In a Time of Treason

by David Keck

  At that moment, someone in the crowd must have disliked what he saw. A clod of earth or dung smacked from the big man’s head, and the duke reared up, searching for his attacker and seeing only the mob.

  Another glob of something whistled from the heaving crowd. And, this time, Radomor lashed out, skipping the flat of his great blade from someone’s skull.

  The crowd shrieked; there were women and children. Hands reached for the Duke of Yrlac where he stood, poised with Lamoric in one fist and his blade in the other. Lamoric shook himself free.

  It was at this moment that Durand saw the Champion: that thing of stinking rags and iron mail had come alive. It battered past the marshals and rode.

  “Hells,” said Durand. “The devil will—”

  The crowd was heaving over itself. There would already be people dying in that mess. Radomor’s Champion launched itself into the mob, its own war sword flashing.

  “Let’s get him out of there!” said Coensar, and Lamoric’s men were in their saddles. Durand spurred Geridon’s Pale through the half-sacred bounds of the lists, galloping for his lord.

  But Coensar thrust a mailed hand across Durand’s path: forty riders stormed into the lists, bristling with spears, Radomor’s retainers making for their master. The rolling bulwark crashed onto Coensar’s party. A hail of blades thundered from shields and forearms. Durand was mobbed. Coensar lashed with a spiked flail. Durand rang his blade from anything near.

  And the crowd shrieked like a scalded thing.

  They brawled against a welter of slashing blades and tearing spears. They were caught with eight opponents for every man of theirs. Between blows, Durand made out the Champion beyond the riders. Bodies spun from the thing as if from the horns of the festival bulls. And Radomor stalked up the bank. They were only a dozen paces from Lamoric, but they could neither see nor reach him.

  Coensar snarled and tore through with a fierce swing that nailed the head of his flail—by its own spikes—to one knight’s helmet.

  Then Durand lost sight of him. A spear struck him in the mailed jaw, digging—lifting. Iron tore. He hardly saw Ouen before the big man was swinging down with his massive sword of war. The blow hacked the assailant’s helm to the eye-slits, both knights flinching from the hot spatter.

  When Durand looked again, Coensar had jagged a path to within instants of the duke. Durand’s heart swelled as the hero’s spiked flail shrilled, but then, abruptly, something ripped the captain from his saddle.

  Durand’s shout was drowned in the riot.

  Ouen stood in his stirrups, high over the throng. “The Champion!”

  They threw themselves against the wall of green riders. Badan, in his black and crimson, spat and savaged anyone near him. Berchard turned and turned his mount, tearing spaces from the mob. Ouen spread chaos with his long sword. But they couldn’t press forward. Kicking and punching, smashing men’s faces with the pommel of his sword, Durand took no time to aim. They were beasts in a pit.

  Yrlac’s Champion loomed beyond the enemy, hulking like a monstrous spider balled in man’s armor.

  “Durand?” shouted Ouen. “It’s hopeless!”

  The eyes of all three turned to Durand. They could never break through this way.

  “Follow me! Ride!” Durand tore Pale from the press, and all three of his comrades swung away with him. He knew that Radomor’s gang would be breathing now, the wash of relief spinning through their veins. And they had a heartbeat to sag off their guard.

  “Back at ‘em!” he roared.

  With wild eyes, Lamoric’s men tore round, spurring their horses for Radomor’s line.

  Durand swung his sword high, and raised his shield. There was a leg-breaking tangle of horses between Pale and Yrlac. He would only get one chance to break through. Pale was a thunderbolt fit to shatter trees; the brute’s haunches bunched. Durand fixed his eye on the time-frozen turning of Radomor’s head as Pale leapt into the sky.

  The collision was too quick to dissect. Men sprawled. Almost, Durand’s sword was ripped from his fist. Iron rang. Badan’s warhorse tumbled, man and horse disappearing. Durand landed, pitching against his saddlebow. Faces and flanks exploded past him. And there he was.

  He wheeled Pale before Duke Radomor, three feet of steel in his fist. Lamoric—streaming blood and dazed—was safe beyond him.

  Durand extended his hand, and when Lamoric made to protest or stagger, Durand heaved man and iron mail up over his saddlebow.

  Radomor snarled.

  As Durand made to take flight, Radomor caught Pale’s bridle; the huge warhorse might as well have been chained to a stronghold’s wall.

  Durand swung his blade down: he would sever the devil’s arm.

  The duke threw up his sword. Durand swung again: sledgehammer blows to break the bond that held him. But the duke leapt close and suddenly Durand could not keep pace. One-handed, the duke put his war sword to work. The thing flickered like a wasp and cracked down like an anvil. One jab tore Durand’s surcoat. Another smashed iron links. Giant Pale could not back away. It would only be moments.

  Then Radomor’s point crunched home in the folds of Durand’s mailed stomach: the duke had reached too far. Doubling over the blade, Durand trapped the sword, and, with a lunge that strained every ligament, he jammed his blade into the man’s neck.

  The duke’s hands leapt to his throat.

  Durand swept his blade high and hammered it down on Radomor’s mailed head. The duke sagged.

  But before the man could fall, a manacle clamped shut on Durand’s neck. He twisted to see the Champion, reaching across Pale’s back, his fist grinding Durand’s neck bones. Light flashed, and he saw the brute’s long blade flicker back. Durand would never bring his sword round in time.

  Then something struck the monster—nearly hauling Durand down. Ouen had launched himself on the brute. Suddenly, the thing was battered by a sea of knights and horses. Its tomb gray hair burst from its helm in a ragged mane. Durand swung his sword against the arm that chained him.

  “I cannot!” the monster’s lost voice moaned, enduring the clash of iron.

  Ouen hauled at the thing, still behind it. For an instant his eyes were on Durand’s: Go!

  The Champion twisted its head around and seized Ouen. “Get away!” the eerie voice sobbed, as, with just one hand, it lifted the massive man bodily. Ouen gaped. The Champion fought to its feet, and when Ouen began to scrabble at the thing’s helm, it shrieked and lashed him through the air as though he were a man of straw.

  Durand hacked at the monster’s arm, now truly slamming the blade down on living bone. Pale screamed and leapt back. Badan, a wild man in black, stepped close and smacked the Champion off balance with a blow across the back of its helm.

  And Durand spurred Pale away. The monster’s fingers tore loose, and, abruptly, Durand was free in the tiltyard. He gulped air and looked back. Before the great mob, the monster laid about with its fists, flinging men and great warhorses around it. A shriek built, as if the monster were a whirlwind in chains. Badan crashed in a heap of his own armored skirts. Berchard toppled as the brute snapped his mount’s foreleg. Rooks wheeled overhead. The Champion straddled Radomor’s fallen body, even lashing out at Radomor’s own guardsmen in its frenzy.

  “Durand! Durand!” a voice shouted.

  Coensar wavered among the broken bodies and horrified men of Yrlac. He was alive, though his face was swollen. He reached for Durand, tangling in Durand’s surcoat as he got close. “Durand,” he gasped. “Give him to me. You’ve got to get them away from there. Radomor’s fallen. That thing’ll kill them if we don’t get them clear.” It was all Coensar could do to keep his feet and utter the words at the same time.

  Durand nodded, letting Lamoric slide from Pale’s neck.

  “Get them clear,” said Coensar.

  “I will.” Durand rode past the mob, screaming: “To me. To me. Withdraw! Get away from the thing!”

  Faces turned to him, but, unhorsed in the press, they woul
d never get free. Not only was the Champion chewing up anything near him, but Radomor’s staggered conroi was coming back to its senses, flexing like the coils of a serpent to trap their attackers. Before his eyes, a gap opened between Badan and Berchard: a slender, final chance.

  “Hells,” he said, and charged. As he slipped the gap, he dropped his sword and shield and hooked both startled knights from the ground with a force that nearly threw him from his saddle. Air exploded from between his teeth. Sparks flashed. But Pale slewed through the crowd to freedom.

  As he let his friends loose, he wheeled Pale back for Ouen.

  And the big horse skittered to a halt.

  Around the dark bulwark of the Champion, Yrlac’s men clutched a bleeding thicket of spears, scrambling over dead men and horses. Each spear was leveled at Pale’s chest. Blood stood dark on their green surcoats.

  Durand stared into the blades. Pale would do his bidding. He would leap for that hedge of spears, and there would be a moment while the blades held him in the air before they tore.

  If Durand had seen only a glimpse of Ouen, Pale would have flown. Durand’s gaze flickered through the dripping shafts and faces. The only weapon left to him was his misericorde: a throat-cutting dagger too short for this work. He saw only the black slot of the Champion’s stare.

  But Ouen had been swallowed up. There was no blond mane. There was no glint of gold teeth.

  In the midst of the static frenzy of the green knights, Radomor’s Champion bent to rise again, with his stricken master lifted on his hands, like a sacrifice.

  Durand trembled on the edge of jabbing his spurs home.

  He heard people move into line around him: Badan, Berchard, Coensar, Lamoric. Someone touched Durand’s knee.

  “That’s all we can do,” Berchard said. “That’s all there is. We’ve got to leave the lists.”

  Durand watched for Ouen. He watched for motion from Radomor. The folds of his empty right hand felt greasy in his fist—full of blood.

  “Durand!” Berchard hissed.

  Beyond the spears, Radomor finally stirred, a hand pawing his Champion’s iron coat. The monster bent its head still farther.

  There was no sign of Ouen.

  Berchard was safe. And Lamoric, and Coen, and Badan.

  “Durand,” said Coensar. “It’s time to get inside.”

  16. Numbering the Dead

  You’re alive.” Deorwen breathed the words, standing in the midst of the Painted Hall, frozen, as Lamoric led his battered men spilling in. Only the Queen of Heaven knew the woman’s heart.

  Almora had been at play on the rushes. A toy Power winked and shimmered in the gloom of the vaults, riding a shy song on damselfly wings. The little girl seemed as pretty as the song. Lamoric and his limping mob of bloodstained men stank like butchers.

  “We heard a great commotion,” said Deorwen. Keeping calm for the girl’s sake must have cost her. “I didn’t know what to think.”

  Lamoric managed a wavering smile. “A riot, my dear. I am afraid Duke Radomor is most upset.”

  Durand noted Almora, chin tucked and staring from the hearth as the conroi dropped onto benches. He saw her whispering Power dip toward her hands. They said that she had seen a line of gray men creeping through the dark—her father had been traveling to the marches beyond the mountains—and she had held her tongue until the timid Strangers had slipped into the stones. The last to vanish turned and set the toy in her hand: a gift of gratitude. A little thing like a dove and lion, it woke if a tiny hand turned its key.

  The Power settled into the bowl of Almora’s hands with a snip of wings and a wink of precious stones.

  “Thus am I saved from my own folly. Great is the King of Heaven.” Lamoric sprawled on one of the benches. Blood slicked from a cut somewhere on his forehead. “Only with a mob and knot of armed guards am I fit to face bloody Radomor.”

  Berchard croaked around a split lip. “In borrowed gear, on a borrowed mount, you met him. That’s not nothing.”

  Coensar looked gravely from his own blood and bruises.

  “A wiser brute than I, that horse,” said Lamoric. “But no matter. You all pulled me free. Host of Heaven, that Champion was laying about. Those people with their mud. They’ll have paid dearly.”

  Coensar returned to business. “Now we must see how Radomor reacts.”

  “Reacts? That son of a whore could die,” Badan said. “Our ox here gave his skull a good tap. Maybe he goes deaf.”

  “A man like Radomor of Yrlac will not go easy,” Berchard said.

  There were grunts.

  “This will have put paid to the tourney,” said Lamoric. “There will be bodies enough for burying without further chivalry.” He grunted, touching his face. “Father must tell the marshals.”

  Deorwen had looked over the company. “Where is Ouen?”

  “Did you see the grip he took on that monster?” said Lamoric. Lying down, he could not see the others’ blank faces. “He could pull up trees by the roots, that man.”

  Durand’s head wasn’t good: he could still feel the Champion’s iron fingers in the sinews of his throat. And the scabbard at his hip hung empty. His sword was somewhere in the muck under the wall. He took a breath to confess—

  But Guthred tramped from the stairs with Heremund in tow. The shield-bearer lugged a knapsack of bandages, pots, and knives—and wore a murderous scowl. Durand caught a quick exchange between the shield-bearer and the captain: he saw a question in Coensar’s look; Guthred shook his head.

  “Radomor’s men have left the yard,” said Heremund. “The duke was up on his own pins. They think he killed a man who tried to lend him a shoulder.”

  “Damn fools,” Guthred said. “All of you.” And squatted by Lamoric with a hooked cobbler’s needle.

  “Ouen might still be all right,” Berchard said. “He’s . . . he’s a big lad.”

  Lamoric twisted from Guthred’s grip. “Aw, no.”

  If Durand had seen a hair of Ouen in that knot of spears, he would have thrown himself into the heart of it—he wanted to believe that was true—but there had been no trace. Guthred started his needlework once more: click, snip. His stitches crawled Lamoric’s brow to bury themselves in clotted hair.

  “Where is he?” said Lamoric. “Is the man still out there?”

  Durand turned from the others, catching a glimpse of Almora’s dark eyes as he left the hall. Plunging down the grand stairs, he breasted servant crowds. Above the yard, only a fraction of the rooks still churned the air. The tide of roaring humanity, now departed, had left only the mud and the stricken behind. Bodies lay everywhere, some writhing. A woman clutched a small shape, rocking and smearing a tiny white face. People wailed. Durand could not remember what Ouen had worn: a russet shirt of borrowed mail?

  The castle’s priests flapped from despair to despair, too few for too many. A senior man was directing that bodies should be dragged from the muck—or be checked for signs of life. Seeing a priest crouched very close to a long form, Durand knocked the man aside to find a stranger’s features: sharp shades of purpled red and silver-gray. The priest tried to take Durand’s arm.

  Two shield-bearers struggled to corner a limping warhorse that lurched and hopped away from them. They would end its misery.

  On the bank by the gatehouse straggled a row of gray corpses. Priests or sextons had pulled canvas over them. Durand saw only limbs.

  He pitched across the yard and began to scramble up the bank, hesitating as he stumbled on a conversation.

  A bloated little man stood with hands muddy to the elbows. A bent creature in a saffron tabard squatted by a corner of the canvas sheet, squinting up. “Surely. Some’re good, but most’re going to need new soles. I could see giving you, say, three pence. What say you?” When the man lifted the corner, Durand had a glimpse of empty boots.

  The fat man looked around, his hands muddy from dragging bodies. “Ha. What’re the chances you’d be here at this moment, and you a cobbler. Eh?” the fat
man spat. “That’s what I say. Here is the Lord of Dooms providing for you. If you can’t get a penny for each and every pair, you’re a dullard and—”

  Durand’s eyes moved from foot to gray foot beyond the hem of canvas. Some were as creased as the palms of a man’s hand. One pair was tiny. Some were bent with bunions. Others were stained red and brown with dyes of their shoes or hose. They faced up and down: heel and toe.

  “A man cannot live on nothing,” the yellow man said. “If there’s no difference between start and finish, then where’s a man’s life to come from?”

  Durand climbed closer, on all fours.

  The two men looked down, startled at the creature—muddy as the corpses—crawling the bank toward them. Their eyes scrabbled over him, marking the rust-bleeding mail. Their mouths opened.

  A tiny motion of the saffron man dropped the canvas over the boots. Durand’s glance caught the movement. “It wasn’t my idea, sir, but Ecmon’s here.” The man made to slip down the bank—the gatehouse was a few paces away.

  There were no words in Durand’s snarl. His knuckles caught the yellow man. The fat partner sprawled—scrambling—onto the heap of bodies. Durand snatched the misericorde from his belt and, almost, launched himself upon them.

  Other men were still hauling bodies: volunteers, sextons, priests. Voices sobbed from the yard below. And Durand checked the fit of temper.

  “I have lost a friend,” he said. “You will help me find him. Do you understand?”

  They stared: the fat man, his face as yellow as his partner’s tabard; his partner on his knees, hesitating.

  Durand caught the yellow tabard, jerking the man upright. “You will lift the canvas. Your friend, he’ll get under there and make sure we can see.”

  The yellow man balanced between terrors for a moment, then Durand took two fistfuls of the man’s tabard and tossed him into the pale tangle.

  One by one, they lifted stained heads. Durand watched, blankly noting injuries and indignities. It was hard to judge which had fought for Yrlac and which had been complete outsiders. Finally, the shaking saffron man pulled a long-limbed body free. Before he could grab another, Durand leapt forward, his hand raised. “Wait.”