The Last Knight (7 page)

Mistress Agnes followed, arms crossed under her breasts and lips pressed tight. I drifted inconspicuously after her.

At first it took all four of them to hold Sir Michael. He not only swung his fists whenever his arms were free, but also kicked with a vigor and accuracy that was almost ungentlemanly. He’d picked up a few unknightly tricks in his wandering.

The uncluttered yard made a good arena, although at one point the flailing tangle of limbs, fists, and boots collided with the horse trough pump. I’m happy to say it was the brother who sank to his knees, clutching his elbow and swearing.

That left three of them on Michael—two clutching his arms. He stamped on the toes of the third and then kicked him in the chest, sending him staggering to the foot of the steps, where Mistress Agnes and I stood. The man looked around wildly and grabbed me.

I stood quite still in his grasp. “I’m just his squire. I only take orders, and I’m not going to fight. So don’t hit me.”

He glared at me. One of his eyes was puffing up. Then he turned and went back to the brawl.

I saw with regret that the other two journeymen had gotten a firm grip on Sir Michael’s arms, holding him despite his struggles. His nose was bleeding.

The brother rose, stalked over to them, and punched Sir Michael in the stomach. I winced.

He followed that with a nasty blow to the jaw and another to the stomach, the soft thuds almost lost in the gasps and grunts of the participants.

Sir Michael managed to hook one of the journeyman’s feet from under him, but it was clear that the ensuing scramble only delayed the inevitable.

Mistress Agnes chewed her lower lip, the anger in her face giving way to concern. She turned and hurried off.

Sir Michael’s face was now dark with bruising, and his struggles were weaker. I judged that it would soon be over, since no one spends time and effort beating on someone who can’t feel it. If Sir Michael had any sense, he’d go limp and fake his way out of the rest. But going limp under those circumstances is a hard act to pull off, and I doubt the thought even crossed my employer’s mind—good sense not being a part of his character.

“What under the two moons is going on here!”

The enraged bellow made me jump, and the leather-aproned man who jogged around the house looked so angry, and so ready to do something about it, that I took a step back even though he wasn’t looking at me.

“Of all the idiotic, assinine…Let go of that man!”

The journeymen were already backing off, and at his words they released Sir Michael as if he’d suddenly grown hot. He dropped like a stone and lay limply on his back, blood from his nose running into the dirt.

Mistress Agnes’s husband, for such he was, proceeded to bawl out his brother-in-law for beating up a baron’s son in his sister’s own house. I couldn’t tell if it was the act or the choice of location that enraged him most. The brother recovered enough composure to bellow back.

Mistress Agnes had followed her husband around the side of the house and now came to stand beside me. The simple boy peered around the corner with wide, frightened eyes.

Mistress Agnes looked at Sir Michael’s fallen body. He was beginning to twitch. Her lips firmed.

“No. He tried to get me to betray Cece. Let him bleed.” She turned toward the house.

“Ah, Mistress?” I said. “Before you go, may I ask you something? About that port…”

Her answer depressed me.

Her husband finished shouting down his brother-in-law, while the journeymen went for their horses. They mounted and rode off, sullen and, I was pleased to note, well bruised.

The husband watched them go and then glanced down at Sir Michael. His brows lifted when he saw his wife had gone, and I guessed that Mistress Agnes had to be very angry indeed if she refused to heal.

He looked again at Sir Michael, who stirred and muttered; then he shrugged and returned to his work.

I strolled across the silent, trampled yard to my employer. His nose had almost stopped bleeding and didn’t appear to be broken, but the whole left side of his face was purple, and the flesh around his left eye was swelling.

His eyes opened suddenly and he blinked up at the sky. His gaze wandered, found me, and focused, very slowly.

“That was not,” I told him, “a smart thing to do.”

I
have never believed it honorable to strike a servant, or anyone who can’t hit back. But at that moment I would have tried to cuff Fisk into next week had I only been able to stand unassisted.

As it was, I attempted to sit up, but my stomach muscles were so battered that I’d not have succeeded if Fisk hadn’t knelt to help me.

I leaned against him and assessed the damage—almost everything hurt, but nothing seemed to be broken. Even my nose, which felt like it was. I eyed Fisk’s clean, unmarked face. “You might have lent a hand, squire.”

“I might have tried, but it wouldn’t have done any good. I don’t know how to fight.” Fisk’s eyes were downcast in shame.

“There’s no reason you should know how,” I told him firmly. Fisk talked so rough (when he didn’t sound like a university scholar) that I had simply assumed he could fight. I’d never thought to ask him.

With Fisk’s hand under my arm I rose slowly to my knees, then, staggering, to my feet. Fisk helped me walk to the horse trough and went to fetch the horses while I splashed cold water over my face and head. My bruises throbbed, but the coolness cleared my mind.

I didn’t wish to parade my battered state before the townsfolk, whose gossip might reach my father’s ears, or risk encountering Lady Ceciel’s brother again. There was no reason to go back to Thorbury and several reasons not to. Mistress Agnes’s door remained shut, so I would have to manage my own healing, but with Fisk’s assistance I should do well enough. I told him as much when he returned, and he didn’t protest—I think he had no more desire to encounter Lady Ceciel’s brother than I did.

Mounting was awkward and painful, despite Fisk’s help, but eventually I was seated in Chant’s high saddle—even if I was doubled over the pommel, gasping.

Fisk eyed me dourly. “This is your own fault, you know. You could have gotten out of this with a whole skin if you’d told a few lies, Noble Sir.”

“You’re wrong, Fisk. The fault lay in deceiving them. Had I told the truth when we first met, neither Mistress Agnes nor her brother would have been provoked to violence.”

Fisk opened his mouth to scold me further, looked me over, and gave it up as a hopeless task. His resigned sigh made me smile, despite the painful protest of my bruised face.

As we rode, I recovered somewhat and was able to instruct Fisk as to what herbs to seek out when we made camp.

“’Twould be best if you could find magica,” I told him. “All herbs’ properties are stronger when they’re magical, especially the healing ones. And this time of year even those without the sensing Gift can find them, for magica greens earliest and dies latest. If ’tis still green in Appleon, there’s a very good chance ’tis magica.”

“Like that?” Fisk asked, pointing to a clump of glossy green leaves.

“No, that’s holly, which stays green all year and has no healing properties. But look here.” I urged Chant close to one of the clumps and reached cautiously into the prickly leaves. “See how this leaf is deformed? Insects don’t like holly much, but something has nibbled this leaf and the stem is scuffed.”

“I see.” Fisk eyed the thorns. “So what?”

“Magica is always undamaged, for insects won’t go near it, and even hail doesn’t crush or scar it.”

“And if
I
go picking it I’ll break out in a rash, or trip on a root and crack my skull, or—”

“Not if you pick it correctly and offer the proper sacrifice—which for plants is usually to water them, and even a townsman should be able to manage that!”

As the afternoon wore on and I lectured further about how you picked the sprigs of one plant close to the ground and stripped the leaves off another, how you can take every fifth stem of a mint clump, but from willow can take all the wands you want as long as you cut only the lower ones, I began to think I was asking a lot of a city-bred man.

My mother is a skilled herb-talker, who supplies mixers all through Seven Oaks and beyond—I hadn’t realized how much she’d taught me until I had to impart the knowledge to someone else.

We made camp in a meadow where a stream joined the road. Or rather Fisk made camp while I sat on a rock, wearily wondering if I should have gone back to town and risked meeting the brother after all.

I crumbled into my bedroll as soon as Fisk laid it out, and sent him downstream to look for the plants I wanted—one of which was willow.

To my delight he did find one that was magica. Willows grow in damp places, so the sacrifice includes more than water, but the road provided dried dung, and there were dead leaves aplenty to mix in for a good mulch. Fisk must have done a passable job of digging the mulch around the roots, for no ill befell him as he stripped bark from the wands and brewed the bitter tea. By the time he finished making hot ribban-root poultices, ’twas long since dark. He ate dry journeybread and cheese and crawled into his blankets with a martyred sigh. That irritated me, for if he couldn’t fight, healing was something he could and should do.

But in the morning I was forced to revise my opinion once again. The poultices on my bruised face and hands were still damp, which meant that Fisk must have wakened and changed them in the night—mayhap several times. A complex man, my squire.

Between the magica willow tea and the poultices, I felt so much improved that I let Fisk sleep while I fixed breakfast—or rather caught and fixed it. Tickling for trout can be quick, if you’ve a Gift for animals. The fire’s smoke drifted on the breeze, the cloudless sky gave promise of a fine day, and with adventure in the offing, I was content as may be.

As Fisk deftly pulled the spine and rib bones from his roasted trout, I caught him looking at me in the manner of a man with something on his mind. I lifted my brows, and he sighed again.

“Do you remember that Mistress Agnes’s brother came in ranting about Cory Port?”

“Just before he pounded me to a pulp,” I said dryly. But memory stirred—it had seemed awfully important to him. “Go on,” I told my squire.

“Well, I asked Mistress Agnes about it, and she said that Craggan Keep, which now belongs to Mistress Ceciel, governs Cory Port. It’s a deepwater harbor, a few days’ travel north of Uddersfield.”

A chill far deeper than I’d felt in the stream this morning seized me. I hardly needed Fisk to continue—Father had often complained about Uddersfield’s harbor fees, and we ship very little. Lord Dorian owns several mines. He ships a lot.

“Mistress Agnes said that if her sister dies, the estate, including the port, goes to Sir Bertram.”

“And hence to Lord Dorian,” I finished. And my father knew it. Knew it, and sent me to fetch her without even deigning to tell me what was going on. As if I were a child…or a fool. I took a deep breath, struggling to keep my emotions off my face. Though he is my squire, Fisk is scarcely more than a stranger, and there are things you don’t reveal to strangers. There are some things you don’t reveal to anyone you don’t trust, but my father could have told
me.
I took another deep breath and went on, “No wonder they thought she’d get no justice from Lord Dorian’s court. Although…I don’t think he’d condemn an innocent woman. He’s ambitious, but not without honor.”

As is my father. He might not trust me with the truth, but he’d never send an innocent woman to her death.

Fisk eyed me curiously, but his words were neutral. “Agnes also said that if Ceciel married one of Lord Gerald’s men she’d be safe, for the castle would go to her husband if she died. Would Lady Ceciel go to Lord Gerald for protection?”

“She might, but surely that’s the first thing Lord Dorian and my father would think of. If she was there, they’d have found her already and complained to the High Liege that Lord Gerald was sheltering a criminal. Or they’d have asked Lord Leopold for permission to take troops across his land—either way, they wouldn’t need us. But instead, Father ordered me to track her down, which means they don’t know where she is.”

Fisk thought this over. “How would they know if she went to Lord Gerald? He wouldn’t want to advertise it until she was married, and maybe not then. All he’d have to do is dose her with aquilas and she’d cooperate.”

I sighed. ’Twas legal, once, for nobles to use the magic of aquilas to subvert the will of a reluctant woman. That was a
long
time ago, but no one seems able to forget it. The formula for the potion is still known, however….

“That would be
illegal
, Fisk. Any marriage, any sort of agreement she made under those conditions, would be invalid.”

Fisk looked stubborn. “Your father told us Lord Dorian set guards on his borders with orders to keep any of Lord Gerald’s men from entering. That’s why Hackle had to hire bandits to escort her—neither her men nor Lord Gerald’s could get to her without starting a war. That’s why he…”

“Hired us,” I finished grimly.

“Look, are you
sure
Lord Gerald doesn’t have her?” Fisk asked. “He could be keeping her in secret, somewhere safe.”

“No place is secret or safe from servants’ gossip. Lord Dorian is bound to have…informants on his neighbors’ staffs. And if
he
knew, he’d act. No, she’s hidden herself somewhere, and ’tis up to us to find her.”

Unfortunately, I had no further ideas as to how to go about this, and my last hadn’t been notably successful. I feared Fisk would comment on this, but he was still thinking.

“You know, I’m not sure she knows either.”

“What?”

“Think back to the night we rescued her. Remember? When you asked where she was going?”

The rain-damp wind whirled through my memory. “And she looked at Hackle, and he said, ‘To her brother.’ But I can’t believe she was there. He and Mistress Agnes were too open in their anger. If they’d had her, they’d have been quieter, and more suspicious.”

“True,” said Fisk, with an irritating smirk. “But not relevant. You asked her where she was going, and
Hackle
answered. She didn’t know his plan. I bet that evil old fox has her tucked somewhere
he
thinks is safe.”

“Then we’re no better off than we were before, with no idea where she might be and no way—”

“But there is a way!” Fisk leaned forward, eyes alight. “At least, there might be. Hackle is trying to hide
her
, not himself. He may not have covered his own tracks. And I’ll stake my last fract that if we find him, we’ll find her.”

After further discussion we decided to return to Willowere, where we first encountered Hackle, and try to trace him from there.

The stark branches above us webbed the road with sun and shadow, and I found the soft creak of saddle leather conducive to thought. The more I thought, the more I agreed with Fisk’s conclusions, yet one question kept nagging me until finally I spoke it aloud.

“Why did she do it?”

“Huh?”

“Why did she do it? According to Mistress Agnes the poison was given to him over a long period, so the poisoner had to be someone in the baron’s household. And ’twould require a skilled herb-mixer to create the potion, so it seems Lady Ceciel must be guilty, but why? Even Sir Bertram said his brother had no intention of putting her off. Mistress Agnes never claimed he was unkind to her—much less so savage she’d wish to kill him. So why?”

“Maybe she found he was bedding another woman—or maybe he fell in love with another woman and did decide to put her off.”

“In his sixties?”

Fisk looked defensive. “It can happen.”

But it wasn’t likely.

“If she’s guilty, it doesn’t matter why,” Fisk continued. “And if she isn’t, it’s the judicar’s problem, not yours. All you have to worry about is fetching her back.”

“Someone could have bought the poison
from
an herbalist,” I said. Yet no reputable herbalist would sell large amounts of poison to anyone, herbalists seldom even made magica poison, and altogether ’twas as unlikely as Fisk’s mythical other woman.

I waited for him to point this out, but his gaze was fixed ahead. We were nearing the village now, and farmhouses appeared frequently by the roadside. The one coming up on our left was so old that the roof sagged like a swaybacked horse, though the thatch was in good repair. The stables and sheds of the outbuildings were old, too, and well maintained…all but the chicken coop, where a woman was vigorously wielding a shovel.

Riding nearer, the problem was plain to see—something heavy had gone off the road and through the chicken coop’s flimsy fence, smashing three woven wicker panels. The panels are easy to replace, but two of the posts they were nailed to had been snapped off near the ground.

The woman had dug down about a foot around the first post. As we watched, she bent to grasp the remains of the post, rocking it back and forth, then tried to wrench it up. The earth refused to yield its grip and she straightened up, rubbing her hands before reaching once more for the shovel.

Her back was turned to us and her hair was hidden under her cap, but the arms revealed by her rolled-up sleeves showed plenty of muscle under the wrinkled, sagging skin of old age.

“That’s a hard job for an old woman.” Fisk was trying to sound indifferent, but his eyes slid toward me. “I wonder if she has a room for rent.”

What had so shaped Fisk that he couldn’t simply say, “Let’s help her”?

Getting no response from me, he went on. “You know, we were in jail in this town just a few days ago. It might be a good idea to get a room outside it…just in case someone was fond of Sir Herbert.”

I smiled at this, for ’twas unlikely anyone would be so passionate about a man who hadn’t lived in the area for forty years—and Fisk knew it. His cheeks reddened.

“It’s also possible that one of the men who guarded Sorrowston Tower lives in this backward cow sty,” he said hotly. “They certainly aren’t pleased with us. It’s only sensible to find a place to sleep where everyone in town doesn’t know where we are!”

I grinned, and he glared at me. “You don’t have to work so hard for it,” I told him, and guided Chant over to the woman. “Good morning, Mistress.”