Wergild

by Boris L Slocum

  Deirdre endeavored from that moment to befriend Lady Isabel, a stranger in her land, and when next she awoke beside the woman, it was with a smile and a friendly word. It was only when the two went downstairs arm-in-arm that they were greeted by another gift, for they both espied an old friend.

  Much to her own amazement, Deirdre squealed like a young girl and ran to throw herself into the arms of Sir Alexis de Vere, who stood outside the common-room door, speaking with the hostler. Lady Isabel soon was beside them, an enormous smile on her face.

  “When did you arrive?” the woman asked.

  “Before first light,” replied the knight. “I’d finished my errand and rushed to see Reverend Ainsley before he departed … and to see the two of you.”

  “Where is Reverend Ainsley?” asked a surprised Isabel. “Has he gone?”

  Deirdre attempted to feign surprise.

  “He was on a nightlong vigil when I found him and didn’t want to wake you,” said the smiling knight. “But he asked I give you his goodbyes.”

  Both young ladies made disappointed sounds.

  Sir Alexis put a fatherly hand on the shoulder of each. “He did a great kindness for me by looking over the two of you in my absence, delaying a minor pilgrimage he’d promised to undertake when he and I returned from the Holy Land.”

  “Such a wonderful man,” whispered Isabel. “Will we see him again?”

  “Oh, you know how the reverend is, Lady Isabel,” Deirdre found herself saying. “His body is in this world, but his heart and mind are on the next.”

  The young woman inhaled. “Sir Alexis, did he tell you of the dreadful thing from just yesterday.”

  The knight’s face took a solemn expression. “No. He spoke not of it, and I didn’t ask. But it’s talked of up and down the High Road and beyond. These are dreadful and dangerous times, which is why I rushed to rejoin you. There is war in the air.”

  The two women gasped, and this time Deirdre’s was real.

  “War?” she was finally able to ask. “War with whom?”

  “War among the people,” was the knight’s sad reply. “Even now I head west to the tournament at Faire Gate to meet cousins of mine. What was to be a celebration of arms, is now to be a conference of peace. Hopefully those assembled will find some solution to the havoc that besets the land.” He turned to Isabel, whose eyes had gone wide in fear. “I hope you’ll travel with Tuppence and me, m’lady. It’s less safe to travel now than it was even a few days past. And your friend Brian Mayfield perhaps will be at the tourney. If not, I’ll happily convey you to Mayfield afterward.”

  The young woman hesitated. “Will … um…?”

  “M’lady, I cannot say who may attend the tourney, but while you travel with me, you are under my protection, as if you reside in my very home. None will dare harm or molest you. On this you have my oath.”

  The kind words of Sir Alexis appeared to ease the lady’s fears, and she nodded gratefully. Even Deirdre felt a small knot in her throat at the knight’s return. She knew he was the same being as had been with her the day before, but there was something about Sir Alexis, something bracing and reassuring in his bearing. She found herself smiling as she and Isabel went off to their breakfast and the faux knight arranged their travel for the day.

  Much to Deirdre’s surprise after breakfast, Sir Alexis had completed everything for their departure, including procuring a half dozen riding animals, a pack animal for the various accoutrements he’d obtained, and a pair of war stallions for himself. He’d even obtained the services of a Surrey man he called Birdy to act as groom and helper. In short order, they were on the road and headed west.

  Before a quarter of a mile had passed, though, there was a commotion at the graveyard where the day before they’d buried Mayor Villeneuve. Isabel seemed concerned.

  Sir Alexis spoke in a woeful tone. “Oh, more villainy in the land, dear lady. Grave robbers. Such riffraff are about whenever a wealthy man is put to rest, looking for jewelry or coin or some other … choice bits. The lawlessness of late is a calamity.”

  The Surrey lass resisted yet another urge to roll her eyes, but instead did her utmost to fake a sad smile. But there was another thing. Almost immediately, Deirdre sensed something on the road was amiss, something she’d not felt before, but it was a thing that took her half of the morning to identify.

  All who they saw were travelling in large groups, and not just the Surrey — there hardly were any Surrey to be seen — but also the Gheets. And all those people were armed and armored. It neared midmorning when they saw the first flying columns racing by in the distance, and if her nose did not deceive her, there was the smell of smoke in the air. Something was afoot, and though they’d chatted amiably among themselves to that point, Sir Alexis soon instructed that none of them stray from the road and that they all be on their guard.

  They were a half-bell past Gatsby when one of the flying columns approached. A group of eight armed and mounted men turned from their course and sped toward the small party. The strangers slowed a hundred yards distant and approached at a walk. It wasn’t clear what emboldened them, the fact Deirdre and their friends were so few or the fact that Sir Alexis had the coloration of a Surrey — the Gheet of the north for many years had intermarried with Deirdre’s folk — but it was the most foolish stunt imaginable.

  After whispering a short command to Birdy, Sir Alexis spurred his horse forward and met the men eighty yards distant. There was what appeared to be a short parlay, after which one of the fools drew a mace and fetched a blow at the head of Sir Alexis, who responded by deflecting the mace, snatching out his sword, and severing the man’s arm at the elbow.

  Birdy grabbed up the reins of the women’s two horses, and the three soon were riding breakneck for a large tree on a small hillock nearby. With Birdy dismounted, a large mace in his hand, Deirdre decided not to be mobile plunder. She stood on her saddle, reached up, and pulled herself into the lower limbs of the enormous elm. She motioned for Lady Isabel to follow, and the two young women were soon twenty or so feet from the ground, watching as Sir Alexis effortlessly thrashed the brigands up one side of the High Road and down the other, like any good knight should.

  Lest one of the men escape the knight’s vigilance and seek to rob them of their effects, Deirdre called down, “Birdy, keep a close eye on the horses. Lady Isabel and I are safe up here.”

  “My proper name is actually Charles, miss.”

  “Birdy, don’t be cheeky.”

  As the Surrey lass leafed through the book she’d brought into the tree with her, she glanced over to a wide-eyed and frightened Lady Isabel on the thick limb next to her. “We’re very accustomed to violence in our land,” she told the young woman.

  Now, she thought, where did I leave off?

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  After the melee near the tree, their travel was far from untroubled, but Isabel had seen the sort of knight who protected them and was able to breathe more freely. She’d always thought of fair Sir Utrecht as a strong and valiant knight — certainly everyone had told her such — but Sir Alexis was a warrior unrivaled. The ease with which he’d driven off the brigands brought to mind the stories of King Arthur and his knights. It was swift and ferocious and so noble that it seemed the knight always gave the enemy a chance to strike the first blow. It availed the fools not.

  Several more times during their morning’s travels, Birdy stayed back, mace in hand, as Sir Alexis sallied forth and drove off interlopers with the ease by which a wolf might savage a hare. By early afternoon, though, the roads cleared except for larger and better-armed parties, and Isabel realized the tourney must be near. In no time at all, they turned off the road and made for an enormous open field near a babbling stream. It was a sudden glimpse of bucolic ease amid the tumult of the countryside.

  Sir Alexis invited her and Tuppence to partake of the festival pavilions that were open nearer to the High Road, but both women stayed close at hand, and they watched as Sir Alexis, Bir
dy, and some men the knight had engaged erected several tents for their use. The knight dismissed her suggestion that the women might help, and she marveled at the way life went on among the holidaymakers despite the chaos that churned around them.

  What was more, the annoyance she’d felt for Tuppence in recent days slowly changed to shame. These folks simply were accustomed to violence and death in ways that the folks of Savannah, Georgia, were not. It was just that simple. The ease with which Tuppence buried her nose in a book was no sign of disregard; It simply was the way things were.

  In no time at all, their camp was set, the ladies had refreshed themselves, and Sir Alexis insisted they take advantage of the still-young day and partake of the food, ale, and entertainments of the festival. No one could deny him, and the knight and his two wards soon gently ambled toward the center of the tourney’s fairground.

  It was delightful. There were amusements of every stripe, people of every type, and contests for folk both lordly and common in anticipation of the next day’s festivities. They spent time watching the troubadours, jugglers, archers, and mimes. By late afternoon, the hungry festival-goers had found their way to a broad area about which were cooking fires and food stalls beyond count.

  The two ladies reclined at a comfortable bench to sip their ale and partake in a local dish Isabel had come to think of as hummus (she’d forgotten its local name), and Sir Alexis had stepped down the promenade some way to speak with several knights of his acquaintance.

  It simply was divine, until the crowd parted, and a man stepped toward the table at which she and Tuppence sat. It was Sir Everett Dupuis, the man who intended to own her.

  A woman cried out to her left where Tuppence should have been as Sir Everett grabbed Isabel by the wrist, a gleeful smile on his face, and dragged her into the crowd. The man crowed. He crowed!

  “Look here, lads!” he called out to a group who Isabel somehow realized were the man’s companions. “Here’s my lost bride, laid out for all to see. How could I have misplaced such a gem?”

  To her shock and disgust, all present began to laugh, Sir Everett and his louts and others included. Isabel was stunned and unable to speak from the terror. But she felt something warm and comforting at her trembling shoulder as she was dragged like a dog across the fairground, something that slowed her advance to a crawl. It was Tuppence pulling at her. She couldn’t see the young woman. But she knew it was her friend. A sudden guilt overwhelmed her. If Tuppence, a girl she scarcely knew and who had befriended her for no reason, could be so brave, so could she.

  Sir Everett was incredibly strong, but she pulled against his grip with all her might and cried out. “I’m to be wed to Sir Alexis de Vere! Get your hands from me!”

  She’d never thought to say such a thing, and her own words shamed her even more. She’d been raised by a mother who’d taught her a woman was her own person. The humiliation she felt at relying on the name of a man to….

  And then Dupuis turned, and the rage and malevolence in his eyes again rendered her mute. At least it did until it occurred to her the look on the man’s face was not intended for her, but for someone behind her. Another arm and comforting hand in addition to that of Tuppence gripped her shoulder.

  “And I am the happiest man in Albion for it,” came the voice of Sir Alexis de Vere. His words were soft and polite. “Now, Sir Everett, be so kind as to unhand the good lady.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  What followed was much as Deirdre had come to expect. Sir Alexis was polite beyond words, gently offering Sir Everett his contrite apologies, attempting in ways great and small to make things right between them.

  But the more Sir Alexis adopted a position of contrition and friendship, the angrier Sir Everett appeared to grow. Several times, the Gheet knight moved as if he might quit the encounter. But each time, Sir Everett turned again to face Sir Alexis, ever more angry with each passing moment. Deirdre wasn’t sure, but it appeared to her that the mildness of Sir Alexis somehow seemed to fuel Dupuis’ rage. The whole thing went on for the better part of a quarter bell.

  At first, passersby and watchers appeared to take no sides, but over the course of the ever-more voluble encounter (at least voluble on the part of Sir Everett) a number of knights stepped forward to mediate. Several pointed out that Sir Alexis was reaching out his hand in friendship. Why not take it? Sir Everett’s constant belligerence began to shift the crowd toward Sir Alexis, until only Dupuis’ own followers sided with him.

  Somehow, at some point, it grew too much for the angry knight, and on his fourth or fifth move to quit the conversation, he turned about and vigorously struck Sir Alexis across the face.

  The thing was done.

  The powerful blow scarcely phased Sir Alexis de Vere, who looked more saddened by the act than angered. But his next words said it all. In a rueful voice, he spoke directly to Sir Everett Dupuis. “I have never owned a blunted sword, sir knight.”

  Those were words of consequence, and several older knights, those foremost among the earlier peacemakers, stepped forward and spoke urgently to Sir Alexis. Deirdre could not hear, but knew the import of them, even her, a commoner. This was not a battle to first blood, nor even until one combatant was unable to continue.

  No. This was to be a fight to the death, a thing not uncommon among the gentry, but among the gentry there was no requirement to wait two bells before a duel was to commence. There was no opportunity for cooler heads to prevail. When Deirdre saw the older knights, who whispered with Sir Alexis, nod and raise their palms in acceptance, it was obvious: Sir Everett Dupuis already was a corpse.

  She almost felt sorry for the man.

  Her first stop was to take an again-distraught Isabel in hand — did folk not duel in her world? After leading the woman to a soft tuft of grass near the tilting field, she spent some time reassuring her that Sir Alexis was the strongest knight in Albion and that the combat between he and the villain Dupuis was a mere formality. It seemed to help a little.

  She then repaired to where Birdy helped Sir Alexis don his full armor. There she lounged about, eventually pulling herself up onto the saddle of his warhorse, from where she watched the old fraud prepare for the show. Impatience got the better of her, and she twisted around and squirmed in the saddle as children do, until the knight sent Birdy away to look after Lady Isabel.

  “She’s going to throw you to the ground, if you’re not careful,” said the knight, nodding to the great warhorse. As he did, he drew his sword, took a seat on a bench, and began to hone the blade with a whetstone.

  Deirdre didn’t dismount but instead spun around, arched her back, and lowered her head to regard the now upside-down knight in the upside-down world. “You’re not really protecting Lady Isabel’s honor, are you?”

  “Of course, I am. I’m very fond of her.”

  “Hmm … I think she likes you quite a lot, too. But that’s not what I mean, and you know it. Sir Everett is on your list, isn’t he?”

  “Your list,” he corrected. “And, yes.”

  Deirdre reinverted herself and took a proper seat in the saddle. “Okay, if it’s my list, when am I getting my vengeance?” Her voice was far more peevish than she’d intended, but it didn’t seem to merit an apology.

  The knight looked up at her from his chore. Sir Alexis wasn’t a handsome man — he was far too hard and rugged for that — but the beautiful smile he cast her now sparkled. “Don’t you see it?”

  “See what?” Now she was confused.

  “Child, war is in the air. Even now bandits and brigands ride the High Road in broad daylight, neighbor turns against neighbor, and the grandees of Blenheim County gather for a moot to devise a solution. The Gheet are reaping the reward of their bad behavior.”

  “I don’t under…,” she began. No. The men the Fiend had taken: The magistrate, the sheriff, the bishop, the prosecutor, the mayor, each and every one was a source of order in the county, even if they brought stability for the Gheet and not for the Surrey. “
But … what’s to protect….”

  “Protect your folk?” asked the Fiend. “You’ve already said yourself it couldn’t get worse for the Surrey folk. And I think you’re right. The Gheet did something malignant and blind. They looked the other way while a small portion of them glutted themselves on the blood and property of an unpopular and scorned group of neighbors. I’ve told you before child, beware of those who enjoy killing too much, because they are the same people who have a hard time telling friend from foe. The attacks on your folk may continue, but the Gheet of this county and beyond now begin to tear at each other in the same way. If Fate is generous and your people find a new courage to fight back, perhaps they can regain some of their rights of old.”

  She shivered and suddenly was breathless. It was all so magnificent and frightful at the same time. All that blood, all that death. It was her revenge, and she was gripped with an overwhelming urge both to laugh and to cry. But there was something else. She choked back her emotion. “But … if all this time you’ve been pushing for war, why has Reverend Ainsley spent the last days preaching peace among the Gheet?”

  Sir Alexis turned his blade to sharpen the other side and did a poor job of hiding a smile. “It’s a funny thing about preaching,” he said in a voice just loud enough for her to hear. “People hear what they hear. The good reverend spent hours preaching about how it is essential to forgive one’s neighbors and their trespasses. Did you not see anything strange in that?”

  She didn’t know how to reply. Wasn’t it merely the kind of thing preachers said?

  After a half dozen strokes of the stone, the knight rose, sheathed his sword, and stepped over next to her. He looked up at her where she sat on his steed. “In a time when a monster is abroad in the land killing and devouring men whole, why would anyone need to forgive his neighbors?”

  It then became obvious to the lass. People always had left the reverend feeling good, buoyant.

  As if reading her mind, the knight continued. “Such preaching, demanding forgiveness where none is due, plants the seed of doubt in the human heart, doubt about one’s neighbors. And terrified people do horrible, horrible things. The Gheet of this county are now a house divided. Now all they need is a push.”