Knights wyrd, p.3
Knight's Wyrd, page 3
“Who comes before me?”
Will ran his tongue over lips gone suddenly dry. He couldn’t run now—it was too late for that. All he could do was make the responses Finn and Padraic had taught him.
“I am William Odosson of Restonbury, my lord.”
“And what do you ask?”
Will’s voice was faint, but he managed to keep it steady. “I ask to be knighted, my lord.”
Duke Anlac laid the naked sword on William’s left shoulder, letting him feel the weight of it. “You are aware,” the duke said, “that if I should cut off your head here and now, no man could say I did wrong? For no one deserves knighting, and to ask to be knighted is to presume worth that you do not have.”
The stern words had more truth to them than Duke Anlac knew, Will thought. What would he do if I told him I almost wasn’t here to come forward at all? That I only stayed because I was too much of a coward to run away?
“Yes, my lord,” he whispered. “I know.”
Duke Anlac raised his arm, and swung the sword full at Will’s unprotected neck. Will didn’t move. Both Finn and Padraic had warned him of this many times in the past week—reminding him that if he flinched, and the duke misjudged, then he might die without being knighted at all.
But Anlac pulled the blow so that it stopped short a fraction of an inch from the flesh. Instead of striking home, he tapped the cold edge lightly against Will’s neck, first on the left side, then on the right.
“I dub you knight,” he said. “Take these blows and no others. Keep the faith, uphold justice, and protect the innocent. Now rise, Sir William Odosson of Restonbury, and swear your fealty.”
Will felt lightheaded, as if all his movements were actions in a dream. Any moment now, he thought, he would wake up and find out he’d dozed off while kneeling on the chapel floor. Still half-dazed, he got to his feet and extended his hands before him, palm to palm.
Duke Anlac took Will’s hands between his own.
“When you were a squire,” the duke said, “you could not swear, for your word was nothing. Now that you are a knight, your word is all you are. Are you my man?”
Will drew a deep breath. This time his voice was loud enough to carry beyond himself and the duke. “I am.”
“Very well.” The duke gestured, and Finn and Padraic came forward. They buckled William’s white swordbelt to him, the sheath hanging empty at his left side. They fastened on his golden spurs and put the silver chain around his neck.
“Let all who see be witness,” Duke Anlac said, “that Sir William Odosson of Restonbury is a knight, and is my man.”
With that he reversed the sword and held it out toward Will, pommel foremost.
One last time Will hesitated. If Master Finn spoke true—and he had never known the wizard to tell a lie—it was his own death the duke was giving him.
But he had not run in the hours of darkness, and now he was a knight and the duke’s sworn man. He reached out and closed his hand around the grip of the sword.
chapter 3
“Long live Sir William!” shouted Will’s brother Ranulf, his young voice cracking on the name.
As if that were a signal, the other witnesses raised such a cheer that the hall itself shook with the noise. Then Will realized that it wasn’t the walls and floor that were shaking, but his own hand on the grip of the sword. Carefully, so no one would see him trembling, he sheathed the weapon and let himself be embraced first by the duke and then by his father.
After that, it seemed everybody in the hall came up to him at once, to hug him or slap him on the back or just squeeze his hand in a friendly grip. Courtesy demanded that he exchange cheerful greetings with them all. Somehow he managed to do so, but he was glad when the servers came in to set up the benches and the trestle tables for the feast. His legs ached from the long hours spent kneeling, and he thought that if he didn’t get a chance to sit down soon, he would drop.
At the feast, Duke Anlac sat in the place of honor. Will, as the new-made knight, sat at his right hand, and the squires who served at the high table brought them the choicest portions of all the dishes. Will ate some of everything—his mother, who had planned the feast, would be distressed if he didn’t, and the castle cook would be insulted as well—but the roast pork and stewed cabbage, the cinnamon wafers and the apples poached in wine, all were lacking their accustomed savor.
He chewed and swallowed, sipped sparingly at the goblet that stood by his plate, and gave polite replies to the questions Duke Anlac directed at him from time to time. But he felt light and detached, like a spider’s web come loose from its moorings and floating on the wind, and neither questions nor answers stayed in his mind for long.
Gradually he became aware that he had been talking for several minutes, not to Duke Anlac, but to the thickset, bearded man on his own right. Somewhat to his dismay, he could not recall who the man was or what they had been talking about, but he saw that Duke Anlac appeared pleased by the conversation. With an effort, Will collected his wandering thoughts and concentrated them on his neighbor.
“Your father and I agree,” the man was saying. “When you were a squire, the journey was too far, but now that you’ve been knighted it’s high time you came north and paid us a visit.”
“High time,” echoed Will blankly. For a moment he didn’t know what to say next. Then the courteous responses he’d learned by rote in boyhood came to his aid, and he added, “I’m honored by the invitation.”
Now, if he could just remember who the bearded man was, and why Baron Odo thought he deserved visiting … but Will’s neighbor was already smiling and shaking his head.
“It’s all of us at Harrowholt who’ll be honored,” he said. “My girl Isobel especially. She’s wanted to meet you for a long time now—wants to see what you look like, get to know you a little bit before the wedding, that sort of thing. Nearly broke her heart when I said the roads were too dangerous for her to travel south with me.”
“Much too dangerous,” agreed Will. He smiled back at the man and hoped that his own feelings didn’t show so easily on his face. He should have remembered Lady Isobel of Harrowholt and her father as well—Henry, that was the bearded man’s name, Baron Henry of Harrowholt. After all, the man was going to be his father-in-law someday.
Until now he’d never given much thought to the marriage his father and Baron Henry had arranged years ago, when Lady Isobel had been scarcely three years old and Will a few months older. Like being knighted, and like becoming lord of Restonbury, the marriage had been something that would happen to him some day in the future, and that didn’t particularly need attending to in the meantime. But Master Finn’s warning had changed all that: How could he wed Baron Henry’s daughter when his own life was bound for an early end?
I can’t marry her, Will thought. If only Finn had prophesied otherwise—but no, he’d seen the barony going to Will’s brother Ranulf. Without a child of her own to be Will’s heir, Lady Isobel would be just another young widow, and that was no life to wish on a girl he’d never even met.
But the whole world loves a scandal, he thought. If I back out now, the gossip is certain to put all the blame on her.
Will couldn’t make up his mind which fate she’d think was worse, being a widow or being an abandoned bride. All he could see was that he was likely to hurt Isobel of Harrowholt grievously no matter what he did.
Delay, he concluded. He’d have to hold off the match as long as he could, until he found some way to free Lady Isobel from the contract without dishonor, or—more probably—until Master Finn’s vision came true and released her with his death. Meanwhile, he was going to have to make that visit.
“Midsummer,” he heard himself saying. It seemed he’d been making polite conversation while his mind struggled with the problem—he wondered what else he’d told the baron. “I’ll be riding out to the tourneys as soon as the celebrations here are over, and the tournament and fair at Saint Edwiga’s fall on Midsummer Eve. That’s close enough to Harrowholt to travel on afterward in your direction.”
Baron Henry looked pleased. Talk at the high table turned to other matters, such as which one of the Old King’s many grandchildren would have the best claim on Suthanglia when the kingdom’s ancient monarch finally died, and whether the best falcons came from Galis or from the mountains of Caledon. Will took little part in the discussion, though he talked enough not to make his silence seem like rudeness. When Duke Anlac at last rose and took his leave, Will rose also.
He made his way through the crowded hall and headed for the door that led to the castle courtyard. The warm air inside the hall was thick with the mingled smells of food and close-packed humanity. Maybe the colder air outside would clear his head.
The courtyard was empty. Light spilled out from the doors of the hall and made the shadows look even darker. A damp, chilly wind, heavy with the promise of rain and muddy travel to come, blew across the stones. Shivering a little in spite of his cloak and his velvet tunic, Will continued down the steps of the hall and across the courtyard.
The squires and the bachelor knights who lived in the castle had quarters to themselves, separated from the main structure by a heavy stone wall. The first Baron of Restonbury, Will’s great-grandfather, had taken no chances on letting ambitious young men sleep where they could attack him by surprise or open the gates to his enemies. Will had shared those quarters while he was a squire, and would keep on sharing them until he left home for the tournaments. After that, when he came back, his mother would insist on putting him in one of the tower rooms like any other guest.
If I come back, he thought. The wind struck him for a moment with an even greater chill. Tourneys were mock combat, not the real thing—but the weapons were real, and sometimes accidents happened.
He sighed. The knowledge of his fate changed nothing. He would still leave Restonbury as he and his father had planned, to avoid the troubles that sometimes occurred when a barony had both a strong young heir and a lord still in the prime of life. Only if danger threatened Restonbury itself would Will come home to stay, because he might be needed to take his father’s place.
But that would never happen; Master Finn had told him so. If Will ever came back to Restonbury, it would be as a visitor—or as a corpse.
He shook his head. Thoughts like that were what he’d left the great hall to avoid. You need to find some cheerful company, he told himself, and went on across the courtyard and through the inner gate to the bachelors’ quarters.
Most of the squires and the household knights had gotten there before him, since they hadn’t had to smile and nod and say polite nothings to a dozen or so honored guests on their way out. There was a good fire going in the small hearth, and from the sound and smell of things, a livelier party than the one in the great hall had already started.
The hubbub died as Will came in. Garth of Orwick looked up from the pan of sausages he was frying at the edge of the coals.
“Well, now,” he said, “it’s the new Sir William.” He moved the sausages away from the coals and stood up. “Are you ready to learn the rest of the mysteries of knighthood?”
Will blinked. “More than I’ve learned already?”
“Oh, many more.” Garth grinned and waved a hand at the younger men and boys. “All you squires clear out of here. Come back tomorrow.”
Will thought he heard someone snicker. He looked at Garth dubiously as the squires began heading for the door. “What sort of mysteries?”
“Mysterious ones,” Garth assured him. “Very mysterious.”
Will didn’t find that much of an answer and opened his mouth to say so. The reply never emerged. Instead a cascade of cold water came out of nowhere and poured over his head. He spluttered for breath and turned to see two of the squires he’d thought were going outside. They carried an empty washtub that had—obviously—been full a moment earlier.
Garth was laughing as he gestured at the squires to come back in. “That is the biggest secret of knighthood,” he told Will. “You might as well learn right now that being a knight doesn’t mean you can walk in the rain without getting wet.”
Now Will was laughing too, in spite of the water dripping off his hair and his sodden clothing, and the knights and squires were cheering him again.
“Put on something dry before we decide to throw you into the moat,” said Garth. “The nobles up in the hall have had their celebration. This one is ours.”
Tostig Raeda, who had taken Will’s place as the senior squire, opened one of the clothes chests and brought out a new tunic. Will stripped out of his soggy finery right in the middle of the small hall and put on the dry linen. Then he shook his head, sending drops of water everywhere.
“I’m up for whatever you are,” he said, taking the goblet that one of the junior squires passed to him. “Is anyone going to the tourney out at Strickland?”
“I am,” said Garth. “Good fighting, and big ransoms for the winners—a poor bachelor knight can’t afford to miss an occasion like that.”
“I’ll be coming with you,” Will said. “My father won’t like me staying around here with nothing to do. He’ll think I’m just waiting for him to die so I can put on the title.”
“Can’t have people believing that,” agreed Garth. “If you trust me not to lead you off north into the hands of my kinsmen, you can travel with me as long as you like.”
Will sat down on one of the low footstools by the hearth and stretched out his legs toward the fire.
“I’m not important enough to bother leading off,” he said, and took a drink from his goblet. “With the Old King marrying off his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren on both sides of the border all these years, everybody with any ambition is already a member of the family. The son of a minor baron isn’t going to make a difference to anyone.”
“True enough,” Garth agreed. “If there’s such a thing as providing the kingdom with too many heirs, your king has certainly done it.”
The older knight speared one of the sausages with his knife. Hot fat spurted out and sizzled on the cast-iron pan.
“Let me tell you,” he went on between bites, “it’s played hob with Nordanglia, too. I’ll name no names, but we’ve got people who ought to be staying home and ruling their own lands playing politics down here instead.”
“Can you blame them?” asked Seamus. “The crown of all Anglia is prize enough to tempt anyone.”
“Not me,” said Will, draining his goblet. “Politics puts me to sleep. Let’s get on with the serious merrymaking.”
Tostig refilled the goblet. Garth shoved one of the hot sausages in Will’s direction with the tip of his knife. Seamus pulled a set of smallpipes out from under his cot and started playing a raucous tune.
* * *
Some time later, the party was still going on. Garth was in the middle of a complicated tale about a plowboy, an old woman, and the Bishop of Orwick’s donkey when a knock sounded at the door. It was a page, a boy of about eleven, wearing Duke Anlac’s colors.
“Sir William Odosson?”
Will unfolded himself from the stool by the fire and stood up. “Here I am.”
The page bowed low. “My lord the duke wishes to speak with you outside.”
“I’m at his service,” said Will, bowing back. “Lead on.”
The page escorted him out into the darkened courtyard. Duke Anlac was waiting, a heavy wool cloak wrapped about him against the night air. Will, cloakless in his borrowed tunic, shivered as the cold wind struck him. He went down on one knee to the duke, and saw as he rose that Anlac was gesturing the page away.
The secrecy disturbed Will a little. What kind of talk between lord and man needed to take place in a deserted corner at midnight? On the other hand, he reminded himself, it was the duke’s right to summon and dismiss his servants as he chose.
“How may I serve you, my lord?” Will asked when the page had gone.
“It’s a small matter,” said the duke. “Perhaps no matter at all.”
If that was so, Will wondered, then why couldn’t it be openly spoken of—if not at the feast, then in the bachelors’ hall afterward? But it wasn’t his place to question the duke. He held his peace and waited for Anlac to go on.
“You ride to the northern marches this summer,” said the duke. “Or so I heard you tell Henry of Harrowholt.”
“That’s true,” Will said. “My father’s given me leave to follow the tourneys.”
“Excellent,” said the duke. “You can be my eyes and ears on the border at the same time. The north country isn’t rich, but the castles there are strong, and they command the roads from Nordanglia and Galis. Any man of mine who holds one must be loyal—otherwise he could make his fiefdom into a dagger for my back.” Anlac paused. “Some of my northern vassals, I fear, are perhaps not as loyal as they should be.”
“I don’t even know most of them, my lord,” said Will. “I can’t help you there.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. A stranger can see clearly what a friend might hide or an enemy might paint darker than truth would allow.”
Will’s lips tightened. “Are you asking me to be your spy, my lord?”
“No, no,” said the duke. “You’re my sworn man, and the son of my friend—I wouldn’t press you into dishonorable service. I’m not asking you to find out any secret or hidden thing. Just tell me how things stand in the marches.”
Will nodded slowly. “I’ll do that, my lord.”
“Very well.” The duke turned to go.
“One thing more, Your Grace,” Will said.
The duke turned.
“What if I should discover that some baron is not loyal?”
For a moment there was silence. Then the duke said, “You are loyal,” and left without another word.
Will stood there staring at the duke’s retreating back and tried to make sense of Anlac’s last statement. Had Anlac been giving him an order, he wondered, or making him a promise?
