by Peter Telep
Christopher watched his father pull on his breeches and shirt, then followed him barefoot down stairs and outside into the road.
Airell was still. Even his twitching arm was frozen now. Christopher helped his father remove the knight’s armor, then link-mail, pulling the latter slowly over the man’s head. As Sanborn removed Airell’s belt, Christopher yanked one of the knight’s boots off, then another. Sanborn pulled Airell into a sitting position, leaned down, and hoisted the man over his shoulder. Christopher was surprised at his father’s strength, but knew from the small grunts he made that the feat wouldn’t last long.
“Get the door!” Sanborn shouted, shambling with his load, knees buckling. Christopher ran ahead and held it open for his father.
Airell was set down on a small pile of dry straw in the rear comer of the house. Cornelia removed his shirt and cleansed his wounds with warm, damp rags. With some fine threads of leather from Sanborn’s bench, she stitched a deep gash on the side of his neck, then a long cut which snaked down his fore arm. Another more severe puncture in his chest she managed to close, but what lay beneath made every one fear the worst. She applied cool mud to the wounds, then covered them with damp linen rags. Airell slept.
Outside, Christopher gathered some of Airell’s armor. He reached down and picked up the bascinet, unable to resist the temptation to place it on his head. He belched out a warrior’s cry and struck an invisible invader with his air sword. Helmet still on, he entered the house.
“Take that off!” his father commanded.
Startled, Christopher quickly did, then moved to the comer where Airell was and set his first load down. The armor was heavy!
“Come here, Christopher,” his father said. Solemnly, Sanborn noted for his son’s benefit, “The spoils of a knight.”
The cuts on Airell’s face gave him a twisted, mani acal look. His head hung down at his shoulder and saliva drooled from his mouth onto his chest. His arm jittered again, and his eyelids fluttered. In this state, Christopher thought him a vision from black sleep-fearful, haunting.
During the day, Christopher did chores, then visited the qmrch with his mother. They prayed for Airell, and heard the abbot’s telling of the attack on Sir Hasdale’s castle. Afterward, Christopher studied the strange carvings of beasts on the chapel’s outer walls. As always, he got lost in the pictures and Cornelia had to pull him away. When they returned, Sanborn reported that Airell had not stirred all day, despite Sanborn’s hammering.
While his parents talked of the siege, Christopher sat watch over Airell. The knight fought a nightmare battle in his head, and murmurs of commands escaped from him as his head jerked from side to side. Christopher was so rapt by this sudden display that he did not inform his parents, but continued to watch, drawing what he could out of whisper and thrust of hand.
“Garrett,” Airell repeated, “Garrett.”
Who is Garrett? Christopher wondered.
Airell’s eyes opened, and his face mirrored some great agony. “AHHHHHHHHH!”
Sanborn and Cornelia were silenced by Airell’s call. They hurried to his side.
Out of breath, the knight was conscious, eyeing his sanctuary. “I-I apologize for my outburst. I am Airell.”
“You fought a battle,” Christopher said. “Did you win?”
Cornelia shot her son a fierce look. Christopher lowered his head.
“We drove them out. But … we took great losses.
Sir Hasdale’s sister … she’s dead.”
Cornelia and Sanborn, knowing this, nodded rever ently. Christopher, on the other hand, wanted to know more of the battle, every cry, every rise of shield. He could feel that desire tingling in his fin gers, but knew he had to repress it. Maybe later he could speak to Airell alone.
“You need a meal,” Cornelia said, then moved to her mud oven.
Sanborn leaned close to Airell’s ear to let the knight in on a secret. “You’ll find my wife’s cooking rivals that of the castle’s cooks. She’ll not disap point.” Sanborn winked.
Airell tried to sit up, but the effort was futile.
By nightfall, their houseguest was back into a troubled sleep. Christopher rolled over repeatedly in his bed. How could he rest with a great knight just below him? His desire to sneak downstairs increased, kept him tossing, thinking, considering his next move. But while doing that he still remained in bed, though not translating into action, but into anticipation and fear.
Sometime later it began to rain. Droplets tinkled off the roof; large streams poured off the edges and splattered on the street below, almost loud enough to cover his father’s snoring. Christopher listened. Somewhere in the distance a horse cantered along, then was gone. The rooster cried a false alarm from the yard. The din became heavier. More rain. More restlessness.
There was a dream that came and went. Christopher could hardly remember the details. It woke him, though, and chills drove their points home along his spine. He sat up, rubbed sleep grit from his eyes, yawned, then padded his way downstairs in darkness. As timbers below protested his weight, Christopher made his way to the sleeping knight. Airell’s face was in shadow as Christopher approached. He reached down and stroked the knight’s bascinet, conquering the desire to put it on once more. He drew closer to Airell, and through the dusty, static-filled air saw the knight’s eyes were locked open. Airell was breathless, still. Christopher put a hand on Airell’s shoulder, nudged him. Nothing.
Christopher drew in a breath, stepped back. His shock dissolved into sorrow. He could not take his gaze off Airell’s eyes. Those eyes would forge future time and thought, darken forever the skies of his mind with carnage.
6
Many tents dotted the green slopes of the Mendip hills, and above them, the smoke from cook fires billowed into a sky thick with gray, ominous clouds. Lord Garrett and his party of four galloped toward their camp, returning from a journey to Gloucester, down the waters of the Severn, which emptied into the Bristol channel. The morning air knifed their cheeks and steam shot from the nostrils of their coursers. Garrett felt hunger knot his stom ach and was relieved they were almost home. Home, a questionable diversion for now. He dug in with his spurs and his horse responded, kicking up more muddy grass in its wake.
Upon his arrival, his men were red-eyed and agi-tated. There was a Celt who, under truce, demanded to see Garrett, and had ferreted through the camp all last night.
“So where is this man who believes me a hiding coward and my men to be liars?” Garrett removed his bascinet, set it down at his feet. He took a heap ing spoon of pottage from a bowl handed him by one of his men and gobbled it down.
From a nearby tent, a figure glistened into sight. He was a knight banneret, and even in the darkly cast day, he shone brilliantly. His armor was freshly forged, and his bejeweled chest plates bore the blue ox of Lot of Lowthean. He was not the lord, though. A deep scar rivered from the comer of his left eye and ended midcheek, the only mar on an otherwise clear, angular face. As he strode toward Garrett, his expression blackened. Garrett choked on his pottage, coughed hard, bent over, and felt the torch in his throat finally cool. When he looked up, it was into the near-black eyes of the Celt.
Garrett cleared his throat once more, then spoke. “Have you come to rescue me again from the earthen claws of the barbarians?”
“No,” the Celt answered. “I come under orders of my lord to kill you.” The knight swallowed, and his voice cracked. “God help me.”
At the mention of his true mission, Garrett’s men were upon the Celt, circling him with sword tips and baring their teeth like wild dogs. One of the Saxons yelled, “He’s the liar! Let us take his head!”
“No!” Garrett shouted. “Leave us. Now!” Disgusted, the Saxons withdrew and dispersed.
Garrett could hear their murmurs of his “being in bed with the enemy.” He would deal with that problem later. He gestured for the Celt to walk with him down a gradually descending slope which rolled into the linger ing
mist. They began, and Garrett looked at the Celt’s face, now pale. “Haven’t the stomach for it, have you,Quinn? We’re to hold court here in my camp. Is that it? You’re a man on the ground with no weapons.”
The Celt stopped, reached down, and grabbed a gloveful of grass and wet earth. “Each day you pro claimed yourself a Saxon, another handful of this was dumped on Father’s head.”
“I love you, brother,” Garrett said, “and I hate you. I desire your cunning, your strength, ·but I despise your allegiance to a dead man whose misguided Celtic ways drove me out.”
“Don’t blame Father for your dank condition.”
Garrett clenched his fists. “You don’t know how I felt in the castle with him. You, in the north, not car ing. In his eyes, I would never cast a shadow of my own, and the land would never be mine. How many nights did I sit with the tip of an anlace under my chin, or buried my nose in a mug until ill?” Garrett raised a balled hand before Quinn. “You weren’t there.”
“But I am here now to see your rage, and how your petty jealousy has continued to oppress you,” Quinn countered.
Garrett shook his head, gritted his teeth. “You’re so wrong. I’m astride this Saxon army carrying a standard of joy. For the first time in my life, men tum to me, die for me. And in time, I will possess a land. The hands of our father are no longer on my neck.”
Quinn took his index finger and traced the scar on his face. “Remember this?”
Garrett did. He thought of the tournament, how his inadequacy as a squire had caused Quinn to lose a decisive joust. The lance he had handed his brother had a hairline crack. He had not checked it as he had been taught. Garrett’s father had known of his care lessness and had been about to beat him severely for it. Quinn had interceded, had defended Garrett by saying he had checked the lance himself and it had cracked during the joust. Garrett’s father had not
believed a word of it, and had continued toward him. Garrett remembered the tremble of impending pain as his father had reared back with the whip. Then Quinn had sprung forward and snatched the weapon from his father. The man had roared and snatched the whip back, turning- it on Quinn. Garrett consid ered how his brother had stood, slowly closing his eyes as the thin tongue of leather had licked a bloody line across his face.
Garrett answered his brother. “I would not have done it for you.”
“I know. And I tell myself that should make my duty easy, clear, without pain or guilt. But I lie. To myself. My callous heart is lost and I cannot find it. All I know is we are the last. We’re all we have in this world. As I look at you, the task is too great.”
Garrett smiled and urged his brother, “Then come. Let us not weep, but join ranks to end this tearing of hearts between us.”
Quinn’s brow raised. “You will leave the Saxons?” “You will join them?”
The two brothers stared at each other, then laughed heartily for the first time in many years. The air had turned so light between them it made Garrett want to step up and hug his brother, tell him how he had never stopped loving nor admiring him, how much he had missed him. It was so good to see Quinn, so good to share this perfect moment of dis agreement as they had so many times before.
“What can we do?” Garrett asked.
“Ride very north and join the Picts!” Quinn joked.
Garrett chuckled again, but something over Quinn’s shoulder caught his attention. Four Saxons on roun seys rose over the slope and galloped down toward them, their swords swinging high above their heads.
Quinn barely had time to tum around.
“Noooooo!” Garrett wailed with every decibel of sound his vocal cords could supply.
The blade of the first attacker skimmed horizon tally through the air and missed Quinn’s neck by inches as he shifted and ducked out of the way. But there were four of them, and as Quinn’s gaze was taken by the first man, the second brought his sword down and took Quinn’s ear off. Quinn’s agony echoed throughout the hills.
Garrett slammed his arm under the leg of the third rider and dismounted him from his steed. Growling, he found the fallen Saxon’s broadsword and slashed an artery in the traitor’s neck. A crimson flower blos somed over the man as he spun to his death.
Quinn staggered on his feet, held his bloody head, tried in vain to stop the fourth horseman, whose blow to Quinn’s chest sent him flat on his back. The three remaining Saxons climbed down and teamed up on the fallen knight, ramming their swords into the seams of Quinn’s armor, penetrating link-mail and tender flesh beneath as Garrett hustled toward them.
Intent on his killing, the first Saxon did not see Garrett’s blade rise and behead him. The two others fell away from Quinn and steadied their weapons. One, out of breath, said, “We … we have no quarrel with you, lord.”
Everything that was Garrett pumped, throbbed, pounded, beat, echoed, thundered, rolled, and cried to God as he stood facing the butchers. One sound: the rhythm of his breathing; one smell: perspiration; one taste: blood; one feeling: excruciation; one vision: death.
Garrett lowered his head to his brother, turned, and did not feel the sword drop from his grip as he fell to his knees. He cocked his head back, moaned to the rain clouds, “He was my brother!”
The two Saxons were shocked at this revelation, exchanged frightened looks, found and leapt on their rounseys, and galloped away from the camp.
As the thunder had clapped within him, so did it above Garrett as he threw himself across his brother’s chest. He remained there, even after a spate swallowed the land.
Elgar, an aging loyal warrior, came down to Garrett and pulled his soaking lord off Quinn. Elgar slung Quinn’s body over another war-horse that fol lowed. The corpses of the Saxons were left to the rain.
Sitting behind Elgar on the courser, Garrett slowly closed his eyes and felt the anguish of his lost family cut an indelible wound across his soul.
He bled all the way back to camp.
7
Christopher had finished the saddle, but thought the pommel made by Ames much too large; it seemed to ruin all of his work. His temper grew, and he picked up the saddle and threw it against the wall of the workshop. Had Sanborn been there and not at church, Christopher knew he would’ve been scolded for that action. Thirteen years old, and this was what he had to look forward to. Life behind a bench, hands rough, his body reeking of leather. His father already told him he could make a saddle as well as any experienced crafts man-and he wasn’t officially an apprentice yet. Seven years of learning how to do something he had already mastered in seven moons excited Christopher about as much as cold cabbage.
The sound of a horse outside sent Christopher scrambling toward the door. He knew who it was. “Baines! You’re late today.”
Baines was astride a beautifully groomed black rounsey that could only belong to Sir Hasdale. Indeed, it was Sir Hasdale’s, and Baines, brushingwisps of brown hair out of his eyes, had become one of the lord’s three squires.
Baines winked. ‘‘What’ll it be today? Swords?
Halberds? Lances?”
Christopher climbed on the rounsey behind Baines. “Anything-”
“But saddle making,” Baines finished.
They trotted down Leatherdressers’ Row, then once beyond the village galloped through a narrow path in the wood, dodging branches, laughing, and scattering rooks and starlings, which flew from leaf cover and wheeled overhead. They broke into a moss-covered clearing, and Baines reined in his steed. “Today,” Christopher said, thumping on the ground from the rounsey, “I will be your squire-Sir Baines.”
Baines’s lips curled into a grin at his sudden knighthood. “That Saxon over there,” Baines pointed to a tree, “has challenged me to a test of arms. Are we ready to meet the challenge?”
“We are, lord,” Christopher said. “Your lance.” Christopher handed Baines the imaginary weapon.
Baines examined the lance, then tossed it to the ground. “Cracked.”
Christopher’s eyes
widened. “Forgive me. Here’s another-one I have studied thoroughly myself.” Christopher genuflected as he handed Baines the sec ond air lance.
“In what direction is the attacker, squire?” Baines asked.
“North, lord.”
“And as we pass I will be north and he will be south.”
“Correct, lord.”
Baines shouted. “Then why are you not running ahead of me, getting behind the Saxon, for if he knocks me off, I will be weaponless on the moss and you will be standing idle on the enemy’s side of the battlefield.”
Christopher thought about it a minute. “Yes, lord!” He took off for the attacking Saxon tree, arrived, and moved behind it. “Spatha ready, lord!”
Baines brought his rounsey around in a wide circle, moving back to get up enough speed. Christopher watched him shout at the horse, dig heels in the ani mal’s ribs as boy and steed drove forward.
In midclearing, Baines moaned in agony and fell back off the rounsey, his spine meeting earth with a wind-knocking thock. He lay dazed as Christopher released his grip on the shadow spatha in his hand and rushed to his side. Baines’s eyes were closed and he wasn’t breathing. Christopher pulled open the squire’s tunic and shirt, put his ear to his friend’s chest, heard a heartbeat. Baines’s eyes opened.
Christopher smiled. “You frightened me. I thought-” “You thought I was dead. You’re partially right.
We’re both dead.”
Christopher was nonplussed. “How? Why?”
“The Saxon knocked me off. You saw I was down, without arms. What did you do?”
“I ran to your aid.”
“Then why are you not pulling me to my feet and handing me my spatha?”
Christopher looked away, ashamed. He knew when he saw Baines fall he had forgotten everything, dropped the imaginary sword by the Saxon tree. “The spatha is not with me.”
“I know,” Baines answered, then sat up. “I did the same thing when my lord tested me. Thank St. Michael it was only practice. “