Squire

by Peter Telep

Seaver was a dwarf-sized man who suggested they rub mud over most of their bodies to disguise them­ selves and hide their scent from the hounds. Seaver was an expert scout, and though Christopher had no aspirations in that field, Garrett said he could learn a lot from the Saxon. Christopher’s meager Saxon vocabulary limited him to simple conversations, but he needed no words to pick up a few tricks from Seaver: the mud, the way to run silently without pounding one’s feet, the way to notice, to keep one’s mind focused on sights and sounds, not thoughts.

  They had followed the hunting party through the lord’s private forest, had taken note of the garrison men posted in the wood for the lord’s protection. If Garrett was going to kill Nolan while the lord was on another such hunting trip, the plan had to be well thought out.

  Christopher had carried a small dagger sheathed and belted around his waist, and as he had watched the lord through a veil of leaves, a sudden thought flashed through his mind: kill Seaver and run to the lord, ask for mercy, and tell Nolan what had hap­ pened to him.

  He could have reacted quickly, surprising Seaver and gaining his freedom. Garrett trusted him enough to let him go out with only one man watching him. And a remarkable and ironic feeling had stopped him. The guilt of betraying Garrett.

  And now here he was, riding on another inter­ minable field under a winter sun that didn’t stray far from the horizon, struggling with who he had become. Was he a Saxon now? Garrett had taught him many things about fighting, and about living. He had come to admire the man. He didn’t know when that had happened, but somewhere, sometime, it had. Garrett was strong, and true to what he believed in.

  His plan to appeal to Garrett as one Celt to another had worked. They had discussed art and God and things bigger than the world itself. Riding was a time for discussion, but Christopher had kept silent this morning, pondering yesterday. Why didn’t I do it? He was held against his will-or was he?

  “Young Kimball holds his tongue this morning,” Garrett said, riding next to him. “Why?”

  “Lord, if I wished to leave, to go home now, could I?”

  Garrett thought a moment while stroking the poll of his ride. “But on the morrow we lay siege to Nolan’s castle while he hunts. You and Seaver will lead us through the wood. You want to miss that?”

  “No.” He was being honest. The expectations and excitement before an engagement, and the rush of flirting with death was too much to give up.

  “Then why do you ask?” Garrett said. “I wish to know if the option is there.” “It is.”

  “I could ride away now and not be stopped?” Garrett reined his horse next to Christopher’s so that he was close enough to put a hand on Christopher’s tabard-covered shoulder. “You have tried hard to prove your loyalty to me. But I’ve always known that you wish to remain a Celt, and not serve these men or me.” He looked over his shoulder, as if to make sure no one was listening when, in fact, no one understood them anyway. “You have been with us for a score of moons. You have done well. I enjoy your company. More so, I admit, because you are a Celt. I do not want you to leave. You are a good squire.” He sighed. “But if you wish to go, go.”

  The guilt that had stopped Christopher from escap­ ing the day before flooded within him. He wondered if it was just guilt. Probably not. In light of the past, he hated to admit that what he felt for the man slipped beyond admiration and into love. An almost father-son relationship, one which he had wished to foster with Hasdale. He would not have believed twenty moons ago he would come to love the man who had caused the death of his parents and friends.

  But Garrett wasn’t numb to the pain he inflicted on others. He spoke often of his own guilt, the remorse he felt after burning Shores and the eventual killing of Hasdale. He told Christopher it was the way of their world, and he didn’t like it, but had to react within it. The Saxons drew strength from the killing, and that was why they made a perfect, though ironi­ cally unsuccessful army. Christopher had asked Garrett why he had to react within the world, and not try to change it.

  Garrett had only sighed resignedly, as he did then. “Thank you, lord.”

  “For what?” Garrett asked.

  “For making me realize where my home is.” Christopher had not expected to say anything of the kind, but it came out, and though the words lacked complete truth, they expressed a feeling within him, a sense of belonging not to the Saxon army, but to Garrett.

  “Until we have a castle,” Garrett said sadly, “we do not have a home.”

  “Perhaps our luck will change.” He thought a moment, considering whether he should tell Garrett or not, then decided a better time would not come along. “Maybe a little fate will work for us if I tell you something.” Garrett craned his neck toward Christopher, his face intent. Christopher went on, “You chose to call me Kimball. But my name is Christopher, and as a friend of mine was fond of call­ ing me, ‘the young patron saint.”’

  “The patron saint of travelers. Maybe there is a lit­tle bit of helpful spirit in you.” Garrett reached out his hand; Christopher took it. “It is good to meet you, Christopher. Young patron saint. Protect us on the morrow, will you?” Garrett grinned broadly.

  Christopher returned the look. “I’m only a squire.” “No,” Garrett said, “you are my squire.”

  They rode on, the wind steady and cold, but not particularly piercing, and Christopher caught Garrett smiling to himself some moments later.

  He had decided to stay with Garrett. And he reflected on the consequences of that decision. He was giving up the past, giving up Orvin, and, more painfully, Brenna. He wondered what they were doing, painted mental images of them at the castle.

  He wanted to see Brenna praying in the chapel every night for his safe return, but couldn’t. He knew it had been too long, and time had distanced their love more than the actual land between them. He forced himself to believe she had forgotten him, and gritted his teeth over the idea, no matter how loud the truth rang.

  His last memories of Orvin had been happy ones, but the old man had not seen him off as he mounted up for his first battle. Hasdale had said Orvin had been too ill to attend, and now that image flickered to life in Christopher’s mind. He saw Orvin lying in bed, a nurse tending him. She tried to get the old man to drink some water, but the fluid just poured over Orvin’s wizened chin. Suddenly the image was whisked away and Christopher felt an intense heat push across his face. He turned his absent gaze from the neck of his courser to the sun mounted on the tableau dead center between the zenith and horizon. The yellow orb burned much brighter than it should have, filled his eyes with golden light. There was nothing but the light and the heat.

  “Christopher?”

  He turned his head and saw Garrett next to him. He looked forward. The sun was normal. Christopher dropped his reins and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then looked again. Countryside. Sun. Sky. Clouds.

  “Here.” Garrett proffered a horn of ale. Christopher took the ale, muttered, “Thank you.”

  His troubled tone was noted by Garrett. “All right?”

  “I’m just tired.”

  11

  Mallory stood in front of the attenuating flames of a cookfire that kept him and his loyal band of twelve warm. They were camped in the dense for­ est below the castle of Rain, sipping ale and chewing on pork and boiled cabbage plundered from a wool trader whose path had forked into unlucky territory.

  “You men who have chosen to stand with me will be heavily rewarded!” Mallory’s thunderous tone provoked the men surrounding him. They shouted and growled their approval, breaths thick and white on the air.

  “I, a banner knight, gave up my castle and lands to pay for this quest. We have all made sacrifices. That is what King Arthur fails to understand. He wishes to sit behind the curtains of Uryens’s castle, grow fat, and spout off ideals. I say down with King Arthur!”

  Swords were banged against shields, and a pair of Mallory’s fighters slammed their bascineted heads into each other to produce a kla
ng of agreement.

  “My Saxon friend tells me that on the morrow an army led by our old friend Garrett is going to lay siege to Lord Nolan’s castle-but they will never make it there. Because we’re going to stop them. Tonight.”

  Smiles fell. Talk ceased.

  “Yes,” Mallory continued, “we thirteen men against Garrett’s force.”

  “They number as many as five hundred, lord,” his eldest warrior said, nonplussed. “When we were three hundred strong we could-”

  “Do not think in numbers, Fergus.” He studied the visible fear that controlled the old man. “We are not an army, but a single spatha thrust at the right moment. Our timing and our speed will prove deadly. Who expects thirteen to ride against five hundred?”

  “No one,” the men grumbled to each other.

  The sheer insanity of the plan tickled Mallory’s groin. “It may seem mad to you, but your faith, your devotion, and the memories of your lost ones will power and protect you.”

  “What is the plan, then, lord?” Fergus asked.

  “I know Garrett. I knew him when he was a boy. I knew his brother Quinn. If it were Quinn leading this army, the situation would be grave.

  “Garrett has organized his small army into the Vaward, Main, and Rearward Battles. Each of you will murder one of Garrett’s lieutenants, rendering each of those groups without a commander. I will kill Garrett himself. We’ll strike quickly while they sleep, create chaos, then flee.”

  “It cannot be that simple,” Dallas said. He was the strongest of Mallory’s men, a bearded ox on hind legs, who had never questioned an order before.

  “Dallas, you sadden me. As all of you do now. I look around and suddenly I do not see the faces of warriors but the scared faces of squires. We’ll go in against five hundred and emerge victorious. Doesn’t that excite any of you? Garrett’s men are cattle wait­ ing dumbly to be slain.”

  “Maybe they are not,” Dallas said firmly.

  Mallory pushed his way out of the circle of men, climbed up on the flatbed of their single cart, and delivered his next words from there. “I believe this is the way to win our battles against the invaders. Attack them first, with small groups such as ours, saving the many numbers for the garrisons. Why must we sit back and defend? Arthur’s so-called advance still requires a first attack by the invaders. Let’s hit them tonight. Who is with me?”

  Fergus stepped out of the group. “I am, lord.”

  Two more men followed. Then another pair, a trio, then another.

  Dallas held his ground. Mallory looked at his best man with utter derision. After a tense moment, Dallas, seeing that he stood alone in his fear, resignedly joined the group.

  It was a feeling like no other. What lunacy it was! What joy it brought him. “Prepare yourselves. We ride when the moon sets and early-morning darkness is still upon the land.”

  The group disbanded and chatted as they sauntered toward their coursers.

  Mallory hopped off the wagon, and with anticipa­tion in his step, headed for one of the four tents they had erected. The end one on the left was his, and he moved through the flap and inside.

  It was dark, and the breathing of the wind over the tent filled the small hovel with an incessant rattling.

  She was under the woolen blankets and squirmed as he moved closer.

  She was a caged animal, dangerous and desirous of escape. But her skin was smooth, her breasts large and filled with milk, as she had recently given birth. Her yellow hair was soft and flowed over her shoul­ ders. She was anything but a beast.

  She had been taken quickly from her husband and child, and there was something ironic in the small amount of time, only hours, that it had been since that moment and the first time Mallory had slept with her. She had been with him for two days now, and would provide the release he needed before the attack.

  It was his ritual. A simple though necessary session before combat. It relaxed him and made him feel complete with the idea that if he did die, at least his moments before were spent in pleasure.

  But the intercourse sessions before fighting were a battle themselves.

  Mallory yanked the blanket off her naked body, and she cried out. He smiled and shook his head. She would put up a fight. Again.

  He fell to his knees, reached down, and grabbed her breast sharply, clawing the soft flesh until a thin trickle of pale milk, barely distinguishable in the dim­ ness, sprang from her dark, erect nipple. He hungrily lapped up the sweet liquid, a soft groan resonating from the back of his throat.

  Mallory let go of her breast and stood. He removed his sword belt. The eyes of the woman seemed to be the only thing in the darkness. His hauberk came off, then his shirt and breeches.

  He moved toward her, his erection pumping with blood. The night was full of surprises. She lifted her legs in the air and welcomed him into her womb. She was damp and warm and he entered her easily. She moaned softly as he sucked more milk from one of her nipples while thrusting into her. The heels of her feet drove into his buttocks, guided him, pulled him into her.

  He felt something like a punch hit him in his right rib cage. The blow was followed by a backdraft of pain.

  Mallory tried to pull back from her, but her legs and feet held him close. His hands went to the hot lightning in his side, and he felt her hand around the hilt of a dagger. Whore!

  His erection fell into softness as blood rivered down his chest and threaded into his pubic hair.

  With one swift pull Mallory removed the dagger, then ripped it from her grip. He screamed. The blood rushed freely from the hole in his body.

  Tears of pain splattered his cheeks as he turned the blade on the woman and punched it home into her heart. She gasped, stiffened, and then relaxed, dead.

  He knelt there, breathing and bleeding for a moment, then got unsteadily to his feet. He made it to the edge of the tent and pushed his head through the flap.

  He saw Dallas slip a spatha into the scabbard hanging from his courser’s saddle. “Dallas. Come here.” Mallory fell through the flap and onto the frozen earth.

  He heard Dallas hustle over and felt the man’s thick fingers grab his arms and roll him over onto his back. The pain seemed to lessen if he kept his eyes closed. “She got me good this time, Dallas.”

  “I’ll fetch the needle. We’ll stitch you up quick.” He heard Dallas leave.

  It dawned on him then, and the thought was so powerful that it overrode the pain and brought a grin flickering across his lips. The risk was even greater now. He would ride injured with his twelve men against an army of five hundred. It was magnificently beyond comprehension. It was a quest that no one in his right mind would follow. It looked, sounded, smelled, felt, and tasted like Mallory. It was gorgeous.

  12

  Twelve Saxon watchmen fell one after the other, each with an arrow marking a lethal point on his body. Another four men caught the bolts from crossbows with their backs. One interesting soul used his eye to stop a shot from a longbow, and the blue feather fletching quartering the arrow’s base kissed his eyebrow. He stood a moment, wondering what had happened, then spun anticlimactically to his demise.

  Christopher watched it all happen, thinking it was a dream. Something had troubled his sleep and he sat up. He didn’t move, sounded no alarms, just eyed the silent killing with a horrid fascination.

  Then, like a knee in the face, he realized it was no dream. First thought: to scream for Garrett. He was about to yell, but reconsidered. He got on all fours and crawled his way from his saddle cloths and into Garrett’s tent.

  The Saxon leader slept soundly.

  “Lord!” he hissed. “Wake up! Someone’s killing the watchmen!”

  Garrett’s eyelids opened and he sat up, disoriented. “What?”

  “Outside. Look … “

  Garrett crawled his way to the edge of the tent and peered stealthily beyond the entrance flap. He yanked his head back in, then rose. “Arms, Christopher. Quickly.”

  “Shouldn’t I find t
he homman?” “Yes … wait … no. Help me first.”

  Christopher had never seen his lord as nervous. It

  made his own hands jitter and his heart flutter.

  Garrett climbed clumsily into his shirt and breeches. Christopher found and handed his lord the leather gambeson, helped him into it, then buckled the belts across the sleeveless garment’s chest.

  He followed with the link-mail hauberk and was about to hand Garrett his breastplate when his lord stopped him with a hand. “No time, Christopher. Where’s my sword?”

  Christopher scanned the interior of the tent, but deep down he knew the sword wasn’t there; he had put it safely away-somewhere.

  “I beg forgiveness, lord.”

  Garrett shook his head in anger, then sliced through the tent flaps. Christopher followed.

  Outside, Garrett rushed toward his courser as a pair of horsemen wheeled around and turned toward him. Christopher sprinted off to find the homman.

  He ran past a row of ground beds, the men occupy­ ing them stirring, sitting up to have a look at what was going on. He found the homman, a boy much older than himself. He backhanded the musician awake.

  “Sound the alarm!”

  Christopher jogged away from the homman as a loud note split the icy air behind him.

  What to do? What to do?

  He saw no one attacking as he ran, only the rising forms of Saxons who would probably obscure an advance from his eyes anyway. What he did come across were the victims of the first assault, the watch­ men he had seen die through sleepy eyes. They were very real and very dead now. His feet came within a yard of the Saxon who had caught an arrow in his eye. If not for the wound, Christopher would have thought the man was sleeping, for he had fallen rather neatly. He picked up something on his periph­ ery, a complete enough image to halt him. He turned back toward the dead watchman and studied the arrow, the blue fletching, the Celtic blue fletching. At least he knew it wasn’t the Picts or the Jutes that attacked-only his own people.

  In the distance, he saw Garrett outside the row of tents. His lord engaged a swordsman whose forehead was lit by a blue gem mounted on a headband. He ran toward the scene, but he tripped. The frosty ground came up and smacked his chest and cheek. He pushed himself up on his hands and looked over his shoulder. He had fallen over a dead lieutenant, the Saxon’s face maced into an unrecognizable pulp. He got to his feet and moved into a sprint.