The Leopard Sword (3 page)

The sea was gliding under us as we left our attackers behind.

 

 

 

The
Sint Markt
was aflame far off.

The burning ship reflected in the black water, and even as our captain ordered sails set, I heard Edmund say that we could not leave so many behind.

“We leave them to Heaven's embrace,” said Sir Nigel, his voice a rasp.

We were not free yet. While our former pursuers fell away, new ones arrived, judging by the sound and the white flash of sea around distant oars, the pace of the rowers steady.

Sailors mopped up the red plaster at our feet, a paste of blood and sand.

Enemy galleys were keeping our pace, and I kept the sword in my hand.

We stayed ready all night.

By dawn the wind behind us was stiff, and two enemy galleys followed us against the rising sun. Our oars remained inactive, the weather-bleached lateen sail driving the ship, buckets of bread and wine lowered down through the hatches to the rowers. They lounged about below, laughing and talking like any group of laborers.

The seamen adjusted sail, coiled rope, all with a show of carelessness, but every one of us observed the enemy craft, indistinct shapes on the gray sea. A few men had died of wounds during the night, and a priest's clerk, the holiest person on the ship, spoke the appropriate Latin as the linen-draped bodies were eased into the water. The clerk himself coughed between prayers and had to support himself against the freeboard long after the dead had vanished beneath the white-capped swells.

Edmund had suffered seasickness on his earliest voyage, but he seemed immune to the ailment now. A few men coughed up the ship's bread and pale wine they had taken in, but most were sound enough, perhaps because menace concentrated their thoughts. One enemy vessel dropped away, into the silver horizon, but the other crept closer.

“A ship is no place for my sort of fight,” said Rannulf, taking a swallow of his morning wine. “There's no place for the lance—”

“And certainly no place for a horse,” said Sir Nigel.

Sir Nigel said this without a trace of amusement, but I could not keep the picture from my mind—a knight trying to aim a lance onboard a tossing galley while his nervous mount spilled him. I stifled my laugh, making a single inward cluck, sounding, I am afraid, like a brood hen, and Edmund's cheeks reddened slightly. We avoided looking at each other. I was sure that, spurred by our relief at being alive, we would burst into unseemly laughter.

Sir Nigel gave us a friendly frown. “What do you two know of lance work?” he chided gently.

“My lord, too little, indeed,” said Edmund earnestly.
Too lytle, sertayn.

Edmund was coarser born than I, the son of a staver, a man who cut slats and sold them to coopers to be made into barrels. Edmund had been apprenticed to the once much-respected Otto, royal moneyer, who had been arrested and killed for coining debased silver. Edmund himself had barely escaped brutal punishment. Throughout our journeys together, an inner seriousness kept Edmund eager to learn, as though he might fail in his duties as squire and find himself in prison again. It was not impossible. If Edmund returned to England with reports that he had not fought with honor, the king's men could order him into chains.

Edmund lacked a family name. I, on the other hand, was known as Hubert of Bakewell, and sometimes Hubert Simon-son, although I would have loved to have a more legendary-sounding name. Knights and even squires were honored by surnames endowed by their masters or fellow knights, like the well-known warriors William Sans Peur—“without fear”—Alan Dur de Main, and Harold Longsword. Men did not give themselves such names, except, perhaps, within their own hearts. Otherwise an army would be filled with names like Tom Striketerror or Hubert Fearnaught.

“You think yourselves the stuff of knights,” said Sir Nigel, laughing gently, “but you two both are upstart fledglings.”

“Give us lances, my lord,” I said, speaking for the two of us, “and let us meet any enemy.”

Sir Nigel gave me a good-natured smile, but there was a sadness about him.We had all left friends behind in the Holy Land, and perhaps Nigel felt a lingering sorrow that battle had not claimed his soul during the night.

But this was the first time that Sir Nigel had put into words the hope Edmund and I shared—that we were, in truth, the stuff of knighthood. Surely fledglings grow into full-feathered cocks. It was true that Edmund knew too little about weapons. Knights practice lance work by tilting at the quintain—charging into a span of wood from which hung, on one end, a shield, and on the other a weighted sack. I had practiced the skill myself in England, and during my many months of training as a squire. Edmund had been named a squire just before we all left on the Crusade, and such training, and much else, would be required for Edmund to ripen into knighthood.

“If Heaven wills it,” Sir Nigel was saying, “Rannulf will teach Edmund how to carry a lance, and train Hubert in how to hold his tongue.”

“With pleasure,” said Rannulf, without the trace of a smile. Edmund had attended this famous knight, while I counted myself fortunate to have served Nigel.

I liked to imitate Rannulf behind his back sometimes, forcing Edmund to laugh at his master despite himself. Rannulf 's stony expressions were legendary, and I doubted he took pleasure in food or drink, or passing water, or even attending to an itch.

While most fighting men are close-cropped and clean shaven, Rannulf was bearded, his mouth sword-scarred. He was called Rannulf of Josselin, after the famous joust in that city where he killed six men. Both Rannulf and Nigel were bachelor knights who owned no or little land, and lived well and honorably by hiring themselves to noblemen.

Sir Nigel's reputation convinced my father to pay him to school me in the ways of knighthood. My father would never have struck such an arrangement with Sir Rannulf. Now that Edmund had battle trove in the chest, along with the rest of us, it was truly possible that both of us had gold enough to complete the training someday, and purchase the war-kit needed to become men-at-arms.

But then my thoughts were interrupted by Sir Jean and Nicholas, dragging a third man between them.

“Your manservant,” said Nicholas, looking Edmund in the eye, “is a thief.”

Nicholas held Osbert by the arm. Edmund's servant tried to look as dignified as he could, forced as he was into a crab-like stoop.

“Nay, my lord Edmund,” protested Osbert, “I am no such creature.”

“His hand was in my gipser,” said Nicholas, indicating the leather purse on his belt. Such gipser purses are usually carried by franklins and town worthies with enough coin to make them necessary—most squires would find a belt purse inconvenient in the rough-and-tumble of a voyage.

Squires and shield bearers glanced our way, and a few gathered, but most of the ship's passengers drowsed, drank wine, or sweated off fever.

“Osbert is a worthy servant,” said Edmund formally, “and no thief, on my honor.”

“On your honor,” echoed Nicholas.

Edmund had spoken well, but hastily. Osbert had joined Edmund since the battle, and none of us knew his past.

But the assertion having been made, I stepped to Osbert and took his other arm. “And on mine,” I added, trying to keep my voice steady.

This was all
hyg speche,
high speech, artificial and courtly. It was also, I thought, a little foolish. Osbert had quick hands, and an eager-to-please manner I did not trust.

Sir Nigel and Sir Rannulf looked on, their mouths set. Knights did not involve themselves in disagreements among squires, unless to protect a valued squire's life, but neither did our two masters absent themselves, as many would have done. They remained, aloof but very much a presence, witnessing what was said.

“I saw the thief at work,” said Sir Jean.

Sir Jean's surcoat had been stained with old blood along the hem, but now it was spattered with drying gore—and worse.

“Anyone, my lord, would run from a sight such as yourself,” I offered, hoping I struck the proper joking tone.

Sir Jean had a heavy glance. My teachers had explained to me that vision originates in our eyes, sight emitting from our eyeballs the way rays of light beam outward from a lantern. I had asked Father Giles what happened when we closed our eyes—did the sunny world go dark?

But under the gaze of Sir Jean it was easy to believe, once again, that Father Giles was right. The eye is a source of power—in this case, withering my will. I summoned a glance of my own, and breathed an inward prayer for Heaven's strength.

“What was taken by this thief, good Sir Jean?” asked Sir Nigel.

I wanted to protest.

But Sir Nigel gave me a small signal I had learned to watch for—a tiny dip of his chin, a slight shift of his eye, all directed at me. Sometimes I speak when I should not, unable to rein in my breath. But now I proved my worth by keeping silent.

“It was the attempt that gives offense,” said Sir Jean.

“Leave the servant to us,” said Sir Rannulf carefully through his sword-scarred lips. It was easy to see why man and knight both respected such a voice, as though a gnarled, storm-lashed tree had been given the power of speech.

The serving man rolled his eyes and grimaced in purest terror.

“We'll work a confession out of him,” said Rannulf,“if he hides any sin. And feed him justice.”

“You'll see that he confesses?” asked Sir Jean.

“With cord and sticks,” said Sir Rannulf.

This referred to a simple device, and an effective torture, one I had seen at work in Nottingham, where the town executioner is an adept at separating men from their secrets. Two sticks are connected by a leather thong. The cord circles the offender's head, and the twin sticks are twisted tight until, if no confession starts, the leather cinch compresses the bones of the head.

Edmund and I were livid, quivering with silent protest, kept from blurting a word by a cool look from Sir Nigel.

Osbert sobbed.

Squire Nicholas leaned toward Sir Jean, murmuring into his ear.

Sir Jean looked Edmund up and down, like a man doubtful of the value of a dray mare. “I hear this squire was a counterfeiter's apprentice.”

Sir Rannulf tossed the last of his wine overboard, and let the cup fall to the deck.

He put his hand on his sword.

“Edmund Strongarm served God with King Richard's army,” said Rannulf, speaking slowly and emphatically.

I thrilled at the sound of this—the first time anyone had called my friend such a glorious name. Edmund himself showed no outward emotion, but prickles of pink appeared on his cheek.

“And like any Crusading sinner,” said Sir Nigel, “his past crimes, whatever they might have been, are washed clean.”

Sir Jean stood as tall as he could—he was a big man—and I had a flash of sympathy for him. Like many knights, he was grieved to be leaving the war, and he wanted any possible way to assert his pride.

Nicholas released Osbert. The manservant sprawled on the deck, and then he attempted to be equal to the dignity of a squire-at-arms's service. He stood upright, pulling at his tunic.

Sir Jean put his hands on his hips. “Let me hear the servant confess,” he said.

“We'll attend to this,” said Sir Nigel, “in our own time.” And then Nigel laughed and made an openhanded gesture. “Share some wine with me, each of you.”

 

 

 

The weather was sharpening, waves higher, the wind behind us strong and cold, our sail straining at its ropes.

Edmund and I had arranged a place against the rail, a canopy of canvas, a worn sailcloth on the deck. Sir Nigel offered the serving man a cup of wine, and Osbert drank gratefully. Sir Nigel found a knob of bread wrapped in a blanket—hard, dry ship's fare—and broke off a piece for all of us before he ate any himself.

“The next time, Edmund, such an accusation is voiced, your man will bleed,” said Nigel. The loss of a hand, or an entire limb, was common punishment for stealing, often followed by public hanging. “Guilty or innocent, it will not matter.”

“You will not force a confession?” asked Edmund.

It was a surprise to me to hear Rannulf chuckle, a low, almost silent laugh.

Sir Nigel would have laughed, too, I believe, but did not want to offend his two earnest squires. “Surely, Hubert, you and Edmund don't think that I pay any heed to a Chartrian too stubborn to put on clean clothes?”

“Of course you're equal to the name,” I insisted.

I wondered if Heaven would forgive me for the sin of envy. It was true that I had been a loyal squire to Nigel long before Edmund had stepped across our threshold, and I knew that I was much quicker with a sword. And yet Edmund was the sort of fighting man people follow with their eyes. I believed that while in future battles I would be brave enough, and quick to parry, slice, and cut, piles of dead enemies would heap up around Edmund.

We stood high in the stern castle, gazing into the stiff salt wind. One enemy ship followed us, a loyal shadow.

“Someday,” he said, “I'll become equal to the name, with God's grace.”

I swelled myself up, swelling out my chest.
“Let mee heer heem con-fess,”
I said, sounding, I must confess, every bit exactly like Sir Jean.

“There were flies on his blouse,” said Edmund, as though confiding a secret. Knights were generally discussed with respect, even in private.

I laughed.