by Dave Duncan
I had absolutely no presentiment of danger.
The weather had cooled a little, which made for easier riding, but we were not pushing the horses. Of course my companions kept questioning me about my adventures in Lincoln, my audience with the king, and so on. I answered as best I could, but my mind was on the first stop I had planned, a return to Pipewell, to meet my family, none of whom I had seen since I was a child.
Soon we came to where the trail to Northampton runs through Burly Copse. A copse, of course, is an area of farmed forest, and Burly was mainly composed of ash trees. The original stumps may be centuries old, but the roots keep pushing up new shoots, which are coppiced every few years, the timing depending on the length and thickness of the poles required. Ash poles are especially prized for their length and straightness, and serve many purposes—scythe handles, bows, and arrows, to name but a few.
The breeze, such as it was, was in our faces. Ruffian whinnied just before we turned a slight bend and saw a line of three horsemen blocking our way about a hundred yards ahead. Their menace would have been evident even had they not been wearing helmets and chain mail. I did not bother to look back, because I knew the curve of the road would limit my view, but I was certain that more men-at-arms would now be closing in behind us.
The copse walled us in on either side, high fences of poles so tightly spaced that you could not have put a sheep between them, let alone a horse. We had ridden into a canyon, a wonderful trap, and the man in the center ahead of us was astride a piebald horse. As we drew closer, I could make out the bushy mustache below his nose guard. He was armed with a sword, while his two companions carried shields and lances. The lances were shorter than standard jousting equipment, probably inspired by the surroundings and improvised on the spot. In practice they would be perfect to block any attempt I might make to squeeze by, for I had no doubt that I was the intended prey.
“What’s going on, Sir Durwin?” Guiscard muttered as we continued our steady approach to the barrier.
Ruffian whinnied again, angrily. I was going to have trouble with him if he got near to that piebald.
“Crap,” I said. “I am going to try to talk my way out of this, because I don’t have much option. If I can’t, then you two will have to make your own decisions—go back to the academy or push on to Lincoln. Do not get involved, because he must have another six men behind us.”
The number did not really matter. Vernon in battle gear on horseback could slaughter three unarmed scholars singlehanded.
“But why are they doing this?” Amé demanded.
“Because Sir Vernon Cheadle is a blockhead and is probably possessed. Such nuisances are sent to try us,” I added, to raise my own spirits as much as my companions’. “But he can’t know that I have been knighted. If he starts getting aggressive, Adept, I want you to announce me.”
I looked to Amé as I said that. He was larger than Guiscard and had a more impressive voice.
The lancer on Vernon’s right was one of the knights from Sir Neil’s company, whose name I had never heard. The one on his left was the squire I had seen looking out for me at the city gate. When we came almost level with the ends of those improvised lances, I reined in, my companions doing the same. I heard a horse whinny some distance behind us, so the other jaw of the trap was now closing.
“Sir Vernon, by what right do you impede my progress? I travel on the queen’s business.” That was stretching the truth a bit, but not much. She had told me to go and fetch my bride.
“Sage Durwin, I arrest you for the murder of Sir Neil d’Airelle’s man-at-arms, Francois.”
“Hold!” Amé boomed. “You are addressing Sir Durwin of Pipewell, the king’s Enchanter General for England.”
I held up my hand again so that my ring was visible. In my pouch I carried a warrant sealed by the justiciar and letters from him to Sheriff Alured, but I didn’t think they would impress the illiterate Vernon much.
“Hog shit,” Vernon said. “Sir Neil saw you murder his man, and by his command I am arresting you and taking you to the king for trial.”
In the normal course of affairs, I could trust Vernon to obey orders, for he could never imagine doing anything else, but I did not trust whatever compulsion or possession Neil and Piers might have laid on him after they themselves became possessed. They would not have had pentacle magic available when the pair of them returned to Nottingham, but they could have still bewitched him with a spell provided by the Corneille coven. I could only guess at what such a compulsion might do. One possibility was that around midnight it would override his ethics and honor to make him kill me in cold blood.
“Sir Neil D’Airelle?” I said. “I saw him die a week ago. He was slain by the Earl of Leicester, the justiciar himself. What other witnesses do you have for this murder you accuse me of committing?”
“Squire Piers saw it also, and I don’t believe a word of your lies about Sir Neil.”
The stupidity of the situation was infuriating. Even without enchantment, Vernon was the embodiment of stubbornness, the ultimate blockhead, who would never be talked into or out of anything. All he knew was obedience. If anger were a weapon, mine would have struck him dead on the spot.
Then I thought of a way out. It was risky to the point of insanity, but safer than letting Vernon put shackles on me. Once that happened, I was as good as dead.
“You call me a liar? You accuse me of murder? By the saints, I will not tolerate this. By insulting me you insult the king, my master. I demand an immediate trial by wager of battle!”
Trial by combat was rarer than it had been, but it was perfectly legal. I saw a flicker of interest inside the helmet. “You, devil worshiper? You are challenging me? I don’t fight with upstart Saxon trash.”
“I am a royal familiaris, and as good a knight as you are, Vernon, dubbed by King Henry himself. If you refuse me, then I call you coward.”
Of course I was hoping that he would refuse me and that his men would then insist that I be allowed to go free. That was the law, and Vernon was as aware of this risk as I was.
“You wouldn’t fight fair, Saxon. You’d use your devilish powers on me, like Piers saw your boy do on a crow.”
I could hear horses champing behind me, jingling their tack, shuffling hooves, so the rest of his train had caught up with us and we had a larger audience now.
“In wager of battle, God in Heaven judges the right. You think a mumbled word from me can blindfold the Lord? I call you coward—coward and no true knight.”
“You wear no hauberk.”
“My innocence is all the defense I need against your lies. Throw away your mail or keep it on, I care not. Give me one of those poles, you take the other, and we’ll see who is unhorsed. Healer Amé, you will be my second.”
Both my companions were chalky white with horror, convinced that I had just put my head on the block. But I still had the Release spells I had chanted the day Sir Neil came to Helmdon . . . Or did I? I had sworn I would never again use the Fiat ignis against a living person, however appropriate Vernon’s mustache might seem as tinder. Hic non sum would be useless. There were a couple of others that might serve, but how long did a Release spell retain its potency before it must be chanted again? It varied, of course, and I did not know the answers for all of them.
Like a bolt from Jove came the sudden horror that my Battre le tambour enchantment had sent me no warning of Vernon’s ambush. That spell had been classed as long-lasting and I had chanted it a day after the Release spells. I hoped that I was being too pessimistic. Tambour had done a lot of work for me in Lincoln Castle, so maybe it had just worn out, whereas the Release spells I hadn’t yet used might still work, even after more than two weeks. Perhaps.
Obviously my life was going to depend on the answer to that question, because Vernon was already setting out the jousting field. He sent the men behind me back to the bend in the road, so we had the long straight stretch to serve as the list. He told Guiscard to go with them, and his
squire to give his pole to Amé. Then he turned to me with his mouth set in a gloating smile.
“You start at that end, witch man. Jehan will be in the middle with the pennant. When he drops it, charge! Give my disregards to your master when you arrive in Hell.”
“And may God see that right is done between us,” I retorted. I turned Ruffian and urged him forward. Amé rode at my side, carrying my lance. His face was set in a funereal expression, carved in white marble.
“Enchanter, sir, the odds do not look good. Are you truly relying only on God to give you victory? I mean, I am as good a Christian as the next man, but . . .”
“Adept, I assure you that I am completely innocent of the murder of man-at-arms Francois.” Although not without guilt in the deaths of Piers and Neil d’Airelle. “No, I am not solely dependent on the Lord in this event. I have a Release spell ready that I hope will give Him some assistance. If it doesn’t,” I added with sudden bitterness, “when you get to Lincoln, please assure Maid Lovise Larsen that I did love her, and if I am worthy, I shall meet her again in Paradise.”
I kept thinking of that as we caught up with the rest of Vernon’s men, near to the curve in the trail. I had been so happy before this happened, dreaming of seeing my mother again, and going on to Lincoln and Lovise. And now this blockhead Vernon . . . I brooded on the injustice of this encounter in the hope that it would raise my fury, which might stop me feeling so scared.
When that didn’t work, I prayed.
We reached the spectators, I accepted the ash pole from Amé, and turned Ruffian to face the foe. The purpose of jousting is to break a lance on one’s opponent and hurl him out of his saddle, but my pole was as green as green. An hour ago it had been happily growing in the copse, minding its own business, and Vernon’s likewise. When its end struck Vernon, if I did manage to strike Vernon, then it would bend like string. It might also rip my hand apart, for I had no gauntlets. That wouldn’t matter much if Vernon’s pole was firmly lodged between my eyes.
I did not even have a helmet. Vernon had the advantage of me there, although he lacked a proper jousting helm. In the highly unlikely event that I managed to unhorse him, the helmet would protect his brains, such as they were, when he hit the ground. He also had a shield and a chain mail hauberk.
Should we by a miracle both be unhorsed, we would fight it out on foot, he with his sword, and me with my cane.
The squire, Jehan, was in place, halfway between us, holding up the pennant I had first seen in Piers’s hand, that long-ago morning when Sir Neil came to Helmdon.
“Sir Vernon is signaling that he is ready, sir,” Amé said in a small voice.
“I am ready,” I growled. Ready as I ever could be.
Amé waved. Jehan swung down the pennant and backed his horse as far off the trail as he could so that one of us could go by him. I kicked Ruffian hard. Seeing a racetrack and a chance to show off, he shot forward.
Hooves thundered on the hard clay. Pipewell and my family, I thought. Lovise, my darling Lovise, and a wedding . . . Oxford and overseeing all the enchantment in England . . . All gone now? A great, seething, tide of rage swelled up in me as I watched Vernon rushing forward on his fancy piebald destrier—rage and hatred for his stupidity.
But otherwise my mind was blank. Release spells! Release spells! In the thunder of Ruffian’s gallop and my struggle to keep my pole from waving around like a feather, I could remember none of them. Ignis . . . Hwæt . . . Maledicto . . . There was one that would bewilder him. Another would melt him with terror. I knew what they did, I just could not recall the words to release any of them.
I had the pole in my right hand, pointing out to my left, and the reins in my left hand. As we closed, as Sir Vernon on his piebald grew larger and larger in my horrified gaze, I pointed my left index finger at him and snapped the first words that came into my head, “J’écrase vos testicules!”
I missed. No one had ever explained the jousting game to Ruffian, so he assumed that he was expected to fight that great ugly piebald beast in horse style. That would involve both of them rearing up and boxing with their front hooves while trying to bite each other. The piebald sensed what was coming, and tried the same maneuver. Vernon was more taken by surprise than I was, because I knew all Ruffian’s unruly ways. My spell failed to connect with Vernon, but it connected with his steed.
Vernon did not scream in agony as a man should when his genitals are crushed. But his stallion did. It tried to rear and turn and buck and kick, all at the same time. Vernon’s lance hit the ground and he pole-vaulted past me like a missile. He only just missed me, and he broke his neck when he hit the road.
I fought Ruffian for a few minutes, and gradually soothed him. Only then could I go back to look at my victims—one dead man and one dead horse, for the piebald, also, had broken its neck. Guy, Francois, Piers, Neil, and now Vernon!
The spectators rode in closer. They looked at the bodies. They looked at me. I have never seen so many frightened faces. The adepts seemed even more shocked than the soldiers, for they lacked helmets to hide their expressions.
“God be praised for this righteous verdict,” I said. “Do any of you dare to repeat this man’s lies about me, Durwin of Pipewell, Enchanter General of England?”
Nobody spoke.
“Then see he gets Christian burial. Adepts, we may now resume our journey.”
We rode off along the trail. I expected to be questioned about the spell I had used on Vernon, but I wasn’t. Nobody said anything at all for several miles. Amé and Guiscard, I assumed, had been shocked into reverent silence by my divine deliverance. And so had I.
I knew that J’écrase vos testicules enchantment. I had found it in one of the grimoires I had been given as payment for my services in Barton two years ago. I had judged it to be a curse, definitely black magic, but I had copied it out in a more modern, easily read script, because it was so beautifully composed, a minor masterpiece of the enchanter’s art.
I could remember finding my copy of it when I was going through my collection of Release spells while waiting for the king’s messenger to arrive at Helmdon on that epochal Monday morning. Had I known that I would be going off to battle treason and Satanism, then I would very likely have chanted it as a handy weapon. I had not done so! I was certain of that. I had no idea how I could have invoked a Release spell that I had never chanted, and I still don’t.
At the first church we came to, I called for a break so I could go in and say a prayer of thanksgiving, and my companions went with me. I also left a generous donation from the money Queen Eleanor had given me to fund prayers for Sir Vernon’s soul.
I have never again risked my life by way of wager of battle.
chapter 31
after Northampton, my first stop had to be Pipewell, to greet the mother and brothers I had not seen in eight years. It was a long ride, and the encounter with Sir Vernon had delayed us, so we arrived very near to sunset. It was likely that my family had all fallen into bed to rest after hard days’ labor in the fields, so we rode straight to the abbey gates in search of hospitality. There I was blessed yet again with good fortune, because the brother on duty was one I could recall from my youth. He did not recognize me until I gave him my name and he saw my limp, but then his face lit up like a welcoming beacon.
I did not mention knighthood or enchantments, and I introduced my companions as healers, not adepts. So I remained “You-remember-Durwin-son-of-Durwin?” and there was no mention of devil worship. Yes, Reverend Paul was still abbot, and of course we were welcome . . . When His Reverence straightly asked me whom I served now, I had to admit that I was sworn to the king himself, and they were all hugely impressed.
The beds were hard and the fare simple, but a long day on horseback can overcome any memories, even memories of murder, and I slept the sleep of the innocent. All three of us attended morning prayers in the minster, and I know that at least one of us said prayers for the soul of Sir Vernon Cheadle.
The
morning saw epochal excitement in the hamlet of Pipewell itself, because there I revealed my knighthood and my high office as advisor to the king. As was required of her, my mother wept with joy on seeing me. In eight years she had changed much less than I had expected. I learned that the stepfather I had never met had wandered away a couple of years after the wedding—and good riddance, I gathered.
Elis, my eldest brother, was in Brittany, fighting in the king’s army as one small part of the monastery’s feudal service. Hamon was apprenticed to a higgler, traveling around the country with a horse and cart, buying, selling, and carting. He was not home that day. Wilky was still a child but hoped to enter the monastery school and become a monk, or even a priest. I told him I needed someone like him praying for me.
I explained that I could not stay because I must see Amé and Guiscard safely delivered to Lincoln—although they would have been quite capable of finding it for themselves. I assured everyone that I would be coming again very soon, when I brought my bride south. I also assured my mother that she would see much more of me in future, because my duties for the king would require me to do a lot of traveling. That turned out to be the truest prophecy I ever made.
So we set out northward again: Pipewell to Nottingham to Newark to Lincoln. I could have made much better time on my own then, riding the king’s horses, posting from castle to castle, but I enjoyed the company and the leisurely journey.
It was close to evensong when we arrived at the town gates— dusty, weary, and stinking of horse. I was in no condition to go wooing, and duty required that I call first on Lord Richard and Lady Nicholaa, who joyfully made us all welcome. My letter had told them no more than that I had managed to foil the Satanists’ plot and now stood high in royal favor. I had to swear them to secrecy before I could give them any of the details. They had already obtained a new sage for the castle. He was happy to welcome Guiscard and Amé, promising to see them established in the town.