The Rogue Knight Read online

  Chapter Nine

  The bailiff rode a spirited palfrey, a brown stallion with white forelocks. He sat tall in the saddle, his back straight, his shoulders squared and his head erect. His black hair had a tendency to swing down into his eyes, and his long jaw moved from side to side as he chewed over his thoughts. One hand held onto the reins, the other rested lightly on his sword pommel. As always, the bailiff wore chainmail, with a fine link hood, settled behind his head.

  He was darker-skinned than the other Pellinore knights, and his pockmarked features made him look rugged. It was his gray eyes, however, which caused men to cower before him. It wasn’t bulging muscles or a large frame that frightened criminals and outlaws, but the calm assurance that the bailiff wore like a halo.

  Sometimes Cord wondered if, in ordering others—peasants, slaves and outlaws—the bailiff hadn’t come to expect people to obey him, and so gained his masterly self-assurance.

  The bailiff could handle weapons, but not in a dazzling display as Sir Philip or Baron Hugh could. Sir Walter won more bouts on the jousting yard and Richard had been able to outfight the bailiff on the practice field. Even so, by his plodding certainty, by his willingness to match stroke for stroke against better opponents, by his very unwillingness to admit defeat against better knights, the bailiff had beaten foes that were more skilled and even slain masters of the blade.

  Cord trotted beside the bailiff, with Sebald beside him. Cord carried a sack and breathed heavily as they moved up a forested hill. A while ago, he’d given his trencher to One-foot Jake. The bailiff hadn’t said anything, although his thin lips had curved up in a slight smile of approval.

  The bailiff now drew rein and dismounted stiffly, tossing the reins to Cord. He stretched his back with a groan, then strode in a circle and shook his legs. “I rode far yesterday,” he explained.

  “Are your legs stiffening up again?”

  The bailiff smiled sourly. “Age does things to a man’s body that only God in His mercy can halt. You’re still young, filled with vigor and fresh limbed. Be thankful.”

  Cord didn’t feel so fresh. He’d also traveled far, if several days ago instead of just one. His traveling, however, had all been afoot, not mounted on a horse like a noble. His legs didn’t have their usual power and his feet still hurt. The cobbler had fixed his boot, but running barefoot several days ago had taken its toll.

  The bailiff snapped a twig off the nearest tree and with his thumbnail began peeling bark. He seemed preoccupied, engrossed with a thought.

  Cord scratched Sebald behind the ears, waiting.

  The bailiff looked up. He began snapping the twig into smaller and smaller pieces. For once in his life, he appeared uncomfortable.

  “Is something wrong?” Cord asked.

  The bailiff nodded. “I’m troubled about something I’ve heard.”

  Cord waited. It wasn’t like the bailiff to beat around the bush. Usually he came straight on like a sword thrust to the guts.

  “Ah, you wait and keep silent,” the bailiff said. “Most people talk too much and give themselves away. You’ve depth to you, Cord. I like that, and I admire how you train your hounds. It’s one of the reasons why I told the Baron you’d make a good forester. I still think you’d make a good forester. But despite my blessing, I don’t think you’re going to become one.”

  Cord’s stomach tightened. The bailiff was seldom wrong about anything, and he only spoke if he believed something to be true.

  “Sir Philip isn’t your friend,” the bailiff said.

  “I mean him no ill will,” said Cord.

  The bailiff frowned.

  “Well, at least I didn’t until a couple of days ago,” Cord amended.

  “That’s better. Speak only the truth to me, or don’t speak at all. I have no interest hearing lies.”

  “What troubles you, Sir?”

  “Did you plan the Baron’s death?” the bailiff asked.

  “What? No! How could I possibly plan that?”

  The bailiff rubbed his jaw, studying Cord. “I’ve heard rumors, and I heard Philip swear before Saint Hubert that it was your plan to harm the Baron.”

  “That’s madness!”

  “Do you call Philip a liar?”

  Cord opened his mouth. Then he recalled Hob’s warning. He shook his head. “I think Sir Philip loved the Baron. To see him slain by Old Sloat—I think it broke Philip’s heart. In his grief, he lashed out at me. You know as well as I that Sir Philip never had any fondness for me. Why that’s so, I don’t understand—”

  “I do,” the bailiff said, interrupting.

  “Milord?”

  “He hated your father.”

  “You knew my father?”

  The bailiff turned away, reaching out and snapping off another twig. He peeled part of the twig, then snapped it in two and threw the halves away. “Your father was a tough man, strong and handy with a blade.”

  “Why did Sir Philip hate him?”

  “Your father defeated Philip once, badly. He gave Philip his first scar, the one across the bridge of his nose.”

  “In a fight?”

  “In a joust.” The bailiff faced Cord. “It was at a tournament held at Wigmore Castle. Earl Roger Mortimer’s father gave the tournament. Your father and Philip, both newly knighted, tried to win the hand of the same lady. Oh, she was a cunning lass that one. She smiled, flirted and gave many a token to many a knight. When Sir Philip tried to woo her, she laughed at him and said that your father had already won her heart. Philip swore to defeat him in a joust. She said that no man could beat the Saxon.”

  “Did she love my father?” Cord asked, drinking up the tale as he would sweet ale.

  “I think she enjoyed watching two men fight over her. Philip, even more so as a young man, had a violent temper. In any case, they met the next day on the field. In the first pass, each man splintered his lance against the other’s shield. In the second pass, your father shifted his lance at just the right moment. Sir Philip was sprawled backward onto the dirt. When the judges pried off his helmet, blood flowed from his nose and face.

  “The lady only danced with your father that night. She even turned down young Roger Mortimer. We were all jealous. And I was only a page in those days, a young brat awed by his elders.”

  The bailiff shook his head, apparently lost for the moment in his memories.

  “Is that why Sir Philip hates me?” Cord asked, glad to learn that his father had beaten Philip. He’d known that his father had been fond of the ladies—although his mother had told him that father had always treated her well. She’d died when outlaws had attacked their village.

  Cord shook off the memory. It pained him thinking about his mother.

  The bailiff said, “Philip hates you for more reasons than that. I don’t believe I know the full story about your father and Philip. I know that you’re the spitting image of your father. You have the same stare, the same width of shoulders, the same odd way with animals. And the girls....” The bailiff laughed softly. “The girls look at you with the same gleam in their eyes.”

  Cord thought bitterly of Bess.

  The bailiff said slowly, “Baron Hugh, and even more so Philip, often spoke about what a delight it was to have you as his dog boy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Baron knew your father, although he never hated him like Earl Roger or Philip did. Still, the Baron remembered that your father had Saxon blood, not Norman. It pleased the Baron that a Saxon knight, one as strong and bold as your father, was brought so low that his son served in a Norman castle as a common dog boy. I think Philip enjoyed the thought of that even more than the Baron, although he tried to hide it from us.”

  Cord narrowed his eyes into slits. “They mocked me,” he whispered.

  “Not you, but your father,” the bailiff said.

  Anger burned in Cord. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “So you’ll know what you’re up against. Sir Philip means to kill you, or
see you killed.”

  “Will you let that happen?”

  “Not unjustly, no.”

  “But otherwise, yes?”

  The bailiff looked away, his halo of assurance momentarily shaken.

  “Philip never wanted to kill me before,” Cord said. “Why does he now?”

  “You slew Old Sloat. Only a powerful and lucky man could do that. The wild boar killed our Baron, and it killed the old forester, too, a tough old man. The person who killed Sloat, that person would be dangerous. Not only that, but slaying Old Sloat has brought you renown. It has made you more than ever like your father.”

  Cord digested that.

  “Now you wear your father’s signet ring, the ring with the arrogant seal of a roaring lion. You have given Philip cause to fear and hate you. Such a combination means he’ll try to kill you.”

  “Why tell me all this? What’s your stake in it?”

  The bailiff’s features hardened. He opened his mouth in the manner he usually did before giving a swift rebuke.

  Cord knew he’d asked his question too sharply, not in the manner of a lowly dog boy to a knight. But he wasn’t just a dog boy anymore. Didn’t he wear the lion ring?

  Whatever the bailiff had planned to say went unsaid. He closed his mouth and thoughtfully rubbed his jaw. “Yes,” he said at last, “I suppose you deserve to know my reasons. Someday I will have to stand before God’s Judgment Seat. Then I will have to give an account of all that I’ve done in this life, show God that I’ve acted fairly. Is it fair for a knight like Philip to know so much about a young man? Is it fair for the knight to hate the young man and want to kill him, all without the young man knowing what he’s up against? By warning you, I’ve balanced the scales.”

  Cord thought about that. “Thank you for the warning. Now what do you suggest I do?”

  The bailiff shook his head.

  “Should I run away as others have told me to?”

  “You will be branded an outlaw if you run away before Sir Guy can pass judgment upon your actions.”

  “I know.”

  “But if you don’t run, Philip will see to it that you’re killed.”

  Cord nodded. Philip feared him, or he’d feared his father. But he had slain Old Sloat.

  “Why do you grin?”

  The bailiff’s question startled Cord. He hadn’t realized that he’d been grinning. He spoke before thinking. He said, “I’m going to defeat Sir Philip.”

  The bailiff’s eyes widened. Goosebumps rose on his neck. “By all the saints, your father once spoke those same words. I remember them well.”

  Cord’s grin grew.

  “No, don’t smile. Your father swung in the end, all his boasts come to naught. You must try to walk a different path or you’ll end up hanging from a tree like he did.”

  Cord reined in his heady emotions. “Thank you again, Sir Knight. I appreciate your warning.”

  The bailiff nodded.

  “Should we continue the journey?”

  “A good idea.” The bailiff remounted the palfrey and they continued up the hill. As the trail became steeper, the oaks and beeches gave way to pines and spruces. Cord twice sipped from his beer-skin. The bailiff dismounted every so often and walked the stallion in order to rest him. Together they scaled the tallest hills in the fief.

  These rocky hills rose in the fief’s southeast corner, a last bastion before the land settled out into the lowlands that sprawled all the way to the Severn River. The Severn divided the Western Marches from England.

  The bailiff and Cord trekked toward Rhys’ place. Rhys was a Welshman who had once done the Baron a decided favor. More than ten years ago, Rhys and his mother had stumbled into Pellinore Castle. The stooped old woman coughed and hacked the entire night. Rhys had tried to help her, but the cough had worsened into a terrible bray of death. At last one of the knights, a man no longer living, had roared at the old crone to shut up or take her useless husk elsewhere.

  Young Rhys rose with rage blazing in his eyes.

  Only half Welsh and a bastard to boot, his father, it was learned later, had been a Norman man-at-arms who’d raped the old crone in her better days. Rhys had been raised as a Welsh freeman who, unlike English freemen, were never servile, and openly spoke their thoughts even to the greatest. Firm friends, Welshmen made implacable foes. Young Rhys, who knew only the highland Welsh customs, had drawn his dagger and challenged the knight to a duel to the death.

  The hall had grown silent, and the old knight had turned red with wrath. The stripling Welshman, surrounded by his blood-foes, hadn’t shown a trace of fear or dismay.

  “My lord,” the Lady Eleanor had said to Hugh, “you must not allow this boy to be hurt.”

  “He is Welsh and has insulted one of my knights,” had said Hugh.

  “No, milord, he is a boy who had the courage to stand up to a boorish insult against his mother.”

  Baron Hugh, after further argument, had agreed with his wife. The knight had been made to apologize to the boy and to the old crone.

  She’d died that night, but in the Baron’s bed in the living quarters above. Why Lady Eleanor had shown such kindness to a Welsh crone no one had ever learned, although all had agreed that it had been a true act of Christian charity. Everyone had noted how Father Bernard had preached the next morning on the Good Samaritan, using the Lady Eleanor’s example.

  The act of kindness had deeply moved young Rhys. The next day, after receiving the Baron’s permission to bury his mother in the fief’s highest hills, he’d told them why they had come to Pellinore Castle. His mother had been born in this fief, although in those days those hills had still been a Welsh stronghold.

  Then young Rhys had given his warning. “I will tell you something else, good Baron. Owain ab Ifan marches here even now with a hundred hardy warriors. Owain has sworn to cut out your heart and roast it over an open fire.”

  Baron Hugh and Owain ab Ifan had warred over the years and learned to hate each other. Each had done the other much harm.

  “What you say cannot be,” the Baron had said. “Only last summer Owain swore a two-year truce with me. He swore it over the Holy Bible and before God, and in the presence of his priest. Because of the sworn truce, I forwent the joy of killing his son who I had captured.”

  “All true,” had said young Rhys. “But in your border raid last year you slew his wife while Owain went north to the High Court.”

  “His wife? No, impossible. I raided south of Owain’s lands.”

  “His wife was visiting the homestead of those you slew. Now, Owain means to roast your beating heart.”

  The Baron had gravely studied young Rhys. “Why do you tell me this? Are you a traitor?”

  Young Rhys had laughed grimly. “You treated my mother with respect, which is more than Owain did. He called her a harlot. A harlot! She, a Gruffydd! When I tried to stab him, his men disarmed me and then he had me whipped. Someday I’ll kill him.”

  The Baron had said no more to Rhys, although he’d kept him by his side for a week. At the end of the week, Owain ab Ifan invaded. He came with a hundred and fifty warriors rather than a mere hundred. The peasant levy had been called out, and all the knights, squires, sergeants and men-at-arms had been readied. In the ambush, a good half of the Welsh invaders died. And Baron Hugh slashed Owain ab Ifan’s knife-arm, crippling his bitter foe for life.

  As a reward, the Baron had allowed Rhys the freedom of the fief’s highest hills. There young Rhys could live as a Welshman, raising his cattle and sheep and collecting as many servants as he could afford. In time of war, Rhys brought his Welsh and half-Welsh servants with him. Each of them had been trained in the southern Welsh manner of fighting, as longbowmen.

  If the truth were known, none of the Englishmen had ever wanted to live high up in the hills. Crops couldn’t grow well there. But that suited Rhys and his household just fine. A Welshman seldom toiled like a peasant. He was a herder or hunter and loved nothing better than trekking over harsh
terrain or wading through impossible marshes. The knightly manner of warfare wasn’t his, either. The Welshman fought afoot, with little or no armor. He shot a bow or used a lance, and in close-order work, a long knife served him better than a heavy sword. When Owain ab Ifan had attacked Pellinore Fief, his unarmored men intended to charge the armored knights. The ambush and the fast raid rather than the set-piece battle were the Welshman’s strong suit. In the Welshman’s wooded hills, the heavily armored knights usually made little headway.

  Even so, since William the Conqueror’s time the Welsh had known relentless war and pressure from the adventurous Normans. Before that time, the Saxons had been content to hold the frontiers, since the Saxon by inclination had been a stay-at-home warrior. The Normans who’d invaded England in 1066 had been of a completely different nature. Perhaps the heritage bequeathed them by their Viking ancestors had something to do with their aggressive outlook. Only a few generations ago, Rollo, a Viking chieftain, and his warriors, had settled in Normandy with the French King’s permission. From the mix of French knights and Viking sea-rovers had been produced the restless and supremely confident Normans. The kingdom of Sicily had fallen to a Norman adventurer in William’s day. The people of the Byzantine Empire had constantly cursed the Norman knights who’d raided their productive territory. And many of the first crusaders had been those same restless Normans.

  The Anglo-Norman attacks into Wales had started in 1095 under Rufus and had continued in 1114 and 1121 under King Henry the First. The Welsh, who lived in makeshift huts on their mountains, almost always drove their flocks and herds farther west or higher up the hills during the assaults. For hunters and herders, with little agricultural stake in the land, such movements had been easy and frustrating to the Norman conquerors. The moment the large Norman armies retreated, the Welsh herders and hunters returned. Thus it was, that only by building castles and by bringing in Englishmen to till the soil and occupy the newly-made towns that the Normans had been able to hold onto the conquered, eastern river-valleys of Wales. Year after year the struggle continued, each culture at ease in its own terrain, unable to come to the final clinch with its foes.