Writing to engage the mind and stir the heart.
“This lad is a puzzle, Surra,” Erhard told Mr. Gerhardt as I laboured on a boring document. He’s no braw bard with Latin, but reads it well enough. He’s got a working man’s hands, but a scholar’s mind.”
“I’m not much caring about puzzles, Erhard. And Latin is the language of people with nothing better to do than fill minds with fool’s tales,” Mr. Gerhardt cut in, idly tapping his leg with the horse-whip. “Is this thræl capable of anything ‘sides killing horses?”
“Well, Surra, Bertrm tells me nobody kenned less about horses than this laddie when he started, but he already sits the saddle like he was borned to it. He’s quicker with numbers than I ever was too, and reads the old spellings from generations gone. That’s why I have him at those old land-title documents. Even when my eyes was younger I couldn’t cipher all. . .”
“What are you at there, Thræl?” Mr. Gerhardt interrupted Erhard as he hurled his question at me.
I stretched the time a little before answering him. “It’s in the old spelling, Sir, and I’m trying to determine if this smudge says the boundary borders the Grægstan Bourne from the seventeenth pace north or the seventieth pace north to the old oak tree. With the ink smudged they look much alike.” I pointed to the scroll, and the scrap of parchment on which I had begun to write a copy, ‘seofontientha pas Nor or seofontigotha pas Nor.’
“And what does it matter?” he challenged me.
“It is the task I was given, Sir. It is the difference of 53 paces in the placement of a boundary. That may have significance to. . .”
“The Grægstan Burn, you say.” Mr. Gerhardt interrupted. “Is that Greystone Burn?
“Aye, Sir. Tis just the old spelling.”
“I wonder . . .” Then his voice fell silent for a long moment. Turning to Erhard, ignoring me now, he commanded, “Have that document copied in full, in the old spelling, then translated into readable language. Inform Bertrm that someone else will muck the stalls tonight. Keep this horse killer at the task till it be done.” Mr. Gerhardt’s boots thumped on the floor. At the door he turned back to Erhard. “The scroll is to be seen by none.”
His hand lifted the latch. Then he turned back. His eyes glared at me. “A word of the contents of this scroll will cost you more than you wish to pay.”
“Yes, Sir.” I answered quietly. “The scroll holds no significance to me and I speak little to anyone but Erhard and Bertrm.” I raised my gaze to meet his. “I ween you speak of a whipping, or worse.”
“Aye. And this one you will remember, if you survive it.”
“I ken, Sir, but you make one mistake.” I tried to keep my voice quiet, but could not hide my anger.
“You challenge me?” His voice dropped dangerously.
“I have no memory of how or why I became a thræl, Sir.” I stopped myself before telling how it galled, like a burr under a saddle. I forced myself to speak slowly “I have no memory of the brand or the whippings. I had no reason, beyond doing the task I was given, to take interest in this document. You have given me reason for interest, Sir.” I emphasized the last ‘Sir’ a bit more than necessary.
The latch closed and Mr. Gerhardt walked toward me, his horse whip in his hand, the redness deepening on his face. I heard the hiss of Erhard’s strained breathing, the rustle of his clothes as he backed against the wall.
Mr. Gerhardt’s boots made almost no sound. I met his angry stare. “You’re an insolent whelp, aren’t you?” The whip in his hand drew back.
It took all my stubbornness to sit there as his whip arm came forward. The whip struck the writing table, cutting the parchment, spilling the ink jar. The tip caught my right arm, cutting, stinging like fire. Still, I stared at him.
After several seconds he spat on the floor then spoke coldly. “Clean that mess – before it ruins the original. See that your added interest makes your ciphering accurate and complete.” As he flung the door back he added, “Do not provoke me again.”
He stood in the open doorway, letting a blast of cold air into the cottage. “The scrolls in the shrine room,” he paused, then continued with a sneer sounding in his voice. “They’ve been collecting dust since before my father was killed. They’ll have more to say, though most of it will be useless – the rantings of an old bard.” He stared at me. “I’ll expect you to ‘cipher them too, ‘stead of killing horses.” He slammed the door behind him.
I continued to stare at the door. I heard the soft pat of ink drops striking the floor, the panting breath of Erhard and the swish of a rag wiping up the mess.
A trickle of blood dribbled from my arm and mingled darkly with the ink puddle on the tabletop. A deep sigh rose and escaped. I lifted my arm as Erhard pulled the old scroll away and blotted the ink that had soaked into one edge of it.
“Man be born to trouble as sparks rise to the sky,” Erhard quoted the proverb in a soft voice. “And you seem attracted to it like a moth to a flame.” He finished wiping up the spilled ink while I sat in silence. “How you got outta that one without a flogging I’ll never know.”
“Is it ruined?” I asked, reaching for the scroll. “It would serve him well if it was.”
“It might serve him well, but you would take the whipping for it. He called you insolent whelp. I would say he is not far wrong.”
Erhard stared at me for a long moment, started several times to speak, but each time fell silent again. Finally he told me to inform Bertrm that I would be unavailable in the stable that evening, and perhaps for several days. “Wash yourself. So soon as the bleeding be stopped, come back and get at this scroll. Guess you’ll get to see what’s in that shrine room soon enough.”
I pushed back from the table and rose to my feet, surprised at how unsteady I felt. The mid-afternoon sun gleamed coldly in the west. A flew clouds dotted a soft-blue sky, but a raw wind chilled the sweat on my body. Bertrm did not question me, however bare arms and angry words on a winter day tell their own story, even in the shadows of a stable.
I scrubbed myself at the reservoir, flecks of ice floating on the water. Chilled, I returned to Erhard’s door.
A dark stain spread across the old oak table. The scroll itself showed no damage anywhere it mattered. Letter by letter I copied the text, the quill slashing the parchment. I forced myself to eat the evening meal, then returned to my work.
Late in the evening I sank into the straw in the big house. My eyes burned and my head ached from hours of staring at the wretched manuscript. The cut on my arm stung. Someone else had cared for the wretches in lockup, at least I hoped someone had.
I stretched myself in the straw, trying to shut out the joking and bickering of the boys. I couldn’t shut out the prisoners. Finally, rather disgusted with myself, I brushed the straw off, pulled my boots back on and took the stairs to the cellar.
Æthëlrd stood guard, one of those self-important men with too much love for the beer jug. Even through the fog of my earliest memories, his face and character had burned into my mind. He was built much like Mr. Gerhardt. I suspected they shared blood some generations back. His head too thrust forward from his shoulders. He wore his hair long, and took pride in his carefully trimmed beard. Younger than Mr. Gerhardt, his hair showed no grey, though his beard did. His face belied his character, for he had a gentle face with smile lines around the eyes. I had only seen him smile when inflicting pain. His voice always reminded me of a bull.
“Have these men been fed tonight?” I asked. He just stared at me.
“Have these men been fed tonight?” I asked again, making my voice hard as a lad my age can. Still no answer.
Moving to the barred doorway I spoke to the man in the nearest cell. “Hamil, has anyone brought you food or wat. . . .?”
A hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. The naked blade of a long knife gleamed in the torch’s glow. “Fool horse killer!” A mouth with foul breath spat the deep-toned words at me. “I’ll take the rest of your fingers off, one by one.”
“Nobody’s brought us nothing,” the words reached me from behind the bars.
“Nobody’s gonna bring you nothing, ‘cept the lash, if you don’t shut your gob,” Æthëlrd hurled the words back.
His change of focus gave me my chance. I grabbed his knife arm with both hands, one at the wrist and the other below the elbow. My knee came up as I brought that arm down hard and fast. His mouth hung open when the crack of breaking bones echoed. I spun and drove the heel of my boot into his knee. I completed my spin and planted my fist in the soft of his gut. Before he had drawn a single breath I drove my boot into his groin as he sprawled on the floor. It took all of five seconds to disarm and disable him, without a weapon in my hands.
The thump of unbooted feet sounded on the stairs.
“Drawing steel on an unarmed man is a coward’s act.” I held back nothing of the scorn I felt for the groaning man at my feet. “Drawing steel on a beardless youth and being overcome by him earns you a place among the fools of history.”
Æthëlrd’s breath came in sobbing gasps. His left arm strained for the knife. The heel of my boot came down on reaching fingers, mashing them into the stone floor. “You were going to take fingers off, and it is your knife. I hope you are satisfied with your work this night.”
I bent down and grabbed him by the back of the coat, flipping him over. He groaned and cursed me. I grabbed the keys that hung from his neck, lifting him from the floor till the rawhide thong broke. He fell back, his skull cracking against the flagstones.
I glanced up at the thræls who gaped at the two of us, but said nothing as I turned and unlocked the barred door to the lockup.
“Is anyone in the dark hole tonight?” I asked the other prisoners.
They stared at me like I was some kind of avenging fiend before one of them said no. I dragged Æthëlrd in, opened the heavy oak door at the end of the short passage, and the second door into the smaller of the dark rooms. Heaving the big man inside, I slammed the door, turned the lock, and then closed and locked the outer door as well, shutting out his rumbling curses.
“There’s nothing for you here,” I told the thræls who stared at me when I came back out. “There’s liable to be whippings, so you would be wise to be found elsewhere.” I felt my shoulders sag as that reality sunk in. The exhaustion that had plagued me returned in greater measure, the headache coming with it.
My strength seemed gone as I brought the water bucket into the lockup. “Hold your cups through the bars,” I told the prisoners, then filled each cup from a dipper. My hands shook, spilling water. I closed and locked the outer door, then sagged against it for a long moment.
“Thank ye, Laddie.” The mocking words came from one of the prisoners.
Laddie! Thanking me and calling me an infant in the same breath. I raised my gaze. “I can’t get you food at this hour.” I didn’t much care after the insult. I turned and stumbled away, avoiding the blood spots blackening on the flagstones.
I lay long in the straw before sleep came. The pounding in my head slowly subsided, the echo of Æthëlrd’s arm breaking seeming to replay ever louder.
I had completed my normal duties in the stable and drawn water for the house before we broke fast. I could hardly force myself to eat my own meal. The headache lingered, dull but inescapable. Approaching Mr. Gerhardt I could almost hear the whistle of the whip.
“Permission to speak, Sir.” I requested quietly.
“What is it, Thræl?”
“It is the prisoners, Sir. There were problems last night. I worked late on the parchment and they were not fed. Æthëlrd threatened me with a knife when I checked them.”
“And you come whining to me over that?”
“No, Sir.” I set the keys on the table before him. “He is in the dark lockup and will have difficulty holding a knife for some time. I believed it my duty to inform you and not put others at risk of punishment, since it was I who put him there.”
“You overstep yourself, Thræl.” Mr. Gerhardt spoke the words harshly, but the threat of a chuckle escaped from behind his beard. “I would have given much to see that fight,” he mumbled, half to himself. “He was deep in his cups then. Bring him to me.”
“I doubt he can walk, Sir, and he is a big man to carry.”
“You doubt he can walk,” Mr. Gerhardt mused, “and he will have difficulty holding a knife. What did you to him?”
“I did what a man does when threatened with a weapon.”
“So you are a warrior now as well as a scholar,” Mr. Gerhardt snorted. “Where got you this training, Thræl?”
“I wish I knew, Sir. The lack of memory is at times painful as the whip. Other times I fear what I might find.”
“Erskine, Kenyon, bring swords,” Mr. Gerhardt shouted. “Clear the great room. Test this thræl’s skill with arms. Slay him not.” To me he said, “What weapons will you choose?”
While men pushed benches and tables against the wall, I gazed around the great room. The scraping sound seemed to drive the headache deeper. Swords and shields, pikes, daggers, heavy battle-axes, bows, longbows, slings and staves hung on the walls. I knew a locked armoury in the cellar housed newer and better weapons. I chose a short sword. With a nearly perfect balance, it fit my hand well. The shield that matched it had a spike thrusting out of its face so I left it on the wall, choosing a simpler design that would not cause serious injury.
“You demean us, Sir,” Kenyon protested.
“Bring Æthëlrd up from the dark lockup. Put him in irons, but look well to his injuries before you too loudly protest.” Mr. Gerhardt rebuked Kenyon. “This thræl, unarmed, took the knife from his hand and put him behind bars. I would know what his skills are.”
Moments later they brought Æthëlrd in, scowling and cursing. Shackles on his ankles attached to a ring in the wall. An iron clasp around his neck held him fast. His right arm had swollen grotesquely. The men had carried him up, for he favoured his left leg and could not walk. The fingers of his left hand showed bloody scabs. One twisted at the wrong angle.
Mr. Gerhardt walked up to him and grabbed his chin in his hands. “Drunk last night?” he demanded. “You draw knife on an unarmed thræl – not yet a man – and he leaves you useless as a foundered horse. Bah! You were not much more useful before. If you weren’t already whipped as a dead dog I would have you on the post for a flogging.” He turned away. “Send for the leech. The bone must be set or this man will be good for nothing.
“I’m not much caring about puzzles, Erhard. And Latin is the language of people with nothing better to do than fill minds with fool’s tales,” Mr. Gerhardt cut in, idly tapping his leg with the horse-whip. “Is this thræl capable of anything ‘sides killing horses?”
“Well, Surra, Bertrm tells me nobody kenned less about horses than this laddie when he started, but he already sits the saddle like he was borned to it. He’s quicker with numbers than I ever was too, and reads the old spellings from generations gone. That’s why I have him at those old land-title documents. Even when my eyes was younger I couldn’t cipher all. . .”
“What are you at there, Thræl?” Mr. Gerhardt interrupted Erhard as he hurled his question at me.
I stretched the time a little before answering him. “It’s in the old spelling, Sir, and I’m trying to determine if this smudge says the boundary borders the Grægstan Bourne from the seventeenth pace north or the seventieth pace north to the old oak tree. With the ink smudged they look much alike.” I pointed to the scroll, and the scrap of parchment on which I had begun to write a copy, ‘seofontientha pas Nor or seofontigotha pas Nor.’
“And what does it matter?” he challenged me.
“It is the task I was given, Sir. It is the difference of 53 paces in the placement of a boundary. That may have significance to. . .”
“The Grægstan Burn, you say.” Mr. Gerhardt interrupted. “Is that Greystone Burn?
“Aye, Sir. Tis just the old spelling.”
“I wonder . . .” Then his voice fell silent for a long moment. Turning to Erhard, ignoring me now, he commanded, “Have that document copied in full, in the old spelling, then translated into readable language. Inform Bertrm that someone else will muck the stalls tonight. Keep this horse killer at the task till it be done.” Mr. Gerhardt’s boots thumped on the floor. At the door he turned back to Erhard. “The scroll is to be seen by none.”
His hand lifted the latch. Then he turned back. His eyes glared at me. “A word of the contents of this scroll will cost you more than you wish to pay.”
“Yes, Sir.” I answered quietly. “The scroll holds no significance to me and I speak little to anyone but Erhard and Bertrm.” I raised my gaze to meet his. “I ween you speak of a whipping, or worse.”
“Aye. And this one you will remember, if you survive it.”
“I ken, Sir, but you make one mistake.” I tried to keep my voice quiet, but could not hide my anger.
“You challenge me?” His voice dropped dangerously.
“I have no memory of how or why I became a thræl, Sir.” I stopped myself before telling how it galled, like a burr under a saddle. I forced myself to speak slowly “I have no memory of the brand or the whippings. I had no reason, beyond doing the task I was given, to take interest in this document. You have given me reason for interest, Sir.” I emphasized the last ‘Sir’ a bit more than necessary.
The latch closed and Mr. Gerhardt walked toward me, his horse whip in his hand, the redness deepening on his face. I heard the hiss of Erhard’s strained breathing, the rustle of his clothes as he backed against the wall.
Mr. Gerhardt’s boots made almost no sound. I met his angry stare. “You’re an insolent whelp, aren’t you?” The whip in his hand drew back.
It took all my stubbornness to sit there as his whip arm came forward. The whip struck the writing table, cutting the parchment, spilling the ink jar. The tip caught my right arm, cutting, stinging like fire. Still, I stared at him.
After several seconds he spat on the floor then spoke coldly. “Clean that mess – before it ruins the original. See that your added interest makes your ciphering accurate and complete.” As he flung the door back he added, “Do not provoke me again.”
He stood in the open doorway, letting a blast of cold air into the cottage. “The scrolls in the shrine room,” he paused, then continued with a sneer sounding in his voice. “They’ve been collecting dust since before my father was killed. They’ll have more to say, though most of it will be useless – the rantings of an old bard.” He stared at me. “I’ll expect you to ‘cipher them too, ‘stead of killing horses.” He slammed the door behind him.
I continued to stare at the door. I heard the soft pat of ink drops striking the floor, the panting breath of Erhard and the swish of a rag wiping up the mess.
A trickle of blood dribbled from my arm and mingled darkly with the ink puddle on the tabletop. A deep sigh rose and escaped. I lifted my arm as Erhard pulled the old scroll away and blotted the ink that had soaked into one edge of it.
“Man be born to trouble as sparks rise to the sky,” Erhard quoted the proverb in a soft voice. “And you seem attracted to it like a moth to a flame.” He finished wiping up the spilled ink while I sat in silence. “How you got outta that one without a flogging I’ll never know.”
“Is it ruined?” I asked, reaching for the scroll. “It would serve him well if it was.”
“It might serve him well, but you would take the whipping for it. He called you insolent whelp. I would say he is not far wrong.”
Erhard stared at me for a long moment, started several times to speak, but each time fell silent again. Finally he told me to inform Bertrm that I would be unavailable in the stable that evening, and perhaps for several days. “Wash yourself. So soon as the bleeding be stopped, come back and get at this scroll. Guess you’ll get to see what’s in that shrine room soon enough.”
I pushed back from the table and rose to my feet, surprised at how unsteady I felt. The mid-afternoon sun gleamed coldly in the west. A flew clouds dotted a soft-blue sky, but a raw wind chilled the sweat on my body. Bertrm did not question me, however bare arms and angry words on a winter day tell their own story, even in the shadows of a stable.
I scrubbed myself at the reservoir, flecks of ice floating on the water. Chilled, I returned to Erhard’s door.
A dark stain spread across the old oak table. The scroll itself showed no damage anywhere it mattered. Letter by letter I copied the text, the quill slashing the parchment. I forced myself to eat the evening meal, then returned to my work.
Late in the evening I sank into the straw in the big house. My eyes burned and my head ached from hours of staring at the wretched manuscript. The cut on my arm stung. Someone else had cared for the wretches in lockup, at least I hoped someone had.
I stretched myself in the straw, trying to shut out the joking and bickering of the boys. I couldn’t shut out the prisoners. Finally, rather disgusted with myself, I brushed the straw off, pulled my boots back on and took the stairs to the cellar.
Æthëlrd stood guard, one of those self-important men with too much love for the beer jug. Even through the fog of my earliest memories, his face and character had burned into my mind. He was built much like Mr. Gerhardt. I suspected they shared blood some generations back. His head too thrust forward from his shoulders. He wore his hair long, and took pride in his carefully trimmed beard. Younger than Mr. Gerhardt, his hair showed no grey, though his beard did. His face belied his character, for he had a gentle face with smile lines around the eyes. I had only seen him smile when inflicting pain. His voice always reminded me of a bull.
“Have these men been fed tonight?” I asked. He just stared at me.
“Have these men been fed tonight?” I asked again, making my voice hard as a lad my age can. Still no answer.
Moving to the barred doorway I spoke to the man in the nearest cell. “Hamil, has anyone brought you food or wat. . . .?”
A hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. The naked blade of a long knife gleamed in the torch’s glow. “Fool horse killer!” A mouth with foul breath spat the deep-toned words at me. “I’ll take the rest of your fingers off, one by one.”
“Nobody’s brought us nothing,” the words reached me from behind the bars.
“Nobody’s gonna bring you nothing, ‘cept the lash, if you don’t shut your gob,” Æthëlrd hurled the words back.
His change of focus gave me my chance. I grabbed his knife arm with both hands, one at the wrist and the other below the elbow. My knee came up as I brought that arm down hard and fast. His mouth hung open when the crack of breaking bones echoed. I spun and drove the heel of my boot into his knee. I completed my spin and planted my fist in the soft of his gut. Before he had drawn a single breath I drove my boot into his groin as he sprawled on the floor. It took all of five seconds to disarm and disable him, without a weapon in my hands.
The thump of unbooted feet sounded on the stairs.
“Drawing steel on an unarmed man is a coward’s act.” I held back nothing of the scorn I felt for the groaning man at my feet. “Drawing steel on a beardless youth and being overcome by him earns you a place among the fools of history.”
Æthëlrd’s breath came in sobbing gasps. His left arm strained for the knife. The heel of my boot came down on reaching fingers, mashing them into the stone floor. “You were going to take fingers off, and it is your knife. I hope you are satisfied with your work this night.”
I bent down and grabbed him by the back of the coat, flipping him over. He groaned and cursed me. I grabbed the keys that hung from his neck, lifting him from the floor till the rawhide thong broke. He fell back, his skull cracking against the flagstones.
I glanced up at the thræls who gaped at the two of us, but said nothing as I turned and unlocked the barred door to the lockup.
“Is anyone in the dark hole tonight?” I asked the other prisoners.
They stared at me like I was some kind of avenging fiend before one of them said no. I dragged Æthëlrd in, opened the heavy oak door at the end of the short passage, and the second door into the smaller of the dark rooms. Heaving the big man inside, I slammed the door, turned the lock, and then closed and locked the outer door as well, shutting out his rumbling curses.
“There’s nothing for you here,” I told the thræls who stared at me when I came back out. “There’s liable to be whippings, so you would be wise to be found elsewhere.” I felt my shoulders sag as that reality sunk in. The exhaustion that had plagued me returned in greater measure, the headache coming with it.
My strength seemed gone as I brought the water bucket into the lockup. “Hold your cups through the bars,” I told the prisoners, then filled each cup from a dipper. My hands shook, spilling water. I closed and locked the outer door, then sagged against it for a long moment.
“Thank ye, Laddie.” The mocking words came from one of the prisoners.
Laddie! Thanking me and calling me an infant in the same breath. I raised my gaze. “I can’t get you food at this hour.” I didn’t much care after the insult. I turned and stumbled away, avoiding the blood spots blackening on the flagstones.
I lay long in the straw before sleep came. The pounding in my head slowly subsided, the echo of Æthëlrd’s arm breaking seeming to replay ever louder.
I had completed my normal duties in the stable and drawn water for the house before we broke fast. I could hardly force myself to eat my own meal. The headache lingered, dull but inescapable. Approaching Mr. Gerhardt I could almost hear the whistle of the whip.
“Permission to speak, Sir.” I requested quietly.
“What is it, Thræl?”
“It is the prisoners, Sir. There were problems last night. I worked late on the parchment and they were not fed. Æthëlrd threatened me with a knife when I checked them.”
“And you come whining to me over that?”
“No, Sir.” I set the keys on the table before him. “He is in the dark lockup and will have difficulty holding a knife for some time. I believed it my duty to inform you and not put others at risk of punishment, since it was I who put him there.”
“You overstep yourself, Thræl.” Mr. Gerhardt spoke the words harshly, but the threat of a chuckle escaped from behind his beard. “I would have given much to see that fight,” he mumbled, half to himself. “He was deep in his cups then. Bring him to me.”
“I doubt he can walk, Sir, and he is a big man to carry.”
“You doubt he can walk,” Mr. Gerhardt mused, “and he will have difficulty holding a knife. What did you to him?”
“I did what a man does when threatened with a weapon.”
“So you are a warrior now as well as a scholar,” Mr. Gerhardt snorted. “Where got you this training, Thræl?”
“I wish I knew, Sir. The lack of memory is at times painful as the whip. Other times I fear what I might find.”
“Erskine, Kenyon, bring swords,” Mr. Gerhardt shouted. “Clear the great room. Test this thræl’s skill with arms. Slay him not.” To me he said, “What weapons will you choose?”
While men pushed benches and tables against the wall, I gazed around the great room. The scraping sound seemed to drive the headache deeper. Swords and shields, pikes, daggers, heavy battle-axes, bows, longbows, slings and staves hung on the walls. I knew a locked armoury in the cellar housed newer and better weapons. I chose a short sword. With a nearly perfect balance, it fit my hand well. The shield that matched it had a spike thrusting out of its face so I left it on the wall, choosing a simpler design that would not cause serious injury.
“You demean us, Sir,” Kenyon protested.
“Bring Æthëlrd up from the dark lockup. Put him in irons, but look well to his injuries before you too loudly protest.” Mr. Gerhardt rebuked Kenyon. “This thræl, unarmed, took the knife from his hand and put him behind bars. I would know what his skills are.”
Moments later they brought Æthëlrd in, scowling and cursing. Shackles on his ankles attached to a ring in the wall. An iron clasp around his neck held him fast. His right arm had swollen grotesquely. The men had carried him up, for he favoured his left leg and could not walk. The fingers of his left hand showed bloody scabs. One twisted at the wrong angle.
Mr. Gerhardt walked up to him and grabbed his chin in his hands. “Drunk last night?” he demanded. “You draw knife on an unarmed thræl – not yet a man – and he leaves you useless as a foundered horse. Bah! You were not much more useful before. If you weren’t already whipped as a dead dog I would have you on the post for a flogging.” He turned away. “Send for the leech. The bone must be set or this man will be good for nothing.
FOR CAROLYN
One ring given.
Twice broken from the finger
that wore it—twice repaired.
Once lost at spring flood
in an icy, muddy river—
all but buried in the mud
as the floodwaters receded—
yet found again.
Once cut from a severed finger—
but repaired and worn yet once again.
THE SAME RING—NOT A COPY.
This book is dedicated to the one
who gave me that ring
and still puts up with me
all these years later.
One ring given.
Twice broken from the finger
that wore it—twice repaired.
Once lost at spring flood
in an icy, muddy river—
all but buried in the mud
as the floodwaters receded—
yet found again.
Once cut from a severed finger—
but repaired and worn yet once again.
THE SAME RING—NOT A COPY.
This book is dedicated to the one
who gave me that ring
and still puts up with me
all these years later.
Chapter 1
MEMORIES LOST
4Janus, in the 773rdyear after the Emperor Hadrian
began construction on the Great Wall.
As the present generation would measure time, January 4, 892.
MEMORIES LOST
4Janus, in the 773rdyear after the Emperor Hadrian
began construction on the Great Wall.
As the present generation would measure time, January 4, 892.
BLACKNESS! BLACKNESS TO MAKE EYES ACHE. Stale air. Something hard and cold beneath me. Streaks of fire across my back and shoulders. A pounding inside my skull.
I raised a hand to see what covered my eyes, gasping at the pain, then stared into – blackness. The groan that escaped echoed, like I lay in a room little bigger than the latrine. No memories – just an aching emptiness. No past – only the blinding, empty now.
Woden’s Hall. My mind grasped the thought.I’ve fallen in battle and been carried to Valhalla. Bitter laughter rose within me. But I’ve been found unworthy.
I fought to awaken, to escape the nightmare. The pounding in my head intensified. Tortured hinges groaned. A door? Flickering torchlight danced. The rustle of clothes and hiss of harsh breath sounded.
“Ga. You stink like a dead pole cat.” The deep, slow voice somehow brought to mind a bull.
Cold water shattered the remnants of the dream. I stared through bleary eyes, aware of an intense burning on my left arm, a more extreme pain in a body that felt on fire.
“Master says you’ve rotted here long enough.” The bull’s voice mocked. “Smells like he’s right.”
I searched for names, memories, understanding, but found nothing, my head throbbing with the effort. Two faces loomed through the torch-light.
“Get on your feet and out to the stable. At least you’re closer to the dung-hill there. Mayhap Bertrm will throw you on.” The same bull’s voice.
Clean air found its way past them into the tiny room. I sucked it into my lungs, aching as they expanded. I tried to rise but only managed to drag myself forward, every movement an agony. A boot struck me in the face.
“I said get up, witless, stupid horse-killer,” the words rumbled deeply.
Cruel hands dragged me into a corridor. I coughed and spit blood. A boot dug into my chest and rolled me onto my back.
“Æthëlrd! Kick him again and Master will take his worth outta you. You’ll be lucky you don’t get the lash anyway, letting him git this close to dead.” The second man spoke in a strangely broken voice.
I fought myself to hands and knees. The world spun, a world of greys and blacks. A dark door squatted in a low opening in the stone wall on my right. On the left a steel gate enclosed another cell. Another door stood open in front of me, more cells beyond it. The men crowded the corridor.
“Get on your feet. I ain’t about to carry something stinks as bad as you.” The one called Æthëlrd flung contempt at me, slowly, deliberately, like he was piling dung.
It took all my strength to force my body up. I felt sick and dizzy. The rattle of keys and the thump of an iron gate sounded as I stumbled into a larger room. A torch gave smoky, flickering light. Climbing the stairs wrung a groan from me.
“The stable, Fool! Where the four legged animals live.” Æthëlrd’s voice vibrated in my bones, but told me nothing.
“Go easy Æthëlrd. He don’t know which way is up yet. Show him, but keep your boots off him.” The broken voice spoke in my defense again.
I raised a hand to see what covered my eyes, gasping at the pain, then stared into – blackness. The groan that escaped echoed, like I lay in a room little bigger than the latrine. No memories – just an aching emptiness. No past – only the blinding, empty now.
Woden’s Hall. My mind grasped the thought.I’ve fallen in battle and been carried to Valhalla. Bitter laughter rose within me. But I’ve been found unworthy.
I fought to awaken, to escape the nightmare. The pounding in my head intensified. Tortured hinges groaned. A door? Flickering torchlight danced. The rustle of clothes and hiss of harsh breath sounded.
“Ga. You stink like a dead pole cat.” The deep, slow voice somehow brought to mind a bull.
Cold water shattered the remnants of the dream. I stared through bleary eyes, aware of an intense burning on my left arm, a more extreme pain in a body that felt on fire.
“Master says you’ve rotted here long enough.” The bull’s voice mocked. “Smells like he’s right.”
I searched for names, memories, understanding, but found nothing, my head throbbing with the effort. Two faces loomed through the torch-light.
“Get on your feet and out to the stable. At least you’re closer to the dung-hill there. Mayhap Bertrm will throw you on.” The same bull’s voice.
Clean air found its way past them into the tiny room. I sucked it into my lungs, aching as they expanded. I tried to rise but only managed to drag myself forward, every movement an agony. A boot struck me in the face.
“I said get up, witless, stupid horse-killer,” the words rumbled deeply.
Cruel hands dragged me into a corridor. I coughed and spit blood. A boot dug into my chest and rolled me onto my back.
“Æthëlrd! Kick him again and Master will take his worth outta you. You’ll be lucky you don’t get the lash anyway, letting him git this close to dead.” The second man spoke in a strangely broken voice.
I fought myself to hands and knees. The world spun, a world of greys and blacks. A dark door squatted in a low opening in the stone wall on my right. On the left a steel gate enclosed another cell. Another door stood open in front of me, more cells beyond it. The men crowded the corridor.
“Get on your feet. I ain’t about to carry something stinks as bad as you.” The one called Æthëlrd flung contempt at me, slowly, deliberately, like he was piling dung.
It took all my strength to force my body up. I felt sick and dizzy. The rattle of keys and the thump of an iron gate sounded as I stumbled into a larger room. A torch gave smoky, flickering light. Climbing the stairs wrung a groan from me.
“The stable, Fool! Where the four legged animals live.” Æthëlrd’s voice vibrated in my bones, but told me nothing.
“Go easy Æthëlrd. He don’t know which way is up yet. Show him, but keep your boots off him.” The broken voice spoke in my defense again.
Æthëlrd stomped across the room, flung back a door and jerked his head to the right. The outside light blinded me as I swayed in the doorway. “Get!” Æthëlrd spat the word, then gave me a shove. I fell forward, stone steps with their dusting of snow pounded my already tortured body.
At the base of the stairs my breath came in sobbing gasps. I pressed my face into the thin, dirty snow and sucked some of it into my mouth. I struggled to rise, but slumped forward again.
The cold had lost its bite when a boot thrust against my shoulder.
“Curse Woden. Be this what they send me? Already dead? And I git to dig his grave.” The boot pressed harder. “Git up. You don’t die at my stable door. Jist try it and I’ll kill you.” A man bent over me, then got a hand under my arm and threatened to pull it off. I don’t know how I got my feet under me, but I stood, swaying, staring at the short, twisted man before me. I knew the voice and the face, but couldn’t put a name to him.
“You!” he burst out. “The beardless horse killer? Again? By all the gods! What have I done to deserve this?”
“Where? What?” I questioned stupidly. “Why – can’t – I remember?” I stared around me. We stood in a walled courtyard covered in snow. A beaten path led to a tiny building set against an old fortress wall. The stone walls of a large house towered behind me and to my right. Dark and gloomy under a grey sky, it seemed to tease some memory, but I could make nothing of it.
“It talks,” the voice mocked, then continued. “Theodoric. That’s what they calls you ain’t it? And horse killer.” He snorted. “A half-grown whelp but already a horse killer.” He spat on the ground beside my feet. “Git yourself inside then. I’m stuck with you and you’re stuck with me. Two bleeding thræls who git as much say as pigs fattened for slaughter.”
I stumbled beside him, his hand tight on my arm. He was rough and coarse, but in a strange way comforting. The stable door opened and then closed behind us. The dimmer light soothed my eyes. We walked between heaps of fodder and straw.
“There’s steps here. You don’t need no more falls,” the man warned just before we descended two steps to stand among horse stalls.
At the closest water bucket I fell to my knees, cupped water and drew it up to my face. I sucked it from filthy hands, then scrubbed my face.
“No water in the dark hole? Someday Æthëlrd will get his.” The man shoved me aside and grabbed the bucket. “No horse will wanna drink from that now. Woden’s beard, but you stink. Did they not give you a bucket in the dark hole?” He carried the bucket to the doorway and pitched the remaining water outside. “Stretch yourself in the straw. You’re no good to nobody till you can work.”
Questions churned in my mind, but my tongue seemed thick, words weighty and cumbersome. The next thing I knew a hand roughly grabbed my shoulder. “Here. The lassie brought you something to eat. Something fitting to drink too – better’n the horse bucket. They won’t let you to board, the way you stink.”
I tried to rub the sleep from my eyes and stared up to a young wench carrying a trencher of food and a jug. “Where am I?” I questioned. “Who are you?”
“You that daft?” The man beside the wench spat on the floor. “Dierdre here, worked in the kitchens afore you killed Mr. Gerhardt’s best horse and got the whipping post for your troubles. You worked for me afore that too.” He snorted. “She had eyes for you, though you was too sick to see.”
“Stow it, Bertrm. Unless you want to wear this.” The girl raised the jug toward him.
“Ha!” Bertrm snorted. “You wouldn’t dare.” But he backed away, grinning.
“Wanna try me?” she shot back at him.
“Na. Don’t waste it on me. The laddie here is the one what needs a bath.”
I struggled to my feet. “Why – can’t I remember things?” I hurt, bad, like someone had ridden a threshing sledge over me. I wore old patched pants made of some heavy woven stuff. High boots covered my feet. I wore a sark of wool covered by a leather coat. Some kind of hat pulled at my scalp.
“I’m Bertrm, stable-hand, thræl, jist like you, ‘cept I hope I still have some sense.” The man shoved me down in the straw and yanked the hat away from my head. Caked with dried blood, it tore hair and skin out with it.
“What the. . .” I burst out. A gasp sounded from Dierdre.
“I shouldda guessed it,” Bertrm muttered. “Got no business being alive, head beat in like that.”
“Well sorry to disappoint you,” I spat the words at him. “I’ll try harder to die next time.” Sickness washed over me. I pressed my hand against the wound and felt the stickiness of blood.
Bertrm muttered something as he stomped away, limping, then came back with a dirty rag. “Mop up the blood and see can you keep out of trouble till it heals,” he said gruffly. He turned to Dierdre. “Shouldda let him eat first,” he said, half apologetically.
“Aye,” she agreed, then knelt in the straw beside me. “Eat.” She thrust the trencher into my hands. “It’ll give you something to think about while I try to clean the crud from your scalp.” She drew in a sharp breath. “Bertrm got one thing right. Don’t know why you’re still alive.”
The food didn’t do it. Only stupid, stubborn pride kept me from screaming while Dierdre clipped away matted hair and scrubbed at caked blood. I gulped the small jug of ale when she finished and sank back into the straw.
At the base of the stairs my breath came in sobbing gasps. I pressed my face into the thin, dirty snow and sucked some of it into my mouth. I struggled to rise, but slumped forward again.
The cold had lost its bite when a boot thrust against my shoulder.
“Curse Woden. Be this what they send me? Already dead? And I git to dig his grave.” The boot pressed harder. “Git up. You don’t die at my stable door. Jist try it and I’ll kill you.” A man bent over me, then got a hand under my arm and threatened to pull it off. I don’t know how I got my feet under me, but I stood, swaying, staring at the short, twisted man before me. I knew the voice and the face, but couldn’t put a name to him.
“You!” he burst out. “The beardless horse killer? Again? By all the gods! What have I done to deserve this?”
“Where? What?” I questioned stupidly. “Why – can’t – I remember?” I stared around me. We stood in a walled courtyard covered in snow. A beaten path led to a tiny building set against an old fortress wall. The stone walls of a large house towered behind me and to my right. Dark and gloomy under a grey sky, it seemed to tease some memory, but I could make nothing of it.
“It talks,” the voice mocked, then continued. “Theodoric. That’s what they calls you ain’t it? And horse killer.” He snorted. “A half-grown whelp but already a horse killer.” He spat on the ground beside my feet. “Git yourself inside then. I’m stuck with you and you’re stuck with me. Two bleeding thræls who git as much say as pigs fattened for slaughter.”
I stumbled beside him, his hand tight on my arm. He was rough and coarse, but in a strange way comforting. The stable door opened and then closed behind us. The dimmer light soothed my eyes. We walked between heaps of fodder and straw.
“There’s steps here. You don’t need no more falls,” the man warned just before we descended two steps to stand among horse stalls.
At the closest water bucket I fell to my knees, cupped water and drew it up to my face. I sucked it from filthy hands, then scrubbed my face.
“No water in the dark hole? Someday Æthëlrd will get his.” The man shoved me aside and grabbed the bucket. “No horse will wanna drink from that now. Woden’s beard, but you stink. Did they not give you a bucket in the dark hole?” He carried the bucket to the doorway and pitched the remaining water outside. “Stretch yourself in the straw. You’re no good to nobody till you can work.”
Questions churned in my mind, but my tongue seemed thick, words weighty and cumbersome. The next thing I knew a hand roughly grabbed my shoulder. “Here. The lassie brought you something to eat. Something fitting to drink too – better’n the horse bucket. They won’t let you to board, the way you stink.”
I tried to rub the sleep from my eyes and stared up to a young wench carrying a trencher of food and a jug. “Where am I?” I questioned. “Who are you?”
“You that daft?” The man beside the wench spat on the floor. “Dierdre here, worked in the kitchens afore you killed Mr. Gerhardt’s best horse and got the whipping post for your troubles. You worked for me afore that too.” He snorted. “She had eyes for you, though you was too sick to see.”
“Stow it, Bertrm. Unless you want to wear this.” The girl raised the jug toward him.
“Ha!” Bertrm snorted. “You wouldn’t dare.” But he backed away, grinning.
“Wanna try me?” she shot back at him.
“Na. Don’t waste it on me. The laddie here is the one what needs a bath.”
I struggled to my feet. “Why – can’t I remember things?” I hurt, bad, like someone had ridden a threshing sledge over me. I wore old patched pants made of some heavy woven stuff. High boots covered my feet. I wore a sark of wool covered by a leather coat. Some kind of hat pulled at my scalp.
“I’m Bertrm, stable-hand, thræl, jist like you, ‘cept I hope I still have some sense.” The man shoved me down in the straw and yanked the hat away from my head. Caked with dried blood, it tore hair and skin out with it.
“What the. . .” I burst out. A gasp sounded from Dierdre.
“I shouldda guessed it,” Bertrm muttered. “Got no business being alive, head beat in like that.”
“Well sorry to disappoint you,” I spat the words at him. “I’ll try harder to die next time.” Sickness washed over me. I pressed my hand against the wound and felt the stickiness of blood.
Bertrm muttered something as he stomped away, limping, then came back with a dirty rag. “Mop up the blood and see can you keep out of trouble till it heals,” he said gruffly. He turned to Dierdre. “Shouldda let him eat first,” he said, half apologetically.
“Aye,” she agreed, then knelt in the straw beside me. “Eat.” She thrust the trencher into my hands. “It’ll give you something to think about while I try to clean the crud from your scalp.” She drew in a sharp breath. “Bertrm got one thing right. Don’t know why you’re still alive.”
The food didn’t do it. Only stupid, stubborn pride kept me from screaming while Dierdre clipped away matted hair and scrubbed at caked blood. I gulped the small jug of ale when she finished and sank back into the straw.
Frost covered scraped animal skins stretched over the windows when I awoke. A bit of snow made a line beside the door. A big gelding stood in the aisle, sides heaving and steam coming off its coat.
“Theodoric! Master’s gonna be back soon. Git up and git the saddle off that horse,” Bertrm hollered at me. Thrown by horses too many times, he was strangely twisted. I staggered as I walked to the gelding. “Buck up laddie,” Bertrm added more gently. “You’d best have his saddle on a fresh horse when he gits back.”
I stared at the saddle, trying to figure how to get the thing off. With the buckles and straps, I didn’t know where to start. I had weird, half-memories: a steaming horse and a bucket of water, shouting voices, something that whistled and cracked, and a dark, dark room where no voices reached – just pain.
“What in the name of all the gods you doing?” Bertrm challenged me. “You act like you’ve never seen a saddle afore.” When he got close to me he burst out with, “Ga! You stink!” He shoved me aside. I couldn’t quite stop a groan.
“Pretty buckered up ain’t you? Still not thinking too clear neither.” His voice dropped to a mutter. “Fools! If you ever had any sense, which I doubt, they beat it outta you.” He spat on the floor. “Another beating will kill you, but he’ll only think of that afterwards. And Theodoric!” His voice got hard. “Don’t even think about watering this horse for the next half hour.”
Bertrm had another horse saddled and ready when the stable door banged back. The man who barged in had a head thrust forward from broad shoulders. Cold eyes stared at me. It had to be the master, ‘Mr. Gerhardt,’ Bertrm had called him. His dark hair, drawn together with a twist of rope at the back of his head, showed grey streaks. White dominated his crudely trimmed beard. A hard looking, powerful man, he wore leather breeches, a dark stained coat and a hat made from sheep skin. A sword and purse hung from his belt. He held a short horsewhip in one hand. His face twisted and he sniffed as he stared at me. “By the gods, Bertrm! Dig a hole and bury him.”
“Aye, Sir. He sure enough smells over-ripe for burying.”
“Where do they breed this kind?” the master asked. I didn’t know you could put a sneer in the sound of a voice.
“Well, Sir, this’n seen hard work, but don’t know nothing about horses. Ain’t been time to teach him, only here two days and still sick from the brand when it happened. I don’t reckon I’m telling you nothing you ain’t already seen, but he’d been whipped afore, and not yet healed up. His head beat in too and he hardly didn’t know his own name. Woden’s beard, Sir! Another week and I’d tie him to the post myself if he pulled such a stunt. But he was doing the best he knowed for the horse.”
“You’d defend a thief and horse killer?” The master’s voice dropped to a low growl.
“That was a braw horse he ruint, Sir. I was powerful fond of that horse. I most wanted to git in a few licks myself.” Bertrm paused as he checked the saddle. “No Sir. I ain’t defending nobody. It comes nigh to being a hanging crime by my reckoning. But if lads be like horses there be two kinds. I’ve seen the look this laddie had under the whip jist five times in my day.”
“And what look is that?” The master’s voice sounded his contempt.
“You sees it in their eyes first time you drop a rope round their neck, Sir. The young whelps are all hell-bent for riding them, cause they’re beautiful to look on. But they’ll die afore they bend to the whip and the spur.”
I could feel the master’s gaze on me again. He reached across the saddle, grabbed an arrow from the quiver and pulled his bow free. I felt my whole body go sick, then somehow hard. I stood stiff and straight, staring at the master, just daring him to plug a hole in my chest.
He notched the arrow. “So it’s shoot him or cut him loose so he’ll breed more of the same. Don’t think I want a whole litter of the like.” He drew back on the string and I stared death in the eye.
“Aye, Sir. Three of them horses died fighting the rope.” Bertrm prattled on. “But I watched a man who loved horses better’n his own bairns. He got ahold of that beastie after three young lads had been dragged away to let their broke ribs heal. I never seen a ride like that one, Sir!”
Bertram sighed, savouring some special memory. “I swear he’d glued hisself to the saddle. Time that horse quit bucking he couldn’t walk. But he’d won hisself the best piece of horseflesh a man might see in two lifetimes. More’n one horse been named Llewellyn, but I don’t guess there’s ever been one earned the name so afore. He was sure enough lightning.”
A story – while I waited to die. I wished I had an arrow aimed at Bertrm. Sweat ran down my face.
“And the other one?” The master prompted.
“The other was a braw horse. Name of Rolf. But not the match of that grey. . .” Bertrm’s voice fell silent for a moment, then he continued. “I rode him out.” He paused again. “He throwed me. But he bucked clean under me again. I come down with my chest acrost the hard part of the saddle.” His glance swept the stable, coming to rest on me. “I don’t remember the rest of the ride. I mustta stuck, somehow. I ain’t done much riding since, or drawed a breath that don’t hurt.”
“And the horse?” The master kept shifting the arrow, aiming it at my gut or my chest.
“Nobody else couldn’t sit him, but I’d rode him out so they give me some say. He’s the granddaddy of the one this lad ruint.”
“So I bury this whelp, or whip him till one of us drops?” The aim rose to my throat.
“I don’t rightly know about laddies, Sir, but I seen his eyes at the whipping, and I seen his eyes jist now with that arrow aimed at his gizzard. I guess it’s a long shot that he’s worth the extra trouble, Sir, so shootings prob’ly the thing, cause I reckon there ain’t no in between.”
I just stood there and waited. I wanted to kill Bertrm. The master grunted. He slacked the bow and stuck the arrow back in his bag. He swung onto the horse, leaning low under the beams. Bertrm swung the door back and Mr. Gerhardt spurred the horse out into the stormy evening.
“I wasn’t in the mood for digging your grave tonight.” Bertrm spoke harshly, his breath coming in quick gasps.
“You told him to kill me.” I spat the words back at him.
“You still so blind? His pride wouldda made him think he’d gotta stick you. I saved your neck, boy, and I stuck mine out a long way to do it.” He glared across the back of the gelding. “And you killed a braw horse.”
“I didn’t kill any horse.”
“You killed it sure as if you’d hamstrung it and cut its throat.” He ducked under the horse’s head and grabbed me by the front of my coat. “I aughtta have let him put an arrow in you. No sense and no ‘preciation.”
He shoved me back. I stumbled and cried out when my back hit the wall. I lunged forward, my hands spread to break my fall. My head started pounding and spinning again. When I could focus I looked up at Bertrm. He stared at my hand like he had seen a wraith.
“You gots – nine fingers?” He spoke in a slow and broken voice.
I got back on my feet and waited until the stable stopped spinning. “Nine?” I spoke disdainfully. “That’s what’s left if one is missing.”
The stump of a finger showed just short of the knuckle on my left hand. I could have told him the toe on my left foot was the same.
Bertrm propelled me out of the stable. I didn’t know where he was taking me, or what got his crippled legs going so fast. He pounded on the door of a small cottage. An old man opened it.
“Ah, Bertrm. Come in. Set ye and bide.” His glance swept me, then ignored me. I stood there, waiting for the dizziness to pass.
“Well?” Bertrm questioned me. “You jist going to stand there while the house gits cold?” I stamped the snow off my boots and came inside. Bertrm reached past me and pulled the door closed.
The old man stared at me with obvious disgust. “Not a bucket in the darkroom, or did you roll this laddie in the latrine, Bertrm? Take him to the horse trough first and take the stink off.”
Bertrm pulled the old man aside and they mumbled in low voices. “Thunder ‘n damnation!” the old man burst out. I could feel his gaze sweep me, coming to the stump on my left hand.
A peat fire glowed in the fireplace along one wall. A pair of candles flickered at a small table with a scroll spread across it. Round clay jars held more scrolls. I could see inkpots and quills. A map hung from pegs on one wall. The only window wore a thick rim of frost. With a crude bed and the small table, three of us crowded the room. Hands stained by the ink he worked with contrasted with the man’s pale flesh. A bit of chalky white hair still clung to his bony scalp. A shrunken man, very old, yet fully alive.
“Erhard, this be Theodoric,” Bertrm said. “Already famous for killing Patton, Master Gerhardt’s fav’rit horse.”
Erhard stared at me a bit, then poured some dark liquid into earthenware jugs. He passed one to me. I couldn’t make sense of why he served me first. “To your health and long life, Surra.” He pronounced ‘Sir’ strangely, accenting the “rr’s” and ending with an “ah.” He held his cup up to mine, then sipped a few drops.
“And to yours,” I stammered, astonished that he had called me “Sir.”
Erhard, my mind rolled the name around. Strong Resolution. He searched among clay jars, muttering to himself. “Thunder ‘n damnation! Never thought it’d happen in my cabin, or he’d stink like they’d dug him outta a grave when they found him.” He pulled a jar from among the others. Smaller than most, this one had an old look about it.
He closed his inkpot and put his quills away, then rolled the scroll he’d been working on. He polished the table with a rag. He wiped his own hands, then opened the door, stood there and breathed deeply a number of times.Erhard closed the door again and thrust the bolt across. Then he spread a dry and brittle parchment, yellowed with age. “Can you read this?” he asked me. Candlelight flickered across it.
“Theodoric! Master’s gonna be back soon. Git up and git the saddle off that horse,” Bertrm hollered at me. Thrown by horses too many times, he was strangely twisted. I staggered as I walked to the gelding. “Buck up laddie,” Bertrm added more gently. “You’d best have his saddle on a fresh horse when he gits back.”
I stared at the saddle, trying to figure how to get the thing off. With the buckles and straps, I didn’t know where to start. I had weird, half-memories: a steaming horse and a bucket of water, shouting voices, something that whistled and cracked, and a dark, dark room where no voices reached – just pain.
“What in the name of all the gods you doing?” Bertrm challenged me. “You act like you’ve never seen a saddle afore.” When he got close to me he burst out with, “Ga! You stink!” He shoved me aside. I couldn’t quite stop a groan.
“Pretty buckered up ain’t you? Still not thinking too clear neither.” His voice dropped to a mutter. “Fools! If you ever had any sense, which I doubt, they beat it outta you.” He spat on the floor. “Another beating will kill you, but he’ll only think of that afterwards. And Theodoric!” His voice got hard. “Don’t even think about watering this horse for the next half hour.”
Bertrm had another horse saddled and ready when the stable door banged back. The man who barged in had a head thrust forward from broad shoulders. Cold eyes stared at me. It had to be the master, ‘Mr. Gerhardt,’ Bertrm had called him. His dark hair, drawn together with a twist of rope at the back of his head, showed grey streaks. White dominated his crudely trimmed beard. A hard looking, powerful man, he wore leather breeches, a dark stained coat and a hat made from sheep skin. A sword and purse hung from his belt. He held a short horsewhip in one hand. His face twisted and he sniffed as he stared at me. “By the gods, Bertrm! Dig a hole and bury him.”
“Aye, Sir. He sure enough smells over-ripe for burying.”
“Where do they breed this kind?” the master asked. I didn’t know you could put a sneer in the sound of a voice.
“Well, Sir, this’n seen hard work, but don’t know nothing about horses. Ain’t been time to teach him, only here two days and still sick from the brand when it happened. I don’t reckon I’m telling you nothing you ain’t already seen, but he’d been whipped afore, and not yet healed up. His head beat in too and he hardly didn’t know his own name. Woden’s beard, Sir! Another week and I’d tie him to the post myself if he pulled such a stunt. But he was doing the best he knowed for the horse.”
“You’d defend a thief and horse killer?” The master’s voice dropped to a low growl.
“That was a braw horse he ruint, Sir. I was powerful fond of that horse. I most wanted to git in a few licks myself.” Bertrm paused as he checked the saddle. “No Sir. I ain’t defending nobody. It comes nigh to being a hanging crime by my reckoning. But if lads be like horses there be two kinds. I’ve seen the look this laddie had under the whip jist five times in my day.”
“And what look is that?” The master’s voice sounded his contempt.
“You sees it in their eyes first time you drop a rope round their neck, Sir. The young whelps are all hell-bent for riding them, cause they’re beautiful to look on. But they’ll die afore they bend to the whip and the spur.”
I could feel the master’s gaze on me again. He reached across the saddle, grabbed an arrow from the quiver and pulled his bow free. I felt my whole body go sick, then somehow hard. I stood stiff and straight, staring at the master, just daring him to plug a hole in my chest.
He notched the arrow. “So it’s shoot him or cut him loose so he’ll breed more of the same. Don’t think I want a whole litter of the like.” He drew back on the string and I stared death in the eye.
“Aye, Sir. Three of them horses died fighting the rope.” Bertrm prattled on. “But I watched a man who loved horses better’n his own bairns. He got ahold of that beastie after three young lads had been dragged away to let their broke ribs heal. I never seen a ride like that one, Sir!”
Bertram sighed, savouring some special memory. “I swear he’d glued hisself to the saddle. Time that horse quit bucking he couldn’t walk. But he’d won hisself the best piece of horseflesh a man might see in two lifetimes. More’n one horse been named Llewellyn, but I don’t guess there’s ever been one earned the name so afore. He was sure enough lightning.”
A story – while I waited to die. I wished I had an arrow aimed at Bertrm. Sweat ran down my face.
“And the other one?” The master prompted.
“The other was a braw horse. Name of Rolf. But not the match of that grey. . .” Bertrm’s voice fell silent for a moment, then he continued. “I rode him out.” He paused again. “He throwed me. But he bucked clean under me again. I come down with my chest acrost the hard part of the saddle.” His glance swept the stable, coming to rest on me. “I don’t remember the rest of the ride. I mustta stuck, somehow. I ain’t done much riding since, or drawed a breath that don’t hurt.”
“And the horse?” The master kept shifting the arrow, aiming it at my gut or my chest.
“Nobody else couldn’t sit him, but I’d rode him out so they give me some say. He’s the granddaddy of the one this lad ruint.”
“So I bury this whelp, or whip him till one of us drops?” The aim rose to my throat.
“I don’t rightly know about laddies, Sir, but I seen his eyes at the whipping, and I seen his eyes jist now with that arrow aimed at his gizzard. I guess it’s a long shot that he’s worth the extra trouble, Sir, so shootings prob’ly the thing, cause I reckon there ain’t no in between.”
I just stood there and waited. I wanted to kill Bertrm. The master grunted. He slacked the bow and stuck the arrow back in his bag. He swung onto the horse, leaning low under the beams. Bertrm swung the door back and Mr. Gerhardt spurred the horse out into the stormy evening.
“I wasn’t in the mood for digging your grave tonight.” Bertrm spoke harshly, his breath coming in quick gasps.
“You told him to kill me.” I spat the words back at him.
“You still so blind? His pride wouldda made him think he’d gotta stick you. I saved your neck, boy, and I stuck mine out a long way to do it.” He glared across the back of the gelding. “And you killed a braw horse.”
“I didn’t kill any horse.”
“You killed it sure as if you’d hamstrung it and cut its throat.” He ducked under the horse’s head and grabbed me by the front of my coat. “I aughtta have let him put an arrow in you. No sense and no ‘preciation.”
He shoved me back. I stumbled and cried out when my back hit the wall. I lunged forward, my hands spread to break my fall. My head started pounding and spinning again. When I could focus I looked up at Bertrm. He stared at my hand like he had seen a wraith.
“You gots – nine fingers?” He spoke in a slow and broken voice.
I got back on my feet and waited until the stable stopped spinning. “Nine?” I spoke disdainfully. “That’s what’s left if one is missing.”
The stump of a finger showed just short of the knuckle on my left hand. I could have told him the toe on my left foot was the same.
Bertrm propelled me out of the stable. I didn’t know where he was taking me, or what got his crippled legs going so fast. He pounded on the door of a small cottage. An old man opened it.
“Ah, Bertrm. Come in. Set ye and bide.” His glance swept me, then ignored me. I stood there, waiting for the dizziness to pass.
“Well?” Bertrm questioned me. “You jist going to stand there while the house gits cold?” I stamped the snow off my boots and came inside. Bertrm reached past me and pulled the door closed.
The old man stared at me with obvious disgust. “Not a bucket in the darkroom, or did you roll this laddie in the latrine, Bertrm? Take him to the horse trough first and take the stink off.”
Bertrm pulled the old man aside and they mumbled in low voices. “Thunder ‘n damnation!” the old man burst out. I could feel his gaze sweep me, coming to the stump on my left hand.
A peat fire glowed in the fireplace along one wall. A pair of candles flickered at a small table with a scroll spread across it. Round clay jars held more scrolls. I could see inkpots and quills. A map hung from pegs on one wall. The only window wore a thick rim of frost. With a crude bed and the small table, three of us crowded the room. Hands stained by the ink he worked with contrasted with the man’s pale flesh. A bit of chalky white hair still clung to his bony scalp. A shrunken man, very old, yet fully alive.
“Erhard, this be Theodoric,” Bertrm said. “Already famous for killing Patton, Master Gerhardt’s fav’rit horse.”
Erhard stared at me a bit, then poured some dark liquid into earthenware jugs. He passed one to me. I couldn’t make sense of why he served me first. “To your health and long life, Surra.” He pronounced ‘Sir’ strangely, accenting the “rr’s” and ending with an “ah.” He held his cup up to mine, then sipped a few drops.
“And to yours,” I stammered, astonished that he had called me “Sir.”
Erhard, my mind rolled the name around. Strong Resolution. He searched among clay jars, muttering to himself. “Thunder ‘n damnation! Never thought it’d happen in my cabin, or he’d stink like they’d dug him outta a grave when they found him.” He pulled a jar from among the others. Smaller than most, this one had an old look about it.
He closed his inkpot and put his quills away, then rolled the scroll he’d been working on. He polished the table with a rag. He wiped his own hands, then opened the door, stood there and breathed deeply a number of times.Erhard closed the door again and thrust the bolt across. Then he spread a dry and brittle parchment, yellowed with age. “Can you read this?” he asked me. Candlelight flickered across it.
Chapter 2
PARCHMENTS AND PROPHECIES
PARCHMENTS AND PROPHECIES
“IT’S AN OLD SCRIPT WITH UNCOUTH SPELLING,” I said. “But it’s plain enough – except that middle part in runes.”
“Well?” Erhard demanded.
A stabbing headache forced me to close my eyes for a moment. Then, with my finger marking the spot, I read, slowly translating the ancient script into recognizable language. “It’s something about ‘feared the steed he’ – but it’s cut off. Then,
“Well?” Erhard demanded.
A stabbing headache forced me to close my eyes for a moment. Then, with my finger marking the spot, I read, slowly translating the ancient script into recognizable language. “It’s something about ‘feared the steed he’ – but it’s cut off. Then,
“Feared the nine fingers that wield weapons of war yet give no quarter when weapons be broken all.
Restored will be the ring. Renewed will be the kingdom.
Of old has it been told. By the ancients has it been prophesied. Yet will it be said in his day, ‘Of no importance is it. Neither of any consequence.’
Restored will be the ring. Renewed will be the kingdom.
Of old has it been told. By the ancients has it been prophesied. Yet will it be said in his day, ‘Of no importance is it. Neither of any consequence.’
“Then you get this bit in Runes.”
“Almost – I think I can read them. Nin – Nine. It’s a nine – I think – that first word.” I glanced up.
“And below that? Where you can read it?” The old man spoke with a strange blend of restraint and urgency, respect and impatience.
Again I closed my eyes a moment, then searched lower on the parchment. “It’s a poor piece of work with the smudged print,” I blurted.
“And below that? Where you can read it?” The old man spoke with a strange blend of restraint and urgency, respect and impatience.
Again I closed my eyes a moment, then searched lower on the parchment. “It’s a poor piece of work with the smudged print,” I blurted.
He of the nine fingers. With many stripes his back is crossed. Clouded is his memory Red blood flows from many wounds.
Many the blows of his beating. He the accused. Yet of old is the prophecy. The ring by him found shall give proof of his office. He is a warrior born. His destiny from of old is sealed. Yet few will his title recognize or give the honour due him.
Trials and much wrong will first ensue. Then will be restored to him the ring who alone may rightfully wear it.
Of nine fingers is he. Mighty in battle. Called of old Killer of Horses.
Many the blows of his beating. He the accused. Yet of old is the prophecy. The ring by him found shall give proof of his office. He is a warrior born. His destiny from of old is sealed. Yet few will his title recognize or give the honour due him.
Trials and much wrong will first ensue. Then will be restored to him the ring who alone may rightfully wear it.
Of nine fingers is he. Mighty in battle. Called of old Killer of Horses.
“Killer of horses?” My glance swept from the old man to Bertrm and back again. “Isn’t that what I got whipped for?”
“Please to finish the reading, Surra,” Erhard urged me.
I lowered my gaze and found my place on the parchment again.
“Please to finish the reading, Surra,” Erhard urged me.
I lowered my gaze and found my place on the parchment again.
His son perchance will better fare with seemly honour and the tribute of men.
For fierce will be the battle in that day. Many the dead. Loud the weeping. The raven and the vulture feed. Black the smoke of funeral piers.
For fierce will be the battle in that day. Many the dead. Loud the weeping. The raven and the vulture feed. Black the smoke of funeral piers.
“And there it is cut off again.”
“That’s what it really says?” Bertrm questioned Erhard. He stared at the parchment.
Erhard ignored Bertrm’s question. He rolled the parchment, wrapped it and returned it to its jar. He asked, “Where got you your training?”
“It’s ordinary script with old style spelling.” I responded. “There’s nothing special about being able to read it.”
He brought out several other scrolls in three different languages. I could read two of them easily and laboured through the third. He put them away and then stood and looked at me for the longest time. Then he grabbed my hands and examined them, staring especially at the stump of a finger on my left hand.
“They’re working man’s hands, not a scholar’s hands.” Erhard seemed to talk to himself. He pushed my sleeves back and exposed the bruising on my wrists. “How’d this happen?” he asked. I shook my head. I supposed they had tied me for the whippings, but didn’t remember.
“And the whippings?” Erhard continued to question me.
“My back feels like it’s on fire, but I don’t remember the whippings. I just feel like I’ve been beaten and my head’s been used for an anvil.”
“What do you remember?”
A thousand memories seemed just out of reach. Nothing was clear before the whipping. I shrugged.
“But you read with skill,” Erhard’s voice held wonder, as at some rare accomplishment.
“Doesn’t everybody?” I questioned.
Bertrm snorted, but Erhard responded. “In the opinion of your owner, Surra, reading be for the feeble and the idle. He reads enough to cipher a bill of sale for buying a thræl, but sees no value in pursuing it no further. I have made myself somewhat useful as a scrivener, but it be a value he holds in contempt. Could I also play the harp and sing like the bards of old, perchance I would be of some worth in his eyes.” He fumbled with something in the corner. “The strength of your arm and your skill with a sword – the way you sit a horse and your courage in battle – those now, are things he values.” He handed me a sheathed sword.
My hands instantly felt at home as I drew it from the scabbard. I knew in an instant too, that no armourer had made it. “The balance is poor,” I said. I ran my finger across the rough edge. “It would not stand against a good sword.” Still, it felt good in my hand. I swung it slowly. The small room did not have space to make it sing through the air, if such poor workmanship could sing. Muscles protested, but I somehow knew how to complete the motion.
I wasn’t listening much, enjoying the feel of the sword in my hand. But I heard Erhard respond to some question from Bertrm. “I don’t know, Bertrm. It fits and it don’t fit.”
“So what do we do?” Bertrm asked.
“We wait, and we watch,” Erhard responded. “I wish we could get the rest of the scroll, but if I ask after it, it’ll get tongues wagging.”
“How came you to have that one?” Bertrm asked.
“It has been in my care above forty years.” Erhard fixed me with his gaze and I stopped my slow swinging of the sword. “You of no memory. A careless tongue will cost your life as well as ours.”
I held the blade and stared at him. I didn’t mean disrespect. He lowered his gaze after a moment.
“It was entrusted to me by my grandfather after my father died in the library fire. I’m the fourth of my line to hold it.” He seemed to battle with some intense emotion. “A copy was made of the full prophecy. That piece was torn from the original scroll. It be old beyond belief. The copy of the full scroll was in my father’s hand when the wall fell on him. The scroll was rescued by one of the Druids.”
He reached out and grabbed the sword from me, gripping it by the blade. A trickle of blood flowed over the heel of his hand, down his wrist and forearm. “My father was jist a thræl as his father before him and his son after him. He was nothing to the Druids. The same hand that took the scroll could have pulled him from the fire. It did not.” He spat on the floor. “I was flogged – and sold – after I spoke a bit too freely about the high calling of holy men.”
He smeared blood the length of the blade. “Mayhap this blade still thirsts for blood.” He found the rag he had wiped the table with and crushed it in his bleeding hand, then continued. “I learned to read, no small task for a thræl, for I wished to know what my father died to save. But the script has been beyond my ken all these years.” His voice became quieter. “I thought the runes flædg-stafir, deliberately misleading. In time I made myself valuable as a scrivener and began to get other scrolls.” His focus drifted away from us.
“Forty years I have waited for him of the nine fingers. This one comes with no memory, but with knowledge of languages and hands that wield a weapon like a warrior born. I dare not assume it be him. I dare not assume it be not.”
He clamped his jaws shut as if he would not speak again, then jerked the bolt free and flung back the door.
“I never thought the very air of his coming would be the death of me.” He spun on his heel.
“Take him to the horse trough. Scald his clothes. Douse him with turpentine. It might stop the rot that grows in wounds. If he be man enough to take that without screaming, maybe he really is our warrior.” He turned back inside and threw a block of peat into the fireplace, dismissing us.
An ice-water bath when the skin has been flayed off your back and your hair is matted with blood isn’t something to dwell on. I couldn’t see the whip cuts, and only part of the brand on my left shoulder, a big “T” Bertrm told me meant “Thief.” There was a reason it felt like someone had stuck a piece of red-hot iron on me. They had.
After the turpentine, burned alive should come easy. The clothes Bertrm gave me had a smoky smell, like they had dried too close to a fire. I’d forgotten what clean felt – or smelled like. I don’t know who got the job of scalding my clothes. Probably some common thræl. That’s what you are, I reminded myself. The way my whole body ached and burned, it shouldn’t have taken any reminders.
At board that night, Dierdre served. Her swollen belly showed her with child. I don’t know how I’d missed that before. A hopeless look seemed to cloud her eyes, but there was something more also, a strength, a defiance she didn’t quite manage to hide. Still half sick from the turpentine treatment, I could eat little, but she drew my attention. I didn’t have many memories, but I hadn’t forgotten her hands on my scalp. If a maid’s hands are supposed to feel like an eagle’s talons tearing a rabbit apart, I don’t know why men are so drawn to them.
The Master ate from pewter or silver while trenchers, spoons and cups of a dark stained wood held food and drink for the rest of us.
Fat clung to the pig flesh set before me. The ale in my cup tasted bitter, the biscuit dry and hard. My place was way below the salt-cellar. I couldn’t remember why that mattered.
Nine people sat at board. They included the Master, four men and three lads near my age. Dierdre and an older woman who helped serve rarely spoke and did not sit or eat in our presence. No children appeared and none had I heard.
I spent that night on a bit of straw in the big house. Three lads sprawled under smoke-stained oak beams in a small square room with a stone fireplace built in the centre. The tallest one got up when I tried to find a spot. “Stupid horse killer,” he sneered. He spit where I prepared to lay, then moved to the other side of the fire, deliberately kicking one of the boys in his way.
Some things can’t be let go. He stood taller than me, but had not yet filled out across the chest and shoulders. In the dim light I could not gauge his strength, or if he carried any weapon. Grabbing him under the chin, I shoved him against the corner where stone met oak planks. He started to kick and punch, but I kept squeezing harder, lifting till his feet barely touched the floor. His face got red and his punches got weak awfully fast. He wasn’t nearly so tough as I’d expected. I let up a bit, then twisted one arm behind him and got a fistful of hair. I shoved his face into his own spit.
“Okay, Theodoric. That’ll do.” A hushed urgency sounded in Bertrm’s voice. I hadn’t known he was still there.
I looked at Bertrm. “Guess you’re right,” I said and let him go.
The guy threw himself back out of the straw, stumbled and smacked his head on the fireplace stones. Cursing, he kicked one of the lads in the face. The battle-blood still hot in me, I grabbed him by his hair and belt and mashed his face into the corner. “Kick someone else in the face and maybe they’ll find a different name for me than Horse Killer,” I hurled the words at him.
“Theodoric, keep your voice down,” Bertrm cautioned me.
“Sheffield!” he blasted the boy. Then he dropped volume to a strangely subdued voice. “You called that up of your own self. Keep it up and there’ll be a flogging tomorrow and a week in lockup – probably the dark hole, and well deserved as I’ve seen.”
An hour later I heard footsteps across the floor above my head. I lay on my right side, avoiding the brand. The stones seemed to probe upward through the straw, reaching hard fingers to claw at my raw back. My mind searched desperately for some hint of my past, an identity, some reason to claim the name everyone called me by.
I woke stiff and sore, but my back didn’t burn so badly. The headache, dulled now, still plagued me. Blood had oozed from my scalp wound and I picked the straw out of it. I watched as the others tried to come to life. No sign of a beard showed on the face of the spitter from the night before, so I pegged him at about fourteen. I felt much older than that.
We broke fast with scratchy barley porridge. Little talk broke the dull clunk of spoons on wooden bowls, but the sound of laughter from the kitchens startled me. I realized I had heard none since coming from the dark hole. Dierdre brought food in and took bowls away. I guessed her age at 14 or 15. She wore her hair down like an unmarried lass. A bairn close to its time did nothing for her appearance, but eyes full of laughter, even with her gaze down, transformed her somehow.
Another woman, with hair done up like a matron, helped serve. A pinched faced woman with a sour expression sat at board. A man I had not seen before also shared the meal.
I didn’t see or hear any signal, but everyone pushed back from the board and headed out the door. Not knowing where to go, I waited. “You looking for another beating?” Bertrm’s voice reached me from the door.
“Nobody told me what to do,” I replied.
“They told you yesterday. Master don’t believe in telling people something twice.”
I went with Bertrm and found I could move a bit more freely today. He shoved a fork into my hands and I made a clumsy attempt at cleaning stalls. My sark pulled and burned where whip cuts still oozed.
A dung pile steamed along the east fortress wall. I stood and worked the kinks out of my back and shoulders. The old stone loomed dark and glowering. The newer buildings showed the mark of centuries, backed against ancient stone walls. The ruins of a tower thrust through a section of the roof at the east end of the house. Big and foreboding, the house, built into the remnants of fortress walls, reached high sullen peaks and smoking chimneys against a grey sky. Narrow windows showed a feeble light, yellowed by the scraped animal skins covering them. Steeply roofed with slate, not thatch, it seemed grown from the rocks it stood upon, and as hard and cold. No vines softened the harsh lines, although moss struggled to cling to the face of some of the stones.
A walled courtyard cowered in the gloom of the house. Stained, hard packed snow showed the passage of men and horses. Smoke drifted from the chimney of Erhard’s cottage against the east fortress wall, and also from another cottage and a guard house against the west wall. Thatch covered the cottage roofs, old and grey, but still holding some memory of a warmer, softer gold.
A pair of whipping posts thrust out of the snow between the guard house and the west cottage. A dog sniffed at the stained snow, then lifted its leg against the post. Yellow droplets blended with the pink stain at their base – not yet covered by fresh snow. At least one whipping had followed mine, but the blood drove a sickness into my gut.
“That’s what it really says?” Bertrm questioned Erhard. He stared at the parchment.
Erhard ignored Bertrm’s question. He rolled the parchment, wrapped it and returned it to its jar. He asked, “Where got you your training?”
“It’s ordinary script with old style spelling.” I responded. “There’s nothing special about being able to read it.”
He brought out several other scrolls in three different languages. I could read two of them easily and laboured through the third. He put them away and then stood and looked at me for the longest time. Then he grabbed my hands and examined them, staring especially at the stump of a finger on my left hand.
“They’re working man’s hands, not a scholar’s hands.” Erhard seemed to talk to himself. He pushed my sleeves back and exposed the bruising on my wrists. “How’d this happen?” he asked. I shook my head. I supposed they had tied me for the whippings, but didn’t remember.
“And the whippings?” Erhard continued to question me.
“My back feels like it’s on fire, but I don’t remember the whippings. I just feel like I’ve been beaten and my head’s been used for an anvil.”
“What do you remember?”
A thousand memories seemed just out of reach. Nothing was clear before the whipping. I shrugged.
“But you read with skill,” Erhard’s voice held wonder, as at some rare accomplishment.
“Doesn’t everybody?” I questioned.
Bertrm snorted, but Erhard responded. “In the opinion of your owner, Surra, reading be for the feeble and the idle. He reads enough to cipher a bill of sale for buying a thræl, but sees no value in pursuing it no further. I have made myself somewhat useful as a scrivener, but it be a value he holds in contempt. Could I also play the harp and sing like the bards of old, perchance I would be of some worth in his eyes.” He fumbled with something in the corner. “The strength of your arm and your skill with a sword – the way you sit a horse and your courage in battle – those now, are things he values.” He handed me a sheathed sword.
My hands instantly felt at home as I drew it from the scabbard. I knew in an instant too, that no armourer had made it. “The balance is poor,” I said. I ran my finger across the rough edge. “It would not stand against a good sword.” Still, it felt good in my hand. I swung it slowly. The small room did not have space to make it sing through the air, if such poor workmanship could sing. Muscles protested, but I somehow knew how to complete the motion.
I wasn’t listening much, enjoying the feel of the sword in my hand. But I heard Erhard respond to some question from Bertrm. “I don’t know, Bertrm. It fits and it don’t fit.”
“So what do we do?” Bertrm asked.
“We wait, and we watch,” Erhard responded. “I wish we could get the rest of the scroll, but if I ask after it, it’ll get tongues wagging.”
“How came you to have that one?” Bertrm asked.
“It has been in my care above forty years.” Erhard fixed me with his gaze and I stopped my slow swinging of the sword. “You of no memory. A careless tongue will cost your life as well as ours.”
I held the blade and stared at him. I didn’t mean disrespect. He lowered his gaze after a moment.
“It was entrusted to me by my grandfather after my father died in the library fire. I’m the fourth of my line to hold it.” He seemed to battle with some intense emotion. “A copy was made of the full prophecy. That piece was torn from the original scroll. It be old beyond belief. The copy of the full scroll was in my father’s hand when the wall fell on him. The scroll was rescued by one of the Druids.”
He reached out and grabbed the sword from me, gripping it by the blade. A trickle of blood flowed over the heel of his hand, down his wrist and forearm. “My father was jist a thræl as his father before him and his son after him. He was nothing to the Druids. The same hand that took the scroll could have pulled him from the fire. It did not.” He spat on the floor. “I was flogged – and sold – after I spoke a bit too freely about the high calling of holy men.”
He smeared blood the length of the blade. “Mayhap this blade still thirsts for blood.” He found the rag he had wiped the table with and crushed it in his bleeding hand, then continued. “I learned to read, no small task for a thræl, for I wished to know what my father died to save. But the script has been beyond my ken all these years.” His voice became quieter. “I thought the runes flædg-stafir, deliberately misleading. In time I made myself valuable as a scrivener and began to get other scrolls.” His focus drifted away from us.
“Forty years I have waited for him of the nine fingers. This one comes with no memory, but with knowledge of languages and hands that wield a weapon like a warrior born. I dare not assume it be him. I dare not assume it be not.”
He clamped his jaws shut as if he would not speak again, then jerked the bolt free and flung back the door.
“I never thought the very air of his coming would be the death of me.” He spun on his heel.
“Take him to the horse trough. Scald his clothes. Douse him with turpentine. It might stop the rot that grows in wounds. If he be man enough to take that without screaming, maybe he really is our warrior.” He turned back inside and threw a block of peat into the fireplace, dismissing us.
An ice-water bath when the skin has been flayed off your back and your hair is matted with blood isn’t something to dwell on. I couldn’t see the whip cuts, and only part of the brand on my left shoulder, a big “T” Bertrm told me meant “Thief.” There was a reason it felt like someone had stuck a piece of red-hot iron on me. They had.
After the turpentine, burned alive should come easy. The clothes Bertrm gave me had a smoky smell, like they had dried too close to a fire. I’d forgotten what clean felt – or smelled like. I don’t know who got the job of scalding my clothes. Probably some common thræl. That’s what you are, I reminded myself. The way my whole body ached and burned, it shouldn’t have taken any reminders.
At board that night, Dierdre served. Her swollen belly showed her with child. I don’t know how I’d missed that before. A hopeless look seemed to cloud her eyes, but there was something more also, a strength, a defiance she didn’t quite manage to hide. Still half sick from the turpentine treatment, I could eat little, but she drew my attention. I didn’t have many memories, but I hadn’t forgotten her hands on my scalp. If a maid’s hands are supposed to feel like an eagle’s talons tearing a rabbit apart, I don’t know why men are so drawn to them.
The Master ate from pewter or silver while trenchers, spoons and cups of a dark stained wood held food and drink for the rest of us.
Fat clung to the pig flesh set before me. The ale in my cup tasted bitter, the biscuit dry and hard. My place was way below the salt-cellar. I couldn’t remember why that mattered.
Nine people sat at board. They included the Master, four men and three lads near my age. Dierdre and an older woman who helped serve rarely spoke and did not sit or eat in our presence. No children appeared and none had I heard.
I spent that night on a bit of straw in the big house. Three lads sprawled under smoke-stained oak beams in a small square room with a stone fireplace built in the centre. The tallest one got up when I tried to find a spot. “Stupid horse killer,” he sneered. He spit where I prepared to lay, then moved to the other side of the fire, deliberately kicking one of the boys in his way.
Some things can’t be let go. He stood taller than me, but had not yet filled out across the chest and shoulders. In the dim light I could not gauge his strength, or if he carried any weapon. Grabbing him under the chin, I shoved him against the corner where stone met oak planks. He started to kick and punch, but I kept squeezing harder, lifting till his feet barely touched the floor. His face got red and his punches got weak awfully fast. He wasn’t nearly so tough as I’d expected. I let up a bit, then twisted one arm behind him and got a fistful of hair. I shoved his face into his own spit.
“Okay, Theodoric. That’ll do.” A hushed urgency sounded in Bertrm’s voice. I hadn’t known he was still there.
I looked at Bertrm. “Guess you’re right,” I said and let him go.
The guy threw himself back out of the straw, stumbled and smacked his head on the fireplace stones. Cursing, he kicked one of the lads in the face. The battle-blood still hot in me, I grabbed him by his hair and belt and mashed his face into the corner. “Kick someone else in the face and maybe they’ll find a different name for me than Horse Killer,” I hurled the words at him.
“Theodoric, keep your voice down,” Bertrm cautioned me.
“Sheffield!” he blasted the boy. Then he dropped volume to a strangely subdued voice. “You called that up of your own self. Keep it up and there’ll be a flogging tomorrow and a week in lockup – probably the dark hole, and well deserved as I’ve seen.”
An hour later I heard footsteps across the floor above my head. I lay on my right side, avoiding the brand. The stones seemed to probe upward through the straw, reaching hard fingers to claw at my raw back. My mind searched desperately for some hint of my past, an identity, some reason to claim the name everyone called me by.
I woke stiff and sore, but my back didn’t burn so badly. The headache, dulled now, still plagued me. Blood had oozed from my scalp wound and I picked the straw out of it. I watched as the others tried to come to life. No sign of a beard showed on the face of the spitter from the night before, so I pegged him at about fourteen. I felt much older than that.
We broke fast with scratchy barley porridge. Little talk broke the dull clunk of spoons on wooden bowls, but the sound of laughter from the kitchens startled me. I realized I had heard none since coming from the dark hole. Dierdre brought food in and took bowls away. I guessed her age at 14 or 15. She wore her hair down like an unmarried lass. A bairn close to its time did nothing for her appearance, but eyes full of laughter, even with her gaze down, transformed her somehow.
Another woman, with hair done up like a matron, helped serve. A pinched faced woman with a sour expression sat at board. A man I had not seen before also shared the meal.
I didn’t see or hear any signal, but everyone pushed back from the board and headed out the door. Not knowing where to go, I waited. “You looking for another beating?” Bertrm’s voice reached me from the door.
“Nobody told me what to do,” I replied.
“They told you yesterday. Master don’t believe in telling people something twice.”
I went with Bertrm and found I could move a bit more freely today. He shoved a fork into my hands and I made a clumsy attempt at cleaning stalls. My sark pulled and burned where whip cuts still oozed.
A dung pile steamed along the east fortress wall. I stood and worked the kinks out of my back and shoulders. The old stone loomed dark and glowering. The newer buildings showed the mark of centuries, backed against ancient stone walls. The ruins of a tower thrust through a section of the roof at the east end of the house. Big and foreboding, the house, built into the remnants of fortress walls, reached high sullen peaks and smoking chimneys against a grey sky. Narrow windows showed a feeble light, yellowed by the scraped animal skins covering them. Steeply roofed with slate, not thatch, it seemed grown from the rocks it stood upon, and as hard and cold. No vines softened the harsh lines, although moss struggled to cling to the face of some of the stones.
A walled courtyard cowered in the gloom of the house. Stained, hard packed snow showed the passage of men and horses. Smoke drifted from the chimney of Erhard’s cottage against the east fortress wall, and also from another cottage and a guard house against the west wall. Thatch covered the cottage roofs, old and grey, but still holding some memory of a warmer, softer gold.
A pair of whipping posts thrust out of the snow between the guard house and the west cottage. A dog sniffed at the stained snow, then lifted its leg against the post. Yellow droplets blended with the pink stain at their base – not yet covered by fresh snow. At least one whipping had followed mine, but the blood drove a sickness into my gut.
Behind the whipping posts, almost against the fortress wall itself, archery targets stood on low posts, the beaten snow showing them well used.
The corner of a latrine showed beyond the second stable. Animal pens with low stone fences completed the courtyard, butting against Erhard’s cottage. The pens stood empty, the gates open. A drift of fog seeped from the open stable door. The wheel track of a barrow led to the dung heap I stood beside.
I sighed and forced myself to push the barrow back through the stable door. I finally asked the question churning in my mind. “You said I killed the horse. How’d I do that, put an arrow in it or something?”
“You can’t water a horse when it’s hot, else you’ll founder it.” Bertrm spat the words like I should have known it from birth. “You couldn’t have picked a worse way to introduce yourself to your new owner.”
I ignored what he said about an owner. That didn’t bear thinking about just now. “What’s founder?” I asked.
“You really don’t know nothing do you?” he said with a sigh. “The joints all stiffen up. Sometimes they gits better, but mostly they don’t.” He looked at me for a long time. “That was a good horse – best on the place. Master Gerhardt will remember you for a long time.”
I had started out badly with Bertrm. Destroying a horse did not merit quick forgiveness. A hard taskmaster, he took my ignorance of horses as a personal affront. I learned the parts of a saddle and bridle and how a horse would puff its belly when you cinched up the saddle. I learned the parts of a horse too, from fetlocks to mane. Bertrm knew horses well. I worked hard and learned fast. He did not speak his growing respect, but it began to show in his actions.
Spittin’ Sheffield steered a wide path around me. That name stuck like a burr the first time somebody used it. He may have hurried me to a leadership role among the lads by trying to put me in my place that first night. He found he’d grabbed a snake, not a stick. And he had got it by the wrong end and it bit him.
The corner of a latrine showed beyond the second stable. Animal pens with low stone fences completed the courtyard, butting against Erhard’s cottage. The pens stood empty, the gates open. A drift of fog seeped from the open stable door. The wheel track of a barrow led to the dung heap I stood beside.
I sighed and forced myself to push the barrow back through the stable door. I finally asked the question churning in my mind. “You said I killed the horse. How’d I do that, put an arrow in it or something?”
“You can’t water a horse when it’s hot, else you’ll founder it.” Bertrm spat the words like I should have known it from birth. “You couldn’t have picked a worse way to introduce yourself to your new owner.”
I ignored what he said about an owner. That didn’t bear thinking about just now. “What’s founder?” I asked.
“You really don’t know nothing do you?” he said with a sigh. “The joints all stiffen up. Sometimes they gits better, but mostly they don’t.” He looked at me for a long time. “That was a good horse – best on the place. Master Gerhardt will remember you for a long time.”
I had started out badly with Bertrm. Destroying a horse did not merit quick forgiveness. A hard taskmaster, he took my ignorance of horses as a personal affront. I learned the parts of a saddle and bridle and how a horse would puff its belly when you cinched up the saddle. I learned the parts of a horse too, from fetlocks to mane. Bertrm knew horses well. I worked hard and learned fast. He did not speak his growing respect, but it began to show in his actions.
Spittin’ Sheffield steered a wide path around me. That name stuck like a burr the first time somebody used it. He may have hurried me to a leadership role among the lads by trying to put me in my place that first night. He found he’d grabbed a snake, not a stick. And he had got it by the wrong end and it bit him.
Mr. Gerhardt still looked at me like something he might scrape off his boots.
Taking food and water down to the lockup and emptying the night buckets became one of my tasks. You remember fast that you’re a slave, a thræl, while you carry someone else’s mess to the latrine. Each cell had a shallow wooden bowl for bodily needs, a second one for food. They could just slide under the bottom bars of the doorways. A slide would lift on the doors of the dark holes, but again the bowls would slip through. Dumped in a larger bucket, the stink clung to the stained wood.
I had no clear memories of my time in the lockup. The darkrooms proved a hated punishment for crimes that didn’t quite warrant a flogging and the long sickness that would follow. They also added to the punishment for major crimes. No blanket or straw eased the discomfort of cold stone, and the low ceiling did not give height enough to stand. They told me I’d spent five days. Lack of memory has some benefits.
I also got the job of drawing water for the stable and the house. The stable well with its old wheel was dug outside the foundation wall. A stone trough took the water through the wall and into a cistern inside. The ice that formed outside during the winter never got too thick because horses, cows and pigs go through a lot of water every day. Fresh water melted any ice, morning and evening.
Drawing water for the house took me to the attic, a strange place to find a well. Yet careful planning showed. Tipping the bucket into a shallow trough of oak planks would feed a reservoir. From there it flowed through multiple reservoirs, each against one of the chimneys from the kitchens below, warming the water. Feeding through five tanks, the final one felt warm to the touch. About waist deep and lined with lead, they also provided a great reserve for times of fire.
Weighted plugs attached to ropes fed warm or cold water to the kitchens or to laundry tubs on the
second floor. Spouts overhung troughs set into the ground at the front and back of the house. You could water a horse or fight a fire.
Taking food and water down to the lockup and emptying the night buckets became one of my tasks. You remember fast that you’re a slave, a thræl, while you carry someone else’s mess to the latrine. Each cell had a shallow wooden bowl for bodily needs, a second one for food. They could just slide under the bottom bars of the doorways. A slide would lift on the doors of the dark holes, but again the bowls would slip through. Dumped in a larger bucket, the stink clung to the stained wood.
I had no clear memories of my time in the lockup. The darkrooms proved a hated punishment for crimes that didn’t quite warrant a flogging and the long sickness that would follow. They also added to the punishment for major crimes. No blanket or straw eased the discomfort of cold stone, and the low ceiling did not give height enough to stand. They told me I’d spent five days. Lack of memory has some benefits.
I also got the job of drawing water for the stable and the house. The stable well with its old wheel was dug outside the foundation wall. A stone trough took the water through the wall and into a cistern inside. The ice that formed outside during the winter never got too thick because horses, cows and pigs go through a lot of water every day. Fresh water melted any ice, morning and evening.
Drawing water for the house took me to the attic, a strange place to find a well. Yet careful planning showed. Tipping the bucket into a shallow trough of oak planks would feed a reservoir. From there it flowed through multiple reservoirs, each against one of the chimneys from the kitchens below, warming the water. Feeding through five tanks, the final one felt warm to the touch. About waist deep and lined with lead, they also provided a great reserve for times of fire.
Weighted plugs attached to ropes fed warm or cold water to the kitchens or to laundry tubs on the
second floor. Spouts overhung troughs set into the ground at the front and back of the house. You could water a horse or fight a fire.
A narrow path between heaps of fodder and straw reached the pigeon cote above the pigs. The
small birds fascinated me. However, they fell under Spittin’ Sheffield’s care. I questioned Bertrm and Erhard, but they could tell me little. I often slipped into the cote area when I had a spare moment and knew Spittin’ Sheffield worked elsewhere. I wasn’t about to tell him, but his skill with the birds showed.
I often wondered about the ring I had read of that first day. With muddled memories and nobody telling you anything, your mind does its best to fill the blanks. The trouble though, it was all blank. It’s like trying to paint the whole sky blue with two hairs from a horse’s tail. It’s a slow process.
By the end of two weeks I had mostly healed. My scalp and my back itched. The headaches came often still, but not so severe. It’s strange how a pitchfork uses the same muscles as swinging a sword, but doesn’t appeal the same at all.
I took to the saddle quickly. It took some getting used to handling the reins so the horse knew what I had in mind. A saucy filly by the name of Lorellefue, Little Fool, had dumped most of the lads a time or two. Less than half broke, she had an attitude. I took my time. I didn’t suppose two beginners would be great teachers for each other. Most of the men show little interest because she was a small-framed animal. Bertrm figured so far as a thræl can have anything to call his own, she’d be mine if I could make her mind. He said Master would find the name fitting as well.
That thræl word still stuck in my craw, but there seemed no help for it.
small birds fascinated me. However, they fell under Spittin’ Sheffield’s care. I questioned Bertrm and Erhard, but they could tell me little. I often slipped into the cote area when I had a spare moment and knew Spittin’ Sheffield worked elsewhere. I wasn’t about to tell him, but his skill with the birds showed.
I often wondered about the ring I had read of that first day. With muddled memories and nobody telling you anything, your mind does its best to fill the blanks. The trouble though, it was all blank. It’s like trying to paint the whole sky blue with two hairs from a horse’s tail. It’s a slow process.
By the end of two weeks I had mostly healed. My scalp and my back itched. The headaches came often still, but not so severe. It’s strange how a pitchfork uses the same muscles as swinging a sword, but doesn’t appeal the same at all.
I took to the saddle quickly. It took some getting used to handling the reins so the horse knew what I had in mind. A saucy filly by the name of Lorellefue, Little Fool, had dumped most of the lads a time or two. Less than half broke, she had an attitude. I took my time. I didn’t suppose two beginners would be great teachers for each other. Most of the men show little interest because she was a small-framed animal. Bertrm figured so far as a thræl can have anything to call his own, she’d be mine if I could make her mind. He said Master would find the name fitting as well.
That thræl word still stuck in my craw, but there seemed no help for it.
Chapter 3
BLOODLINES AND BOUNDARIES
BLOODLINES AND BOUNDARIES
THE LADS’ SLEEPING AREA was similar to the men’s although more often disturbed by someone heading out to the latrine. A threshold held straw from spilling into the great room. A large stone hearth consumed peat blocks. Mr. Gerhardt threatened whippings if hot coals ever reached the straw.
Bertrm and I spent many evenings with Erhard. He seemed bound to make up for my lack of memory by making me read every scroll he had – except one. I’d look where that jar had stood, but he had removed it – little room though he had to hide anything. I noticed Bertrm picking up reading too.
I grilled them for clues about my past. “It’s only the bloodlines of horses Master cares about,” Bertrm finally informed me. “All I know is you was beaten bloody on the auction block. You wasn’t bringing a price worth spitting at, so he took a chance on you. When you killed Paton, he had you whipped again, and thrown in the dark hole.”
“So I wasn’t even a fit thræl to buy,” I stopped myself before spitting on the floor.
“Thunder ‘n damnation, Surra! You was ready for a hole in the ground. Didn’t know your own name. And Bertrm’s telling it straight too. Master don’t care about your bloodline. You’re jist one more piece of horseflesh. Though the stunt you pulled on his horse, he was gonna feed you to the kelpies.”
I didn’t need reminders of my title. What if I was the thief that deserved the whippings I had gotten? Or what if I was kin to someone like Spittin’ Sheffield? It’s strange though, having no past. Every time I would get my hands on a sword, it seemed some memory drew painfully close. But it only tormented.
Five weeks I had spent in the house before I knew Mr. Gerhardt had a daughter, though I had sometimes heard sounds I could not account for. Only by chance did I see her then, while climbing the stair to draw water.
The bairn, perhaps eight years old, showed a pale complexion. Startlingly pretty, she had been spared her father’s jutting head. Her hair, brushed till it gleamed and falling across her shoulders in bronze waves, gave a softness to her face. Her eyes danced with a blend of fear and mischief when she saw me. Kept so secluded, her caretaker had doubtless taught her to fear men. Still lacking a beard, I may have been young enough to not disturb her.
Her nurse tried to usher her back into her private rooms, chastising me the while. The child teased and tormented. She ran into a room I had never seen opened, then closed the door. The nurse stood outside and wrung her hands. She seemed torn between ridding herself of me and rescuing her charge from this strange room. She feared something. I went about my duties, but could hear her voice pleading with the child, though I could not make out the words.
She was the pinched-face woman who broke fast with us in the morning. She wore her hair tied back severely, pulling her already narrow face even tighter. It drew her eyebrows up in an astonished expression, as if she had bitten into a piece of rotten fruit. She wore a drab garment that hid her form. I knew she sometimes helped in the kitchen, but had not known what other duties she had.
Later I questioned Bertrm, and then Erhard. They knew little, except that the bairn’s mother had died in childbirth. Her father would not see the child, blaming her, apparently, for his wife’s death. Yet he had not allowed her the common practice of boarding in some other noble’s house. Named Ralina, the Doe, she was more a prisoner than anyone else in the household. So far as they knew she had never stepped outside the doors of the house. Her nurse, of necessity her jailer, had become bitter with a sharp, caustic tongue, for the confinement had become hers as well.
The room the child had gone into held a shrine. “I’ve heard tales,” Erhard admitted. “A door to Woden’s Hall.” He mused a moment. “Tis folly for the lass to play there.”
Bertrm and I spent many evenings with Erhard. He seemed bound to make up for my lack of memory by making me read every scroll he had – except one. I’d look where that jar had stood, but he had removed it – little room though he had to hide anything. I noticed Bertrm picking up reading too.
I grilled them for clues about my past. “It’s only the bloodlines of horses Master cares about,” Bertrm finally informed me. “All I know is you was beaten bloody on the auction block. You wasn’t bringing a price worth spitting at, so he took a chance on you. When you killed Paton, he had you whipped again, and thrown in the dark hole.”
“So I wasn’t even a fit thræl to buy,” I stopped myself before spitting on the floor.
“Thunder ‘n damnation, Surra! You was ready for a hole in the ground. Didn’t know your own name. And Bertrm’s telling it straight too. Master don’t care about your bloodline. You’re jist one more piece of horseflesh. Though the stunt you pulled on his horse, he was gonna feed you to the kelpies.”
I didn’t need reminders of my title. What if I was the thief that deserved the whippings I had gotten? Or what if I was kin to someone like Spittin’ Sheffield? It’s strange though, having no past. Every time I would get my hands on a sword, it seemed some memory drew painfully close. But it only tormented.
Five weeks I had spent in the house before I knew Mr. Gerhardt had a daughter, though I had sometimes heard sounds I could not account for. Only by chance did I see her then, while climbing the stair to draw water.
The bairn, perhaps eight years old, showed a pale complexion. Startlingly pretty, she had been spared her father’s jutting head. Her hair, brushed till it gleamed and falling across her shoulders in bronze waves, gave a softness to her face. Her eyes danced with a blend of fear and mischief when she saw me. Kept so secluded, her caretaker had doubtless taught her to fear men. Still lacking a beard, I may have been young enough to not disturb her.
Her nurse tried to usher her back into her private rooms, chastising me the while. The child teased and tormented. She ran into a room I had never seen opened, then closed the door. The nurse stood outside and wrung her hands. She seemed torn between ridding herself of me and rescuing her charge from this strange room. She feared something. I went about my duties, but could hear her voice pleading with the child, though I could not make out the words.
She was the pinched-face woman who broke fast with us in the morning. She wore her hair tied back severely, pulling her already narrow face even tighter. It drew her eyebrows up in an astonished expression, as if she had bitten into a piece of rotten fruit. She wore a drab garment that hid her form. I knew she sometimes helped in the kitchen, but had not known what other duties she had.
Later I questioned Bertrm, and then Erhard. They knew little, except that the bairn’s mother had died in childbirth. Her father would not see the child, blaming her, apparently, for his wife’s death. Yet he had not allowed her the common practice of boarding in some other noble’s house. Named Ralina, the Doe, she was more a prisoner than anyone else in the household. So far as they knew she had never stepped outside the doors of the house. Her nurse, of necessity her jailer, had become bitter with a sharp, caustic tongue, for the confinement had become hers as well.
The room the child had gone into held a shrine. “I’ve heard tales,” Erhard admitted. “A door to Woden’s Hall.” He mused a moment. “Tis folly for the lass to play there.”
Muninn's Keep
the 1st Three Chapters
the 1st Three Chapters
To Purchase this book,
visit your favorite bookstore with this information:
ISBN 978-1-926676-66-1
Title Muninn's Keep
Author Brian C. Austin
Can be ordered from Word Alive.
on the shelf now at the Hanover Bible Book Music & Video Store
Also available through
Amazon.com,
Amazon.ca,
Barnes & Noble,
Chapters - Indigo,
and
Ingram, Spring Arbor
visit your favorite bookstore with this information:
ISBN 978-1-926676-66-1
Title Muninn's Keep
Author Brian C. Austin
Can be ordered from Word Alive.
on the shelf now at the Hanover Bible Book Music & Video Store
Also available through
Amazon.com,
Amazon.ca,
Barnes & Noble,
Chapters - Indigo,
and
Ingram, Spring Arbor
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Your contact information is invited, but optional.
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