Sitting up on top of the horse instead of walking down in the mud was liberating, and for a moment she reveled in the relief of being off her feet. Up here it was like being the Mistress of all she surveyed, and everything else felt a little smaller and more manageable than it had before.
Patting her drooping horse on the neck she used the reins to guide Hermiony into a turn so she could see what all the commotion was about.
“Can ye see anything from up there?” Duncan asked, sounding jealous and even though she hadn’t yet had a chance to take a good look, Falon couldn’t help letting out a sniff in response to the question. Let him and his taller stature be jealous of me for once, she gloated.
Then she sternly took herself to task. This was no time to be playing any sort of back yard one-ups-man-ship. “I don’t see anything yet,” she replied, and no sooner had the words left her mouth than she spotted something. It was a man on a horse, carrying a horn in one hand and a wooden pole with a small triangular pennant hanging from the top in the other.
“What do ye see, Fal?” Ernest said running over with a four-pronged, metal-headed pitch fork in his hand.
“Where have you been hiding that thing,” she said in surprise.
“The back of the tail wagon,” he replied shortly.
“That’s your weapon?” she said doubtfully, “What happened to the spear you’ve been carting around ever since we left the Wicks.”
“A few of the guys have been stacking their weapons in the other wagon,” Ernest said looking embarrassed. He then coughed, “when I got back there, someone else had already taken it and all that was left was the pitchfork.”
Duncan snorted and then rolled his eyes. “Ignore the dumb pipsqueak, Falon,” he said in a withering voice as he gestured to his younger brother, “and tell us! Surely you can see something over there by now?”
“It looks like trouble,” Falon admitted, using a hand to help keep the rain out of her eyes as she frowned in the direction of the horse and rider, who were by this point cantering towards their group.
“Why’s that?” Duncan demanded.
“Yeah, what do you see, Fal?” Ernest asked excitedly.
“I could be wrong…but I think it might be a Herald,” she said slowly.
Chapter 10: The Heralding of the Knight
“What’s a herald?” A hint of wonder entered Duncan’s voice.
Surprised that he even had to ask, and not about to let him off easy after the way he had been treating her mere moments before, she bestowed the worst kind of ‘are you stupid’ look on Duncan. It was no less than the aggravating dirt clod deserved!
“What?” Duncan asked, looking defensive.
“You mean you don’t know?” Falon asked, allowing a mocking note to enter her voice.
A slap on her leg by Ernest followed by a stern look made her look down at Duncan’s younger brother in surprise.
“Stop being such a know-it-all all the time, Fal, and just tell us what’s going on. Maybe if you did then you wouldn’t be getting into nearly as many fights with Duncan,” Ernest snapped, to her complete surprise.
“Hey! I’m not a know-it-all,” she cried indignantly.
“Yes you are,” Ernest said shaking his head. Meanwhile, right behind him his older brother Duncan was nodding his head in agreement.
“I am not—” realizing she was starting to sound exactly like Sioban at her worst, Falon forcefully bit her tongue. Was it her fault she knew more about people and things outside the Wicks than them? All she ever did was help point out where they got something wrong. Like with Lord Lamont’s non-existent Castle! Her lips making a thin line across her face, she lifted her head to stare grimly at the oncoming rider.
“There’s a rider with a horn and Knight’s Pennant coming this way fast,” she said flatly. “I can’t tell if he’s wearing leather or not, but since he has no metal armor it can’t be the Knight himself, so it’s probably just a Herald.”
“And?” Ernest prompted, and Falon stared at him blankly. Then she flushed when she realized she still hadn’t got around to answering the original question.
“A Herald is a person who precedes someone of status,” she paused, trying to put the next part into words, “and well…heralds them. He proclaims his Master and can take messages back and forth. There’s some other stuff involving rights and privileges, but that’s the long and short of it.”
“So he’s just a glorified messenger boy?” Ernest asked quizzically.
“With a horse!” Duncan said elbowing his brother in the ribs excitedly, “Don’t forget that!”
“As if I could forget,” Ernest retorted weakly, rubbing his side and taking a careful step away from Duncan.
Riding around the side of the now clumped-up group of militia-, the man with the horn and pennant pulled his horse into a mud spraying halt in the front of the column.
“Oy!” Duncan barked in protest, wiping off wet mud where it had splattered on his fore head and left ear.
Maneuvering his now prancing horse until it was nose to nose with Falon’s palfrey, the young man tipped his pennant bearing pole until its tip was mere inches from her face.
Cross-eyed because the pennant was so close to her, Falon quickly shifted her gaze to take in the appearance of the horse and rider. Her brows lifted as he buffed a bit of water off his leather armor, and as soon she realized he was riding a trained warhorse, she was instantly jealous.
“Nice charger,” she observed without thinking, and it really was. The horse might have been on the wrong side of middle age and splattered with mud due to its owners mad dash to get in front of the East and West Wick militias, but despite all of that it looked like a solid, well-trained piece of horse flesh.
“By order of Sir Reginald, this column of men is to move off the road and make way!” he said with a tight, superior smile on his pimpled, beardless face.
Rearing back slightly, Falon stared down at the pennant and observed that it was triangle-shaped, indicating its ultimate owner to be a Landless Knight. Shifting her eyes back up to the rider’s face, she raked him with her gaze and nothing she saw told her that this Herald—or his Sir Reginald—was anything special.
At least when it comes to Knights, she quickly reminded herself, because the meanest most minor of Knights still outranked her Papa—much less her, a mere girl pretending to be a boy, and thus the second heir to a poor country Squire. It didn’t matter if they swore service to their Lord Lamont, or some foreign lord like the Sir Reginald.
“What do you have with you? A Lance?” she asked. He’s the same age, or a little younger than myself, she decided, giving him her best smile to put him at ease.
“Do you refuse to make way for your better?” the young man demanded, looking temporarily confused. Then he seemed to reach some kind of mental decision because his confusion turned into an outright glare. It was almost as if she had somehow insulted him or his Knight.
“I was just asking,” Falon protested, giving him a wary look as she was confused by this reaction to her simple question. She wanted to brush it off as a temporary misunderstanding, but her experiences so far in this man’s world of theirs told her that she needed to be on her guard. At least so far all the boys she had met seemed to prefer to punch first and talk things out later—after the noses involved had stopped bleeding. Hopefully a more well-bred boy would be more self-controlled than the two farm boys she had been spending her time with so far.
The boy on the horse stared at her for a moment and then gritted his teeth. “So you hold my Master in contempt and refuse to stand aside? Are those your words!?” the boy in front of her demanded, working himself up into a fury with each question.
“I didn’t say that!” Falon yelped.
“Just because we are not sworn to the Lord of these lands, you insult us by—” the young man’s voice rose to a yell. Leveling his finger at her, the boy jerked his feet with angry emotion and when the heel of his foot came back from its temporary st
op in the air, it struck his charger right behind the ribs. Confused by the shouting, the warhorse quickly took a set forward, and then realizing its mistake just as quickly took another step back but the damage had already been done.
For no sooner had the boy leveled his finger than the horse moved forward and the pole, which was leveled right at her face, and struck her right in the eye.
As pain exploded in the right side of her face Falon gave an inarticulate cry of dismay and raised her hands in an instinctive, pathetic defense. Having already been knocked back in the saddle from the blow, when she shied away from the pole and threw up her hands she overbalanced and fell over backward off her horse.
Landing in the muddy road with a thump she stared up at the sky in shock. Shock turned to terror when she realized she couldn’t breathe. Even when she realized it was only the wind that had been knocked out of her, the pain in her eye and the suddenness of the attack caused her to panic. Desperately heaving, she tried to get air into her lung but to no avail.
“You’ve killed him,” cried Duncan and there was a rasp as the natural born farmer’s son started to draw his Papa’s rusty old short sword.
“What?! I never meant,” Sir Reginald’s Herald gobbled for a moment. However, his horse, sensed a threat and gave an angry squeal before rearing up part way, displaying his front hooves.
Duncan cried out in dismay and Falon saw him stagger back and then fall into the mud beside her. Angry shouting started up behind them and Falon sensed movement starting towards them.
“What is the meaning of this?” called out the elected Headman of the West Wick old blood militia sounding angry.
Ernest stepped back and took a knee beside her, and for her part Falon stared at him, wondering if she was about to be trampled by the charger.
Seeing Ernest looking even more scared than she felt was actually a relief. Before she could think about what she was doing, Falon lifted her arm and extended her left hand to Ernest.
Realizing her intent and looking relieved, the boy quickly took her hand.
“He’s not dead; just knocked off his horse,” Ernest yelled as he stood and pulled her to her feet.
“My apologies,” the Herald said with a tremble in his voice. Standing up, Falon squinted up at him with her good eye—the other one throbbed and didn’t seem to want to focus right at the moment. She could tell he was relieved he hadn’t killed her.
“What was that for?” she gaped at the representative of Sir Reginald, her wind returning to her. However, a single, angry snort from the Charger had her gulping and shying back instead. Letting go of Ernest and side-stepping to Hermiony for cover, she was secretly grateful that her horse was too old and beaten down by the weather to do much more than swish her tail and lay back her ears at all the antics going on around her.
“I did not mean to cause you harm, whatever your insult to my Knight,” the Herald said stiffly.
“Insult?!” Falon stared incredulously. “I wasn’t insulting just confused,” she declared, leaning in close to her horse and as far away from the angry, snorting nostrils of the charger as she could get.
She was more than a little surprised that the village men had stopped their angry movement forward as soon as she stood back up. The fact that they were more than willing to let her keep dealing with this belligerent Herald was less than comforting, as far as she was concerned.
“Then you will order your people to stand aside,” he said, clearly taken aback.
Falon stared at him. “I suppose,” she said holding up a hand to cover her now throbbing right eye.
“Very well then,” the Herald looked back the way he had come and then seemed to hesitate.
Screwing up her courage, and more than a little indignant, Falon decided to take the bull—or in this case, the Herald—by the horns. “Why’d you poke me in the eye?!” Falon demanded, wondering what she had done to deserve it. Maybe there was some ‘heralding’ rules she was forgetting? Etiquette and Protocol were not her favorite subjects.
“Yeah, what he said,” Duncan offered from somewhere behind her, having obviously regained his courage.
The boy’s face turned red. “Mind your manners when you speak with me, Sod Buster,” the Herald said sharply before leveling his master’s pennant at Duncan.
Before she could think about it and thus become too petrified to act, Falon stepped forward and knocked the pole aside with the one hand that wasn’t still cupping her damaged eye.
“Haven’t we had enough of this nonsense for one day?” she cried, stepping in front of the charger and putting her one free hand on her hip.
The boy on the horse glared down at Duncan for a tense moment, and then switched his gaze back to her.
“Who are you, and what is your style?” the herald demanded.
Falon blinked starting to feel put out by the way this boy kept throwing his weight around.
“I’m Falon Rankin, Second Heir to my father Squire Justin Rankin, of Twin Orchards,” she said, wondering which way he was going to take this thing. She didn’t think she had been the one to offer insult, so it was unlikely he was going to challenge her.
“You tell him, Fal,” Duncan muttered in support, clearly hoping she would put this Herald in his place. If things hadn’t already been tense enough, she would have turned and looked at Duncan in disbelief. Clearly he needed more lessons in the differences between Knights and Squires.
The young man’s eyes narrowed as he looked over Falon’s shoulders, probably at Duncan. Then he picked up the pole until it was pointed straight up in the air.
“I am Rupert Knightson; Third Son and current Herald for my father, Sir Reginald the Free,” he said proudly, and Falon raised her brow in surprise. His father must have been rich, or lucky in battle, if his Third Son was able to run around on a charger.
“Pleased to meet you, Rupert Knightson,” she said with as gracious of a nod as she could manage after being assaulted and bludgeoned in the face. Behind her fixed smile, she was furiously calculating. By not adding a place he came from, like when she said ‘of Twin Orchards’, he confirmed what his father’s Pennant had told her: they were landless. By calling Sir Reginald ‘the Free’, he was also indicating that they were sworn to no particular Lord. Thus, they only owed the same service any Knight would owe his sovereign King.
“Herald Rupert,” he corrected sharply and then grabbed at the peach fuzz on his chin and gave it a tug before releasing a pent-up breath.
Not wanting to kindle any kind of conflict, Falon nodded her head at this correction. She would have thought he would rather be styled as Knightson instead of Herald. Being the Herald of a Free, Landless Knight wasn’t that great a thing, at least according to her studies. But it certainly wasn’t worth arguing about.
“I apologize for failing to control my mount,” he finally grudged, and Falon’s mouth dropped open.
How rude! He physically assaulted me, and he apologizes for failing to control his horse, she thought savagely. Of all the nerve!
With a clicking sound, Rupert the Herald picked up the reins of his horse and turned his charger as he himself turned in his saddle. “I advise you to get your people off the road, Falon Squireson,” he tossed over his shoulder, “lest my father should decide to ride them down, in his hurry to reach the Prince’s Muster!” Giving a “Yah!” and booting his horse behind the ribs, the Charger took off like a flash of lightning and soon boy and horse were far away from Falon and the Militia.
Glaring daggers at the back of this Rupert Knightson, Falon grabbed the reins of old Hermiony. If looks could only kill, Falon would have speared the boy through the back and spitted him over a fire! That little jerk; attacking her, essentially blaming the horse, and then threatening the wrath of his father who would likely trample and kill them if they didn’t get off the muddy road in time.
“Next time we see that dirt clod ye should just walk up and stave his head in for him,” Duncan said indignantly, stepping around until he could s
ee her face and give her a significant look, “calling me a Sod Buster indeed. What cheek! Who is he to ride us down anyway?” he finished with an angry growl.
Falon reluctantly took her angry eyes off the retreating Rupert to stare with disbelief at the Duncan. Seeing Ernest scratching his head, Duncan looked back and forth between his brother and Falon.
“What?” Duncan said, looking confused.
“That has to be just about the dumbest idea I’ve heard since we left East Wick,” Falon said shortly. She was angry at Rupert for attacking her, and even angrier at Duncan for not understanding that with their differences in status anything she tried to do would only make things worse. If she challenged him to a fight and she lost, then she lost. But even worse: what if she won? If she won it would be even worse than if she lost! Her family couldn’t afford to be making enemies of his (or any, to be honest) station.
Duncan was still staring at her dumbfounded when Vance stepped up. “What’s the word, lad?” Vance inquired, looking like a man not at all concerned with the events of the past few minutes, but at the same time one who was entirely capable of handling anything that came up.
Suppressing the urge to give him the stink eye and ask where he had been when she was getting knocked off her horse, she instead swept him from head to toe with her eyes and then turned around to face the column.
Seeing all the eyes turned her way—many of them by men many times her senior, not just in years but in life in general—she almost lost her nerve. Then her chin lifted and she shouted, “You heard the Herald; everybody off the road!”
Not looking to see if anyone followed, she limped forward Hermiony’s reins firmly in her grasp until at last, her old horse was a good twenty feet off the muddy road. For a moment she wondered if anyone else was going to follow, or if she was going to have to go back and try to convince them not to get themselves killed when the Knight and his party came up on them. Then she heard the drivers urging the oxen forward, and soon both wagons and men were off the road.
The Blooding Page 8