The Errantry of Bantam Flyn

by Jonathan French

  “How fares your skull?”

  Gulver blew out a frustrated laugh.

  “Fortunately thick. Curse you for the lightning quick ponce you are, Flyn! I was a fortnight in the infirmary for that blow!”

  “Even trees fall to lightning,” Flyn returned. “Whereas you are still standing, you feathered mountain.”

  Gulver chuckled, working the stiffness of the armor from his neck and shoulders.

  “You returned with Constant Corc?”

  “I did,” Flyn nodded. “And do not call him such.”

  Gulver gave a conciliatory nod. “Any of the others?”

  “We are the first,” Flyn replied. “Not been here but two hours.”

  “And you are only now subjecting us to your damn pranks?”

  “It took me that long to find a barrel.”

  They both laughed heartily at that, drawing a few grumbles from the other squires returned from the night's watch now trying to sleep.

  “I met the new chronicler,” Flyn said in more hushed tones.

  “Inkstain?” Gulver snorted. “A wonder he still lives. Never met a human so useless and craven that the gruagach don't bother to murder him.”

  There was a long silence.

  “How long, Gulver?” Flyn ventured at last. “How long have the skin-changers been in the castle?”

  Gulver's brow furrowed as he calculated. “You been gone, what, a full year and half another? Likely, they were here even before you left. Leastways that is what the Knights Sergeant think, what little they tell us. Things are grave. There are whispers that the squires up for errantry will be denied. With the dangers now lurking within the Roost, we are too few and too valuable as a garrison to let any go.”

  Flyn absorbed the big squire's words. Like Gulver, Flyn was two years away from being knighted, but unlike Gulver he had special dispensation. If these rumors were true, there was a chance he would not be granted knighthood as promised, but stuck back in the castle to man the walls and guard the servants against skin-changers. Flyn fought a rising anger.

  “You meet with the Grand Master today?” Gulver asked, bringing Flyn out of his darkening thoughts.

  “Yes,” Flyn said, realization dawning.

  So. All eyes were on him. The Order could not dub him a knight and then decline to bestow the same honor to the squires who had served dutifully for the required six years. If the whispers Gulver spoke of bore any weight and the squires were to be nothing more than a standing army, he could not hope to escape such a fate.

  “How many with the required years have petitioned for knighthood?”

  “Seven,” Gulver said. “But only four have a chance of being given spurs. The others...” Gulver waved a massive hand, dismissing the remaining candidates and Flyn with one gesture. “Now get you gone. I need sleep.”

  Flyn stood, slapping Gulver on the knee. The squire lay his bulk down on the rough straw of the bunk. Flyn retrieved his hauberk from the ruins of the barrel, purposefully shaking the sand off on Gulver's feet. His little goad was wasted. The brute was already snoring.

  Flyn returned to the Campaign Hall, where a room had been prepared for he and Sir Corc. Several of the other doors along the corridor were now closed, evidence that a few of the Knights Errant had also made it back to the castle. Flyn wondered who rested behind those doors. It was always the most debated question amongst the squires. Who would return every two-year and who would not. The knights had not been away quite so long this time, having been recalled to the Roost a year and a half ago for a funeral and an accompanying tourney. A tourney which had changed the course of Flyn's life.

  Not bothering to close the door to the chamber, Flyn sat upon a low stool and began inspecting his mail shirt. It could have used a few more passes in the barrel. Frowning, he snatched up an oiled cloth and gave the links an aggressive scrub.

  “It is time.”

  Flyn did not look up immediately. He gave the mail a final once over, squinting hard. Still unsatisfied, he raised his head.

  Sir Corc stood in the doorway.

  Well into his middle years, the knight remained thick of arm and deep of chest. His feathers retained most of their chestnut color, only here and there paled with grey. His armor showed dents, the crimson of his surcoat faded, but both were kept clean. Well-worn, hard-used, but donned with pride, their imperfections a testament to the many years and countless miles spent in honorable service. Flyn did not know how he did it. He had never seen Corc take oil to his breastplate, nor a whetstone to his sword. Those chores he saved for the darkest watches; the nights he spent awake while others slept, the lonely mornings when he rose before the sun. Every night, every morn.

  “I will be just another moment,” Flyn told him. “Last bit of tarnish here.”

  Sir Corc’s stare shifted briefly to the mail draped over Flyn’s knee. He nodded once before turning away, his broad shoulders filling the narrow corridor as he left.

  “Sir Corc the Constant,” Flyn said to himself, pausing in his futile scrubbing. Once he would have said it with disappointment, even disdain, muttering it away from the knight’s hearing as a private slight. He was still careful to say it out of earshot, but there was no disrespect in his voice. It had become something of an oath to Flyn, a reminder. Sir Corc hated his title, given him by his sworn brothers years before Flyn’s time. If they thought themselves clever, if they sought to make sport, they were fools. Just as Flyn had been a fool. He often wondered whether the name was something the knight was saddled with during his days as a squire; days filled with ceaseless drills and the belittling tutelage of the Knights Sergeant. Flyn could not imagine the Old Goose screaming at a young Corc, calling him “bantam” and slapping him with the blade of a practice sword. But surely it must have happened, for Sir Corc learned his lessons well.

  Flyn had fought him twice and been soundly defeated. Flyn, who was the best of the squires. Flyn, who had bested the famed Bronze Wattle and stood against the Forge Born. Flyn, who once sought to win glory and titles far surpassing any who had come before him. Flyn, who would now have an audience with the Grand Master looking like a begrimed sellsword.

  He bent back to his armor, pressing the rag deeply into the rings, but patches of stubborn rust remained. He had tried to clean the shirt before they took ship, rolling it in a barrel of sand across what flat ground existed on their little island. Across and back again, for hours. He even stooped to recruiting Pocket to his cause, resting on a rock as the little gurg pushed determinedly at the heavy barrel. For all their efforts, the mail continued to look dingy and they shared a good laugh at their failing.

  Flyn stopped suddenly, the memory of Pocket freezing him in place. He should not even be thinking of the boy. Not here. Sir Corc had made sure he understood, badgering him the entire voyage that they were not to utter the child's name, not even to each other. Flyn had not needed to be told. To the few in the castle who might remember him, Pocket had to remain what he was the day he left. A changeling orphan who ran away from his duties in the scullery, never to be seen again. At least, not alive.

  Banishing all thought of the boy and all hopes of shining mail, Flyn quickly donned his armor and weapons. He found Sir Corc waiting for him in the Campaign Hall proper. They strode out into the Middle Bailey, Sir Corc leading slightly, ascending the nearest steps to the battlements and used the wall walks to cross over to the middle gatehouse, or as the squires affectionately called it, the Midden Gate.

  “Because it is the shittiest place to stand watch!” Flyn recited with a laugh, reaching forward to bump Sir Corc's shoulder with his fist. The old knight had to know the joke, it was near as ancient as the Roost, but he gave no notice to Flyn or his jibe. Flyn was unperturbed. It was Corc's way.

  The guards checked that Flyn and Corc were wearing the required collars of iron nails and also had them place hand upon the blunted blade of an old tourney sword for added measure. Once through the gatehouse, they descended into the Inner Bailey and Sir Corc l
ed them to Mulrooster's Tower. They were again checked by guards before being admitted into the tower, but once inside they went unchallenged up the stairs to the Grand Master's chambers. Sir Corc entered without knocking, a familiarity which said a great deal about the knight, and about his relationship with the sole occupant of the room they now entered.

  Grand Master Lackcomb turned away from the window as they stepped inside, fixing them with his good eye, the other was milked over, colorless and dead. Nearing his seventies, Lackcomb still possessed a powerful frame, radiating the vigor of a much younger coburn. Indeed, Flyn found it difficult to believe that the Grand Master was a full twenty years Sir Corc's senior. Scars from dozens of battle wounds lay nestled in Lackcomb's feathers, but his most famous injury was self-inflicted. An ugly, puckered strip of tissue ran across the top of the old war bird's head, all that remained of the comb he had sliced off with his own hand. That, at least, was the legend. To Flyn's knowledge, Lackcomb had never uttered a word to refute it.

  Sir Corc went to one knee before the Grand Master. Flyn realized he should follow, a lurching heartbeat later.

  “Rise,” Lackcomb commanded with a hint of impatience.

  Flyn need not have worried about the delay in his decorum, for once they were back on their feet the Grand Master forgot all about him, directing his gaze and his questions only at Sir Corc.

  “Any of the others?” Lackcomb asked.

  “Pyle Strummer, Poorly Well and Wex the Ganger have arrived,” Sir Corc answered. “I saw Blood Yolk when we put in at Grianaig. He should not be but a day or two behind.”

  “Needs to pay his crew of wreckers and pirates,” Lackcomb surmised. “So. Five returned. Out of three dozen.”

  “It is early yet,” Sir Corc said. “The two-year mark is still a week hence.”

  “We will not get a full count,” Lackcomb's response was too quick, almost angry. Flyn risked a glance at Corc. The knight's face was unchanged, and he said nothing, as was his way. Lackcomb went back to the window. “Bronze Wattle is dead.”

  “What?” Flyn could not stop himself from asking.

  Lackcomb plucked a piece of stained parchment from his desk, only to toss it immediately back down with a flick of his wrist.

  “I have had word from Black Pool. The Red Caps attempted to retake Sweynside. Bronze Wattle led a force to stop them at the Goat's Tongue Bridge. He succeeded, but the goblins have taken to poisoning their arrows. Sir Girart confirms it. He is dead.”

  Flyn's beak was agape. He could not fathom it. Bronze Wattle was considered by many to be the best knight of the Order. He was respected by his fellow Knights Errant and revered by the squires. His fall was a grave turn.

  “You fought him, bantam.”

  It took Flyn a moment to realize Lackcomb's words were directed at him.

  “You fought him,” Lackcomb said again, ignoring Flyn's lack of attention. He came around the desk and approached, drawing closer with every word. “In the tourney field. You fought him and emerged the victor. You beat him, but I wonder...can you replace him?”

  The Grand Master was now directly in front of him, leaning in close. Flyn met his penetrating stare with a solid one of his own.

  “No one can replace Bronze Wattle, my lord,” he answered with surety. “But I know Black Pool and have experience against the Red Caps. If my lord deems it fitting, I will go to the city and take up Bronze Wattle's struggle.”

  Lackcomb considered this, his milky eye seeming to search Flyn's face for a hint of weakness. Flyn knew it would find none. At last, the Grand Master turned back to Sir Corc.

  “Is he ready?”

  Flyn was suddenly grateful Lackcomb no longer stared at him, for that milky eye would have detected doubt play across his face. He was unsure how Corc would answer. There had been no great love between them in the beginning. A mutual lack of respect at best, outright hostility at the worst, especially for Flyn's part. He kept his face forward, fighting an urge to look over at Sir Corc, knowing to do so would be both pitiful and pointless. The knight's face was ever unreadable. Even now he considered the question before him, every moment he remained silent furthering Flyn's fate back to the squires.

  “He is,” Sir Corc said at last. Flyn allowed himself a small smile.

  “And what of you?” the Grand Master pressed the knight. “Are you ready to give up your own errantry and at last join the ranks of the Knights Sergeant?”

  Flyn did look over at Sir Corc now. This was new. Corc had never spoken of such an offer, but Corc never spoke of much to anyone. The knight's response to this question, however, came quickly.

  “As before, my lord,” Sir Corc said. “I must decline.”

  “These refusals are wearing thin, Sir,” Lackcomb said.

  Corc said nothing.

  “This castle is under siege from within,” the Grand Master told them, “We are not an order of farmers or shepherds. We are warriors. And dependent upon the surrounding human clans to sustain us. Human clans who now grow to distrust us. The numbers of young struts who enter the Roost with visions of knighthood wanes each year. We are losing our servants within the walls, we are losing our knights without. I have need of trustworthy knights here, Sir Corc.”

  “With respect, my lord,” Sir Corc replied, “the needs of the Tin Isles are also great. I can still be of most use in the world.”

  Flyn saw the Grand Master's face darken at these words. Anger began to creep into his brow, into the edge of his voice.

  “You did a great service to Airlann with the slaying of Torcan Swinehelm,” Lackcomb said. “But after, you left the Source Isle and, despite recruiting the best leech this Order has ever had, what has occupied your quests since?”

  “I have been chart—”

  “Charting the Knucklebones!” Lackcomb cut him off. “Aye, I know. You sent word. And how, tell me, does the distinct mapping of countless miserable spits of rock in the ocean help the causes of the Valiant Spur?”

  Sir Corc remained stalwart under the Grand Master's disapproval. The charting of the northern islands was a lie, one which the knight had not told lightly. The opinions of his brother knights had never mattered to Sir Corc, Flyn knew, but such thinly veiled vexation from the leader of the Order could not have been easy to endure. Still, the knight bore the weight with the same implacable resolve that shaped him.

  “It would be prudent to know exactly what lies just off our northern shores,” Sir Corc responded. “It may seem an inglorious task, my lord, but that does not lessen its importance.”

  “And what of this gruagach incursion?” Lackcomb demanded, his patience frayed. “Of what importance do you place that? I have need of swords here, Sir Corc. Swords, and minds keen enough to wield them. The Knights Sergeant need new blood to help shape the squires.”

  “I am ill-suited as an instructor, my lord,” Sir Corc said.

  “You shaped this one!” Lackcomb returned, thrusting a finger at Flyn.

  “No, my lord,” the knight disagreed. “He shaped himself.”

  “Damn you, Corc, your place his here!” Lackcomb pronounced, slamming a fist down upon his desk.

  “My lord,” Sir Corc said evenly. “By tradition, each knight sworn and spurred may quest where he will, without interference. You have no power to keep me here.”

  The Grand Master's eyes widened at this defiance. Flyn saw his feathers begin to bristle and glanced to the corner of the room where Lackcomb's renowned pole axe, the Coming Dawn, rested. By rights, all were allowed to challenge the reigning Grand Master for governance of the Order. Lackcomb had thrown down his predecessor, just as every Grand Master before him had for centuries. Flyn tried to imagine a contest between these two veterans. The outcome of such a battle was far from certain.

  Fortunately, the Grand Master cooled, his gaze and his voice adopting an icy bitterness.

  “True,” he said. “I have no power over you. But I do have the power to grant or deny petitions to knighthood.”

  Fl
yn felt his blood go cold.

  “If I grant this one the honor,” Lackcomb continued, nodding at Flyn, but keeping his eyes fixed on Sir Corc, “then I must consider the other seven eligible squires. That is a tenth of the castle garrison lost to errantry. That is a cost I can ill afford, Sir Corc. Not without recompense. So, I ask you again. Will you join the Knights Sergeant? For that is the price of the bantam's spurs.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Flyn,” Sir Corc said at last. “Please await me without. I would speak with the Grand Master alone.”

  Flyn gave the knight a respectful nod, leaving the room without the slightest sign of obedience to Lackcomb. Not wanting to pace about in the confines of the tower, Flyn made his way down to the Bailey and out into the hot day. Maybe the sun's heat would eclipse the rage boiling up in his blood.

  Damn Lackcomb and his deals!

  Flyn himself had struck a bargain with the Grand Master when he left with Sir Corc. He was to accompany the knight to Airlann and upon his return he was to be awarded his spurs. Now it appeared, that promise was as empty as the Roost. Sir Corc would be a fool to agree to any terms set by Lackcomb. And Flyn knew the knight was no fool, just as he knew Corc could not join the Knights Sergeant. His mission was far more important than the falsehood he fed the Grand Master.

  Pocket must be protected, his identity kept safe, the very fact that he still lived kept secret! That was Sir Corc's charge. Even coming here, leaving the little island in the Knucklebones where they had lived hidden for over a year, had been difficult for the knight. Turning Pocket's safekeeping over to others, even trusted allies, tested Corc's sense of duty. Would he possibly reveal his true purpose to the Grand Master? That, in Flyn's estimation, was the only way Lackcomb might see reason. Is that why Corc had sent him away?

  Flyn's steps led to the Great Hall. He satisfied the guards that he was no skin-changer and entered the cavernous, echoing structure that housed the grandeur of the Order. During feasts, the Great Hall was filled to bursting with revelers. Now it loomed quiet and abandoned. It was difficult to imagine a feast held in the Roost now. The castle was a changed place.