by Jude Chapman
He slit the simpleton’s throat, clean and decisive, not giving him the remotest chance of waking. A moronic smile frozen on his face, he looked to die in the throes of an erotic dream.
Haplessly, the tall one moved in his sleep, then came awake all at once. The blade, longer than the span of a hand and whetted lethal, missed the man’s throat but stuck him in the shoulder. His yelp of agony was swiftly and permanently silenced.
Though Botolphe sprang to his feet, a familiar damascened sword clutched gamely in his hand, and roared like the lion engraved on the tang, he did not fully appreciate the danger lying within a hand’s width. The sickening smell of blood, cloying and unmistakable, should have given the man fair warning. Instead, the dragon sword’s sharp prick, which skittered across his neck only because he moved reflexively, made him more keenly aware though not fully. He reached up a tentative hand. Felt the slippery wetness. Saw blood drenching his fingertips. And went on wondering.
He gaped at the apparition then, a shadow only against the night gloom, taller than the trees and more vengeful than Moloch. When lightning flickered in the distance, it was enough to outline Botolphe’s adversary, the knight Drake fitzAlan, who gripped two deadly lengths of steel that invited him to the danse macabre. Looking beyond fitzAlan, he caught sight of the sprawled corpses, which at last revealed to him his probable fate.
Unless he killed fitzAlan first.
His pretty face grinned. His yellow hair, flattened by the wet, sluiced down his face like the mud Drake had streaked across his fair cheeks. A second weapon, a damascened dagger—the twin to Drake’s—appeared in the mercenary’s other hand and flared danger from its double-edged planes. Botolphe swiped his arm across a sugary mouth and lovingly massaged the weapon as if it were a prick in his masturbating clutch. A channel of blood, self-inflicted, wept across his thumb.
Balanced on ready haunches, Drake prepared for the routier’s attack, which arrived at the end of a snake-quick upsurge. He finessed the assault of both sword and dagger in practiced symmetry, executing a counterattack that somehow missed the man’s belly. Being a mercenary used to low and dirty tricks, Botolphe also knew how to use both weapons to his advantage. He sliced Drake’s arm on a feint, and on a continuing dodge, etched a line of dripping blood across Drake’s cheekbone.
Because Drake was leaner, younger, and better trained, he was swifter and possessed the mean talent to cut and run. But like the dragon slayers of legend, Botolphe felt none of it, being cut to ribbons like that. His strength was inexhaustible, even against quickness, dexterity, and a doggedness that Drake had mastered against countless knights who were meaner, bigger, and tougher than Botolphe.
They backed off to regroup and catch their breaths.
Raising sword and dagger, Drake charged. Botolphe waited for the right moment, and with an underhanded twist of the lion sword, a spin of his feet, and a downward thrust of the matching dagger, he disarmed Drake, first of the dragon sword and then of the dagger.
Both weapons whirled like scythes and became lost in the undergrowth.
His wrists throbbing from the buffet, Drake staggered. The bemused grin of the yellow-haired villain reappeared. The lion sword swiped at Drake’s midsection. Drake vaulted back, just out of reach. Botolphe advanced, his smirk widening. Drake dived low and lunged for his feet. Seeing the tackle coming, Botolphe kicked out his foot and caught Drake in the throat. Drake landed on his back, arms flung out, choking for breath. The cold touch of steel pricked his throat.
“And so,” Drake wheezed in English, “it has come to this.”
Botolphe inclined his head, and deciding it didn’t matter what Drake had said, prepared for the final death stroke.
A dagger with wings impaled his chest.
Screeching in agony, he staggered. The lion sword fell from his hand. He dropped to the ground. His eyes, violet no more, searched out Devon, who had thrown the damascened dagger and was now helping his master to his feet.
Death flattered the night. In return, night stilled for its call.
Botolphe reached up and dislodged the dagger. Gripping the bloody weapon, smeared black in the night, he contemplated the tool of his inevitable demise. He scooped up a fresh round of power, lumbered to his feet, and charged. In the explosive assault, he flung Drake aside and captured Devon in the crook of his choking elbow. Twin daggers gripped in both hands, he pressed one against the boy’s throat and dragged him toward the horses. Drake pushed himself fecklessly forward. Devon’s blue eyes flashed with dread. Botolphe used the blade cruelly and flung the limp body at Drake, who grabbed the boy and lowered him gently to the ground. The routier cackled once and mounted Stephen’s dappled gray.
Sprinting forward with a leaping twist, Drake wrenched the routier off the horse. Hand-to-hand, they migrated toward the river. At their backs the river gurgled on its speedy course. Botolphe lurched. One of the daggers fell from his hand and became lost in the mire. But the other, streaked with Devon’s blood, flirted with Drake’s stretched neck. The defensive grip Drake employed on the routier’s wrist was weak from the first. When Botolphe broke free and the knife descended, Drake rammed a shoulder into his chest. The mercenary’s arm flew out. They broke apart, reeled, and landed with a splash. The muddy riverbank, riddled with sharp gravel and cutting stones, embraced two warriors. Disengaging, they pressed to unsteady feet. The remaining dagger, firmly lodged in Botolphe’s fist, played with the night. Now here, now there, fingers flagellating, steel prancing. Laughter rumbled from his throat. Opalescent eyes radiated from a face marbled with mud and gore. He leered once and came for Drake.
The blade threatened ribs and belly. Drake leapt back with each pass. His diaphragm heaved. His legs ached. The landscape spun. On the next charge, he burst sideways. Botolphe followed the movement, mindless by now, and lost his balance. In the frenzied splashing to follow, the riverbank dropped out from beneath him. He regained his feet but slipped backwards into open water.
Drake stumbled away and sought higher ground.
Kicking and hacking, Botolphe floated to the surface. He did not know how to swim. Since the water was shallow enough this close to shore, had he simply put his feet down, he would have found a foothold. But in his terror, he groped blindly for a saving hand, a convenient limb, a solidity to the water’s surface, all the while squawking and sobbing and begging incoherently for rescue.
“My brother! Where is my brother?!”
The dagger waved benignly. He gulped river water by the mouthful. “I … I don’t …” The crazy bastard was drowning. Unable to help himself, he begged shamelessly. “Please, oh God, please …”
“God can’t help you, but I can.” Drake waded into the shallows. “You delivered him to another. Who? Where?”
Water funneled into his mouth a second time. An unnatural quiet took hold. He splashed back to the surface, coughing and sobbing like a child, his hair-snaked eyes fevered with fear. His head bobbed at the simmering surface. He strained his chin above the water line and threw out a name.
“Where did he take him?”
The water swirled around him. He named a locale.
“What does he look like?”
Inhaling river and air together, he spit out a curt description that could match a thousand men.
“Where was the hand-off point?”
His arms slapped the water. “Bourges. South of Bourges … that’s all I know … by the God above, I swear it!” He gasped for air. And disappeared below the swirling waters. When he floated weakly to the surface, his milky eyes silently begged.
Drake sloshed toward the waters. “Your hand!” he shouted. “Give me your hand!”
The drowning man reached out. One of the fingers pulsated with a blood-red gem. Drake hacked the mercenary’s left arm at the wrist. The blade caught the edge of a silver bracelet but still wreaked mortal damage. The man screamed. Drake shoved Botolphe back into the roiling stew. Blood churned the indigo waters. The mercenary flailed impotently, dismay,
confusion, and disbelief consuming his bloodless face. His lips sought air like a fish drowning on the hook. He said something that turned Drake’s stomach. And repeated the words. “He’s dead already. I killed him myself.” His colorless eyes, bewildered at their final glimpses of life … and of his murderer … remained open until the end.
Clouds parted. The moon appeared, full and effulgent, illuminating the routier’s comely face. Floating peacefully in the lunar-rippled water, he drifted downstream, the river embracing him like a lover.
Drake was squatting on the riverbank by then, his head bent over drawn-up knees, two damascened daggers grasped in each hand and two cabochon rings sparkling brilliantly in their clutch. The loss of blood from his arm was taking its toll. He collapsed onto the embankment with little ado.
“Devon,” he called out as a last hope, but received no answer.
Prostate in the muddy shallows, he blinked blearily up at the moon. And the moon, having witnessed all, sneaked once again behind stormy clouds and disappeared, sequestering everything into profound blackness.
Chapter 22
DELICATE FINGERS GRASPED his wrist. Drake started to come around. Hushed whisperings, most of it unintelligible, buzzed annoyingly. When he warily opened his eyes, the talking stopped.
An arresting lady with untamable auburn hair smiled down at him. He thought she was part of a dream spawned of delirium until her shapely lips moved and words spiraled out. “Shall we go for a priest? Or do you have a positive guess as to your survival?”
He sputtered with half-hearted laughter that brought acute spasms of pain.
“He will live, I think, sad loss to the Devil but glad tidings for his loved ones, whoever and wherever they may be.”
When she shifted her position, a crowd of faces peered curiously down at him. Five in all, no six, including the lady. Or was he seeing double, or rather triple? Three faces looked enough alike to be triplets. Brothers, he decided, each a year or two apart.
Dawn had broken hours before without Drake noticing. The sun burned hot on his forehead. He was sodden with river water, caked in mud, and soaked in dried blood, most though not all of it his. In their eagerness to dispense comfort, the travelers had dragged him to higher ground.
The one who appeared the eldest—near to fifty and the most sober in a troupe of otherwise fresh-faced and slightly giddy lads— spoke up. “You’ve got a nasty wound there.”
Feeling dread, Drake ventured to ask, “What of Devon?”
“If you’re referring to our distant cousin, he lives.” One of the triplets stepped aside, revealing the squire lying supine on a blanket.
Drake crawled over to the lad and gently lifted the soiled bandaging. The dagger had not caught him in the throat but at the juncture between shoulder and neck, missing vital blood vessels but gashing bone and sinew. “Where did you learn to throw a knife like that?”
Devon spoke with effort. ““It was a bad throw. I was aiming at his Adam’s apple.”
“Bad throw or not, you saved our lives.” He grasped the boy’s hand and looked up at the wayfarers.
The youngest triplet, who grew facial hair not yet coarse enough to shave, was agog with curiosity. He indicated the two corpses lying within smelling distance. “Were they highwaymen who sprang upon you suddenly?”
“Or perhaps,” said the slightly older youth who looked much like his peach-fuzzed brother, “you haggled over spoils purloined from innocent pilgrims? And your partners were unwilling to share?”
“Or by chance,” the oldest of the red-headed brothers put in eagerly, “they wanted everything and forced your hand?”
When he weakly sat up, the six lurched back, clearly more afraid of him than they initially let on. He must look like a villain, an outcast, a most-foul killer who wouldn’t hesitate to hack more throats and disembowel additional guts. Not wanting to startle them further, he slowly lifted a scraped hand to his reeling head. His stomach spun nearly as fast. He suspected he appeared properly sick and of no great threat, as long as he refrained from sudden movements. “Where am I?”
“You don’t know?” said peach-fuzz.
“If I knew, I would not have asked.”
“In the Dordogne Valley.”
“I’m still in the Aquitaine? In Richard’s lands?”
“Richard? Richard Plantagenêt?” Peach-fuzz glanced at the rest. “Well, that is a matter of interpretation.”
“Whose?”
“The side you’re on.”
“Are there sides?”
“I’d say you’re concussed. How many fingers have I?”
“Twelve,” Drake said, without looking at the fingers or the corpses. “Are they dead?”
“Well and truly. Surely you smell them. I’m Gui d’Ussel. These are my brothers, Peire and Eble. We’re on our way to the monastery at Tulle to meet our cousin and an old friend of Gaucelm’s there.” He pointed out a man coming onto middle age. “And thence to Limoges, where a tourney is to be held in three weeks’ time. Many knights in search of spoils and glory will assemble in Limoges, not to mention troubadours and jugglers to entertain.”
“Which was it then?” Unlike the others, Gaucelm had been standing at the periphery, his considerable girth a fortification unto itself. “Was it a classic disagreement among associates or a noble defense of your virtue?”
Drake squinted up at the man who, by the looks of him, enjoyed his drink and his food in equal measure. “I have a notion you won’t trust either version.”
The fat man raised an eyebrow. Then he laughed like someone unaccustomed to laughter, which made everyone but Drake join him. “And I have a feeling, young friend, you’re a sagacious whoreson and as clever as they come.” In all the chatter, he hadn’t taken his sight off Drake. Chiefly, he had been watching his hands. He motioned toward four stained weapons—two damascened swords and two damascened daggers—fanned out elegantly on the ground. “They’re fine blades. Yours?”
“And my brother’s.”
Taking in the gory corpses, Gui said, “I suppose they deserve a decent burial. The more decent, the better. I shouldn’t want to be downwind of either one of them, dead or alive, but dead especially.”
“Alive, especially,” Drake said. “You will have to take my word on this.”
“Who are you, anyway?” asked Gui, bubbly and sociable.
Deciding Gui d’Ussel of the peach-fuzz chin wasn’t as superficial as he first appeared, since he was tickling the point of a lethal dagger under Drake’s unshaven chin, Drake said, “Drake fitzAlan of Winchester.”
“Winchester? That’s in England, isn’t it? Explaining why you smell abominably and have a bent for savagery.”
Another of their party, more mature than the rest, said, “Put down, Gui. Look at the boy’s wrists. Look at the ropes there. He was their prisoner.” He cocked his head toward the corpses. “And those two were anything but provosts.”
Gui thought about it. “True enough.” And reaching out a hand, said, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Drake fitzAlan of Winchester, English though you are.
In the course of having his wounds cleaned and bandaged and his Arabian fetched; overseeing from a distance the plucking, gutting, and roasting of an unlucky heron; and observing the slow but steady digging of two graves, the river refusing to give up the third, Drake had learned much about the six, more than they had about him.
“Then this … child,” said Gui d’Ussel, referring to Devon though they were the same age, “who is unaccountably bleeding on my horse’s blanket, is not your brother but your squire.” He took the wineskin from Drake’s hand and imbibed a satisfying mouthful before handing it back. “And your brother, who now travels without his priceless Poitiers steel, where is he?”
“It’s difficult to explain.”
“Meaning, private. But those poor bastards,” he said, indicating the rancid corpses, “had something to do with it?”
“You have it.”
Gaucelm turned out
to be Gaucelm Faidit, the famed troubadour, a man of landed nobility who spent his years touring the vast Limousin with others of his kind, including the renowned Bernart de Ventadorn.
The elder Guiraut de Bornelh, also a troubadour hailing from Limoges, was the plain-spoken, plain-dressed, and soberest member of the group. Though of low birth and holding neither title nor property, he had spent a lifetime in the courts of Aragón and Castile. Guiraut spoke in several languages but wrote songs in only one: the lenga d’oc of Aquitaine.
The lady was called Alamanda. From Estancs in Gascony, she was both unmarried and unescorted by others of her gender. Drake, being a man of free thought, drew the obvious conclusion: that she was a wandering minstrel like the others and probably traded her feminine wares for extra coin, provided the gentil-homme didn’t smell abominably and applied a gentle hand.
Gui studied the ground. “Are you feeling haler?”
The brothers had gone about burying the Brabançons, singing gaily at their task while drinking generous quantities of wine and babbling like parrots. Drake found a comfortable spot propped against the same oak Devon had once been lashed to, while Devon lay silently nearby, his eyes sealed with fatigue and pain. Feeding an increasingly giddy head, Drake tried to keep up with the brothers drink for drink, a daunting task but one in which he was inclined. The wine wasn’t doing his head damnably much good, but neither did he care damnably much.
“You don’t look like you’re feeling haler, but you probably don’t mind as much.”
“Truer words were never said,” Drake said, lifting his cup.
Gui was not much older than sixteen and his brothers Eble and Peire both under twenty. Following the tourneys, they were due to meet in two days’ time with their cousin Elias in Tulle, one of the reasons Guiraut de Bornelh, Gaucelm Faidit, and their particular friend Alamanda d’Estancs were traveling with them.