Death Knight

by Vaughn Heppner

  Gavin doubted it. Berserkers were rare among knights. They were men who lost all control, all reason, as they foamed at the mouth and fought with fury. The terrible Varangians often fought as berserks.

  Sir Kergan raised his axe. “The Great One is my witness.”

  “That’s a false oath,” Hugo muttered.

  Kergan growled low-throated instructions to his men. They eyed Gavin. A few nodded, a few grew pale. As a group, they edged closer.

  “Don’t let them get too close,” Hugo whispered.

  Gavin grasped the hunting horn that hung from his neck by a silken cord. He lifted the horn and blew mightily.

  Kergan halted, scowling. “What treachery is this?”

  “No treachery,” Gavin said lightly, “but a signal to my people.”

  “What people?” Kergan asked.

  “Surely you do not think that a knight travels alone?”

  “Bah,” said Kergan. “You think to trick us.”

  This was going to take more than talk. Gavin grinned. Courage thrust into a man’s face, unnerved most. With his heel, he kicked off the dog boy’s hand. Then, as his gut curdled and his arms tingled with pre-battle jitters, he urged his war-horse toward Kergan. Hugo made a quiet sound of dismay as Gavin walked the big stallion forward. The ruffians backed away. Kergan hesitated even as his hands tightened around his axe haft.

  Gavin locked his gaze onto the huge seneschal. What he saw in the brute’s eyes almost made him rip out his sword. His stallion snorted, stamping a foreleg. Several of the ruffians stumbled farther back.

  “On my honor as a knight,” Gavin said, drawing rein beside Kergan, “I do indeed signal my people.”

  Kergan glared up at him.

  Madness to fight almost enveloped Gavin. Instead, a last try at cunning moved Gavin’s lips. “I also have coin,” he said. “I will gladly pay for a night’s lodging.”

  A vein throbbed in Kergan’s forehead.

  “What shall it be, sir?”

  The moment stretched, Kergan staring up into Gavin’s seemingly placid features.

  “These are honorable men, milord,” said the man-at-arms at Kergan’s side. Sweat dripped from the man’s nose. “Surely the baron would welcome them to his feast.”

  Kergan glared at his man, who shrank back.

  Gavin laughed. “You are indeed the Berserker Knight, sir. I relish meeting you tomorrow on the field of honor.”

  Kergan frowned up at him.

  Gavin shook his head: “And to think that I was told that the knights of Erin have no honor.”

  Kergan spoke thickly. “You are not of Erin?”

  “I am a knight of Bavaria, sir, who has seen many strange sights.”

  Something passed across Kergan’s face. Was it doubt, curiosity, fear? He lowered his axe, glanced at his man-at-arms and glanced at the uneasy ruffians. He nodded, and said thickly, “Yes, come with us to Forador Castle.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “You took a terrible risk,” muttered Hugo.

  Gavin shrugged.

  Hugo lips drew down. “What do you think will happen when he sees who your people are? You’ve solved nothing.”

  “It’s your good cheer that comforts me,” Gavin said. “And that I’ve learned that fate loves to disprove your gloom.”

  Hugo grumbled under his breath and thus kept a sharper eye on the ruffians.

  Gavin grinned to himself, although he silently acknowledged that Hugo was right. He was betting on an odd facet of human nature. Once a person decided on a thing, he or she usually disliked changing their opinion or decision, even when new evidence demanded a rethinking. Kergan had invited them to the castle instead of going through with his treachery.

  They waited in the glade, Kergan with several of his ruffians and Gavin and Hugo upon their mounts. The rescued dog boy sat on a stump.

  “You must realize that he still plans to play us false,” Hugo said.

  Sir Kergan had been pacing and now stopped to shout, “Why have you journeyed to Erin? You never did say.”

  At that moment, bells jingled from behind the thicket. A lean youth with a red and green jacket pushed through, barely giving them a glance. He bent back the branches and clucked his tongue. Four heavily laden mules squeezed through. After them on horses came a pretty woman who shouted Gavin’s name. He waved, admiring her beauty. The last was an older woman, a thick-limbed lady in a white healer’s tunic. The healer jumped off her mount and hurried to the hurt dog boy. She gently took him under the armpits and whispered into his ear. The dog boy grunted as he rose, staggering to one of the spare horses.

  “Where are the others?” asked Kergan, glancing about.

  “Why not let your men march in the lead,” Gavin said. Calm often stilled troubled spirits. “You as befits a knight should ride on one of my extra mounts.”

  “These are your people?” asked a frowning Kergan.

  “Vivian and Joanna,” Gavin said, “and my mule-boy.”

  Kergan scratched a cheek and then gave him an ugly grin.

  Gavin appeared not to notice as he motioned to the silent youth. The mule-boy cleared off a packhorse and brought it to Kergan.

  This was a critical juncture. So Gavin lifted his lance, squinting at it as if something troubled him about it. Thus, he had it ready as he glanced at Kergan. “Do you desire a different horse, sir?”

  Kergan hefted his axe, his lips twitching. Then he shrugged and tossed his axe to one of his men. The huge axe wouldn’t be a comfortable weapon to carry while riding, one of the reasons Gavin had offered the horse. The mount soon strained under the seneschal’s weight. The remaining ruffians kept to themselves. They often eyed Hugo’s crossbow. Hugo watched them as he affectionately touched the trigger.

  As they traveled and after Gavin had spoken with the ladies, he turned to Kergan with a smile. “You asked why I am here, sir. The answer is that I heard of King Egbert’s boast.”

  “Egbert the Mad?” asked Kergan.

  Gavin hadn’t heard about this king being mad until they’d landed in Erin. It had been a troubling revelation, but he had talked himself into the belief that it could very well accrue to his benefit. He now said, “He is the king of Erin, sir.”

  “No,” said Kergan. “He is the king of Banfrey and possibly the Midlands and the Barrens, but nothing more.”

  Gavin scratched his jaw, once more wishing the Erin heralds last winter had told them about the island’s political divisions. He disliked journeying through contested territory.

  “You speak of King Egbert’s boast,” said Kergan. “Which one do you mean?”

  “Why, that his summer tournament at Banfrey will be the grandest in memory,” Gavin said.

  “Tournament?” said Kergan. “You came to our island to joust?”

  The pretty woman, Vivian, was raven-haired and had a wide, laughing mouth and ample breasts. She wore stylish leather hunting clothes, had dangling earrings and painted eyes of exceptional beauty.

  “Don’t you know who this is?” she asked.

  Kergan eyed her rudely and for too long. “You’re from Glendover Port. Why then do you dress like a foreigner and ride your horse like a man?”

  Vivian blushed, which surprised Gavin. He had found her impossible to shock.

  “You discovered her on Glendover’s Street of Harlots,” Kergan pronounced.

  “Gavin!” she cried.

  Gavin shifted uncomfortably because of the accuracy of Kergan’s guess.

  “You must fight him for my honor!” she cried.

  “…Vivian,” Gavin said.

  “He called me a harlot.”

  “Is she your lady?” asked Kergan with a barely suppressed sneer.

  “She…ah, travels with me,” Gavin said delicately, not sure yet how these islanders regarded such things.

  “Travels!” said Vivian, as she lifted her chin. “Is that it? I merely travel with you. How dare you.”

  “Vivian. Please,” Gavin said. “This isn’t the
—”

  “He thinks he’s the world’s greatest jouster,” she told Kergan. “He travels from tournament to tournament, fighting fools so he can ransom them for loot.”

  “I battle by the accepted rules of tournaments,” Gavin said. He shot her a ‘be quiet’ look.

  “Then what about those ‘tricks’ you boasted of?” she asked, ignoring his urgent glance. “Especially the ones the Savernake knights—”

  “Vivian! Desist!”

  “You joust for gain?” asked Sir Kergan with a disapproving frown.

  “For gold, silver and jewels,” Vivian told him.

  “Nonsense,” Gavin said. “I sport at war like any knight would, and—”

  “And that’s all you’ll be sporting at,” Vivian said.

  Gavin threw her a dark glance.

  She made a face, drew rein and dropped beside the healer and the bruised dog boy swaying on mule back.

  Kergan’s twitching smile was smug, arrogant and overbearing. Several of his men, who had strained to listen, openly laughed.

  Because of it, Gavin almost drew his sword and hewed Sir Kergan from the saddle. Ha! They didn’t know how the world really worked. To strap on your sword and ride to war just because your lord demanded it—the wilds of Novgorod and Muscovy had bled such chivalrous nonsense out of him. Lordly asses and high-titled fools had nearly seen him killed a dozen times. Then when his sword and hard fighting had saved them, they had reaped all the laurels and all the rewards and acclaim. He would never let words and airy phrases led him by the nose again. Instead, he bled the lordly ones by taking them at their noble pastime and making them pay.

  For a time they traveled in silence as the gloom deepened. The bushes turned into gnarly trees and the knotted, twisted trees half-straightened into crooked oaks.

  Then Hugo hissed low under his breath.

  Gavin looked up.

  “They’ve grown tense again,” whispered Hugo.

  They rode across a field of muddy grass and toward a copse of cypress trees.

  “There’s movement in the shadows,” whispered Hugo.

  Gavin saw it, and he berated himself for becoming complacent. He urged his war-horse faster. The heavy clop-clop possibly warned Kergan, who scowled. Gavin grinned as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He rode near and put his hand on his sword hilt.

  Kergan seemed ready to bawl: ‘Treachery!’ The ruffians seemed ready to bolt, but they were still too in the open for Hugo’s crossbow to miss.

  Gavin said, “You sneered at my jousting practices before, sir. Let me show you my greatest prize so that you may reconsider your position.”

  Kergan’s eyes narrowed.

  With a rasp of metal Gavin drew a long silver sword. It glinted in the last sunlight, a weapon for a king or emperor. Even the ruffians nodded in admiration. Kergan grunted.

  “It’s of Albion make, I believe,” Gavin said.

  “You mean you don’t know?” Kergan asked.

  “It belonged to the earl of Albion’s East March. Why we dueled really doesn’t matter. The earl fought well. He cut me most harshly, to the bone, I’m afraid. I still bear the scar.”

  With his knees, Gavin guided his war-horse nearer yet. The underbrush and trees drew closer. Gavin saw flashes of red cloth and heard a clink of steel on steel.

  “Notice the tracings in the blade,” Gavin said.

  Kergan glared at him.

  “No, look. They’re there if you squint.”

  Kergan seemed distrustful. Then he squinted at the blade. He looked up at once, his bloodshot eyes wide.

  “Yes, I spoke the truth,” Gavin said. “The earl wept upon parting with the sword, calling it an heirloom from his ancient past.”

  “‘Tis shameful to take a man’s heirloom.”

  Gavin’s grin hardened. “‘Tis also a shame to take a nasty cut in the side.” He moved the blade a fraction nearer Kergan’s throat. Then Gavin lowered his voice. “Listen to me, you dumb bastard. The moment your ambush begins, I’ll cut you down or Hugo shoots out your heart. Now you either swear a true oath this instant, in front of your men, or we’ll start this little game right here and now.”

  That caught Kergan by surprise.

  “Make the oath or die,” whispered Gavin.

  They locked stares. Perhaps it was something in Gavin’s eyes that caused Kergan to draw his reins. “Stop!” he bellowed.

  The ruffians stopped, glancing at each other, shuffling nervously.

  “Know, Sir Gavin, on my honor as a knight of Barthek, that tomorrow my agent or myself will duel you on the jousting field.” Kergan shifted in the saddle, throwing his voice toward the trees. “I had a man slip ahead so he could gather more guards. I wanted you and yours to approach Castle Forador and the baron’s feast in proper style and etiquette.”

  The ruffians glanced at each other in surprise and then grinned in relief.

  “A feast?” asked Gavin.

  “Tonight you feast at the baron’s board,” said Kergan. He cupped his hand by his mouth, roaring, “I said come out!”

  The underbrush shook and trembled, and out filed eleven men dressed much as the ruffians and bearing bows and spears.

  “On your honor?” muttered Hugo.

  “On my honor as a knight,” Kergan said proudly. He pushed Gavin’s sword from his throat. “You no longer need that, sir.”

  Uneasy, Gavin sheathed the silver sword. He had been wrong once about this brutish knight. He had misjudged him, had failed to take his measure. Could he trust the man’s word now? Something here was wrong, but he couldn’t identify what exactly, and that troubled him.

  ***

  Cuthred the dog boy groaned as the healer helped him into a wooden tub. He wore a linen bandage around his ribs where Sir Kergan had kicked him. He had a towel over his privates and stitches closing the worst facial cuts. The dirty water told of others who had bathed before him. He was the last to soak, but he didn’t think to complain. The luxury of warm water amazed him and the Laon soap was something he had only used one other time. He had bathed before, of course, using tallow-made soap and cold swamp water. Tallow was the fat from butchered cattle, boiled by scullions, with wood ash mixed in and salt to harden the soap. This wonderful smelling Laon soap was made from olive oil, a luxury item from southern France.

  “Scrub,” said the healer.

  Her name was Joanna and she had a hard, flat face, thick fingers and powerful-looking forearms. She had rolled back the gown’s sleeves to her elbows. Her lips didn’t seem like the smiling kind, and the way she sucked them inward, showed that she probably only had a few teeth left. She spoke without moving her lips and usually only when he wasn’t watching.

  “You’re going to the feast,” she told him. She sat on a stool behind the tub. “So wash your hair.”

  He ducked underwater and marveled at the heat on his face. After counting to ten, he eased up and let out his breath. Exhaustion left him limp and it hurt to move. No one had ever beaten him this badly before. A yawn threatened to open his mouth too wide and pull out the stitches.

  “Stop that,” she said. “You must stay awake.”

  “Why?”

  “You need to be alert when Sir Gavin questions you at the feast?”

  He craned back to look at her. “Why do you care what happens to me? No one else does.”

  She stared at him with eyeballs the color of lead.

  He groaned, unable to hold that position, leaning back against the tub.

  “I care because Sir Gavin saved you,” she said, speaking now that he wasn’t looking.

  “I don’t understand.”

  From behind him, Joanna dunked the Laon soap into the tub and began to rub the bar in his thick hair. She scrubbed as if he was a horse. His head twisted this way and that. It bit into his heart with a pang of remembrance of his mother. Joanna lathered his hair so he smelled the olive oil odor. Then she rose with a swish of her heavy woolen dress and returned with a small pail. She gave him a
ghost of a smile before she bent down behind him and scooped warm water into her bucket.

  “You have a second chance like me,” she said, as soapy water cascaded down his face. “So you and I are linked.”

  “Sir Gavin once saved you too?”

  “Wash behind your ears,” she said, removing her thick finger from the back of his head.

  He obeyed, and he listened to her instructions for the feast. He would stand behind Hugo tonight, yes, that was the one-eyed crossbowman. No, he wouldn’t put his dirty woolens back on. Those were only fit for hogs. Sir Gavin was giving him fresh garments and new boots. Until the joust decided his fate, he must consider himself Sir Gavin’s man.

  “Now,” Joanna said, “is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

  “Like what?” Cuthred asked, bewildered at this incredible treatment.

  “Let us begin with something simple. Where did the baron get all those horses?”

  Cuthred recalled that Sir Gavin and his people had been surprised at the number of horses stabled in the castle.

  “Those came from the horse traders,” he said.

  “The baron bought them all?” asked Joanna.

  “No. The horse-traders broke the law and the baron imprisoned them and kept their herd.”

  “What law did they break?”

  Cuthred frowned. “Someone said they spoke ill about the king.”

  “Murderous words?” asked Joanna.

  “I don’t recall. All I know is that the baron put them in the dungeon and sent word to King Egbert. The baron is still waiting for a reply.”

  “I noticed tinker wagons parked outside the castle. The wagons seemed abandoned.”

  “The baron put the tinkers in the dungeon too,” Cuthred said.

  “What law did they break?”

  “No one told me. I’m usually in the swamps. Running the hounds and helping with hunts. That all happened while I was away.”

  “The dungeon must be overflowing,” Joanna said.

  Cuthred bobbed his head. “I heard a passing savant say that, yes. The blacksmith told the savant that Castle Forador has bigger dungeons than any other fortress in Erin. It’s an ancient castle. The blacksmith and others say older than the hills. The dungeon has room enough, or so some scullions whispered, for however many thieves and scoundrels the baron wishes to salt away.”