by M. C. Elam
“Reason indeed. He suspected insurrection and thought I might lead him to its source. A lazy bunch, Sir Marcus. I’d lose them in the city and then head to the pens.”
Melendarius raised a hand to silence the talk. He had seemed half-asleep in the chair, the long stem of his pipe clamped between his teeth and his eyes with that downcast dreamy kind of look that implied disinterest. His arm came to chest level, and he tapped it with a boney finger. A flutter of wings from the rafters brought Benjamin to perch.
“A bit of bread, old fellow?” he said, and the bird ruffled its feathers.
“Awk gronka, bit of bread, bit of bread.”
A surprised look replaced Christopher’s somber expression. “It talks?”
“Aye, some raven’s have mastery of a few hundred words, but you see, Benjamin also understands.” He raised his arm a little higher. “If its bread crumbs you want, perhaps Jem will be so kind as to assist.”
“Awk Jem’s the one.”
“Off with you then.” Melendarius bounced his arm.
Benjamin fluttered across the room and perched atop Jem’s head. “Crumbs crumbs crumbs,” he chortled in a raspy imitation of human sound. “Give Benny crumbs, gronka.”
“If you’d be so kind, Jem, and perhaps you might take him into the field and see if he has an eye for catching a few mice.”
Jem stood and brushed woodchips from his homespun britches. He didn’t really want to go gallivanting with the bird. Talk at the table held far more interest, but Ma said he must obey his elders. He started for the kitchen with the bird still firmly planted on his head.
“There’s a good lad,” Melendarius called after him. He turned to the men. “The lad has a curious ear. I thought a chore might keep him out of trouble. Please do go on, Christopher. You were saying how you lost Peter’s spies in the city, and then made for the slave pens.”
“Aye, among the people, the object of life in Lawrenzia is survival, and a huge network exists to accomplish that goal. Brenan fears conspiracy, but what he doesn’t understand is that he houses an army ready to bring him down.”
“The slaves?” Hawk asked.
“Aye, Majesty, the slaves. Count on them. They will rise against him at the first opportunity, but he plans to enter through Baline and eat away at Ascalla village by village the same way he did in Glynmora,” said Christopher.
“We’ll bring that bastard to his knees, but we must strike before he has time to carry out his plan. Five hundred men should hold Baline safe.”
Marcus shook his head. “You be needing no more than fifty seasoned archers with a good captain at their head, Lord Hawk, and I be thinking that number a might on the high side.”
“Too defend Baline?” Hawk’s expression turned incredulous.
“Aye, lad, fifty men is a generous number.” Melendarius said. He stretched one arm across the table and retrieved the pitcher of ale Jenny had brought them before she went upstairs. The arm of his cape caught a splinter. He jerked it free with no thought to the tear that appeared in the hem. Before he finished filling his tankard, the ragged edged drew together, and the tear disappeared.
“How can fifty warriors defend against an army of Owlmen?” Hawk came to his feet and began pacing. “I won’t let Baline fall.” He stroked the hilt of his sword. “Talk sense to me or leave off and find me someone who can.” He fairly shouted at Melendarius, and his lips turned white with frustration.
“I be fair certain not an Owlman be coming off that mountain, Majesty” said Marcus. His gaze met Hawk’s. “It be the Arch. They got to come across the Arch. No other way into Ascalla. The Arch might allow for three abreast but no more. We block our side and any what tries to advance be done for.”
“He is right, Lord Hawk. Elly and I crossed the Arch. Your men can find a bit of cover on the Ascalla side, but anyone that sets foot on that stone bridge is a target. A small number of men can hold an army there.”
Hawk ran a hand through his hair. Wrinkles etched his forehead, and his eyes held the tired look of a man gone too many days without rest. “Marcus, You’ll hand pick the best men?”
“Aye, Majesty,” Marcus put a hand on the boys shoulder. So young he thought, a scant two seasons more than his Evan. “The best archers in all Ascalla.”
“I’ve a better hand to hold the Arch,” said Melendarius. “Put it into my keeping.”
“You?” Hawk sounded dubious.
“Ease your mind, son. I am not without means. Time you learned to trust me.”
“Marcus?”
“If Melendarius got him a plan for holding the Arch, best let him see it through.”
Well, lad, what’s it to be?” the old man asked.
Hawk sank into a chair, tipped back until the front legs cleared the floor and rested one booted foot on the edge of the table. “All right, Melendarius, on Marcus’s word, you have my trust. How do we bring Evan home?”
“Close the mountain trail be first,” said Marcus. “Brenan thinks to hit us there. Burned crops makes for hungry folk. That be how he thinks to take Ascalla. Burn out the farmers before harvest, and he holds power. Hold him at the Arch, and he’ll not take Falmora. Best we look toward Nerdor first.”
“Nerdor, why Nerdor?”
“Because, Your Majesty, Nerdor rests on the northern branch of the Ruby River,” said Christopher. “It’s closest to Lawrenzia.”
“I don’t understand.” Hawk ran a hand through his unruly shock of dark hair.”
“Nerdor be small, Majesty, a third the size of Heathgard. He’ll nay expect an assault. I be thinking his force there be puny. A spot for message riders bound from Heathgard to Brendemore,” said Marcus.
“Then it severs his line of communication.”
“Aye, Majesty. We take Nerdor. That cuts him off from Heathgard and keeps word from seeping through we be on the move. After Nerdor, Heathgard be next. Brenan thinks as how it be his fortress. We launch a heavy attack there, Majesty. Take it from him, and all Glynmora be ours. We be on him through his own backdoor, straight across the Osway to Brendemore.”
“We don’t know how many Owlmen occupy, Glynmora. How can you be so sure of a victory there?” asked Hawk, once more skeptical.
Melendarius tamped tobacco into the bowl of his pipe and drew on it a few times. “Count on the people of Glynmora, King Hawk. Never doubt their loyalty when it comes to standing against an invader. They will march beside your warriors.”
“Without arms?”
“They have arms, perhaps not those of a warrior, but a man with an axe or a scythe swings a death blow as true as a man with a mace.
“You’ll not find archers among them.” Hawk shook his head.
“No, not trained as such, but every family has a bowman whose aim is true. Think, boy. They feed their families with the game they hunt. I’d warrant you will find them at the ready.”
“Aye, Melendarius speaks true,” said Christopher. “None more loyal than the people of Glynmora, and Robert Merrill is much loved. They won’t hesitate.”
“Ascalla too,” said Marcus. “Minute they get wind we be ready to fight, they’ll stand with us.”
“The plan is in your head already?”
“Aye, had me a spell to think on it,” said Marcus.
“Lure him into the open.” Christopher offered.
“Aye,” Marcus nodded, “in the open.”
“You have a plan for that, too?”
“Not as yet, Majesty. Gotta cook a wee bit in my head.”
“He must fall, Marcus.” Hawk clenched his fists until the knuckles turned white.
“Nary a doubt there.”
“Very well, you have my sanction and my gratitude,” Hawk extended his hand.
“I be glad enough for that hand, Majesty, once I deliver on my word.”
“Time to send your outriders, son,” said Melendarius.
Hawk gave him a blank look.
“We know Brenan’s plan. You’ve time to prepare, and friends aplenty who
’ll offer aide. Send your messengers, boy, to Shadall, to Andors.”
***
“I be against breaking my word, Jenny. Lady Evan made me swear I’d not tell His Majesty.”
Jenny had cornered him in the stable when he went to tend the horses. He suspected something as soon she followed him inside. He was just giving Baron a good curry when she inched up behind him.
“He’s got him a right, Marcus. I be loving our lady same as you, but King Hawk got a right to know he got him a child.”
Marcus turned toward her. “I gave my word, Jenny. I’ll hear no more on the matter.”
Jenny studied the ground and pushed her toe around in the fresh straw he had scattered when he cleaned Baron’s stall. “What if the babe be yours and mine? What if I made Klea swear to keep mum about it?”
He sighed and turned to face her. “If you faced down Klea and made him swear, then he’d no give it away.”
“Aye, true enough, but how would you be feeling on the matter once you knew?”
He wanted to turn away from her, but those green eyes had a way of locking on his.
“Tell me how you’d feel.” Her voice turned soft, probing.
He forced his gaze from her. “I’ve got me chores, Jenny. Be off with you now.” He lifted a large forkful of sweet timothy into Baron’s feed rack and patted the horse’s rump.
“How?”
“Jenny,” he turned to face her, “there be things you do not know between those two. Leave it alone.”
She shook her head. “Don’t matter what I don’t know, Marcus. I love you dear, but keeping such as this secret?” she touched his arm. “Got to tell him.”
He leaned the pitchfork against the outside of the stall and took her by the arm. “No, Jenny. Last time I be telling you. Leave off. King Hawk’s got him enough to worry on.”
“Humph, all right. I’ll not go against you, love, but I be thinking it’s a sad state.”
30 - The Wee Man
“Ma, can’t find King Hawk nor Melendarius neither.” Jem tracked clumps of mud across Jenny’s freshly swept floor.
Flour to her elbows and wrapped in an apron that protected her homespun dress, Jenny sighed and gave him an agitated glance. “Look what a mess you made. Best you get to that broom before I do or there be a sorry youngster holding his behind.”
“But Ma?”
“Got no buts. Get to sweeping.” She sprinkled a handful of flour over a mound of dough on the bread board.
“Ma you got to listen. Be a wee man outside asking after Melendarius and King Hawk. Only he be calling His Majesty young Hawk. Like that without he got no reverses for him being king.”
“Reverence, you mean?”
“Aye, that be it. What that means in plain talk, Ma,” He watched his mother turn the dough and fold it over on itself.
“Respect be my thinking.”
“Then why don’t folks just call it what they mean?”
Jenny eyed him. Every conversation with the Jem turned into a bushel of questions. A smart one be her boy. She’d be short on answers afore long. She watched him start for the door and raised an eyebrow. “Jem, you forget something, son?”
He stopped mid stride, scratched his head and shifted from foot to foot. “The floor?”
“Nay, not the floor. What brought you in here clumping all that dirt along with you, and what’s this business about a wee man?”
His eyes turned bright. “He be wee, Ma. I swear.” Jem held his hand under his chin. “Not more than this big and leading a wee horse, too.”
“Sure you wasn’t just standing on the stoop. That makes you seem bigger, Jem.”
“Nay, Ma. My feet be flat to the ground.”
“Humph,” Jenny leveled him with a stern look. “You storying, Jem?”
“No ma, I be telling truth proper. That wee man asked after Melendarius and King Hawk. That’s what brought me. Can’t find nary one of them nor Marcus.”
“Marcus be in the common room, boy. He cleared the chimney flue this morning. Now he be laying a new fire. I ‘spect he knows where King Hawk be.” Jem shuffled toward the common room dropping more clumps of dirt as he went. “Don’t you be forgetting ‘bout that broom and the mess you made.” She shook her head. “Forget his own ears if they wasn’t attached. I be sweeping up that mess like as not,” she mumbled under her breath.
Jem whipped around the low wall that separated the kitchen from the common room and saw Marcus stacking a pyramid of peat blocks on the grate while Horace Runderly, nursing a curl of smoke from the long stemmed pipe he clenched between his teeth, supervised.
“Got it leaning a might off the middle, Marcus,” said Horace.
“Think it might be you leaning a bit off the middle there Horace. Had you a couple a pints I be thinking.”
Jem pulled up short and waited for them to acknowledge him. Horace looked his way and Jem bit his tongue hard as he could to keep from laughing. He knew it meant an ear boxing did Ma catch him laughing at the way Horace’s crazy eye rolled straight up toward the ceiling timbers. She whaled him good a time or two over it. Horace though, he be right steady in his thinking. He had told Ma he reckoned it be a funny enough sight. Lady Evan be fixing to have a look and see could she heal it for him, but then that dark man and his chum snatched her.
“Got us a youngun fit to burst, Marcus,” said Horace.
Marcus glanced around and caught sight of Jem. “Got something fighting free of your tongue, boy?” Sparks from his tinder box settled among the wood shavings under the peat stack and he blew until they flamed enough to add bigger pieces.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, best get to telling.” He stood up and turned to face the boy. “What’s got you all red faced and sweated up?”
“Wee man looking for King Hawk, Melendarius too.”
“Wee, you say.”
“Aye, wee and his little horsey too.”
“King Hawk be afield with Melendarius. I expect they be back afore long. Best fetch him in, and offer him a might of refreshment.” He watched Jem head for the door. “Wait up there, lad.” The boy stopped dead still. The abrupt halt set him off balance, and he staggered to keep his feet. “See to the man’s mount as well.”
“That horsey be too low to ground for the hayracks, Marcus.”
“Put your thinking to it. You can figure out a way to handle that. Get on now afore he gets tired a waiting.” He rose and turned to see Jenny heading toward them with a tankard of ale.
“You be reading minds now, love?”
Before she could answer, Jem returned at a run. “Called me a funny name, a whipper something or the other. Said as how I best get somebody what knew a little something.”
“Snapper,” said Horace.
“Huh?”
“Called you a whippersnapper.”
“Don’t know that word.”
“Later lad,” said Marcus. “Best I see to it. You stay put with Horace and your ma.”
Marcus rounded the wind wall and pushed open the outer door. He strode onto the wide porch and stepped to the rail.
“Down here, ya bumbling oaf. Can’t ya see what’s right in front of ya? And give a care where you lay down them clodhoppers. Don’t relish a stomping into this good earth.”
Marcus’s gaze followed the sound of that full-throated bellow until it rested with some surprise on Jem’s wee man. Beside him pawing the ground and raising a modest cloud of dust with each hoof strike, a little horse snorted and tossed its head.
Marcus raised an eyebrow.
“I’ve journeyed long, and my temper be a tad waspish.”
“Expect a long journey make most men a bit peevish.”
The dwarf set one booted foot on the riser and heaved himself onto the porch with a grunt. “Just once be a pure pleasure to see some thought give to how folks like me gets about.” He doffed his hat and extended a hand toward Marcus. “I be Roland. Expect the lad be taken aback at the sight of me and Abacus,” He nodded indic
ating the horse, “Stared at the two of us, nonsensical like.”
Marcus took his hand. The strength of the grip surprised him. “Sorry I be, Roland. Jem’s a good lad. Curious though about things new to him. Got him a bad habit of gawking.” He let go of the dwarf’s hand.
“Asked after young Hawk and he went to asking did I mean King Hawk. Can’t see that matters much, but here’s the straight of it plain as I can tell it. I come to see young James Ian Hawkins and me old crony Melendarius.”
“Reckon a tankard or two might wash the dust of the road from your throat, friend Roland.” Marcus gestured toward the entrance of the inn and followed the dwarf inside. “King Hawk be a ways off in the mountains. So happens Melendarius be with him. They be having a look at a place we call the Arch.”
“Aye, lad, the Arch be the reason I’m here.”
***
“How ye be, lad. Got word ye might need a bit of an assist.”
“Roland! By the breath of a dragon, I never expected to see you again.” Hawk strode across the room and clapped him on the back. “And, truth told, I’ve sent riders far and wide. Tell me, did one of them manage to find their way to you?”
“Down to the caves? Nay, lad. It be him.” The dwarf nodded toward Melendarius.
“Greetings to you, Roland. You’re looking fit. Perhaps a bit more rotund than when we last met.”
“And you be no more than a stick, old man. While both of us still breathe the Mother’s good air I’ll count you as friend, Melendarius.”
“You know each other?” Hawk gazed from one to the other.
“Aye, lad, many a year.” Roland nodded toward the empty tankard on the table in front of him. “I’d drink to your health save I’ve nary a drop left.”
“Jenny, we be needing another pitcher of the best,” Marcus called.
She appeared beside the table balancing a tray against her hip with one hand and holding a large pitcher in the other. Marcus took the ale from her, and she set the tray on the table. “Brought a fresh loaf and a pot of goat cheese. I be thinking a bite might please your innards.”
She eyed Jem in his usual place by the hearth, his ears peeled sharp, “You got a job a sweeping to do boy.”