by Richard Nell
Lamorak blinked as if in disbelief. His grin disappeared.
“I am a servant of the God-King, I am Sir bloody Lamorak. So it’s my word we’ll be trusting, thank you. Now fuck off, I said, or I promise, no, I swear, I absolutely will kill you.”
The knight took two quick steps sideways, now standing directly between the guns and Johann. He spit a wad of yellow and red goo to the grass.
And now that he was directly in front of him, Johann couldn’t help but notice the knight’s devastated armor. Dents and bullet holes riddled his plate and chain-clad body from neck to shins. Most had not gotten through, it seemed, but many clearly had. More importantly, he bore three round and bloody welts on his chin, forehead, and cheek, where musket balls had clearly and directly struck him, and simply bounced off his flesh. The abductors noticed, too.
“I heard o’ you, Lamorak. We’ll go.” He glanced at the driver, and jerked his head away from the clearing. “Now don’t you shoot us, I have your word!”
The now dripping bandit lowered his weapon, waving at his men to spur the horses, and cringed as if he expected betrayal.
Lamorak turned and regained his grin, the bandits seemingly forgotten.
“Still alive, Johnny. I’ve lost my bet, but nevermind.”
Johann sagged heavily to the dirt and coughed, cradling his mangled and now throbbing arm.
Two weeks earlier, perhaps, he’d have been offended, maybe even hurt. Now, though, he only shook his head and laughed because he was alive. It hurt his ribs, but it kept him from crying.
* * *
It took all day to collect the dead and wounded. With his battered head and torso, and his arm in a make-shift sling, Johann added little to the troop’s efforts.
Lamorak, seemingly tireless, led the work. He and the healthier men confiscated carts, alcohol and other supplies from the camp. The surviving militia and their families had fled, and though most likely remained close-by simply waiting for the magistrate’s soldiers to leave, they caused no trouble.
Lord Malory did not open his gates.
“He should be charged with treason,” Johann said bitterly as the day drew near its end, and the men finally lined up with their wounded and supplies to march off the battlefield.
Lamorak grunted, glancing a last time at the walls of Malory’s keep.
“The king’s justice will find him, perhaps, but not today.”
“He killed a bloody knight, or at least arranged it. And those horses were his. No doubt half the weapons and supplies were his, too. These militia were his doing.”
Lamorak shrugged, as if it didn’t matter, then lit tobacco.
“The horses and weapons, yes. But it wasn’t him who killed a knight, my boy. That was you.”
Johann blinked and stared at his companion, walking for a moment in silence.
“That...the rebel leader? That was Sir Agreth? I saw his bloody head!”
“An old trick. I served with him for fifty years, Johnny. Trust me. It was him.”
“Then you knew? He was a traitor? This was all his doing?”
Lamorak shrugged and sucked a lungful of smoke. “Makes no difference. My job was to put that monster in you, and so I have. The rest I leave to wiser men.”
His voice gave no indication if he was joking, or resentful, and Johann left it alone. After a time he cleared his throat.
“In my report…shall I leave out Sir Agreth? It could have been a bandit, just as easily. Perhaps…perhaps there’s no need, or point, in…disgracing a once loyal servant’s name.”
The knight met Johann’s eyes, then looked away.
“We’ll all be disgraced sooner or later. You should speak the truth, boy, at least when you can.”
Johann nodded, not sure exactly what this meant, and no longer feeling any resentment or insult at being called ‘boy’. He thought he sensed a hint of respect, or at least thanks, too, in the other man’s response. But he said nothing more as they walked, instead recalling the chaos and horror of the day, and the faces of the dead.
Later the men made camp and sat in circles or lay on bedrolls, mostly in silence, some few telling tales of the battle. Johann sought Lamorak and found him alone by a small fire.
“How’s your arm?”
The knight leaned against a tree, smoking. He had removed his armor, and now Johann could see red welts in a dozen places where he’d been shot, and perhaps stabbed.
“Still broken.” Johann groaned as he sat. “The surgeon died. I’ll have it set at the Scribery.”
Lamorak nodded and sipped from a metal cup, wincing and licking his cracked, dry lips. The lower had split and shone wet in the fire light, and the knight licked it idly and spit.
Johann made awkward small talk for a time, asking simple questions about the battle and the march home. But he had come for a reason.
You’ve come to say it, he chastised himself, so just bloody say it.
Still he asked several more banal questions, which the knight answered mostly with a grunt or a single word, until finally Johann cleared his throat and forced his courage.
“Sir, I just wanted to say…” the knight glanced at him with one brow raised, and he felt his face flushing slightly, “serving with you, that is, assisting you, well. It has been the honor of my life.”
The knight looked away, as if unsure how to respond, and Johann cursed himself for the awkwardness.
“Well,” said the old man after a delay, “I wanted to say something, too.”
Johann almost sagged with relief. He hadn’t been sure what to expect—certainly not any kind of praise or admiration in return. But perhaps, maybe, some approval. He smiled and nearly held his breath.
“That shot of yours, in our little duel with Sir Agreth. Johnny, I have to thank you.”
Ah, yes, I suppose I saved his life, after all.
Johann pursed his lips and nodded, trying not to seem too eager or proud. The knight cleared his throat.
“Honestly, that first miss was the most horrific, and also most comical moment of my life. And I’ve lived a very long time.”
Johann blinked, feeling a strange sense of falling in his stomach.
“I mean, I know you’re a scribe and all, but you were at point blank range, Johnny. A child could have made that shot. A drunk, palsy child, with a broken hand. The bards will sing songs of that shot. You will live in legend, right next to me.”
“Yes, well.”
“I’m serious, you’ll be famous. Men will tell their children, ‘See? Even a buffoon can kill a knight with a bit of luck!’”
Johann cleared his throat loudly, and the knight’s dry lips first broke into a grin, then he howled alone.
“Ah,” he shook with a few last gasps. “Johnny, nevermind, you make me laugh. I like you.”
Johann turned his eyes to the fire.
“Oh don’t sulk now. I’ll prove it. I was thinking there’s no rush, exactly, to return to the castle. And since we’re both wounded and all, and Lord Tolly’s fort is so close, well, it seems only natural to seek his protection.”
Johann shot a brief glance at the knight before returning to the fire, and the knight showed his yellow teeth.
“So I thought perhaps we’d…convalesce, as it were, for a few days. Oh, maybe even a week or three, with the lord’s hospitality. And of course,” the knight’s eyes crinkled with a lascivious grin, “his lovely Lady wife’s.”
Johann kept his eyes squarely on the fire, attempting not to flinch, blink, nor even breathe before he spoke.
“Doesn’t matter. If you think that best.”
Lamorak leaned back against his tree, hands linked behind his head. He laughed from his gut.
Chapter 9
“And so our journey ended on the 2nd day of July, in the three hundred and forty second year of God-King Marsun’s rule. I, Johann Planck, Apprentice-Scribe of the fifth mark, with the distinguished assistance of Sir Lamorak, successfully captured and returned the demon Sazeal to the Scribe
ry’s walls.”
Johann sat scribbling at his desk in the travel-stained blue of a Fort Tyne regular. They’d given him back his old room, but for the moment he had no candles, and so he hurried before the afternoon sun fell away.
His superiors would expect a report and debrief as soon as he was able. So rather than change, he simply sat his desk, removed the almost finished report, and scrambled to add the final touches.
Anyway he’d come to like the snug fit and thin fabric of the uniform. And if he was being honest, he liked the way townsfolk looked at him when he wore it—especially the women.
“Our return was delayed by approximately three weeks as both I and Sir Lamorak recovered from serious wounds sustained in battle. The Lord and Lady Tolly provided excellent care, and were no doubt critical to our speedy recovery...”
Johann paused, smiling as he remembered a dozen nights in Celeste’s careful arms. Their parting had been bittersweet, but he’d thought perhaps with patience he could return, and said as much. To his unending delight she seemed entirely pleased at the prospect.
He stooped to keep writing, but stopped as footsteps echoed down the hall and his room rang with the sharp report of knuckles on wood. A servant opened the door without waiting.
“Sir, I was told immediately.”
Johann glared at Mr. Ainsley, thinking the man looked older than ever.
“Yes, of course. I’ll be right out.”
“What I mean, sir, is right now. As in nevermind your report, you are to present yourself before the retrieval council this very instant.”
Johann’s vision blurred, and he felt Sazeal’s constant urge to kill or run whenever challenged. In his mind’s eye he felt himself cross the room, seize the old man, and rip an arm from its socket.
Instead he rubbed absently at the strange smoothness of his face where there once was eyebrows, letting the anger fade from his limbs as he breathed.
“Of course.” He stood with a jerk, saluting with a harsh stomp in Keevish fashion. “I am at the council’s service.” He curled and slapped his unfinished report beneath his arm, then stood at attention.
Mr. Ainsley blinked and looked surprised. He met Johann’s glare as if looking at a stranger, and his voice lost some of its tone.
“Very good. Please, follow me.”
As they walked Johann tried to rehearse what he’d say. But the memory of his last walk through the same hall distracted him, and he smiled as he remembered meeting Lamorak and thinking him a squire.
“Should have bloody known,” he muttered. “Damned rascal.”
“Hmm? What was that?”
“Oh. Nothing. Nothing.”
The walk this time took them up instead of down. In silence they climbed a dozen flights of stairs to the master’s level, which was forbidden to all except the most senior rankings of scribes and their servants.
“You may enter.” Mr. Ainsley huffed as if out of breath, though he tried to hide it.
Johann felt entirely at ease. Sazeal’s strength flowed through him, shaping his limbs already with sinewy muscle, though he did nothing to deserve it. Even his rather severely broken arm had healed more quickly than he’d possibly imagined.
He looked at the old man panting beside him, face flushed and starkly lit by the stair’s skylights. He stared at the skin tags and moles covered by bits of white paste, thinking it odd that he’d not noticed before. For a long, and perhaps strange moment he simply inspected the shriveled old creature he’d once feared, and felt compelled to speak.
“All my life I thought politeness the main mark of a decent man.”
Mr. Ainsley’s eyes squinted as he returned the stare.
Johann looked at the old man and remembered many years of silent torments. Suddenly so clearly he saw a petty, judgmental old tyrant—a man of little consequence who bolstered himself by cowing little boys. He saw a small man who spread only doubt and sadness, when he could have, if he had chosen, brought comfort and welcome.
With little thought Johann leaned forward, further and further, until he trapped the old man on the small landing before the master’s double doors. He moved so close their noses almost touched.
“Thank you, Mr. Ainsley, for all your help.” He watched the other man’s confusion, and perhaps revulsion. Then with some spontaneous whimsy, he kissed the tip of the old man’s nose, and reached around to seize a flabby cheek of the servant’s bottom. He gave it a long, hard squeeze.
“What are…stop…stop! At once…”
The old man squirmed and slapped uselessly at Johann’s forearm, face jerking side to side.
Johann finally released him, and smiled. He turned away feeling a peculiar lightness in his gut, then opened the doors and entered, closing them without a word.
“Mr. Planck, at last. Please.”
Five of the scribery’s masters sat in padded oak chairs before a huge silver tapestry. The central man—whose chair raised slightly above the others on a square, wooden platform—gestured to a sixth chair set before them.
Johann took the seat, though he would have preferred to stand. He glanced at some of the faces of his order’s senior leadership, hoping to read some measure of their moods.
For what felt like an endless minute the old men said nothing. Four of the five looked simply bored, but the most senior—Headmaster Barton—observed him keenly, as if inspecting something he didn’t quite understand, and perhaps didn’t much like. Eventually Johann cleared his throat.
“Shall I present my report? If the masters have time to hear it, of course.”
Master Barton’s eyes narrowed.
“Nevermind your damn report.”
The strained silence returned, and Johann sat perfectly rigid as the old man stared.
“Tell me of Sir Lamorak,” he said at last. “What did you think of him?”
Sazeal’s rage and terror leapt at once to Johann’s skin, and it took all his will to remain seated. He considered saying, ‘Everything I think of Lamorak or anything else, master, is in my report.’ But he nodded respectfully instead.
“Sir Lamorak is a great warrior, and a fine knight. It was an honor to serve with him.”
“Was it. And whom do you serve, Johann?”
“The Scribery, of course, and the king.”
“In that order?”
Johann had no idea how to respond to that.
“Oh don’t bother. You’ve made your plans, very well. But don’t think for one moment we’ll forget your ungratefulness, your disregard for our orders, your selfish lust for power and glory at the expense of a greater good.”
Johann looked from one master to the next, trying to find some clue.
“Please, Master Barton, I…don’t understand. I’ve done precisely as I was asked, I have no idea what..”
“Sir Lamorak has already given his report, Apprentice Johann. So don’t bother.”
“Well, I don’t know what he told you, but I…”
“Shall I just read the pertinent part for you, then? And put an end to this charade?”
Johann shrugged, feeling helpless. He didn’t know what was happening, or what game he was part of. He understood politics always existed between the Scribery and the palace, and indeed any of the king’s servants, but surely Johann was too meaningless to be affected.
“Apprentice Scribe Johann took part in the battle of Malory Field, acting as seargent of the Tyne Regular Thirdsmen. In the heat of the battle, and with his own hand, he struck down the traitor Sir Agreth, killing him. In that moment, even before he consumed the blood and faced Sazeal in truth, he had in my mind become a permanent potential Bearer. It is my recommendation and wish, by authority of the king, that Johann Planck retain his charge, to serve me as squire until his eventual knighthood.”
At this, Master Barton looked up.
“His recommendation is, of course and in fact, an order. You were chosen for this mission by the Scribery, Johann, because it was believed you lacked such ambitions. But it se
ems you have deceived us.”
“Sir,” Johann shifted in his seat. “I had no idea. I had no idea, nor was any such matter discussed with me…”
“Oh save your breath. The matter is already decided. You will return your key to the Scribery tower, as well as your tools, pack, and…”, the man’s eyes again scanned Johann’s dirt-stained uniform, “your robe—which, I see, you are no longer bothering to wear. Your status as apprentice scribe will be irrevocably revoked as of this evening. And on a personal note, having accepted you into this school against my better judgment when you were a boy, let me just add you’ve been a tremendous disappointment to me, Johann. Now, we have other things to attend to, you may go.”
Johann knew he should stand, but couldn’t, feeling the same numbness he’d known on the battlefield. He wanted to scream that he’d only ever wished to do his job, that he loved and respected the Scribery, its lore and history and books, and its masters and brothers for taking him in and giving him a life.
“Where…where shall I go? Everything I’ve ever known is here.”
“Are you deaf, boy? You’re to serve as Sir Lamorak’s squire. You will go where he tells you, you will do as he tells you. No doubt you will go out and spill more blood and play the games of kings, and nevermind the pursuit of knowledge and learning. Now leave us. Not another word.”
Johann rose slowly to his feet, feeling betrayed, and treated unjustly. He opened the door and thanked God Ainsley hadn’t waited outside. Then he wandered down the stairs in a daze, dropping his pack carelessly at the gate. He stepped out into the cool evening air. Someone whistled behind him.
“Well, don’t you look a bloody fright.”
Lamorak stood propped against the tower wall, dressed again in his dirty, squire-like clothes. Of course he was smoking.
“Like an old, ugly baby. Or maybe a hairless cat.”
Some of the numbness faded at last, and Johann clenched his good fist.
“I’ve been kicked out of the Scribery, Lamorak. My home. My life. What the hell have you done?”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic. You’ve been promoted.”
“I never asked for that. In fact I don’t want it. Now I’m to hold this creature forever? Look like this, forever? Who says I want to? What gives you the bloody right to decide?”