by Jason Vail
Chapter 20
Stephen hurried up Kid Lane, fearful that he might hear Blasingame’s voice calling out for the watch. Despite the favor that Stephen had done the wool merchant in saving his life, he did not entirely trust him. But the night was silent except for the murmur of the wind over the rooftops and the muffled sounds of the man and woman in conversation in the tent by the barn. There was no sign of the fellows who had filched the goat, of course, and even better, no sign of an irate owner stumbling about in the dark leveling accusations at every silhouette in range.
Getting out of a walled town, particularly one having only timber and earth fortifications, was much easier than getting in. Stephen had only to dash across the street and mount the embankment, where he lay quietly for a time listening for any town wardens who might happen by. When none did, he unbuckled his sword belt and slipped over the wall, hanging for an instant before letting go to tumble down into the ditch.
He scrambled up the other side and retrieved the gelding, relieved that he was still tied to the bush, and rode back north to the little copse on the crown of the hill overlooking the town. There he unsaddled the horse, replaced the bridle with a rope and halter, and draped an oat bag on the horse’s head. The horse was so eager for the oats that he nearly forced the bag from Stephen’s hands and he had to struggle with the gelding to secure it. He tied the rope to a wrist, a trick learned in Spain: not only did it prevent the horse from wandering away, but he would awaken Stephen if startled by anyone’s approach. He wrapped himself in his cloak and blanket, and lay down to sleep.
Sleep came fitfully, however. It was bad enough that the ground was hard, cold, and troubled with roots. Then the horse finished with his oats, and nuzzled Stephen’s face until Stephen removed the bag so that he could graze on the clumps of brittle grass that survived among the roots. This involved tugging on the rope as the gelding moved from one clump to another throughout the night, so that by morning, Stephen awoke without having got much rest. Lacking sleep and his breakfast, he was in a very grumpy mood. He wished that Gilbert was here so that he could take out this mood on him. Or better yet, Harry. A little verbal fencing with Harry would either banish gloom or send a person running for shelter. Stephen could have snapped at the gelding, but he had been too well brought up to take his unhappiness out on the horse.
Wistfully recalling a certain tavern in lower Clun that had sold excellent sweet buns, Stephen headed eastward. The way led downhill. At the bottom, there was a cart track leading south-to-north, which he crossed, passed through a field, splashed across a stream, and climbed a gentle slope to a forest at the top of the further hill. Just before he entered the wood, he had a glimpse over his shoulder of the roofs of the town, and if he could see it, someone there could see him, but he doubted that anyone would notice at this distance. He had been this way once before the last time he had circumvented Clun, but the inside of a forest looks different when you are heading the other direction, just like a road.
He hoped to descend the hill to the same spot where he had crossed the River Clun the last time, but he came out of the wood a bit farther east. A train of laden carts and some people on foot bearing loads on their backs, and in one case balanced on his head, were all heading westward toward Clun. It must be a market day, and these people had got on the road early, as the sun was hardly up yet.
Stephen waited for them to pass, before he went down and crossed the road, worried that someone else might come along and see him. Fortunately, he made it over undetected, and passed through the stream. Some distance away and directly to the south was a high wooded hill with a smaller wooded hill closer and to the right. Beyond that, the big hill dropped to the west into what appeared to be a sort of cut. Stephen headed for the cut, certain that off in that direction lay the road to Knighton. All he had to do was go southwest and he’d stumble across it eventually.
He reached and followed the course of a stream that brought him within sight of an isolated farmhouse up the slope near the mouth of the gap in the hills, where you would not usually expect to find a house. A woman was scraping the hair from a deer hide that was stretched upon a wooden frame. He waved, but she did not return it, and she ran to the house. Stephen pushed the gelding into a trot in case she meant to raise an alarm, keeping to a faint footpath that now rose along the stream, little more than a depressed line in the leaf litter as if anyone hardly ever used it.
The stream ran down through the cut, which was steep on its left side and less so to the right, the ground covered with moss in spots, as he followed the path and stream upward toward its source in the forest. Deep into the cut where the stream forked, now hardly more than a dribble, there were old campfires in a clearing hacked out of the forest, a few shelters of tree branches fallen into ruin, piles of trash, and a latrine pit that no one had bothered to fill in — a place where people came to hide from the Welsh, Stephen surmised. It was quiet and pleasant here.
It was clear from the rising ground on all sides that he was in a cul-de-sac of sorts. There seemed to be no further advantage to pressing south, so gauging directions by the shadows and the moss at the base of the trees, he went to the right, where the ground gradually rose toward the top of a hill that could not be seen for the trees.
Presently the land leveled, indicating he had reached the top, and continued relatively level for more than a mile as he followed the hilltop to what he judged the southwest. After a mile, he was rewarded when abruptly he stumbled upon a good, wide road through the forest that had to be the road to Knighton, since as far as he knew there was only one good road anywhere about and that was where it went. As a stranger to a place, it was always easy to get lost and a great comfort to think you knew where you were.
The ride around Clun had taken a good bit of the morning, and the sun was almost three hours into the sky by the time he descended a gentle slope into a broad valley, where at the bottom flowed a stream that was larger than any of the others he had encountered so far. The road crossed a ford at the stream, which Stephen guessed must be the Redlake, for just beyond the ford another road branched to the left, running down the valley to the east, where Bucknell was supposed to be, if no one had moved it.
Stephen rested at the ford for a half an hour, hoping that someone might come along so he could ask directions, but when no one did, he finally mounted the gelding and took the branch road to the east, hoping that this was not a waste of time.
After about a mile, he heard the creaking of wagon wheels and the sound of men’s voices up ahead. At a gentle bend, where a path led northward over a plank bridge across the stream, he met three carts coming the other way. The contents of the carts was covered with tarpaulins, so he could not tell what was in them, though from the lumpiness it looked as if it could have been bags of grain. It was not odd to encounter carts now and then on any road, but it was a bit odd that they would be escorted by five mounted men armed with bows and swords. The bows were in their cases and the flaps of their arrow bags were closed, however, and they were riding relaxed and easy.
“Expecting trouble?” Stephen asked, edging to the side of the road.
“No,” said one of the riders, “we just enjoy a ride in the country, and you? You looking for trouble?” The man who had spoken glanced about as if he thought Stephen might be the decoy for an ambush, although this was an unlikely place for one, since the forest did not grow thickly enough by the road to conceal anyone, especially with the leaves gone.
“No,” Stephen said, “I’m looking for work. Is that Bucknell up ahead? I’ve heard that the lord there has a need for archers.”
“And where would you have heard that?”
“In Clun.”
“From whom in Clun?”
“Just somebody at a tavern. A girl.”
“What girl might that have been, who knows so much about our business?”
Stephen was not prepared for this keen interrogation and he wracked his memory for the name of a tavern in the town. A pretty girl in lower
Clun, the English village below the Norman town, had once told him the name of one, but he couldn’t recall it. He did remember the tavern where the girl had worked quite well, though. “Just a tavern in Lower Clun below the bridge. They were burned out in the troubles and were rebuilding. Her name was Aelflaed.”
“People talk too much in Clun,” one of the other riders remarked. “Especially Aelflaed.”
The first rider asked, “Why didn’t you ask at the castle?”
“Aelflaed said they weren’t hiring and I should come back in the spring. Everybody seems to be saying that.”
The first rider chuckled. “Yeah, there’ll be plenty of work in the spring, that’s true enough.”
“But a man could starve to death before then.”
“An honest man could.” The first rider looked Stephen over as if making up his mind about something. “You an honest man?”
“Most of the time,” Stephen said.
The rider pointed in the direction the train had come. “Bucknell’s back there a ways. When you get there, go to the castle and ask for Edgar.”
“Much obliged.”
“I’m not promising anything. It’s up to Edgar, and the lord. Come on, boys,” he said to the others.
The drivers snapped their reins and the cart train moved off toward the road to Clun.
Stephen sat on the gelding for a few moments and watched them go. Then he turned the horse toward Bucknell.
Stephen knew he was near the village when the road crossed the stream not at another ford, but at a neat little wooden bridge. The road ran along the stream for some distance, then curved away, and within a few hundred yards, there it was, houses stretched along the road, a few clinging to a lane opening to the left and then a crossroads, with roads leading north, south, east, and west. It was too small a village to have a tavern, but there appeared to be an alehouse on the northeast corner, if the tables in the yard, beneath an oak that in summer would provide pleasant shade, were any indication.
Stephen was about to ask directions to the castle from a woman hanging laundry across a fence when he spied the castle’s wooden tower through the branches of another oak growing in the very center of the crossroads. The street meandering eastward seemed to lead to the castle, so he took that. His suspicions were confirmed, for after only a short distance, the line of houses ended at the castle ditch, and the road led straight up the main gate.
It was a small wooden castle, typical of its kind, and Stephen had seen so many in his life that he found it utterly unremarkable. At another time, he would not have given it any more thought than a peasant’s hut, but now he examined it with a critical eye. It was a motte-and-bailey, of course, one bailey from the look of things, and a rather small motte at the south end of the bailey, its top about twice the height of a man sitting on horseback, the sort of fortress that was cheap to throw up, which was why England was full of them — many magnates could afford one, though it might strain the finances of a single manor. There was the V-sided ditch, nice and deep, the grass long and in need of mowing, rising to a steep rampart higher than Stephen’s head. It had only a single tower beside the gate, unusual in that it had a stone base about seven or eight feet high; the rest was wood that was square on the first story and round on the second, with a peaked roof. Much of the wall walk was roofed over so that for a good bit along its length there were no crenelations; instead shuttered windows from which a crossbowman could shoot opened at regular intervals. The roofs of interior buildings, covered with wooden slats rather than slate or thatch, projected above the walk, and watching over it all was the tower on the motte. Not for the first time did such a tower remind Stephen of a wooden church belfry, and it occurred to him that perhaps such towers were built using the same methods, for it was about the same height as a belfry, three stories, and its corner posts all leaned slightly toward the center, giving the tower, although straight-sided, a conical appearance that the peaked, round roof accentuated.
A single gate ward sat on a stool within the open gate, unhelmeted and unarmored, but with a sword, and a spear leaning against a gate panel.
The guard rose at Stephen’s approach. “And what do you want here?”
“Is Edgar about?”
“Why?”
“Fellow on the road told me to ask for him. Said he might be able to give me work.”
The guard’s eyes ran over the bow stave in its canvas case and the arrow bag hanging from Stephen’s saddle. “That wouldn’t be his decision. It’s up to the lord.”
“Of course it is.”
“Can I see him, then?”
“Who?”
“The lord,” Stephen said.
“I doubt he’s in a talkative mood.”
“Is he ill tempered? Out of sorts today?”
“He’s out of sorts every day. But go ahead, see for yourself.” The guard waved toward a large timber and clay building across the bailey that must be the hall.
“Much obliged,” Stephen said as he led the horse through the gate.
The guard hawked, spat, and returned to his stool.
Stephen left the gelding in the hands of a stable boy, and carried his bedroll, satchel, bow and arrows across the bailey to the hall.
Two great hunting dogs lay by the hall entrance, gray and brown, of an indeterminate mixed breed, but having the leanness that suggested greyhounds in their parentage. They rose and sniffed Stephen, who paused and made no threatening moves. A grown man would be hard pressed to defend himself against a single such animal, for their shoulders were almost as high as Stephen’s hips, and one was more than enough to bring a man down if they had a mind for it. Curiosity satisfied, the dogs returned to their places by the door.
The hall was like most of its kind, a large room with a central hearth on the dirt floor and support posts running up either side which created an impression of three aisles not unlike many country churches. A woman near the door pointed Edgar out. He was a stocky man with a broad, friendly face, a cleft chin, and light hair cropped short in a fashion that had long gone out of style. He was superintending two others, one of them an archer by the simplicity of his shirt and hose, and the other a boy of twelve or thirteen, who were fencing with singlesticks and bucklers while others watched from benches nearby, shouting encouragement and advice to the boy, who was trying hard not to be hit and was doing very little hitting himself.
Stephen put his sword and belt against a wall with his possessions, since it was bad manners to go armed in a hall, and leaned against a post to watch and wait to be noticed.
A well-dressed man with graying hair came up to watch as well. When the archer clouted the boy on the shoulder, the man called, “Edmund! For God’s sake! Fight back!”
The boy Edmund snarled and swung his stick. The archer easily deflected it with his buckler and launched a counter blow at Edmund’s legs, which the boy barely avoided.
The man saw the frown on Stephen’s face, and said, “I know. He needs work.” He sipped from his cup. “I haven’t seen you before.”
“I’m must passing through, m’lord,” Stephen replied, for it was clear from the man’s clothes and his accent that he was gentry. “Are you the lord here?”
“No. My name’s Walcot, Eudo Walcot. My honor is north of here. And you are?”
“Orm Wistwode, lord.”
Walcot examined Stephen with a critical eye. “You look like a fighting man, Wistwode.”
“I’ve done my share, lord.”
The archer clouted Edmund on the arm and the boy cried out. Walcot grimaced.
“Your son?” Stephen asked, guessing that was the reason for Walcot’s interest in the fight and his embarrassment at the outcome.
“Yes.”
“I could help him.”
“Could you? Better than those here?”
“Yes. Some men need to be brought along slowly. It doesn’t help them to be thrown in the pit right away.”
“Edgar!” Walcot called. “Enough. This fello
w here claims he can fence. I’d like to see what he can do.”
“Very good, lord,” Edgar said, waving at the archer and the boy to clear the space between the pillars that was their fighting ring. “Shall I do the honors?”
“You’re the best we’ve got. Try not to hurt him too much.”
Edgar smiled, and took the archer’s singlestick and buckler.
“If you don’t mind.” Stephen held out a hand to the boy for his singlestick, but did not take the buckler.
He stepped back to put space between him and Edgar.
“No buckler?” Edgar asked.
“I don’t think I’ll need it.”
“Suit yourself. You don’t mind if I keep mine?”
“Not at all. Shall we say the head is not a target?”
“What’s the matter, afraid of messing up that pretty face of yours?”
Stephen shrugged. “If that’s the way you want to play.” He saluted Edgar as if this was a formal duel.
Edgar spat in the dirt and took up his guard, left foot forward, the buckler held out straight, the stick at his right hip. Stephen dropped his point so that the stick lay beside his right leg, and waited to see what Edgar would do.
They began to move about in the open space in a sort of dance, Edgar moving through one guard to another: the high guard, the tail on the left and then the right, the underarm, until at last he came to the half shield. He paused there for an instant, and then attacked, a cut at the head with a twirl of the wrist.
Stephen had no doubt that this cut was a feint, but it didn’t matter. He drew his stick up the left Ox guard and, stepping out to his left, cut around at Edgar’s shoulder. The blow landed with a solid crack, but to Edgar’s credit, he neither winced nor cried out, but acted as if there had been no blow at all, and struck backhanded at Stephen’s head. Stephen took the blow with a hanging point and struck around to the same place he had just hit, but this time Edgar was ready and slipped backward out of the way so that Stephen’s stick swept through empty space which Edgar then filled with another cut to the head. Stephen answered with the inside guard and a thrust intended for Edgar’s face but struck his chest instead over a buckler put in the way to deflect the blow.