be kind enough to sing a suitable ballad at her daughter’s wedding tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” William and I said in unison, and our emphasis made the steward jump.

  “Oh, you haven’t heard? There has been a change of plan. The king decided to head south instead of going to Rockingham as he had previously announced. So Count Richard and Baron Weldon—and the rest of their trains, all of them—have returned, and the wedding has been brought forward so that her husband can resume attendance on His Grace as expeditiously as possible. The baroness will follow as soon as can be arranged. Meanwhile, the bishop has agreed to officiate and the wedding will be celebrated in All Saints on Saturday, that is to say tomorrow. And the countess—”

  “I shall be honored to sing at Baroness Matilda’s wedding.” Even as I spoke I knew that William had persuaded me to support his crazy plan, and the two of us were going to do our utmost to see that there would be no wedding. “And the second thing?”

  “Oh, the family will have an informal celebration this evening in the parlor after supper: count and countess, baron and baroness, and so on. Her Ladyship asks if you would chant a blessing over the happy couple.”

  The bishop blessing their union in the church the next day would certainly refuse to let the proceedings include what he would see as blasphemous nonsense from a shyster magician. But it wasn’t much more than two centuries since these Normans’ ancestors had burned and slaughtered in the name of Odin and Thor; even yet some memories of the Old Ones lurked in the shadows at the back of their minds.