Squire's Blood

by Peter Telep

  Christopher nodded. “Then may the blessings of St. George be with you this evening.”

  “Did you hear that?” the bird asked the barbarian rhetorically. “He’s called upon St. George to help us. How can we lose with him on our side?”

  “Let no man champion us.” The barbarian directed his request to the heavens beyond the tent top.

  “Amen,” the bird said.

  The barbarian scratched his temple. “ls it not blas­phemy to bless players in a dice game?” he asked all present.

  They exchanged uncertain looks, then nearly in unison, shook their heads no, it couldn’t be. It had better not be.

  The two archers divided and quivered the arrows, donned their hooded tunics, then bid Christopher and Doyle a good evening.

  “Don’t forget to wager my shilling!” Doyle shouted to Neil.

  The hairy young man nodded, then disappeared through the tent flaps to catch up with Phelan, who had already stepped outside.

  Christopher stood, then tied the tent flaps behind the archers. He shivered as a breath of winter slipped under his shirt and chilled him. With new ice clog­ ging his veins, he returned to his seat. “Now what’s this you were saying about putting our plan into action? We haven’t even talked about a plan.”

  “We have a plan,” Doyle confirmed. “We do?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Splendid,” Christopher said, his voice honed with agitation. “Tell me. Is there any chance I might be able to-KNOW WHAT IT IS?”

  Doyle scowled. “I’m right here,” was what he wanted to say, but it came out, “I’mrighher.”

  Christopher took several deep breaths to calm him­ self. He was cold, not exactly comfortable on the coarse blanket which barely shielded the hard dirt below, and his patience, though heretofore eternal, had suddenly become mortal and had died. He pon­dered what means of torture he would use on Doyle to get the information out of him, but the already-present horror of his friend’s back was enough to make him feel guilty about even thinking of such a thing. Once he had his anger in check, and after promising himself he would not shout again, he asked, “How are we going to catch the varlet of our eye?”

  Doyle smiled his Baines-like smile, the one that always made Christopher feel confident and nervous all at the same time. “I spoke to Lancelot, who spoke to my sergeant. I had Innis’s position moved; he has the pleasure of serving me. Now he’s close. And I can watch him.”

  For a human ale barrel, Doyle’s last was conveyed with surprising clarity. He knew the weight of his words, and forced himself to articulate them correctly. “Excellent,” Christopher agreed. “Now what else do we do?”

  “You do nothing. Sleep close to Leslie and that other squire, what is his name?”

  “Beague? Or League? Teague?” Christopher would never remember.

  “Yes, him. I shall take care of the rest.” “What are you going to do?”

  Silence passed between them. Christopher broke it,repeating, “Doyle, what are you-”

  “I heard you. It is better I work alone. Now on to other things. Like ladies. Like Brenna. Don’t you miss her? You haven’t once mentioned her since we’ve been up here.”

  “Don’t try to escape this,” Christopher warned. “I have to know.”

  “Actually, I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.

  But when I figure it out, I probably won’t tell you. So you already know what you need to know.” Then, as abrupt as a startled boar, Doyle leapt back onto his other conversational path. “She has wonderful eyes. You must miss her.”

  Though Doyle’s insistence on changing the subject once again tried Christopher’s patience, he found himself wanting to talk about Brenna, realizing with Doyle’s aid that he had been fixed only on the battle, and then the murder attempt by Innis’s hired man. Brenna had been locked away in the deepest cell of his mind.

  But the battle and the murder attempt weren’t the only reasons he had repressed his thoughts of her, and now, as he released her in his mind, the sky blackened into the scorched, guilty steel of God’s hammer; it fell and crushed him.

  “What is it?” Doyle asked. “You look about to cry.” “She does have wonderful eyes.” Christopher focused on the radiating image of Brenna, an innocent angel who floated and pirouetted in his head. “She’ll wait for you this time, Christopher. Even when she courted Innis, I could tell that she still loved you. You could see it in those eyes.”

  The longer her image stayed with him, the more it hurt. He needed to say something. He needed to tell Doyle; maybe his friend would be able to justify it. But how? He had done something so unbefitting a squire of the body, so unlike a gentlemen, that per­ haps Doyle could not help him. Yet he had to confess his sin, and if there was no abbot available, then Doyle would have to do.

  “I have dishonored myself,” Christopher began. “Many times,” Doyle interjected matter-of-factly.

  “Four moons of frolicking to be exact. Oh, what base, vile, happy people you and Marigween were!”

  Christopher was dumbfounded. “You knew?”

  Doyle flicked Christopher a look that read: do you take me for a fool?

  “The example I set,” Christopher moaned ruefully, “the king makes me squire of the body, and I court two women at the same time. But I couldn’t-” Christopher gasped. “I couldn’t stay away from her. I can feel my face nuzzled in her neck right now. And when I think of what I’ve done to Brenna … at the time, I was so enchanted with Marigween, I thought of nothing but her. Even when Brenna visited the castle, I don’t know, it was as if that was a separate life, that Marigween and I lived somewhere else. And I caused Brenna no pain and could love her just as well.”

  “I admire you,” Doyle said. He pushed himself into a sitting position and faced Christopher, his eyes reflecting his sincerity. “You are a good person because you feel bad about what you have done. You want to repent your sin. But you were able to win the love of not one, but two visions, ladies I could only have up here.” Doyle tapped his temple.

  “When we return, I must make a decision.”

  “Yes. Don’t make the decision now, for we may not return. A dead man has no problem with ladies, eh?”

  Christopher returned a wan grin. “The logic of ale-eh?”

  Doyle proffered his flagon; Christopher took it and downed several gulps. He lowered the flagon, then stood. “There is a friend of mine who manages one of our supply carts. I fixed and adjusted a saddle of his once; March and Torrey’s poor work, of course. This supply man owes me a favor. A favor of ale, I think, this evening.” Christopher winked.

  Doyle returned the wink as Christopher donned his cloak, then he left the tent to fetch the ale.

  8

  Christopher and Doyle spent several hours drinking and talking of the battlefield, the conversa­tion keeping Christopher’s mind off of Brenna, Marigween, and Innis. When the ale was gone and the bird and barbarian returned from their blessed though unsuccessful dice game, Christopher left the tent feeling fifty pounds lighter, bound for the com­ fort of five layers of wool inside the king’s tent.

  He had shambled only one hundred yards when he felt hands pull him backward and boots slam into his heels. The ground came up and smote him rudely across the shoulders and back. Fortunately, the castle of Shores’s best brew absorbed the impact; there was only a thick vibration through his body that echoed twice and was gone. He lay there, his breath steaming, his eyes performing feats of wizardry. The sky spun and collided with the ground. The clouds rolled by, huge white breakers in a blue-black tempest. He closed his eyes, reopened them, and found the sky slowing to a halt. When he tried to pull himself up, he discovered he was trapped. He forced a glance over his head. A boy he recognized as a varlet in the Vaward Battle pinned Christopher’s arms down from the rear.

  A shadow cast by a nearby cookfire stretched over Christopher. He adjusted his gaze and saw Innis tow­ ering over him. The varlet stared down with a grin that begged to be smacked off.r />
  Had he been sober, it would have been a terrifying moment; but as it was Christopher felt irritated. His mind worked very simply at the moment, telling him that he would have to wait before being able to slip comfortably under his blankets and fall asleep. He didn’t want to wait, he wanted to go right to bed, and why were these people stopping him? Oh, yes, they wanted to kill him. But it was Innis, a fool who would spend half the night delivering his harangue before putting Christopher to rest.

  He blinked, trying to focus on Innis, but his eyes had reverted to casting spells, and he found it even harder to see anything clearly. He spoke to the blur above him. “If it is a fray you want, why not wait until the mor­ row?”

  The mass of fluctuating flesh that was Innis answered, “You smell. And we do not honor the requests of filthy, stinking bailey sweepers.”

  “Have you no honor as a gentleman? It is plain to see that I am in no condition to fight, and wish only to sleep now, dear St. George. But I forget, you are no gentleman. You are a foul wretch whose heart would make a splendid sheath for my blade.” Christopher amazed himself with his words. The ale had fostered a whole new boldness in him.

  Innis knelt, pinning Christopher’s legs under his knees. As Innis got closer, Christopher was better able to see the varlet-not that he appreciated the view. “I will kill you.”

  “No, you won’t. You’re an ass who hires others to do your obscene work. You haven’t the stomach nor the courage to risk your freedom-and perhaps your life-to kill me.”

  Innis reached back and withdrew his anlace. Christopher was able to admire the workmanship of the dagger a moment before the varlet put it under his neck. It was characteristic of Innis to carry a bejeweled quiver and an expensive anlace meant for show onto the battlefield. It was a very nice blade indeed, the blade that would kill Christopher.

  “What if someone comes?” Innis’s friend warned. The varlet’s gaze investigated the tents around them,then lowered to Christopher. “They’re all asleep.”

  “As I should be!” Christopher shouted, startling Innis and the other varlet. It was odd, how his desire for sleep so outweighed his fear.

  “The watchman could’ve heard him!”

  Christopher could not see Innis’s accomplice, but he suspected the boy’s complexion had faded several shades.

  “Stop worrying!” Innis stage-whispered. “He didn’t.”

  “You there!”

  Christopher felt the heaviness come off his arms, and suddenly he was lifted haphazardly to his feet.

  Innis and his friend steadied Christopher as Innis spoke immediately to the dirty-faced watchman before them. “I’m afraid our friend has been a little too gener­ ous with himself this evening, sir. He fell and could not get up. As luck would have it, we happened upon him.” The watchman was a tired, doleful man on the unfor­giving side of forty, a farmer ordered into service and grieving every moment of it. The lack of intonation in his voice confirmed that truth. “I do not care what you do, what your problems are, what this boy was doing down there, or anything else. What I do care about is noise being made on my watch. Go back to your tents.” ‘Watchman, I am Christopher of Shores, the king’s seniorsquire-andthesedoltsassailedme.” Christopher tugged his arms free of the varlets’ grasp, then stepped back, lost his balance but did not fall. Like a tightrope walker, he raised his arms and recov­ered.

  “I don’t want to know that,” the watchman said. “I want you to go back to your tents. The more noise you make, the less I can hear the Saxons. Is that what you want?”

  “Are you listening to me?” Christopher asked. “I could report you to the king.”

  Disgusted, the watchman threw his hands up in the air, snorted, then turned and walked back toward a pair of nearby tents. He repeated, “Go back to your tents.” Then added, “And if you want to report me, do so. Maybe the gallows tree is the only way out of this for me.”

  Christopher frowned, shook his head, then regarded Innis, fixing him with a steely look. “Another failed attempt. You could have done it. But you hesitated. There may be hope for you after all.”

  “I meant what I said,” Innis countered through gritted teeth. “I’m going to kill you.”

  “Isn’t there something else to occupy your time?”

  Innis decided he would argue no further, and in a huff, whisked off with his plebe in tight tow.

  Christopher groped for his balance as he watched them leave. He resumed his trek toward Arthur’s tent. Less than a score of steps later, he fell down on his side, then rolled over onto his back. He laughed at himself as his eyes took in the shifting image of the waning gibbous moon. He saw a female silhouette against the white-and-black orb. He stopped laugh­ ing. It was Brenna. The shape of the head. The long hair. He had made no mistake. He blinked, and then it was only the dark stains of the moon, the all too familiar patterns. Christopher sat up, stood, pitched back and forth until he had relative stability, then staggered forward. His eyes welled with tears and his lower lip trembled. When he drank, he would feel high spirits or sorrow, and anything would uncork one or the other. He discovered happiness in the sim­plest things, pain in the most innocent, unassuming places. The moon reminded him of Brenna, of the many nights they had stared at it together; but Brenna reminded him of Marigween. He shuffled along feeling guilty and in love with Brenna and lust­ ing for Marigween and maybe loving her too. His emotions were in conflict; they made him pity himself and curse the life he had chosen.

  9

  Orvin wondered what Marigween would think of his morning stew. He sat on his stool outside the stable and stirred the brew with a wooden ladle. The fresh faggots he’d added to the fire below the hanging cauldron brought the goulash to a steaming bubble as the horn of tierce echoed the breakfast call from the distant fortress. He fancied himself a good cook, but Orvin and Christopher had had many a debate regard­ ing the notion. Though Christopher thought that most of Orvin’s dishes tasted good, they never smelled edi­ ble. And a good cook’s cooking ought to smell like something, Christopher had argued.

  Facing him, in his loft above the stable, Marigween set down the bread, ale, and pork he had requested. She descended the ladder and came from the shadows into the pure, clean light of day. It was the deepest azure sky above Shores in nearly a moon. The clouds extended their limbs somewhere else, and the temperature was mild compared to most winter days.

  As Marigween approached, Orvin reminded him­ self of Christopher’s description of the stew, that it smelled like boiling shoe leather. The closer Marigween got, the more her expression confirmed that sentiment.

  “I know, it smells bad, but here”-Orvin lifted a ladleful of broth out of the cauldron-“try some. You will be surprised.”

  Marigween’s delicate face knotted. She shivered as she took the ladle from Orvin. She closed her eyes and quickly sampled the stew. Her eyes opened and her lips curled into a grin of approval. “You’re right.” She returned the utensil to Orvin and eyed the caul­ dron with curiosity. “How can it taste so good when-”

  “It smells this bad, I know. Christopher asked me that.”

  “He did?” Marigween’s eyes were lit by more than the sun.

  “Indeed.”

  “We even think alike,” she observed.

  “I found the same was true of my wife and me,” Orvin said, floating along on happy memories of him­ self and Donella residing in the castle, him training young Hasdale to fence. “Sometimes there would be no words between us. We would just know what the other thought. That happens after you live with someone for a long time.”

  “I would like to discover that,” she said, turning as a stiff breeze caught her long, red kirtle and lifted it off her shift. She forced her kirtle down, then lowered her hood and let the current blow through her red locks.

  Orvin, as he had before and always would, found it easy to melt into her beauty. But he had forgotten to fetch Marigween a stool, and the bowls and spoons. He rose, then realized he needed help.
Marigween saw his need and hurriedly took his hand.

  “I forgot a few things inside,” he said.

  “I’ll go,” she insisted. “The bowls and spoons, yes?” “And a stool for yourself,” Orvin added.

  “I cannot sit on your lap?” she asked daringly, then walked toward the stable.

  Orvin was speechless. His face grew warm. He sat there, wondering if she meant what she had said. No, no, no, she had only flirted with him, but her frank­ ness had left him stunned … and entranced. She returned with the stool, bowls, and spoons, sat down, then took Orvin’s ladle out of the old man’s hand.

  “Not too much for me,” Orvin said. “My stomach is soft enough already.”

  She smiled. “Come now, Orvin, you cannot hide your passion for food from me. You fight winter wind for your precious loaves.” She filled his bowl and handed it to him. “There.”

  Orvin concentrated on chewing quietly as he watched Marigween fill her own bowl to nearly overflowing. “I’m glad the scent has not curbed your appetite.”

  “Oh, no. I could eat all day.”

  When they had finished their meal, Orvin pointed to an old flax-beating bench he had converted into a sit­ ting place. The bench sat under the edge of a knot of large oaks on the far side of the dirt path. They crossed to the seat and took the weight off their feet. Orvin could not remember feeling more content, or in better company. Behind them, they heard an old sawyer from the sawmill chopping down a h·ee to soak for harden­ ing over the winter, the rhythm of his ax a soft, distant heartbeat. Within the stable, the hostlers fed the roun­seys; the horses neighed softly as they received their dried hay. Overhead, the pipits sang a sweet, tranquil song that Orvin often listened to for hours.

  “You have kept your end of the bargain,” he began. “And so now, you want to hear about Christopher.”

  Marigween adjusted herself on the bench so that she faced Orvin. “How did you meet him?”