The Harp and the Blade (17 page)

“Naturally,” she grinned, and the tension vanished.

My own face sobered. “And,” I went on, “I couldn’t help but be moved with pity at the thought of those poor Danes trapped at sea with that baneful tongue of yours.”

Jean, who evidently never missed an opportunity to enjoy laughter, roared with it again to drown out her own appreciative chuckle. “Who were the men who captured you?” she asked when she could be heard.

“A crew of outlaws led by a fellow called Piers,” I answered, looking at the others to see what reaction the name would enduce.

Ann frowned, and Jean whistled. “That’s a bad bunch, and Piers is a mad dog. You’re lucky he didn’t kill you just to see the flies gather.”

“We saw their camp as we came north this morning,” Ann said, “but as they weren’t on our land we let them alone. How did you escape?”

“There was no trick to that. They finally got hold of enough wine to get them all drunk at once.” I turned to Marie. “Did you have any trouble after we parted company?”

“Not a bit. I was afraid to travel on the road except by dark, though, and as I found nothing but berries to eat I wasn’t strong enough to walk very fast. It took me a couple of nights to reach the ford even.” She turned to her cousin. “I hid out in the woods during the daytime. That’s how I happened to miss you, Ann.”

With that last sentence she recalled realization of the tragedy that had driven her there. Ann put an arm around her, and the two women walked off together to resolve the matter of death in the family, no doubt at the poor best possible.

Our eyes followed them commiseratingly. “Let’s have that wine,” Jean said after a moment.

“Fine,” I agreed, and we made for a table in the shade of the hall.

At Jean’s shouted order a flagon and two cups were brought. It was good wine. The first gulp spread a healthy interior glow, and I relaxed contentedly. “How soon do you expect Conan?” I asked.

“Tomorrow or a week from tomorrow.” He shrugged his nescience. “It all depends on how long it takes the man he’s seeing to make up his mind. He’s kin to Conan, and we think we can get him as ally, but he’s a canny bird, who won’t be hurried. I take it that you know pretty much all about our political divisions?”

“My education may not be complete, but it’s thorough enough,” I said ruefully. “I know a lot more than a stranger has a right to.”

He nodded cheerfully. “You have had a pretty rough time of it, haven’t you? Well then, Gregory, the man in question, holds land directly north of the abbey’s which also borders on the northern reach of Chilbert’s territory. Chilbert has the abbey on two sides as it is, and if he won over Gregory, as we assume he’d try to do, he’d have it on three. The Abbot wants to remain neutral, but under pressure of a squeeze like that he might feel forced to join the count.

“Well, you see from that.” Jean sloshed the wine in his half-emptied cup thoughtfully. “The fellow’s damned important to everybody, and he’s smart enough to know it. Conan’s been sounding him out for months but has received nothing but evasions. Finally, since we need Gregory so much and as long as nobody will risk large scale hostilities until the harvest is fully taken care of, Conan decided to go himself. He left just before we got word of the Dane raid two days ago, and, knowing what a horsetrader his man is, he said not to expect him for four or five days or more. Still he might come tonight.”

“Did Conan go alone?”

“He took four others,” Jean scowled. “I wanted him to take a good-sized troop, but he maintained that when you’re asking a man for help you shouldn’t burden his hospitality with an army. Then, too, he didn’t want either to take men from the harvest or from work on the walls.”

“I see.” It was remarkably pleasant sitting there. Bees buzzed soothingly up and down a flowering vine and drank in unison with us. The fine day grew finer as it cooled with the waning afternoon. The wine was even better than I had first thought. I was sure that nothing ill could befall Conan.

“Rainault! Fulke!” Jean called out suddenly. “Come here!”

I roused from dreamy contemplation of beatitude to see a chunky, wedge-faced man of about forty approaching in company with a tall, freckled youth.

“Rainault,” Jean said to the older of the two, “say when you saw this man before.” He leaned back, happy over the puzzle he had presented, while I met the newcomer’s darkeyed scrutiny blankly.

“I’ve got it!” He slapped his companions in vigorous delight. “It’s the one, Fulke! Don’t you recognize him?” He turned to me once more and laughed. “Lord! how you cursed us.”

He didn’t seem to mind, so I smiled vaguely, not quite at my keenest. “Interesting but not true,” I told him. “You’re thinking of somebody else; I’m—”

“Finnian,” he silenced me. “I didn’t expect you to place me, but I found you at the Old Farms and took you to Thomas’ house. You weren’t for being nice about it.” He grinned reminiscently. “It was good cursing.”

I concentrated. “I remember a little of it now. At the time I couldn’t get it through my head that everybody I saw wasn’t a man of Chilbert’s.”

“You made that plain.” He jerked his head toward the lad, who had been staring at me fixedly. “Fulke here is the one who first got wind of you and Conan that day.”

“It was when you were singing the tirade,” the latter burst out excitedly. “I couldn’t get near enough to see without risking certain discovery, but when the song indicated there were two of you I felt sure that the other must be Conan.”

I looked at them with interest. One was the young minstrel who was said to have memorized my song on the spot and sung it all about to deride Chilbert’s power. The first man was he who had led the rescue expedition. I rose. “I am in debt to you both,” I announced with a formality that was perhaps a trifle heavy. “If you’ll call for cups I hold it fitting to toast the reunion.”

That was done, and for the next hour the four of us drank and talked with benevolence enthroned among us. No one was drunk; but on a warm day it doesn’t take too much wine to soothe a man, and all of us were soothed.

We broke off wrangling good-naturedly about something or other to grin at Ann, who was smiling at us with the special tolerance a woman reserves for the harmless follies of men she likes. “Dinner’s ready if you want to eat,” she informed us.

Jean rolled an owlish eye at me. “Do you think it would be wise to abandon such good wine?”

“The full weight of my opinion is against it,” I replied. “We might never get any like it again. Consider that possibility before you make any rash decision,” I concluded warningly.

“There will be excellent wine with the meal,” she humored us, “so you’ll be quite safe.”

“Lots of wine?” Rainault asked with a shrewdness I admired.

“Yes, lots.”

We four looked at each other. “It seems all right,” I said cautiously. “Shall we take a chance?”

Jean rose boldly. “Let’s risk it.”

The next few days were enjoyable ones during which I was left to my own devices until late afternoon and enjoyed good company during the evenings. Daytimes the men were busy with the harvest and the building of the fort, while Ann had her double job of châtelaine and housekeeper. Marie assisted her in every way possible, proving she was wise enough to see that work was the best panacea for her griefs. Outwardly she gave little evidence of what she was enduring, and I took a mildly proprietary pride in her.

As for myself I took advantage of the free time on my hands to pay my debt to Thorgrim. Locally nobody but Conan, who had done viking work, would understand the poem, but if and when I got to Otho’s court men could listen. It wasn’t bad as poems to order go. It lacked the heat of inspired conviction, of course, but there was nothing I could do about that. Thorgrim got the best craftsman’s job I could produce for him and would have to rest content with it.

When not so engaged I rode around the countryside to see what Conan was accomplishing. He was doing a magnificent job. Even quite far afield no villain scuttled away like a badger making for his hole at sight of me, and many had found sufficient confidence and human poise to return a cheerful greeting. I saw no burnt houses, no hungry children, no casually left corpses in all that locality. Everywhere men were engaged in reaping full, unspoiled crops to tide over the winter. It was a rare and marvelously wholesome sight such as I had seldom seen, especially in France.

On a couple of occasions Fulke managed to get away from the work in hand to go with me. He was a pleasant, clever lad without swank, but I found his conviction that I was a great poet—arrived at solely because he wanted to believe it—somewhat embarrassing. I knew I wasn’t yet if indeed I was ever to be such; but I also remembered the vast, amorphous yearnings of an apprentice and did my best to fulfill his expectations of me. He longed, I found, to be himself a maker; and by precept, if not, perhaps by example, I could be of help to him. It was pleasant to talk craft to so eager a listener, and by this indulgence of both him and myself I won a good friend.

Day by day, however, the tension began to grow, although nobody said anything much. There was no definite cause for alarm in the fact that nothing had been heard from Conan, for he had left prepared for somewhat lengthy negotiations. But everybody was experiencing concern, none the less, as each night fell without news. Ann ceased to smile as much as usual, and a general air of sober, if unvoiced, speculation pervaded the place.

Dinner on the fifth day was an unwontedly subdued affair. As there was a precocious nip of autumn in the air as soon as the sun went down we took our wine indoors. Jean and I attempted facetious chatter to keep the spirits of the gathering high, but we weren’t doing very well at it, and nobody joined in our own unconvinced laughter. At the same time nobody felt like sleep, either, so we sat up later than customary, growing progressively more silent and drinking without pleasure.

Ann was the first to hear anything. “The watchman’s challenging,” she said, starting to her feet. Then I heard the horse’s hoofs.

We were crowding hurriedly to the door when it was opened by what was left of a man. Aside from being weary to the point of dissolution he was badly wounded. In three separate places his clothes were stiffened by large patches of dried blood. “It’s Francois!” Rainault said in a taut, hard voice. “Wine for him! Quick!”

It was a minute before this man who had gone forth with Conan and returned in such bad case could get strength to be articulate. While we waited the rest of us fidgeted, feeling the pressure of ignorance unbearable. None of us would meet the others’ eyes. There would be plenty of time for that ordeal of recognition when our dread was substantiated.

“What is it, Francois?” Jean was almost whispering. “Conan! Where’s Conan?”

The fellow made a great effort and raised his head a little from Fulke’s supporting arm. “Hostage,” he managed hoarsely.

The worst had not yet happened then. We let him rest a little longer while Fulke gave him wine in small sips. “Tell us!”

Jean finally commanded. “We’ve got to know.”

“Gregory’s holding him,” Francois mumbled hoarsely. “He’s sending to find what Chilbert will offer.”

Ann gasped, and Rainault began cursing with smothered violence. I didn’t know how I felt, but it wasn’t good. My teeth clenched till my jaws ached. Jean meanwhile went on patiently and inexorably worming the story out of the exhausted man, and finally we had it all.

Even though not certain of his kinsman as an ally Conan had trusted him for hospitality. Not unreservedly, however, as he had taken the precaution of leaving Francois in hiding several miles down the road from Gregory’s fortress with orders to return home and report if he received no message by a certain time.

“Sunrise today was the time he said for me to beat it back, but I couldn’t leave without knowing something for sure, see?”

We saw.

“I started for Gregory’s place, and part way there I met a fellow riding like he was going somewheres. I figured he could only be coming from the fort and would know about Conan, so I waylaid him. He cut me up some, but I finally got him so’s he’d talk.”

“You killed him, of course?” Rainault said.

“Yeah, but it wasn’t any use. His horse headed back home while we were fighting.”

That would naturally have given the play away. Ann had the man carried to bed and promised that she herself would shortly give attention to his wounds. The rest of us stood where we were, thinking hard.

“They found the messenger’s horse in a couple of hours, say,” Rainault offered as an opener. “Another man was on his way before noon.”

“But Chilbert may take a little looking for,” Jean took it up.

“Yes, and Chilbert won’t send. He’ll gather riders and come himself for game as big as Conan.”

“No moon tonight,” Jean agreed. “We’d never locate the trails without light.”

“And there are no through roads. We’ll have to wait till morning to ride.”

There was an oath that Conan and I had sworn. I stared at the floor, growing wearily disgusted as my grasp of the situation enlarged. Although I wasn’t yet sure what could be done I did know that I couldn’t leave it for Jean and Rainault to bungle. Why, they didn’t even see what they were faced with!

I moistened my lips and spoke with toneless authority. “Forget about your riders. An expedition won’t do any good.” For the first time I raised my eyes, and I saw to my surprise that Ann had been looking at me, waiting for me to speak.

“What do you mean it won’t do any good?” Jean asked roughly. “Do you think we can save him by prayer?”

I paid no attention to his understandable rudeness. “You get there with a troop,” I diagrammed. “Gregory says stay put or he’ll kill Conan. You wait around to swear at him. Chilbert arrives with
his
army. He and Gregory have you sandwiched. You probably lose your troop, and they’ve certainly still got Conan. No, it’s one man’s job.”

“Mine, then!” Jean and Rainault chorused.

“No, mine,” I contradicted them.

“Damn you, no!” Rainault shouted. “Who the hell do you think you are telling us—?”

“He’s Conan’s sworn brother,” Ann told him quietly.