The Book of the Emissaries: An Animism Short Fiction Anthology

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Reynard nodded sagely, though not particularly sympathetically. “Yes, that is the way of knights, isn’t it. They take whatever they want under the authority of the King or some earl or even God when they feel the need.”

  Thomas had to blink the tears from his eyes. He didn’t want to show weakness in front of this Reynard, whoever he was, but the wound was still too fresh. His father had always been such a strong man. Fearless, or so Thomas had always believed. To see him on his knees, begging and pleading like a child . . . “Please, sir, may we keep just a little bit more, grace be to God?”

  “It was a trick,” Thomas said. “A dirty trick. They changed the day the taxes were due and said my father was late in paying. There would be a fine. But we had nothing left to give so they took over half our land.”

  “Well then, perhaps you and I should play our own.”

  “I don’t care about tricks. I want revenge on the knight.”

  Reynard tilted his head as though his hearing was impaired. “What’s that, you say?”

  Thomas knew this might be some kind of trap, and yet, it would be cowardice to deny the vow he had made only days ago. “I want revenge on the knight.”

  Reynard seemed to mutter to himself, repeating Thomas’s words one syllable at a time as if trying to decipher a foreign language. “I have this . . . friend,” he said at last. “His name is Wetiko.”

  “Wet-tea-who?”

  “Close enough. Anyway, my . . . let’s call him my colleague. He’s quite taken with knights like Sir Hamond, with their armour and their big swords and their lances.” Reynard began fanning himself with his hand like a nobleman’s wife threatening to faint from the summer heat. “They’re oh so mighty. So very daunting. Practically indestructible.”

  The man made it seem like a joke, but Thomas had seen how imposing Sir Hamond had been, standing over everyone in the village in his armour. He might as well have been a hundred men. “Your friend isn’t far wrong.”

  Reynard arched an eyebrow. “Whose side are you on? No, wait, don’t answer that yet.” He closed his eyes and waved a hand in the air as if dismissing a thought. “The point is, they offend me.”

  “Offend you?”

  He nodded vigorously. “Bad enough when they were wandering around in chain mail. Now they’ve started in with full plate!” He placed his fists on his hips and turned his head, striking a majestic pose. “They look like pompous metal statues of themselves.”

  Thomas wasn’t sure how to respond. Statues or not, those steel breastplates could resist an archer’s arrow, which was what made Thomas’s plan to revenge himself against Sir Hammond so precarious. “I suppose the armourer’s art progresses like anything else."

  Reynard seized on the words. "Progress! Progress! Progress!” He shouted, and began thumping one foot after the other in a rhythmic march. “Always this ‘progress’ plods on and on, day after day, year after year, century after . . .” He stopped and turned to Thomas. “It’s just so boring, isn’t it?"

  “I’m not sure there’s anything you can do to stop it. New things almost always win against older things, don’t they?”

  “You sound like Wetiko,” Reynard said, drawing himself up haughtily. “It doesn’t suit you. Perhaps you want to take his side of the wager?”

  “What wager?”

  Reynard’s dropped the pose and smiled. “He made a wager with me. About you, in fact.”

  “About me? Why would this Weah-tee . . . whatever his name is, why would he care about me? Or Sir Hamond for that matter?”

  Reynard winked conspiratorially as if he and Thomas were suddenly back on the same side. “Well, it’s possible I might have led him into it. Regardless, he bet me that you would never kill the knight. He thinks men like your Sir Hamond down there will rule the battlefield for hundreds of years.”

  “Sir Hamond won’t be ruling anything for long,” Thomas replied, anger flashing hot inside his chest. “I’m going to kill him.”

  Reynard looked surprised. “Oh, really? I’m sorry—here I thought you said you wanted revenge on the knight.”

  “I do, damn you. What better revenge than to take his life? It’ll teach them to fear us. They won’t try to take our land again if they—”

  Reynard held up a hand. “I’m sorry, Thomas, I’m going to have to stop you there. You’re starting to bore me. Shall I show you exactly what’s going to happen when you fire your little arrow down on poor, unsuspecting Sir Hamond?”

  Thomas watched as Reynard knelt down on and picked up some loose dirt from the ground. “You see this?” Reynard asked.

  “It’s just dirt.”

  “Dirt,” Reynard said mockingly. “Dirt? It’s the earth. It carries the history of everything that happened and everything that will happen upon it.” He paused for a moment and looked down at the contents of his hand. “Actually, now that you mention it, it does rather look like dirt, doesn’t it? Nothing very interesting there . . .” His gaze returned to Thomas. “Ah, but when the wind carries it? Then it becomes something much more interesting.” Reynard blew into his hand, spraying its contents into Thomas’s eyes. The young archer tried to get his bow back up and drawn but before he could take aim, his head began to swim and he stumbled back.

  “Damn you, I’ll—”

  His ears filled with the sound of horses. A dozen of them. They’re coming for me . . . I have to run! But Thomas realized he was already running—through a clearing past the bridge that crossed into Ferney. It was mid-day, the sun above beating down on him as if pointing the way for his pursuers. He felt thirsty . . . so thirsty. How long have I been running? Days? No, weeks. Ever since they’d hanged his father. He could still see the body swinging from the tree; hear the cries of his sisters trying desperately to cut him down.

  Wait . . . when had his father died? Wednesday. It was Wednesday the week after Thomas had shot Sir Hamond. The knight’s family had assumed it had been Thomas’s father and even when Thomas himself had confessed to the crime they’d still hanged the old man. Then they’d come after Thomas.

  Closer, damn it . . . the horses are getting closer. Someone barked an order and the twang of a crossbow sang in the air. Something burned into Thomas’s back. The sun is so hot . . . why is it so hot all of a sudden? He began to feel faint as the ground rose up to greet him . . .

  “Enough,” Reynard said, clapping his hands once with the sound of a branch breaking in a windstorm.

  Thomas shook the dirt from his eyes. It was late—near dark. He was back on the hill. “What did you do to me?” he demanded, raising the bow and training the arrow on the man in the long coat.

  “Me? Nothing at all. The wind, though, she showed you why your plan isn’t going to work.”

  Thomas felt sick. Whatever this man’s trick, there was some truth to it. Thomas could throw away his own life, but what about his father? His sisters? Yet if he walked away now, Sir Hamond would just go about rutting with his mistress and nothing would change. The knights would go on taking what they wanted, leaving destruction in their wake. “Good God in Heaven,” Thomas pleaded. “What am I to do?”

  Reynard hopped up from the ground where he’d been kneeling. “Funny you should ask, Thomas. I believe I mentioned a certain plan of mine?”

  He speaks as if he were my friend, Thomas thought. But he smiles like a wolf. No, not a wolf, a fox. “Will this plan of yours get me my revenge?”

  “A thousand times over.”

  Thomas considered those words. He would have happily settled for getting his revenge once over, but a thousand times might be alright, too. “What would I have to do?”

  Reynard beckoned to Thomas and walked back from the edge of the hill towards the small lake a few yards away where Thomas used to swim as a boy. Reynard pointed to the water.

  “Am I supposed to drown Sir Hamond?” Thomas asked.

  “Of course not, silly man. You’re not going to kill him at all.”

  “I’m not?”

  “No, you�
�re going to join him.”

  “Join him? Join him at what?” Thomas asked.

  Reynard sat down cross-legged next to the edge of the water, dipped in a finger and began swirling it around. “In a few weeks’ time Sir Hamond is going to be coming back to your village. He’ll be looking for conscripts to fight under his command in a lovely little spot called Sluys.”

  “Sluys? Never heard of it.”

  “It’s in France.”

  “I knew it,” Thomas said. “I knew you were French. No way in hell am I going to France to fight for Sir Hamond. You’re trying to trick me!”

  Reynard gave a small sigh. “I promise you three things, Thomas. First, I’m not French. Second, you’re going to Sluys along with many, many other men to fight under Sir Hamond. Third, I am indeed playing a trick on you. But this is how you’re going to get your revenge.”

  Thomas didn’t fancy the idea of being in a war, though his father had fought a few years before under the banner of King Edward. “More chaos and madness than a man needs to see in one lifetime,” his father had said. Then an idea came to him. It was sort of ingenious, actually. “Ah, I understand now. I’ll go to France and then find a way to kill Sir Hamond on the battlefield. If I pick the right time and place, I can do it without being discovered.”

  Reynard was nodding and smiling, his eyes far away. Then he focused on Thomas. “What? No, of course not. You won’t be killing Sir Hamond in Sluys.”

  “Then what will I be doing?”

  “This!” Reynard leaned down and tilted his head so that his lips were close to the surface of the water. He blew on it, very hard, and little droplets began to spin up out of the lake, flying into Thomas’s eyes. Thomas tried to blink to them away, but when he opened his eyes again he saw water all around him.

  A boat. I’m on a boat. He could feel the rocking motion of the boards under his feet. There were men next to him—rough peasants like himself, for the most part—holding longbows like his own. They were crammed together on an English ship like far too many rats packed so tightly none of them could flee. Thomas felt seasick, as he had every day since they’d left the coast.

  Good Lord, why did I ever listen to that fox-faced bastard? Why did I come all the way to France just to die on a boat without ever avenging myself on Hamond. Damn you, Reynard. You tricked me!

  “There!” the man next to him shouted, his voice full of panic.

  Thomas looked off one side to see the French ship nearly two hundred yards away. It was full of men with crossbows. Genoese mercenaries hired by the French knights, Thomas knew, though he wasn’t sure how he knew.

  The crossbowmen took aim for the English ship. Several of the men standing next to Thomas tried desperately to get down low, fearing the hundred bolts that were being fired from a hundred crossbows. From behind, Sir Hamond swore at the archers to get up, but most of them cowered. Thomas didn’t flinch, though. They’re too far away, he realized. No crossbow can match the range of a proper longbow. “They can’t hit us!” he shouted, and nocked an arrow. He aimed a little high to compensate for the distance and fired. A moment later a Genoese mercenary fell back into his fellows, the shaft of Thomas’s arrow protruding from his chest. A roar went up from the men next to Thomas and they drew their own bows. Soon the English archers were firing volley after volley, faster and farther than the French troops could hope to match. We’re winning! Thomas thought. We’re going to . . .

  “Alright, alright,” Reynard said, shattering the image.

  Thomas opened his eyes and ran his fingers through the short beard he’d kept ever since the war in Sluys. “Sorry. Must’ve nodded off.”

  Reynard was sitting next to him, his back leaning against the same tree. “You really do like to pat yourself on the back about that tiny bit of gallantry, don’t you?”

  “Actually, I was just thinking back to when we first met, five years ago on this very hill when you convinced me not to shoot Sir Hamond but instead to follow him to France.”

  “I convinced you?” Reynard said, he looked up at a passing flight of birds. “I’m quite sure it was all your idea, wasn’t it?”

  “Don’t start with me,” Thomas said, jabbing a finger at Reynard. “I won’t fall for your tricks a second time.”

  “Tricks? Me?” Reynard reached out a hand and patted Thomas’s new wool cloak. When his hand came back up it was holding a bag of coins.

  “Give those back!” Thomas said, reaching for the bag. “They’re mine.”

  Reynard skipped out of reach. “Given to you by a grateful Sir Hamond, as I recall.” He tossed the bag of coins back to Thomas. “I thought it was a lovely speech, didn’t you? I mean the one he gave at your village—all about your skill with the bow and your courage. Your father looked as proud as if someone had just pinned angel’s wings to your back.”

  Thomas looked at the bag of coins in his hand. ”So that was your grand plan? For me to trade my revenge against Sir Hamond for a little praise and a few coins?”

  Reynard was watching a butterfly land on a blue flower and humming absently. He stopped to look at Thomas. “What? Coins? Of course not. What do I care about whether you have money or not? No, my friend, our plan is much more ambitious.”

  “Then—“

  Reynard picked up a pair of small stones from ground and stood to hold them up to the sun to examine them. “Sir Hamond will be coming back to your village next week. He’s going to ask to see you personally.”

  “So that’s when I kill him?” Thomas asked.

  “No, you’re going to follow him again.” Reynard knelt down and began striking the two stones together.

  “Where?”

  “It’s called Crécy.”

  “Great,” Thomas said. “I suppose that’s in France, too. So what’s in Cressy?”

  Reynard banged the stones until a little spark flew off and a small pile of dried leaves began to smoulder. “More French knights. You’re going to fight for Sir Hamond again under the banner of Edward, Prince of Wales.”

  Thomas shook his head. “The Black Prince? Why would—”

  Reynard leaned in closer to the burning leaves, seemingly disappointed at the paltry flame. He puffed three times on them, and the fire grew until small embers began to float up into the air. Thomas watched, fascinated, as a tiny bit of leaf rose up, never losing its soft, red glow. When it reached the height of his head, it landed in his left eye, burning it.

  Before Thomas could wipe it away, the ember became brighter and brighter until it took over the sun. Light. Nothing but whiteness.

  Thomas opened his eyes. Why did the sun always seem so much brighter in France? It forced him to squint and played hell with his aim. His legs were stiff and aching too, both from the long march and from the endless waiting. Why, oh, why had he listened to Reynard a second time?

  “They’re here!” a voice called out.

  Thomas turned and nearly bolted when he saw the knights coming. Hundreds of them on warhorses, barely three hundred yards away, charging straight for Thomas and the two hundred archers standing with him in a V-formation.

  “God help us,” someone screamed.

  Thomas forced himself to stand his ground. He was leading this group of archers, and they were looking to him for guidance. He raised his bow and let loose an arrow into the French horde. The knight in front went down, his horse knocking two others off balance. The other English archers fired, too, and watched as their shafts began to break the French charge. “Again!” Thomas shouted. “And again!” he called out.

  Sometimes the arrows would manage to pierce the steel plate, other times they broke off. But many of them hit the weaker places between the steel, and others struck the horses themselves, sending the knights careening to the ground.

  “Loose,” Thomas said, and his men did. Wave after wave. “Again.” He repeated the call over and over until the sound of his own voice became oddly faint in his ears . . .

  “Have a nice nap?”

  He open
ed his eyes and saw Reynard kneeling next to him, building up a small fire in nearly the same spot as he had two years before. Thomas reached out and warmed his hands near the flames. It was strangely comforting, he reflected, to meet back here every few years with his strange acquaintance. “I was just thinking back to the battle. The one in Crécy.”

  “And?”

  Thomas smiled. “And you know, I think I’ve quite gotten the hang of this war thing.”

  “You do all right,” Reynard said with a little chuckle. “Especially for someone who very nearly died on that ridge in Poitiers.”

  “Poitiers? I’ve never been to Poitiers.” Thomas rose to his feet. “Don’t tell me that’s another damnable French town. No, Reynard, I’m not going back to—“

  Reynard blew into the fire and a little fragment of floated up into Thomas’s right eye. Strangely, it didn’t hurt at all this time.

  Another fire, but this one from the hearth. “I’m back at home,” Thomas said. He rubbed a hand over the spot between his shoulder and his breastbone where the sword thrust he’d taken in Poitiers still ached sometimes. What a fight that was! But Thomas and his archers had acquitted themselves well in the end, he thought.

  “Of course you’re home, dear,” a woman’s voice said.

  Thomas turned from where he stood by the hearth and saw Elizabeth. She was braiding those long black tresses of hers. He loved to watch her as she worked at it so patiently. Who knew he’d find someone like her? Years ago he’d always assumed he’d marry Sarah, who’d lived in the cottage next to his father’s. Others might not find Elizabeth as pretty as Sarah was, but what she stirred in Thomas was as deep as the Ocean itself.

  Something tugged at his leg and his gaze went to the source of the pulling. A boy. My Boy.

  “Tomorrow, right?” William asked. “You promised you’d teach me the longbow tomorrow. For my birthday.”

  Thomas looked up at his wife. She hadn’t been fond of the idea of an eight-year-old boy trying to learn the longbow. It had taken months for Thomas to fashion something light enough that he was confident William could use it, but still . . .

  “Oh, I suppose it’s fine,” Elizabeth said. Then she grinned at her son. “But if you’re going to be a big hunter then you’d better shoot something bigger than a pigeon for supper.”