The Shield

by CJ Bentley

  “My Lady, I have eaten my fill.” He rose from the table and turned to my ‘father’.

  “My Lord, please excuse me for a short while and I will escort the Lady Eleanor to the stairs, I am curious as to what she needs to discuss. A new fishing pole, perhaps.” He looked at me with that merriment in his eyes again which I found quite disconcerting.

  “Good night, Papa.” I walked with Sir Kay to one side and good old Glenda on the other towards the far doorway, people watching my every move as we passed the tables on either side. I wondered if any of them realised I was not the real Lady Eleanor and if they did, then why didn’t my ‘father’?

  Chapter 5

  “Glenda, I would like to take another bath in my room, there is no need for you to do this for me if you would just arrange it all while I talk with Sir Kay please.” A cunning plan to get rid of you for a short while, is what I hoped.

  “Of course my Lady, I will go and arrange the hot water immediately. When you have finished your conversation I will be up to your room. Do not be long, good thing to have another bath in case of catching cold.” With that she disappeared, to where I do not know but my guess was the kitchen where she would ‘arrange’ the hot water.

  “Sir Kay, I have so many questions need answering and if you leave to visit the King without me then I might not have them answered for ages until you get back, that is if the King is in London and we are in the North of England, so please stay a while and answer them now for me.” I spoke in my usual haste without taking a breath.

  “Lady Eleanor, I will try to answer them but some may have to wait until we meet with the wise woman, it was she who put all of this into being.” Sir Kay spoke with conviction and drew me to the side wall as he was speaking. “You must not mention the wise woman to anybody, my Lady. This could spell trouble within these walls, you must trust me on this.”

  “Sir Kay, why am I here? Where is the real Lady Eleanor? How long will I be here? Why did you bring me here?” All of these questions tumbled out of my mouth without any gaps between.

  “One at a time my Lady, one at a time please.” He stepped even further back into the shadows of the wall. “We must take care as not all can be trusted within these walls. I can answer only one of your questions tonight and that is you are here to fulfil your destiny, as prophesised by the wise woman.”

  “Sir, you have already told me that but you have not told me what my destiny is and I am pretty fed up with this wise woman and so looking forward to meeting up with her so I can give her a piece of my mind.” My face must have been a picture, anger and some bewilderment rolled into one.

  “Go and take your bath, my Lady, and we will talk in the ’morrow before I take my leave for the King.” Okay then, I thought, I am being dismissed, so I rose to my full height and almost meeting his eyes at his level I summoned my full Ladyship powers.

  “Sir Kay, you may meet with me here at first light. I sleep lightly and will wake at dawn so don’t be late.” With that I turned and climbed the stairs as haughtily as I could with my head held high whilst lifting my skirt so I didn’t trip, as that would be so undignified, and I knew if I tripped he would laugh and no way was that happening.

  “To the ’morrow, my Lady.” I could detect a hint of a smile in his words but decided to ignore them with any reply.

  I made my way back to my room and sat down on the bed. Not a minute passed by when Glenda my gaoler returned with servants in tow organising another bath, which I didn’t really want but I went through the motions, not listening to her chatter as I was bathed and clothed in a nightgown and put to bed. Sleep came instantly and it seemed like such a short time had passed when I was woken by a cockerel crowing loudly within the castle grounds.

  I dressed quickly in my blue wool dress from last night’s dinner, tied on my soft slippers and was out of the door and down the stairs before that cockerel had stopped crowing. I made my way to where I hoped Sir Kay would be waiting for me, and thank heavens I was not disappointed. He was leaning against the wall wearing a red tunic with brown trousers, which I now knew were called hose, and a thick brown wool cloak, fastened at the shoulder with a rather large round ornate brooch which looked to me like it was made of gold. I took all of this in at first glance as I jumped down from the last step.

  “Thank heavens you are here, Sir Kay.” I was a little out of breath as the stairs were many and I had come down them at quite a rate. “Are you ready to answer all of my questions, Sir?” I enquired.

  “Morning to you my Lady, I thought I would take you for a short ride before the castle wakes. I have arranged for you to meet a certain someone who will explain all to you much better than me but we only have a short time, I must be on my way to the King with the note from the shield you recovered. We must make haste, come quickly, my Lady.” I thought this must be his longest speech yet; he was a man of short sentences was my gallant Sir Kay.

  “Are we going to visit the wise woman you mentioned?” I asked him as I strode to keep up with him as we neared the stables, where his horse was waiting with a smaller pony all saddled up and waiting for someone to ride. That would be me, then.

  Oh dear, how I wish I had taken more notice of the girls from the riding stables who exercised the horses in the fields near to us and had on more than one occasion offered to teach us to ride. Jeannette was the one who loved to be on horseback, and spent a lot of time talking about various horses she groomed and rode down at the stables. I gulped and decided it was only small, so if I did fall off then I wouldn’t have far to fall. With that, I used Sir Kay’s cupped hands to put my foot in and mounted the pony.

  I needn’t have worried. My feet found the stirrups and my hands took hold of the reins like I had been riding my whole life. I encouraged the pony to move and it did, to my surprise, and we both trotted out of the castle gates and down the rutted lane I had made my entrance from only yesterday. Sir Kay was beside me and we both rode side by side. My legs seemed to know what to do and we approached the village we had ridden through yesterday. It must have been too early for even early risers as nobody came out to greet us, so on we rode for a good amount of time until we came to a small wood. Sir Kay slowed his mount and I did the same and we entered the wood together.

  “Sir Kay, is this where she lives, in here?” I thought it was a little bit spooky in this wood but I was so concentrating on keeping my mount out of brambles and small trees that I didn’t notice a small cottage in a clearing ahead. The cottage had a well-tended garden all around it which was filled with flowers and plants I recognised from home. Mint and lavender, sage and rosemary and something my mum called catnip as well as various other flowers I couldn’t remember the names of. A wisp of smoke curled from the chimney and up into the sky, which was beginning to turn from amber to blue with the promise of a fine day ahead.

  Sir Kay dismounted and held my pony’s head while I did the same. He then tied both sets of reins to the garden fence, allowing both mounts to graze on the grass growing outside of the garden. We opened the gate and as we walked together up the garden path the door opened and a lady greeted us. Not the ugly, grim witch-like person I was expecting, far too young and quite pretty with long dark braided hair and a big smile. She was dressed in a blue dress like me so I immediately liked her.

  “You have brought her then, Sir Kay? She looks well.” She addressed this to Sir Kay but her eyes were on me as she spoke in a light lilting voice.

  “Er, excuse me but I am here, in front of you so please address me.” I was not going to be ignored. “I hope you are going to answer all of my questions because I have many and I am not playing along with this charade until all of them are answered.” I spoke with authority but I didn’t really feel brave; I was more than a little worried about this meeting and knew I had to keep on her right side if I wanted to see my friends and family again.

  We entered the cottage. It was gloomy inside but I could make out various herbs hanging from the ceiling beams, which gave the insid
e a perfumed smell, and the fire blazing in the hearth gave an orange glow to the rough wooden chairs either side of the fire. A black pot was hanging over the fire with interesting smells coming from it, which made me remember I had not had time for breakfast. I was waved towards a chair and I sat down, readying myself for the interview I was ready to give this wise woman, but she handed me a spoon and not taking no for an answer she ladled contents of the pot into a wooden bowl, which she then handed to me with a nod of the head for me to eat. I didn’t need telling twice. It was a savoury stew, not sure what was in it but it was absolutely the most delicious meal I had eaten since arriving wherever I was, so I tucked in. When I finished I really looked at her. Not being very good at telling ages I didn’t try to age her, but I would have thought around my mum’s age, so between thirty and forty I guessed. She had dark coloured hair which was braided like mine but her eyes were what drew me in; they were a very light blue but had darker blue centres, very strange indeed. Different, but having looked into them you would not forget them in a hurry. I took a deep breath and launched into my speech.

  “Right, I take it you are the wise woman Sir Kay has told me about and that you arranged for my being here, wherever here is and more importantly when. I seem to have been brought back in time somehow, so how and when and why?” As usual, it all came out in a sudden rush of words. I looked at them both as they glanced at each other before their eyes rested on me again.

  “You are right to want to know why I brought you back here, especially as we need your help more than you have already given unknowingly.” She looked at me with those strange eyes as she spoke. “You recovered the shield Sir Kay lost in battle in the year of our Lord 1340, in the reign of our good King Edward III. He was set upon by, shall we call them bandits, left for dead. Somehow he arrived at my door on horseback, unconscious and with a sword wound to his side.”

  The wise woman glanced at Sir Kay whilst speaking to me and they shared a knowing glance before she started talking again.

  “Sir Kay had been entrusted to take a message to the King from a person of high authority from the French court. Aunt to the Queen herself, Queen Philippa. I am a trusted friend of the Queen and Sir Kay is a Knight of the highest order of the land.” She stopped talking and looked hard at me. “This message must still reach the King, who is on his way to York from London. It has vital information from the French court. Do you know anything of this time, Eleanor?” She raised her eyebrow whilst quizzing me about my knowledge of history.

  I thought hard. Goodness, I had read about the King and his kind and generous wife Philippa, who often ruled in his absence while he tried to win the French crown in between fighting the Scots and the Welsh.

  I remembered something about his grandfather, I think Henry the third, him being the last of the true descent of the French kings and thinking he deserved the French crown through birthright. The French crown must be passed to the male line; women were not deemed as important, only as marriage goods. I wasn’t too sure about the history. Oh, but they had a son called the Black Prince who was involved with the One Hundred Years War in France, but I couldn’t remember what happened, when and who was involved. I would certainly be reading more if I managed to get home and back to school. Thinking about both, I continued with my questioning.

  “Please could you tell me what I have to do, what is my destiny, as Sir Kay called it? And will I get back to my own time? I miss my mother and father and even my sister and my friends too, I want to finish the school holidays catching fish and eating picnics and playing out.” Not too much to ask for, I felt. “What about my father in this time, the Lord Preston? He has only just recovered me from my fishing escapade, will he not be missing me again?” I looked forlorn. Although I had not known the Lady Eleanor’s father for very long, I liked him and knew he would be distraught all over again at losing his daughter.

  The wise woman gave me a smile. She took hold of my hands and gave me a hug. “You are a good girl, with a brave kind heart and you must not worry about anything to do with time, I will take care of that. You will be away from him for the blink of an eye.” She continued to hold my hands in hers.

  “Yes, you will get back to your own time, I can assure you it will be arranged, but not until we have released the real Lady Eleanor who we think is being held captive somewhere in York. The King needs to receive this message as soon as he arrives, it is important to the security of the nation. The Lady Eleanor is being held captive to blackmail the King. She and the King’s young son, Prince Edward, who is the same age, have been friends since babes. If you travel with Sir Kay and appear at the King’s court in York as if nothing has happened, then whoever has taken Lady Eleanor will be surprised and perhaps start to make mistakes, which will show us who it is.” This was a lot to take in but I could see the logic in her plan.

  “Sir Kay suspects there is somebody within the Court trying to overthrow the King. We need to act quickly and so it is time to go. I have tried to answer your questions, Eleanor, I know you have more but I need you to be patient and help Sir Kay, so ride with him to York. We need to get the message to the King and find out who kidnapped the Lady Eleanor, and bring her back here to me before we return her to her father. Then we can send you back to your own time. You are important to the plan as you are the friend of the young Black Prince. He is the same age as you and you have spent many times together playing, as you will realise when you are together again. He rides North with his father. Go, the two of you, and may God go with you and bring you all safely back to me.” We were both ushered out of the door as she spoke, gathered up our reins for our mounts and were in the saddle and riding down the lane with the sense of urgency we both felt. It was some time before I managed to speak to Sir Kay. We slowed down for him to look up at the sun and find the road south, and it was then I spoke about what was worrying me.

  “Sir Kay, may I ask a few questions about the kidnapping of the Lady Eleanor?” He smiled, knowing I had been thinking whilst we both rode onwards.

  “My Lady, I would not expect anything different from you.” He waited.

  “The Lady Eleanor was kidnapped from where? Her home?” I asked him.

  “Yes my Lady, ’twas the castle, she was taken right from under her father’s nose, not to mention mine too,” he admitted sheepishly. “I have my suspicions as to who the culprits were but we need to speak to Lady Eleanor when we find her at York. Eleanor is very like you and will know exactly who took her. It will be interesting to find out for both myself and her father, not to mention the King. I suspect foul play, which may have something to do with my being set upon on the road to meet the King with the message.”

  “You mean this could all be down to somebody planning to overthrow the King?” It didn’t bear thinking about that a young girl could be subjected to kidnap, a knight of the land left for dead, all to stop a message getting to the King. It must be something incredibly important, as the wise woman suggested, to make all those things happen. Not to mention my being here, I thought to myself, and then passed my thoughts on to Sir Kay as he was turning his horse around to lead me to a path which must be leading south towards York.

  “Oh yes my Lady, somebody has been planning a long time to take over the throne, we have our suspicions as to who it is but of course they don’t know we have a secret weapon.” He looked at me before riding ahead.

  “Is that secret weapon me?” I asked as I followed him, but of course he didn’t hear me as I was now some distance behind him.

  Chapter 6

  We travelled quickly south and following a good day’s ride, the city of York’s high white limestone walls appeared on the horizon. We made our way through a stone archway towards the centre of the city to find the castle. We passed townspeople selling their goods, shouting out their wares and the prices they were charging. I had been to York a few times in my own time and it wasn’t much different then as it was now. Noisy, bustling and vibrant. But the main difference was the roads, al
l were cobbles and earth, not the tarmac we had in the twentieth century. Motors too were of course non-existent, all traffic was by foot, or by horse if you were wealthy enough to own a horse. There was a lot to look at and as I looked I was completely overawed by it all. Wait until I got back to my own time. History would mean so much more to me; I couldn’t wait to pass on all I was learning by living in this time.

  I was so occupied by looking and listening to the general scene around me that I failed to see two men on horseback travelling towards us and approaching fast. They were upon us before I knew it. Sir Kay moved his horse to get in front of mine, but was not fast enough before a large hand thrust out towards me and knocked me from my pony to the ground. I was vaguely aware of a bright red cloak and an acrid smell coming from the arm as it came towards me, then I was on the ground and feeling sore and bruised. Sir Kay was down from his horse and bending to see if I was alright.

  “My Lady, speak to me to let me know if you are alright?” I couldn’t help thinking it was a stupid question. I was lying on the ground feeling shaken, having had the stuffing knocked out of me and of course I wasn’t alright. When I got my breath back I answered him to that effect.

  “Come, my Lady, we must away and find those culprits.” Sir Kay was looking ahead towards where they had disappeared. “We must make them pay for what they have done.”

  “Sir Kay, I think it much better if we make more haste towards the King and finish our purpose than chasing two people whose destination we don’t know,” I angrily answered him. I remounted my pony and Sir Kay walked with his horse, leading my pony by its reins through the crowd that had gathered around us. We walked this way until we saw a large building up ahead made of stone. It didn’t look much like a castle to me, but Sir Kay led us through the large wooden gates and into a square courtyard. A grey-haired monk shuffled towards us, holding out his hands to Sir Kay.