Castles, Knights, and Chivalry: 4 Medieval Romance Novels

by Ruth Kaufman

  “That’s right.” Devon handed Garrett a small wooden boat with a make-shift sail. She next took from a servant’s tray a scrap of parchment and an inked quill and handed them to him.

  “There’s only one wish I have,” explained Garrett, “and that is to hunt down and kill Gruffydd, the bandit who gave me this.” He ran a hand over the long scar that ran from behind his left ear to under his chin.

  “’Tis naught but a war wound,” said Corbett.

  “From saving my life,” added Madoc.

  “You are still very handsome either way,” assured his sister, Abbey.

  When they were finished, two at a time they placed their boats in the trough. With a slight push, they were urged on by everyone cheering for their boats to move across the water.

  “My boat made it across with the candle still lit,” exclaimed Abbey. “That means my wish will come true.”

  “My ship didn’t make it across,” grumbled Madoc. “And the candle blew out. What does that mean?”

  “That your wish will be unfulfilled,” stated Wren. “What was your wish?”

  When he didn’t answer, Abbey spoke up. “I wished for many, many children,” she said with a smile.

  “Aye, now I see why my boat sank.” Madoc looked to her with a grin. “Just jesting with you, sweetheart. I wished Blake Castle would never serve pigeon stew again.”

  They all laughed at the mention of Madoc wanting to protect the birds he’d raised most his life.

  Storm’s red-haired son, Renard, pushed to the front of the crowd. “Your turn now, Sir Garrett and Da,” he shouted out anxiously.

  Garrett and Storm both lit the candles atop their toy boats and set them to sail on the water. Children ran back and forth, watching the ships sailing to the other side.

  “Losh me!” exclaimed Storm when his boat made it across, candle still burning bright. “We will have me grandda’s mountain magic at dinner instead o’ the cuckoo-doup ale.”

  “Cuckoo-foot ale,” Wren corrected him with a smile on her face.

  “It didna taste like feet,” said Storm, “but rather like -”

  “Look what’s happening to Garrett’s boat,” interrupted Abbey so Storm would not use inappropriate language in front of the children. Her eyes opened wide in amazement by what she was witnessing.

  Garrett stood there with his mouth open, watching as the candle from his boat set the sails afire and the whole thing went up in flame and started sinking to the bottom of the trough. No one said a word. Then Madoc spoke up.

  “That doesn’t look good, Garrett.”

  “I am sure it means naught,” said Lady Devon, leading her children away to collect boats of their own.

  Orrick, the old sorcerer who had been watching from the shadows, sauntered up to join them. “’Tis a warning,” he said, squinting at the remains of the boat and then back to Garrett. “You are about to embark on a very dangerous journey. Be careful my friend, and trust no one. I see death and destruction, and unsuspected circumstances arising.”

  “Nay,” shouted Abbey. “You must be wrong.”

  “Orrick is never wrong,” Corbett said with a shake of his head.

  “Aye,” added Storm, taking a swig of whisky. “And neither is the ol’ gypsy, as we’ve all seen at one time or another.”

  Garrett touched the scar on his cheek, and watched the smoke rise from the remnants of his burnt ship as it disappeared under the water. Not at all what a man wanted to see just before he set sail.

  “I don’t believe in omens,” he lied, trying to make light of the situation, when it bothered him immensely. He looked over to the crowd gathering around a bonfire in the center of the bailey.

  “Let’s join them, shall we?”

  “Aye,” said Abbey. “They are preparing for the Threading the Needle dance.”

  “Too bad William isn’t here for that,” chuckled Madoc, thinking of his surrogate brother who was a master tailor.

  They headed to the dance, Garrett once more gazing down into the water at his sunken ship as he passed by the trough.

  Orrick came to his side. “I also see a lady in your future on the waters, though she is not what you expect.”

  “There are no dangerous journeys or ships in flames,” he growled. “And you are wrong, old man, because there are certainly no ladies at sea. Ever!”

  Chapter 2

  Autumn, The North Sea

  Echo stood on deck of the Seahawk, and raised her arm as a perch for her approaching pet osprey, Skye. The sea hawk – from which the ship was named – landed with lithe upon her leather-clad forearm.

  “Good morning, Skye,” she said with a smile, running her finger over the white head of her pet. The bird’s colorings were beautiful in the early morning sun. Brown and white striped feathers led to a soft white underbelly. The bird sported a brown ring of splotches at her neck that identified her as a female.

  The Seahawk had been Echo’s home now for fourteen years. Her father, Captain Powell ap Llyr, was naught more than a pirate. A pillager. Scupper class of the sea.

  He’d always wanted a son, so she’d been told. But she didn’t remember much about her childhood, only that she’d been raised by many of her father’s women over the years. She’d stayed onshore with them until she’d been old enough for him to take her with him on his thieving excursions. He’d trained her to fight, drink, and curse better than any male there. He’d basically turned her into the son he’d never had.

  “Echo, how many times have I told ye, te get that damned bird’s nest out o’ the ship’s lookout!”

  Her father, Cap’n, as his crew referred to him, approached, stomping heavily over the deck, grumbling as always. He wore his latest pilfered clothes - a nobleman’s velvet, dark green doublet with gold buttons over a black silk tunic and parti-colored hose. Whenever he was well in his cups he wore his land clothes aboard the ship. He didn’t care they were impractical and would not hold up against the elements, as he wanted everyone to see his treasures and never forget that he was the captain. A thick leather belt sat low on his hips and wrapped up over one shoulder to hold the weight of his sword and dagger.

  Echo looked up to the large wooden basket built around the ship’s center mast. A black flag fluttered atop a long pole in warning for other ships to surrender or suffer the consequences. Skye had once again built her nest of twigs and seaweed at the highest point of the ship. Echo couldn’t blame her. That’s what birds did.

  “Damn yer eyes! I am not goin’ te throw her out. Besides, what does it matter to ye?” she asked, knowing her father would not like her tone of voice. Still, she didn’t care. She was one of the men now. Aye, she was also the only one of the crew who could talk to him in this manner. “Skye is a better lookout than Drogo or Filtch anyway. She’s alerted us many times when another ship approaches. Would that I could say the same of half yer crew.”

  She looked around the deck and saw what her father considered a crew. Over two dozen men inhabited the carvel-built vessel that her father had claimed as his own from foreign merchants. The ship was two-masted with a square sail on the main mast and a triangular lanteen on the stern. This enabled them to tack into the wind, giving them an advantage in a chase at sea. An advantage that a pirate considered a treasure.

  She shook her head in disgust, eyeing the dirtiest, smelliest, most unappealing men she’d ever seen in her life. Of course she hadn’t had a chance to see much different, living on the ship most of the time. The crew wore motley clothing - tunics, hose, surcoats all in bright colors, and all of which were pilfered at one time or another. Filtch and Drogo were well into their bottles of rum, telling each other filthy jests and laughing loudly as they slapped each other’s backs.

  Another couple of men were engaged in a game of dice near the bow of the ship, and the first mate Sebastian – the only one of the lot she liked - was asleep at the sternpost at the aft.

  Echo prided herself of being the best. She could wield a sword or tie a knot bett
er than any of them. She could climb the ratlines to the lookout faster than even the new young boy, Lank. And she’d won many a coin in drinking competitions on more than one occasion.

  “Echo, hold yer tongue,” the captain growled, running a hand over his wiry beard. “I may have raised ye as a boy but ye are still a girl and will not speak that way to a man.”

  Her father was old for this profession, and it showed in the weathered creases of his leathered face. She saw a weary, tired look in his dark eyes lately which she hadn’t seen before. Life on the sea was not easy, but was all the captain knew. He loved it more than the rest of them put together.

  “Woman,” she corrected him, sending her bird up into the sky. Her bird would fish til it ate its fill and then bring fish back for the crew to eat. She’d trained it well. “I am a woman with a four year old boy child, or have ye forgotten?”

  He took a swig of rum. By the way he staggered, she decided he was already soused. She knew every man there had stayed up drinking all night. She had half a mind to throw them overboard if their raucous laughter and singing interfered with her sleep again.

  “I haven’t forgotten,” he growled. “You coupled with one o’ the prisoners and bore his bastard.”

  “My boy’s name is Edgar,” she replied tartly, “named after his noble father, Sir Edgar. And don’t make it sound as if I were naught but a whore. If you hadn’t threatened to kill any man that ever looked at me, I’d not had the need te explore those uncharted waters. Besides, the nobleman fancied me.”

  “I kept ye from being rogered at the rail by every man on this ship, and ye should be thankful. No woman could ever last aboard a ship of scurvy dogs the way ye did, daughter. Be glad I watched after yer goods all these years. And thet cur didn’t fancy ye. He lured ye into his net jest te get into yer braies.”

  “Nay! Not so.”

  She thought of her son, Edgar, being watched by one of her father’s latest whores back in town at Great Yarmouth. She despised her father for making her leave her child. But he wanted her to assist in raiding ships –to plunder and pillage whenever they could. He’d trained her well, and he knew she’d always obey him in the end. He was a ruthless man with no morals, but still, he was all she had. No siblings, no mother, and no answers of her past. But she did have her child now and wanted naught more than to raise him anywhere but around these men.

  “See to the nest and quit yer idle chatter. Me head is splittin’ and yer makin’ it worse.”

  “Fine,” she said and then hissed in aggravation. She stomped angrily just like he had done, and made her way to the center mast, only to be blocked by one of her father’s crewmembers, Gruffydd.

  “G’mornin’ sweetums,” he said, smiling his wretched, broken-tooth smile, and half-bowing. She hated this man. He’d seen to it more than once to try to couple with her while she slept. That’s why she always kept her dagger under her pillow and slept with one eye open.

  “Get out o’ me way ye barnacle-filled dirt sack.” She shoved him hard and he stumbled backward from the amount of rum he’d ingested.

  “Ye’ll pay for this, bitch!” He drew his sword and lunged forward.

  In one swift move she pulled her own sword from her scabbard and met with his. Then in a dual, their swords clashed and parried.

  “Ye call me a bitch again and I’ll sever yer tongue from yer body ye disgusting maggot!” She thrust forward and he stumbled backwards just short of getting hit.

  “Ye know ye want me. Now pull down your braies and let me have me way.”

  “When I’m done wi’ the like o’ ye, no woman will want ye when yer missin’ yer -”

  “Enough!” The captain raised his sword and swung it at both of them in the process. Gruffydd stepped back, but she continued in fury until her father’s sword was embedded in the wooden plank deck at her feet, stopping her from continuing.

  “Me achin’ head has not the tolerance of this nonsense,” moaned the captain. “Now Echo, see te th’ bird’s nest, and while yer up there, stay there til ye cool yer heels.”

  Echo’s blood boiled as she climbed the rigging like a monkey, making her way to the lookout basket. Hand over fist and feet gliding over the ropes easily, she grumbled to herself as she made it to the top quickly.

  “I’ll show them,” she spoke aloud. “They think they can treat me no better than a scullery rat jest cuz I’m a woman.”

  She pulled herself into the basket, standing atop the sea hawk’s nest of twigs. That’s when she saw the two pink and brown spotted eggs within. So late in the year for this. But her bird never ceased to surprise her. Skye returned just then, and landed next to her on the edge of the basket.

  “Yer on the nest, I see. And I didn’t even know ye had a beau somewhere.” She looked out over the water and saw the male hawk circling high above the ship. She couldn’t tear down the nest now. Not when her bird was to be a mother just like her. She wanted the chicks to have a father as well as a mother. ’Twas something she knew her son would never have since Sir Edgar was dead and buried at sea. She longed for a family instead of a bunch of smelly, drunken men on a creaky old ship – the only place she’d ever really known as home. Since birthing her babe, she’d started questioning the life she led. Mayhap things should be different. If only that could ever be true.

  She looked out to the morning sky, an orange glow encompassing the mist hanging over the North Sea. Just beyond it was a storm front moving across the water. The wind picked up and the lookout basket atop the mast swayed back and forth. Most men had trouble adapting to the movement up here and keeping their footing, but not her. Here she felt at home.

  She felt leagues away from the rest of the motley crew as she breathed in deeply the fresh salty air, and let the wind kiss her face. She removed her Monmouth wool head cap that was holding back her hair. She unbound the long braid hidden beneath it, letting her hair fall well past her shoulders. She threw back her head, reveling in the rising wind as it blew her long hair around her. She felt so free up here. Almost as if she were a lady in a tower waiting for her knight in shining armor.

  “Bid the devil!” she said aloud, and spit over the side. Where the hell had that ill-conceived thought come from? She didn’t need a man. Men were naught but trouble. Her father and the crew were living proof of this. She would raise her son by herself, and hopefully, someday, far away from the Seahawk and its wretched crew.

  She looked down to her medallion necklace that marked her as the offspring of the ship’s captain. Her father had given her the necklace and told her it was important to always wear it. She was never to take it off, and god forbid if she were ever to lose it. She placed her palm over the round metal, etched with ornate designs. In the center was a small, clear stone, held in by yet another small ring of gold embedded into it so she could only see the edges.

  It was attached around her neck by a thick black cord of which metal beads of silver and brass were strung. Her father said he’d constructed this neckpiece just for her. So, to her, ’twas vary special.

  She wondered what it would feel like to be around other women, besides the tarts that’d raised her from a child. She’d been passed to one and then another of her father’s latest women who, she was told, not only raised her but weaned her as well. The only good thing that came from the whole ordeal was the time her father hitched up with a learned woman who took the time to try to teach Echo how to read and write. If only she had stayed around longer, Echo may have learned more.

  She’d joined the crew at the young age of ten, and ever since then, her father had treated her no differently than any of the other men. She’d often escaped to the lookout basket when she was feeling lonely, and let the swaying motions of the sailing ship rock her to sleep. Aye, this was her sacred space alone, and she hated anyone else even occupying it. Except for Skye.

  Skye started squawking just then, taking her attention. Echo’s head snapped up and she peered through the cloudy mist but could see naught. Then a sun�
�s ray poked through, and low and behold, she saw a ship approaching though still in the distance.

  “Ship at starboard!” she called, trying to alert the crew. They didn’t hear her, and continued eating and drinking and playing dice. The worthless sots. There was a ship to pillage and they didn’t even know it.

  The next she looked up, a sun’s ray broke through the fog enabling her to see the colors of their flags. Red and blue flags with bright yellow splotches, she surveyed. The ship was too far out to see it clearly, but she knew that flag well. Three rampant yellow lions, their back halves disappearing into ships. Aye, she was sure this was the distinctive heraldic emblem of the Cinque Ports fleet.

  Her heart raced. She quickly grabbed the throwing dirk attached to her waist. In one move she threw it with accurate aim, embedding into the floor just between the feet of Gruffydd and her father to capture their attention.

  “What in blazing hell are ye doin’?” barked the captain, squinting upward to survey her in the lookout.

  “We’re under attack,” she shouted, pointing starboard. “Cinque Ports!” she screamed.

  That got the attention of every man there. They jumped to their feet and scurried around the deck, fastening on weapons and staggering from the amount of alcohol they’d consumed.

  This may be the demise of them all, she surveyed. They were caught by surprise by one of the king’s ships that patrolled the channel. What was it doing this far out? Their flat-bottomed cogs usually stayed closer to shore. The Seahawk had purposely stayed far from the beaches of Great Yarmouth where the fleets would be heading. Now their hiding spot had been discovered, so what the hell were they going to do?

  Garrett peered through the morning fog, sure he had seen a double-masted ship far out on the water, and had instructed his men to follow in pursuit. A light mist fell and a storm threatened the horizon on the southern North Sea as he sailed as part of the Cinque Ports fleet, heading toward the beach of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. King Edward III granted the portsmen their own fishing trip each year to land their catches and dry their nets on the beach, while in search of the great herring shoals each autumn.