“Drawing attention to myself?”
“With the singing. I understand these woods are full of highwaymen and brigands,” he explained.
“Oh… I'm more worried about bears.”
“Bears, sir?” Ibrahim looked around nervously.” Are there bears in these woods?”
“I don't know, but it never hurts to be safe. So tell me what brings you to this foreign land in times such as these.”
“We are but humble pilgrims from the Holy Land,” Ibrahim provided their cover story. “We are traveling the world in search of religious enlightenment.”
“I pray you God speed in your quest then,” he said with a wry smile. “If you do rush, perhaps you can catch the last glimmer of spiritual enlightenment setting on this land like the sun going down.”
“You are not a believer then?” Ibrahim asked, thinking that this put this man far from the religious zealots of the Crusades.
“These are times when the blood flows in the streets in the name of religious fervor, and yet I cannot conceive of a time when men’s minds have been so shadowed from the light of the Lord.” He smiled again. “You will allow some license on this subject, however. I fear I have been jaded as my father impregnated my mother in a fit of passion and left because of the shame that the Church would have rained down on his head. My mother, then fearing ostracism for giving birth to a bastard child, had me in secrecy and left me to the monks. I spent my young life among holy men who loved nothing better than a good drink, excepting perhaps a woman.” The Saracens stared at him in amazement. To betray so many shameful secrets to two perfect strangers was unheard of. “Then, when the monastery fell on hard times,” the stranger continued in a forlorn tone, “they traded me to a Frenchman for a hogshead of cheap ale. The Frenchman promptly forgot me on the side of the road near a brothel he had stopped at for refreshment. I owe my very life to the tender mercies of those ladies of ill repute. They alone would accept my society, which could not be brooked among good, god-fearing people.” They stared at him in silence for a moment before erupting in laughter.
“You are a fool,” Bashir said, barking a loud, harsh laugh. “A jester.”
“Alas,” the stranger replied in an even more forlorn attitude. “Such was my fondest wish, but my mind is too feeble. I haven't the wit for it.”
“But you speak our tongue?” Ibrahim inquired, still surprised and not yet satisfied on this point.
“My head does not rest long in any one place.”
“What brings you to this highway on this day, then?” Ibrahim asked.
“Why, the most miraculous turn of events brings me thus. But I would not distract contemplative pilgrims with such sordid tales.”
“Please, it would do us good to have our minds relieved of our heavy pursuits if only for a moment.”
“Well, all right,” he conceded hastily with the air of a man that really did want to share his tale. “I had embarked on a pilgrimage. It has indeed always been my life’s ambition, my destiny if I may call it such, to see the grass of the Holy Roman Empire in person. Nay, not just see it, but touch and smell it. Surely the grass of a place which the dew of heaven so lavishly rains down upon must be more wonderful than anything in all the world, but I wanted to know for myself,” he said with some passion, sniffing at his hand as if he were taking a whiff of the imaginary grass in his fist.
“And what befell you there?” Ibrahim pressed with an expression indicating he expected to be amused by the answer.
“I fear I shall never know. For I was on my way to the boat, a few leagues from my own humble cottage, when perchance I passed lands that were even then being worked by the local serfs. And there, taking water to the hands that toiled in the fields, was what I believed to be an angel descended straight from heaven. I now know that the very devil himself put her in my way to try my resolve, a fair-haired beauty in her simple serf’s gown, the likes of which I had never beheld,” he expounded dramatically. “I submit to you good pilgrims that I was in love. Cupid’s arrow had found me, and I am as mortal as any man.”
“I say,” Ibrahim feigned surprise, “were you so easily moved from your resolve?”
“What excuse may I make you? When the Lord made beauty, he did not discriminate between nobility and serfs.” The pilgrims noted the faintest of smirks playing across his countenance that did not disappear when his face darkened as he said his next piece. “And I say to you that prejudices against other classes of men run as deep in the lower classes as ever they did in the nobility. I had at once addressed myself to this fair maiden when her father appeared and interposed himself between us. He demanded to know what business I had with his daughter. I informed him that I was merely remarking on the weather to her. But he would have none of it and banished her from the fields to her own lodgings.”
“Why? Whatever did you do?” Ibrahim inquired.
The jester leaned in his saddle to be closer to the pilgrims and spoke confidentially. “I surreptitiously watched whither she retired, that I might discover her lodgings.”
“Against her father’s wishes?” Ibrahim again feigned surprise.
“What excuse can I make for my actions but that I was overcome with love? I was thus overcome, and I did not even know the maid’s name. I confess to my indiscretion, but I trust Saint Peter will forgive me as I was only doing that which, though unseemly sounding in purpose, was what one of my sex was bound to do for such a creature as this. I waited until nightfall, and under cover of darkness, I stole up to her window and knocked gently on the shutters. When I heard a stirring inside, I slipped a map through the slats with a place where she should meet me. I had my seal upon it that she might know from whom it was given. I then retired to that secret meeting place and arranged a safe haven wherein I could bespeak my true and everlasting love for this maiden and entreat for her hand to be joined to my mine until the icy claw of death alone could separate me from her.”
“Did she meet you?” Bashir asked, faintly amused that he was actually curious about the outcome of this tale.
“Would you believe it?” the jester said expansively. “I stole to the edge of the trees from whence I had been hiding lest I be seen by unfriendly eyes. I knelt behind the hedge and took my love’s fair hand in the darkness through the undergrowth. I poured my heart out to her and exclaimed that if she would but have me, I should forever strive to repay to her the honor she would do me. She told me emphatically that she would, and I burst forth from the hedge in exultation only to find that I was face to face with her portly, aged grandmother. It seems I had knocked on the wrong shutters, as the comely daughter was housed on the opposite side of the cottage and I had rather roused the grandmother, who was now determined to be wed according to my word.”
Bashir barked a loud, gruff laugh while Ibrahim roared with laughter. “Did you keep your promise to the ‘fair maiden’?” Ibrahim asked.
“Alas, what choice did I have? I had pledged my love, even if mistakenly. I had promised my hand. What recourse had I save one?” They looked at him expectantly. Sitting up in his saddle to appear as proud as possible, he proclaimed, “I fled.”
“You fled?” Ibrahim repeated.
“You ran like a filthy dog?” Bashir said with some bite.
“Oh, I ran faster than the filthiest dog. The elderly lady roused the whole village and proclaimed what dishonor I had done her and her family, and they all came after me. You may think it humorous,” he said, seeing their smirks, “but thirty men armed with pitchforks, knives, and clubs bent on having my head is an altogether new experience for me and more than my delicate fortitude could take. Alas, I have since been wandering these strange paths, unsure of where I am or where I go. But in my broken-heartedness, I care little for my own safety,” he said with an air of melancholy that would have done the most skilled troubadour proud.
“I suppose that is why you are armed thus?” Bashir suggested skeptically, nodding at his spear tied loosely along the length of his horse. “P
erchance you should round a corner and there be a group of angry serfs waiting to force your nuptials with that unhappy woman?”
“Precisely, gentle pilgrims,” he grinned and leaned toward them in his saddle. “Truth be told, I can hardly tell a spear from a sword, so I pray I will never need to draw it, for by then it may already be too late,” he told them confidentially. Then, sitting upright in his saddle again he declared, “We are not so different. We are all pilgrims. Yet I pray your hearts will not be distracted from your higher purposes as mine was. If I had been faithful to my pious aims, the woes with which I have regaled you would be nothing but fanciful tales.”
“And were these not just that?” asked Ibrahim incredulously, his laughter diminishing. “Fanciful tales?”
“I swear by the holy belt of Saint—” he was saying as they rounded a bend on the road. Up ahead was a man with a wagon, struggling vainly to repair the wheel by himself. It had collapsed such that the wagon was blocking the whole road at a point where the trees pressed in upon the road, making it impossible to pass. “I swear by the holy belt of Saint Benedict that if you do value your life, you will flee now.” He had not taken his eyes from the unfortunate wagoner in front of them and finished the last in the same conversational tone so that the pilgrims did not immediately understand what he said.
“What was that?” Ibrahim doubted he had heard correctly.
“Flee.” They stared at him, trying to ascertain if this was another jest or not.
“Now, gentle sirs, you would do better not to flee from us,” said a tall, dark-haired man that stepped out of the trees wearing a long, green jerkin with no crest. His simple woodsman attire was matched by the man that stepped out of the trees beside him. The wagoner feigning to work on the cart now stood to take his place on the opposite side of the speaker. The speaker brandished a short sword while his two cohorts had long bows drawn on the travelers.
“What is the meaning of this?” Bashir demanded.
“You are traveling on the king’s highway and have been for some time. As the king’s loyal subjects, we are required to exact payment.”
“Use of the king's highway is free and is protected under the law of the land,” Ibrahim argued. “You may not extort money for its use.”
“These are trying times for poor King John. With so many of his affairs domestic and abroad going so wrong, he seeks new sources of revenue,” he explained cheerfully.
“You are not part of the king’s guard,” Ibrahim said narrowly.
The bandit only rolled his eyes and turned to the stranger. “And what of you, sir?” he asked. “You are surely hiding something in that oversized robe.”
“I fear I am but a humble fool and could offer you little by way of monetary compensation.”
“A fool, eh? And where is your hat?”
The stranger touched his bare head as if embarrassed. “I fear I matched wits with a better fool, and he has taken it from me as a symbol of my unworthiness to be among his ranks.”
The highwayman laughed heartily. “Unworthy to be a fool? My heart bleeds for you, for what could be left to you now?” he grinned.
“I fear only ruin and death,” said the stranger. “As I have no quarrel with you, I pray you to let me be on my way and impede me no longer. I have a serious death to contemplate.”
The rogue laughed again. “Forgive the inconvenience, but we must detain you a bit longer yet until we have relieved you of your valuables. But since you face nothing but grim death, you surely will not miss them,” he said in a conciliatory tone.
“But what might I possess that you would deprive a doomed man of in peril of your everlasting soul? I have no quarrel with you; let us not create one,” he replied in the same lighthearted tone.
“I pray do not hold it against me that I execute my necessary duties. Were it up to me, I would never dream of disturbing your pleasant journey; but the choice lies not with me.” While they were thus engaged, men leapt into the road directly behind each rider and horse and dragged Bashir and Ibrahim out of their saddles. The third man, however, met with misfortune as the Englishman was warned of his approach by Bashir and Ibrahim being seized only a moment before, and he jerked his elbow sharply backward, catching his would-be assailant in the nose. The rogue’s head snapped back and blood erupted from his face. The jester tore his spear from the loose ties that bound it, leapt from his saddle, and charged the three men in front of him.
The spokesman for the highwaymen was instantly on his guard, his sword held high. “Stop, or your friends die,” he commanded.
The Englishman stopped and looked back at the Moorish pilgrims. He only shrugged. “Do what you must; they are not my friends.” He advanced another step. Ibrahim and Bashir were dragged forward with knives to their throats. “I am warning you.”
“Warning me of what?” he smiled. “I already indicated I care not what becomes of them. So what is it you were warning me of: the fact that you and your cohorts are about to be cut down for your poor choice in occupations?” He seemed genuinely amused by the whole intercourse. As if to accentuate his point, he flicked his spear suddenly with blinding speed at the face of the wagoner and cut a deep gash under his eye before he even had a chance to wince. He shook his head and pulled the string of his bow taut, preparing to let fly at the jester.
“Hold,” the leader barked. “They will die unless you surrender your purse to the protectors of the king’s highway now!” he demanded of the jester.
The jester looked coolly at the leader and said in deadly quiet voice, the butt of his spear once again resting on the ground and a blue flag with a crest embroidered on it billowing from just beneath the point of his weapon. “I am your angel of death, and you will not escape me. Your life was forfeit from the moment you refused to let me pass in peace!”
Their leader looked back and forth between his men and the armed stranger, suddenly unsure of himself. “Kill them!” he roared to his men restraining the Moors. The jester’s spear whirled overhead in an instant and struck past the first man restraining Ibrahim, causing him to flinch back enough that Ibrahim was able to knock him back with a kick to the chest and regain his feet. The heavy spearhead then slammed into the side of the head of the man holding Bashir and knocked him to the ground.
It was only an instant and the spear was back around, knocking the bow of the wagoner just as he released his string, causing his arrow to embed itself high in a tree off the side of the road. The spear was on its way to the next bowman, but the jester was not fast enough. The archer let fly, and with a whizzing noise the fletching cut through the air and hit the jester in the chest, knocking him backward.
The highwaymen charged the jester but stopped short when he did not fall. He righted himself, and the arrow fell to the ground, broken. If they had not already realized this was no mere jester, the fact that he was wearing armor under his robe clued them in. They hesitated, and the jester turned and leveled the point of his weapon, held securely in both hands now, at their leader. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said to the men reaching for arrows. They froze in place but did not lower their hands from their quivers.
Bashir and Ibrahim were on their feet again. Both had taken up the rogues’ fallen short swords, but they were still several paces behind the jester. Ibrahim was talking quietly but rapidly to Bashir, gesturing frantically toward the jester’s crest.
“I’m telling you, that is him!” Ibrahim insisted to Bashir.
“How can you be so sure?” Bashir growled, still breathing hard from the exertion of dispatching a man only a moment before.
“The crest on his spear is the Dawning Crest!”
“What if it is not him?”
“I tell you, it is him! The descriptions, the spear, the stories we have heard, all of it fits.”
Bashir calmly considered this as if there were not men fighting for their very lives only a few feet away.”
“Now’s our chance!” Ibrahim insisted desperately.
�
��But what if it is not a Dawning?” Bashir demanded.
“That man is pledged to the Dawnings regardless. If we leave it with him, they will receive it!” Ibrahim assured him, desperate for this chance to relieve themselves of their burden and escape this country.
“We cannot take any chances,” Bashir growled. “Dawning!” He yelled out to the jester. The jester pivoted to look back at the Moors.
The highwaymen did not miss the opportunity, and the leader rushed at him as the two on his flanks snatched arrows from their quivers and knocked them. The jester thrust his spear straight ahead. The lead rogue jumped aside, and the jester did a shoulder roll past the advancing man, just avoiding his counter strike. He regained his feet still facing away from his assailants and without taking the time to turn rammed his weapon straight back. He felt the satisfying resistance as his fine blade met soft flesh, and he heard the sharp intake of breath being cut short. The jester spun now and brought the back of the shaft up to catch the chin of the wagoner, who again lost his aim and sent another arrow into the woods as he blacked out from the force of the strike.
The limited length of their short swords, though ideal among the thick of the trees, was proving a disadvantage on the open road as they were forced to move in close to their opponent to strike, and their opponent was not allowing that.
It was now only the jester and the leader of the band of rogues, who was now standing in a low crouch, his sword held high. Behind the highwayman, the jester was dimly aware of the Moors rifling in the saddlebags of his mount, but he was so engaged that he hardly noticed when they alighted on their fleet-footed Arabian steeds and flew back in the direction they had come. “You see now that I spoke the truth,” he addressed the rogue captain in a calm voice through the sudden silence of the lonely forest. “Had you heeded my warning and fled as befits a coward such as you are, you might have been spared. But now nothing can alter your fate.” The jester grinned a friendly grin at him as if he were having a perfectly pleasant conversation.
The Knights Dawning (The Crusades Series) Page 16