The Last Knight (5 page)

“Only five,” she said. “But they all have
big
families.”

I smiled despite myself. My youngest sister would now be very close to Kathryn’s age.

Kathryn visibly gathered her courage. “Anyway, there’s going to be a feast and then Father’s going to…to pronounce on Michael, with witnesses, you see? ’Twill all be desperately uncomfortable, but you’re to come, and Michael told me you haven’t any other clothes so I’m to lend you some of Benton’s because he won’t mind.”

Her face was scarlet by the time she finished, but her embarrassment was for my pride rather than hers.

“Thank you,” I said. “That’s very kind.”

She nodded and went over to the window to let her cheeks cool, but when she looked out her back stiffened.

I went to stand beside her. My employer walked through the fallow gardens toward the orchard, a lady’s hand resting on his arm. From where we stood I could see only her hair, which was red-gold, and her dress, which was the color of wild roses.

Then she turned, laughing at something Sir Michael had said, and my breath caught at the perfection of her features. Her face was so lovely, I didn’t even glance at her figure.

“That’s my cousin, Rosamund.” Kathryn’s voice was colorless. “She’s an orphan, in Father’s ward, but she’s very well dowered. She’s…” Her stiff shoulders slumped. “She’s all right, in spite of her looks. A little silly.”

Why would that depress the girl? Then I saw Sir Michael’s expression and my heart chilled.

Worship. The pure, stupid devotion of a knight for a fair lady—as chaste as calf love, and every bit as painful. Beautiful, rich, and probably Gifted, she would never be given to a fourth son. And judging by her unconcerned expression, she probably wouldn’t want to marry him even if it had been possible.

Sir Michael and his lady vanished under the orchard’s boughs, and Kathryn and I regarded each other in perfect, grim understanding.

“Master Fisk, I don’t know what father’s going to say tonight, but…you’re my brother’s friend. Watch over him. I’m afraid he’s going to need it.”

This didn’t seem the right moment to mention that I intended to get free of Sir Michael at the first opportunity.

Mistress Kathryn and I spent the rest of the afternoon going through the absent Benton’s wardrobe. I chose a good doublet of heavy, dark brown linen to wear that evening, and with Kathryn’s cheerful permission, pinched several of his older, rougher outfits as well.

The neighbors began arriving shortly before sunset—and they did have large families. The table in the cavernous dining hall was set for almost fifty.

There were enough candles to heat the room, even without the hearth fires that crackled at both ends of the hall. The neighboring families had dressed up for the occasion—glowing velvets, damask, and brocade—and their avid gossip rang from the stone floor to the rafters. Moving among them, I learned that Sir Michael was well liked, even if they did think this “knight errant business” was insane and “look where it
got
him, my dear.” I heard one man offer the opinion that no good came from putting too tight a rein on your sons, but most people felt that no father deserved
this.

The feast was lavish, eight full courses, and my respect for the baroness’s ability grew. The neighbors ate heartily, but after the third course my appetite deserted me. Sir Michael, seated on his father’s right, ate less than he had the night before, and even the baron dined lightly, though he drank more than I’d expected.

The baroness, seated on her husband’s left, ate well, spoke politely, and never showed a scrap of emotion, either then or through what followed. Rupert sat at the foot of the table, looking important. Kathryn was evidently too young to attend.

The meal wore on, and as the final course (a plum custard cake coated with honey and powdered sugar) was served, the expectation that had hovered over the room all evening settled like a soaked blanket. Pockets of silence formed, and when people spoke their voices were too loud, their laughter too shrill.

When the baron pushed back his chair and stood, the conversation died as if its throat had been cut.

“Michael Sevenson, come thou and stand before me.”

A chill passed over my skin at the sound of the old, high speech. It still flavored the vocabulary of the nobility, but these days it was used only for legal decrees. The baron’s use of it now made whatever he said a legal requirement, and neither argument nor appeal was accepted when high speech was used. Which was doubtless why the baron used it—before witnesses.

“All gathered herein know what thou hast done. All gathered know that I have redeemed thee, and at what price. ’Tis the price of thy redemption to me that I now decree and declare.”

Sir Michael nodded, his face sober and self-contained in the flickering light. His hands were clasped behind his back. Were they as cold as mine? Probably colder.

“The terms are these. First, thou shalt pursue Ceciel Mallory, capture her, and return her to Lord Dorian’s justice. Thus thou shalt right the wrong thou hast done, both to the law and to the dead. I am certain”—irony glinted in the baron’s voice—“that this will be within the power of the ‘knight’ who was able to free her under the noses of the sheriff’s men.”

I was by no means certain of this. Depending on how far she fled, and how well she covered her tracks, we could spend years just trying to find the accursed wench!

But the neighbors nodded approvingly. Sir Michael showed no surprise, though his lips flattened at his father’s ridicule.

“The second term of thy redemption is that thou shalt go to the kinsmen of the murdered man, and offer them apology.”

Sir Michael grimaced at that. Facing the man whose brother’s killer we’d set free wouldn’t be pleasant, but I had to admit it was fair. The neighbors were nodding like silly sheep.

“The third and final term is this: When the first two tasks are accomplished, thou shalt return to this house and take up the position of estate steward of Seven Oaks, under the governance of Baron Seven Oaks, whoever he may be. Thou shalt serve him for as long as he wills, even to the end of thy days.”

This, Sir Michael had not expected. “Father, please!” he protested, despite the high speech.

The baron talked right over him, setting the official seal on his fate. “These are the terms of thy repayment. Until and unless the terms are met, thou art an indebted man, honorless in the eyes of thy fellows, rightless in the eyes of the law. If any hand be turned against thee, thou mayst claim no redress. If thou shouldst fail to meet these terms, thou shalt be declared an unredeemed man, cast off from thy family, from honor, from the law, and from men’s aid, forever. These are my words, this is my will, let it be thus.”

“Let it be thus,” the witnesses rumbled.

I didn’t join in.

Sir Michael swayed as if he’d been struck. For a moment I thought he was going to fall to his knees at the baron’s feet, not to beg for mercy, but because his legs had failed him. Then he bowed in submission, turned, and walked out.

The gossip around me resumed with a rush, but I paid no heed, intent on getting out of the room as soon as I could.

I looked in his room first, then started opening each door in the hall, methodically, though I wasn’t certain he was even in the house. The vibrant wails of viol and flute drifted up the staircase, so I probably had an hour before people began coming upstairs—and found me peeking into their rooms. It was probably just as well that Kathryn ambushed me and dragged me into the dark sewing room.

It felt different, lit by nothing but the pale light from the hall candles…emptier.

In a sibilant whisper, she demanded to know the worst. I told her what her father had said, watching her expression change as I spoke.

“What I don’t understand,” I finished, “is what’s so terrible about the last part. Your father said he had to be estate steward, and he looked as if he’d received a death sentence!”

Kathryn drew a shaky breath. “’Tis not that bad, though it may feel that way to Michael. That’s what he and Father were fighting about last year. Didn’t you know?”

I remembered some of the neighbors’ gossip, but I wanted to know a lot more. “I’ve only been with Sir Michael a little over a week,” I explained, hoping this would make my ignorance more understandable.

Evidently it did, for she nodded and went on. “When Michael came home from university last year, Father had decided that he was going to become Rupert’s estate steward. ’Tis a good job, for a fourth son, and ’tis not as if Michael wanted to do anything else. It wasn’t an unreasonable idea, but Michael refused. He said he wanted to travel. To do more with his life than bury himself on the same estate where he’d been born.

“Father asked how he intended to support himself on these travels—which I must say was unfair, for Michael isn’t a wastrel. If he wanted to travel for a while, Father could easily have staked him, but…Father doesn’t like to be thwarted.”

Her voice trailed off and I nodded encouragingly. “I can see that.”

“Yes, well, they had a huge argument, with Father nagging Michael to say what, exactly, he hoped to accomplish in this
travel
of his. I don’t think Michael really knew, but finally he said that he might just do some good in the world, and Father accused him of wanting to be ‘some kind of fool knight errant’ and…” A hint of mischief brightened her expression. “…I’m afraid the idea took root. Michael left home the next morning, and from his letters it sounds like that’s exactly what he’s done. Which
I
think is no small accomplishment, starting out with only one lame horse and a handful of fracts.”

“Quite,” I said. This explained a great deal about Michael. “So tonight…”

The animation left her face. “Father won the argument, at last. But ’tis not so bad being an estate steward. Lots of people would
want
the job.”

But not Sir Michael. The thought hung, unspoken, between us.

I decided that sometimes it was a squire’s duty to leave his employer alone, and went to bed.

We left before dawn the next morning. The mist off the river swirled around our legs as we walked out to the stables. Our footsteps sounded both loud and muffled at the same time.

The baron and baroness weren’t there, and Kathryn was probably asleep, but Rupert showed up to see his brother off.

Sir Michael appeared more cheerful than he had for the last few days. Which seemed strange, until I realized that we were setting out on a quest. Another glorious adventure, no doubt.

“I had old Eldridge check your gear.” Rupert sounded as if he wanted to apologize, but wasn’t quite sure what for. “Some of your tack was pretty worn, so he replaced it. And you’ve got food for several weeks.”

“Thank you, brother,” said Sir Michael. “That was a kindly tho…Eldridge? I thought he planned to retire—last year.”

Rupert’s eyes dropped. “He did. But Father didn’t think ’twould be worth the trouble to train a new man for only a few months, so he persuaded Eldridge to stay on…for a while.”

“I see.” The adventuring light left Sir Michael’s eyes, and his mouth was tight.

I saw, too. Old Eldridge must be the current steward, and “a few months” was the amount of time the baron had believed it would take Sir Michael to fail at knight errantry and come crawling home. He had succeeded for a full year, but now he had to fail…or be dishonored and leave a murderess at large.

Poor Michael.

S
o my career as a knight errant was to come to an end, and one so ignoble it made my heart ache. I suppose it really was a foolish notion, as my father said, but there were one or two who had cause to be grateful for it, which is more than most can say of their dreams.

And it wasn’t over yet, not quite. Instead of waking to a morning bent over cramped columns of farm accounts, I rode with my squire beside a rushing river, with the sun beginning to burn off the mist. The only sound that rose above the river’s chuckle was the waking clarion of the blackbirds.

One last heroic deed—the most desperate, the most heroic of them all—undertaken in the cause of honor and justice. Even if it was my error that made it necessary.

I mentioned as much to my squire, who had been uncharacteristically silent, though that might be because he dislikes rising early.

Fisk gave me a sour look. “In my opinion, Noble Sir, heroism is vastly overrated. It was
heroism
that got us into this mess…perhaps you haven’t noticed?”

His irony was so sharp that I smiled despite myself, and he glared at me.

“That wasn’t heroism, ’twas my foolishness in permitting Hackle to gull me.”

Fisk snorted. “It was your…heroism that made the foolishness possible. That’s how con artists work. We talk to a gull, find out what he dreams of, what he wants so badly he’d leap at the chance to make a fool of himself. Then we offer him that. It works every time.”

I decided to let this pass; that was Fisk’s past, and I meant to give him a chance for a different future. But…

“I take your point, but I can’t see heroism as a weakness. Without aspirations men would still be dwelling in caves, killing with stones and clubs like the desert savages. And this last quest isn’t a matter of heroism, but of righting a wrong and redeeming our honor.”

A chance to argue lightened Fisk’s mood.

“It’s also about every bully and brigand who wants an easy target and knows an indebted man can’t go to the law. Not to mention your father cutting you off without a fract. Ah, speaking of which, Sir?”

“Yes?” I spoke a bit curtly. Fisk’s last speech had some sting in it, though it wasn’t true.

“When this is over…Well, an estate steward won’t need a squire.”

“Not a squire, mayhap, but an estate steward could certainly use a trusty clerk to keep his ledgers.”

When he isn’t lying, Fisk’s face is very candid. His downcast expression was almost comical, but there was something under the simple disappointment akin to pain, or even fear, that made me add, “Don’t worry. When the time is right, I’ll end your indebtedness. I swear it on my honor.”

Fisk’s expression turned wry. “I knew a man once whose name was not Jack Bannister. He broke his oaths regularly, and got quite rich doing it.”

I almost said, rather hotly, that I was not this Jack. But this time ’twas definitely pain I heard under Fisk’s sardonic tone. I saw that Jack Bannister (or whatever his name really was) had also broken his word to Fisk, and Fisk’s trust with it. The silence stretched. The growing light warmed my shoulders.

“I suppose,” I said finally, “that a man’s word is as good as his own regard for it. This Jack of yours saw his oath as worthless, and his oaths were just that. For myself, an oath is as binding as an iron chain. No, more binding, for a chain may be sawed through, or twisted apart, or the lock picked. But from an oath, or any debt of honor, there’s no escape.”

I decided that we would first confront Baron Bertram Mallory, the kinsman to whom my apology was owed—a thing I had intended to do anyway, though I knew how painful and embarrassing it would be. Being ordered to do something you have already resolved on doing is a frustrating and humiliating experience. Mayhap ’twas fortunate that the Mallorian Barony was a full day’s ride to the northwest. For the sake of Chant’s leg I planned to make a day and a half of it, which would give me time to recover from the blow Father had struck my pride. Injured pride is not conducive to apologies.

We forded the river in midafternoon, and made camp a few hours later in a cave beside the road. The early stop gave me time to string my short bow and shoot a few partridges, stretching our supplies.

I tramped back to camp with the birds dangling from my hands, heavy as feathered stone shot, for game is fat in the fall.

The cave was not a hole in the earth, but a triangular wedge beneath a big stone bank, cut by the stream in flood years. Travelers’ fires had blackened the overhanging rock, and Fisk had gathered wood and started a fire while I was gone.

This was a pleasant change, for when he first joined me, city-bred Fisk had no more notion of how to set up camp than…well, than a townsman. He grimaced when he saw the birds in my hand, for I had declared I would teach him to clean game the next time I shot something.

I smashed an oatcake into crumbs and scattered them for the other birds, appeasing the Furred God by assisting life, since I had taken it.

Fisk did fairly well, for he is deft with a knife, though a little squeamish. I cooked the partridges, however. My first taste of Fisk’s camp cooking had been more than enough.

I’ve wondered a lot about Fisk, in the short time he’s been with me. He tries to act like the gutterling my father proclaimed him, but he knows full well the use of both handkerchief and napkin. His personal habits are cleanly, and his manners very good—even when his attention is clearly on something else. This may be something a con artist would cultivate, but still…

Fisk seldom speaks of his past and he eludes my questions, so I’ve stopped asking. He’ll talk when he trusts me, and not before.

Having risen early, we were more than ready for sleep once we’d eaten. Fisk laid out the bedrolls on piles of leaves, and I complimented him on the softness of the bed.

“It’s all right.” He yawned. “As long as nothing crawls in and joins us during the night. Unless of course it’s human, female, and preferably good-looking.”

I smiled at his jest, but replied, “I don’t know. If such a thing happened to me, I fear I’d be too startled to enjoy it.”

“You’d get over that,” Fisk said dryly. “Trust me.”

“Would you?” The darkness beneath the overhang lent itself to intimate questions. “Not get over being startled, I know that would pass. But would you lie with a stranger, if she offered herself?”

“I guess it depends on the stranger,” said Fisk. “If she was clean and willing, and there wasn’t so much in my purse that I’d mind when she stole it, why not? Not,” he added, “that the situation is likely to arise. Especially in the middle of the howling wilderness.”

The howling wilderness is seldom covered with cultivated fields and traversed by good roads. But I didn’t tell him this, for with moonlight silvering the uplifted branches, and night birds crying warnings to the small creatures that rustled through the leaves, the night did have a wild sort of beauty.

“But what about love?” I asked instead. “Or at least, affection. Bedding a woman without friendship would be…I wouldn’t care for it! All folk seek love with their beddings. Surely you must too.”

I thrust the painful thought of Rosamund aside, for I knew she didn’t think of me that way. But someday, if my quest succeeded. If—

“Oh, I’d like to be loved—who wouldn’t?” Fisk’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “But I’d settle for lust. Not that I get that, either. Well, not often.”

I laughed at his exaggerated gloom and heard him chuckle too, but something in his voice made me add, “If that’s true, then you’re settling for too little.”

The leaves rustled as he turned his back on me. His voice was muffled when he replied, “Sometimes, Noble Sir, you have to settle for what you can get.”

Despite the craven slowness with which we traveled, we reached Baron Mallory’s keep by midmorning.

’Twas of the old style: four square towers, with high walls between them. A stone bridge spanned an old moat, dry now, with grass overgrowing its banks and a cow grazing in the bottom.

We rode across the bridge, one behind the other, as its narrowness dictated. This would have been an excellent defense in olden times, but now it must prove a fearful inconvenience whenever someone delivered a cartload of supplies. Baron Mallory could have replaced it with a wider one, but there was an air of shabbiness about the old walls that made me wonder about the baron’s finances. Though when we clattered under the portcullis (rusted into place, thank goodness) the grooms who came out to take our horses were well clothed and well ordered.

A manservant escorted us to the baron. The windows were paned in diamonds of clear, modern glass instead of the old thick circles, and the tapestries that covered the walls could have sold for much, so perhaps Sir Bertram was tradition-minded, not impoverished.

Whichever it was, the old man had a strong sense of the dramatic. The manservant opened great double doors, revealing a long, empty hall, its rafters hung with banners. Baron Mallory sat in a carved chair on a dais at the far end.

Walking down the length of the floor toward him, my footfalls ringing in the silence, I felt smaller with each step—doubtless, I was meant to. My embarrassment faded and resentment replaced it—I dislike being deliberately humbled. Fisk crept softly behind me, doing his best to become invisible, as is his habit when he wants to make certain I take all the blame. In this case, I had to admit I deserved it.

I halted at the foot of the dais, for to climb it would have left me standing on the baron’s toes, and looked up at him. “I am Sir Michael Sevenson, and I have come to apologize for my error in setting Ceciel Mallory free.”

“I know who you are, young man. And why you’re here. I expected you yesterday.” Fisk stirred behind me, but I wasn’t surprised that he knew we were coming.

Sir Bertram looked me over like a curious crow, an impression that was reinforced by the black clothes of mourning. His hair, which grew in a neat fringe around his bald head, just touched his collar, and while he was thin, he still seemed hardy. Father had said Sir Herbert was in his early sixties, and this man was his younger brother, but his face was deeply lined, like that of a man a decade older, and the eyes that regarded me so intently were red and swollen.

I forgot that he had made me walk the length of the hall, and even the humiliation of confessing my own error. “I am truly sorry, Sir, for what happened to your brother. I’m going to bring Ceciel Mallory back. If she poisoned him, you’ll have justice.”

“Justice?” His face twisted. “What good will justice do my brother now?” Then he sagged in the great chair. “I suppose justice is all that’s left,” he said wearily. “Come with me, Michael Sevenson, freer of poisoners. I want you to see something.”

He stepped down from the dais and strode off. We followed, of course, though I was anxious about our destination. The baron was clearly grieved by his brother’s death, and keeps this old held dungeons, or even worse places.

But we passed out through a postern door, and set off briskly through the kitchen garden and up the wooded hill behind the keep.

Fisk stared when we came over the hill’s crown, and saw the size of the blood oak grove stretching down its slopes. I knew enough of country life to understand that all the nearby villages would bring their dead here as well.

Blood oak leaves die in autumn, as other leaves do, but for some reason they cling to the branches even in death, only falling when the spring growth comes. There are several myths to account for this, but no one really knows why. Whatever the reason, walking through the blood oak grove was an uneasy experience, even on a sunlit autumn morning. The dry leaves rustled and whispered together, as if the dead buried beneath their roots were gossiping back and forth.

As we went downhill, the trees became smaller and younger. Soon we reached the recent part of the burying grove and a grave into which the earth had barely settled. The sapling planted there had only five leaves, still turning to the deep russet of dried blood. ’Twas the wrong time of year to transplant, but a blood oak planted over a corpse always thrives. Scientists say ’tis because they draw nourishment from a body’s decay, but the old tradition that a good man’s soul sustains them appeals more to the heart. If that was true, Sir Herbert must have been a good man, for this tree was perfect. In fact…I bent to look closer.

Saplings are often unmarked, for insects and animals have had fewer chances at them, but something about this plant pricked at my sensing Gift. I knelt and held out my hand toward the sapling, not quite touching it, and felt the unmistakable prickle of its energy against my palm. The sensing Gift is the only human Gift that is always reliable, even if you have to touch a thing to be certain whether it holds magic or not. Every village has access to someone with the sensing Gift, so no one would ever be fool enough to cut this tree. Sir Herbert’s grave would be marked for decades, even centuries. I wondered what sacrifice Sir Bertram had made to get this plant. He must have loved his brother very much.

“I know that all men end as food for plants,” the baron said. “But that woman put my brother here before his time, and I want her dead for it.”

For all the conscious drama of the setting, his voice was rough with real grief. I stayed on my knees beside the grave and spoke gently.

“You must have known Ceciel Mallory well. Can you tell us where she might have gone?”

The old man snorted. “If I knew where she was I’d go after her myself—your redemption be hanged! I’ve no idea where she would go. I warned Herbert not to marry her, but he’d a stubborn streak and paid no heed. He never did, the old fool.” He sat beside the grave and patted the soft earth.

“Why didn’t you want them to marry? I’d heard she was from a Gifted line.”

“Oh yes,” said Sir Bertram bitterly. “Gifted with greed, deceit, and evil!” Then the passion deserted him, and his shoulders slumped. “I shouldn’t speak of the whole family thus, for the sister is our local herbalist, both mixer and talker, and a good woman. And the brother is an honest woodworker, with his own shop. In fact, ’twas Agnes, the sister, who confirmed that my brother had been poisoned—although she didn’t know whom I suspected when I asked her to examine his body.”