The Rogue Knight Read online

  He studied the enemy. Big knights in mail armor astride huge stallions loomed before them. Earl Robert de Ferrers’ banner waved proudly over the mailed host: the furrier, rows of wavy lines representing furs. Sunlight glinted upon the shiny armor, polished to a hurtful sheen. The huge stallions snorted and pawed the earth. The array of lances, still pointing skyward, looked like a small forest of pines. Once those lances came down and trumpets pealed....

  Sweat slicked Philip’s armpits. His stomach fluttered. He hoped most of the peasants had never been in battle with knights before. A man who didn’t know what could happen, would be braver than one who’d felt the shock of battle.

  The singing died down.

  Then one of the enemy knights detached himself from the host. He spurred his brown stallion, trotting toward them. He had no lance, but waved a large white cloth. He wore a great helmet and had a huge sword strapped to his side. The stallion seemed to sneer at them, cantering as only a proud war-horse could. The broad-shouldered knight reined in his mount, halting a spear’s throw before the tree trunks. He removed his helmet and revealed an open face with a triangular-shaped red beard and a thick red mustache.

  “Earl Robert de Ferrers of Derby sends his greetings!” shouted the knight in a booming voice.

  Philip climbed the biggest, steadiest trunk. “Sir Guy of Pellinore gives you his!” Philip roared back.

  “Baron Hugh de Clare’s son?” the knight shouted.

  “The same!” Philip roared.

  The handsome knight steadied his destrier. Then he stood up in his stirrups and waved a red cloth back at his fellows. A trumpet pealed twice from there. The knight put away the red cloth and turned back to Philip.

  “My lord demands that you hand over Sir Lamerok of Dun!”

  “Who?” Philip muttered. Ah, he thought. Maybe he means Guy’s secret prisoner.

  Then Guy stood below Philip, hissing up, “Tell him that if they charge, then I myself will slit Sir Lamerok’s throat.”

  “Milord?” asked Philip, surprised to see the frail Guy.

  “Tell him.”

  Cupping his hands, Philip dutifully did as bidden.

  The handsome knight turned his destrier and clattered back to Robert de Ferrers.

  “Who is this Sir Lamerok of Dun?” Philip asked, climbing down from the tree trunk.

  “Never mind,” whispered Guy, who intently watched the enemy host.

  It wasn’t long before the same knight took up his position before the fort again. He shouted, “Earl Robert de Ferrers wishes to parley with Sir Guy.”

  “I’d parley with him if I were you,” Philip said.

  Guy scowled but nodded.

  Philip and the knight soon worked out the details. And when the enemy knights dismounted and camped in the middle of the glade, the peasants cheered lustily. Philip, however, knew that nothing had been solved. But at least he knew now what the enemy wanted.

  ***

  Philip paced inside the tent, his belted sword clattering against his armor. The last peasant hurried out, and one of Guy’s sergeants closed the tent-flap and stood guard outside. Guy himself lay on a cot that the peasants had lifted from one of the carts and brought within. Near the cot stood an ornate table bearing a costly flagon of French wine.

  The gaudy bundle of ragged cloth that was Aldora sat on a stool and whispered softly into Guy’s ear. He groaned, throwing one of his thin arms over his eyes.

  “Is he ill?” Philip growled, disgusted at this open display of weakness.

  Guy removed his arm and looked up at Philip. “Ill?” he whispered, sounding outraged. “You dare to ask me if I’m ill?”

  Philip stepped away from the burning eyes, from the haggard countenance that seemed more ghoul than man.

  “Rest, Lord,” Aldora said soothingly. “Gather your strength.”

  “How can I rest?” Guy asked her. “My enemies have found me. Now they try to use de Ferrers to steal my prize. Oh, Aldora, what shall I do?”

  “Why not try fighting,” Philip said, regaining his composure. “We’ve more men than they.”

  “We’ve more peasants!” Guy spat. “Not more fighting men.”

  Which was true, and Philip knew it. But it galled him to watch a knight, even a diseased and wasting knight, dither so about what to do. Even so, how could one begin to compare a peasant, a serf, a plowman by trade, to a noble bred to arms and battle? Yet that’s what he’d just suggested.

  The lowly rustics could toil better, skillfully grow crops, raise pigs, drain ditches and build houses, but fight as well as a knight? The idea was laughable. A peasant used a shovel to dig holes, or swung a scythe when he harvested grain or an axe to chop down trees. But a peasant knew nothing about swinging swords, or about shouting encouragement in the midst of battle. A knight, however, in his suit of mail and with his endless years of training and upon his war-horse...he could face ten such peasants. He could charge into their ranks and lay about him with his mighty sword. The heavy chainmail would turn their puny blows while the knight’s blade slaughtered the peasants like sheep. The other peasants, sprayed with the blood of their comrades, horrified by the screams of the dying, would break and scatter in all directions like mice.

  Many factors made the knight superior to other men in battle. His life-long training gave him hardy muscles used to swinging a sword or aiming a lance. He hewed with calculated cunning, and was inured to savage blows. A cult of valor made it an unpardonable sin to flee from foes. To yearn for close-order work, to hear the crash of steel, the crunch of bones and the screams for mercy, ah, only a man raised on violence could understand that music. Peasants weren’t burdened with this frightening cult. When terror became overwhelming, a peasant ran. When searing pain made one scream, a peasant fled. When war-horses thundered closer and the bristling wall of lances neared, peasants dropped their weapons and sought safety and survival in flight.

  The cult of valor gave knights the terrible courage they needed to face other men with naked blades in hand and trade blows with them. This chivalrous code also gave knights a love of combat, a desire for battle. He engaged in countless feuds, assaults and sieges, and when unable to find those, tournaments and jousts had to suffice. Yet for all this martial activity, knights were almost invulnerable in their coats of chainmail. After a battle, the ill-clad peasant footmen suffered the worst causalities. The lightest suit of armor—a hauberk of chain links woven together—weighed at least fifty-five pounds. With the addition of greaves, gauntlets, helmet and shield, a knight was a veritable fortress on horseback. Strong knights, among whom Philip was one, often wore heavier suits of armor yet. With the best sword, one that didn’t break, with the strongest lance, one that didn’t splinter, with the prized stallion, one that didn’t flinch, and with the toughest armor, one that couldn’t be penetrated, the knight added to his valor and to his honed battle-skills. The armor-clad horseman was the deadliest weapon of any medieval army.

  Other men scouted, other men foraged, and other men set up the tents, cooked the food, shot the arrows and stood on foot with pikes or axes. And it was other men largely who died horribly in the midst of battle. But if there was one truism in medieval wars, it was this—no one ever seemed to have enough knights. Therefore, other men were still very useful in the awful trade of war.

  “We still have more men then they do,” Philip said. “We can always try to bluff our way out. Already the wall of stakes bristles like a hedgehog’s back. Every hour gives us more tree trunks.”

  “You want to try and bluff Earl de Ferrers of Derby?” Guy whispered in a scathing tone.

  “He’s a youth, a stripling,” Philip said, who hated young men because their looks weren’t marred nor were their limbs worn with age. And this Earl de Ferrers, he was more handsome than most and accounted a mighty warrior, a champion of chivalry, both on the battlefield and in the bedchamber.

  “I also am a youth,” whispered Guy.

  Philip turned away, silently cursing himself
for tripping over his words. It was hard to remember that the scarecrow lying on the cot was a young man. He looked ancient, like a withered fool waiting for death. He needed to win Guy over, not antagonize him.

  “Earl Robert de Ferrers is a paragon of virtue and nobility,” Guy whispered angrily. “He’s also been after my prize ever since those Breton pirates told him I’d captured Sir Lamerok.”

  Philip moved beside the table, picked up a silver chalice and poured himself wine to hide his interest. Who was this Sir Lamerok of Dun? Why had Guy captured him and kept him in such isolation? And why now did Earl Robert de Ferrers of Derby, an earldom across the Severn and in England proper, journey so far within the Western Marches for him?

  “Did the scouts see any pirates?” Guy asked Aldora.

  “A few, Lord,” she said.

  Philip hid his surprise. He didn’t recall the scouts, or the young squire on lookout, saying anything about pirates. Mailed warriors rode with de Ferrers, not sulking Breton pirates. What was Aldora’s game?

  “Was he among them?” asked Guy.

  “No, Lord,” Aldora said, stroking his brow. “At least the scouts didn’t see him.”

  “We have a chance if he isn’t here,” Guy whispered.

  “Whom do you mean?” Philip asked, no longer able to contain his curiosity.

  Guy ignored the question. Slowly, like an old man, he lifted his torso off the cot and swung his legs onto the floor. The effort left him gasping. Aldora helped him slip off his linen shirt.

  Philip almost gagged aloud. Upon Guy’s naked torso were countless sores, a few oozing a frightful puss and odor. Philip quaffed his wine, then quickly turned away as Aldora dipped a rag into a basin of water and began to sponge Guy’s skin. Philip’s face became overheated and his need to dash out of the tent and breathe fresh air almost became unbearable. He clenched his teeth and willed himself to relax. He’d seen worse, he told himself. Much worse.

  “Milord!” the sergeant said through the closed flap, “a knight bearing a white flag rides toward camp.”

  “Is it Robert de Ferrers?” whispered Guy.

  “Yes, milord. The knight bears the Derby coat of arms upon his shield.”

  “Tell our knights to let him pass,” whispered Guy.

  “At once, milord,” said the sergeant.

  Three of Guy’s knights would act as hostages, riding out to where de Ferrers’ host bivouacked. The three knights gave de Ferrers the needed guarantees that his herald had asked for.

  “Help me into this shirt,” Guy whispered to Aldora.

  “I’ll go greet de Ferrers,” Philip said.

  “Yes, escort him into the tent,” whispered Guy.

  Philip hurried out, breathing the fresh air as he nodded to the sergeant on guard duty. He adjusted his sword, dusted off his lambkin cape, and then strode to where De Ferrers cantered toward camp.

  The big Derby knight rode with matchless grace. He seemed like an integral part of his war-horse, as if the two had become one, or if they were a two-headed centaur from some pagan legend. Beside de Ferrers rode a fine-looking squire holding aloft the Derby banner.

  Philip carefully studied the enemy commander, recalling some of the things he’d heard about him.

  Earl Robert de Ferrers wore sparkling armor—it had been polished to such a fine sheen. From his broad shoulders fluttered a white ermine cloak. In the elite circles of England and France, he was known as the Sir Galahad of Jousting. Sir Galahad, the natural son of Sir Lancelot and Princess Elaine, had been the sinless and invincible knight of Arthurian legends who had found the Holy Grail and who had cooled the waters of the Well of Lust. Robert de Ferrers, although not the biggest or the strongest knight in the jousting circles, was said to wield his lance with almost magical skill. His youthful beauty and nearly perfect manners only added to the awe in which others held him. There was also one other way in which he seemed like the legendary Sir Galahad. Robert de Ferrers, a knight-errant in his soul, could be highly impractical in his pursuits. His earldom seldom benefited from his romantic policies. In his impractical pursuits, he also showed great stubbornness.

  Sir Robert reined in his mighty war-horse before Philip. With liquid grace, he dismounted, removed his helmet and handed it up to his squire. He had blond, almost platinum-colored hair that curled into ringlets and hung down to his shoulders, the bluest of blue eyes and very fair skin. His face was open and honest, his nose straight and his mouth curved into a friendly smile. It was a smile that reached all the way to his eyes and seemed to radiate from his entire being. Spurs jangled as he strode up to Philip and his sparkling armor clinked. He took off his gloves as he walked and revealed strong hands and abnormally thick wrists. He tucked the supple deerskin gloves into his belt and shook Philip’s outstretched hand.

  Although Philip stood taller and outweighed the Earl by a good fifty pounds, he found that de Ferrers troubled him. Everything screamed intimidating perfection. Straight white teeth, flawless skin, supposedly rigid honesty and a family tree that went all the way back to William the Conqueror and even further back to terrible Rollo the Viking, who had first settled in Normandy.

  Philip squeezed de Ferrers hand harder than he’d meant too. De Ferrers only widened his smile and applied enough pressure to make Philip’s gesture futile. Suddenly, pain shot down Philip’s shoulder and exploded in his hand. He winced, although he managed to retain enough control over himself not to yank back his hand.

  De Ferrers blond eyebrows rose in surprise, for he’d obviously seen the wince. He released his grip and let his smile slip the tiniest bit.

  Philip turned away to hide his embarrassment and his sudden dislike for de Ferrers. In his youth, he’d have smashed down a puling knight like this. He knew the truth, and the truth fanned Philip’s dislike into hatred. Although he, Philip, was big and strong, he also carried a fat gut and countless wounds and sprains that had never fully healed. The man before him was limber, young and a master of knightly combat. To fight de Ferrers would be to fight youthful speed and endurance.

  Philip turned back to de Ferrers, plastering a fake smile onto his scarred face and launching into chivalric pleasantries. As they walked together toward the tent, Sir Robert asked, “Whose idea was this unknightly tree trunk palisade?”

  “Mine,” Philip growled.

  De Ferrers was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I see.”

  “Do you?” Philip asked. “Do you see that it kept you and your host from attacking us?”

  “Hmmm. I suppose that’s one way of viewing it.”

  “What other way is there?”

  De Ferrers glanced at Philip in genuine shock. “Surely you’re not serious, Sir Philip. I’ve heard of you, and they say you’re brave and have a certain cunning about you in battle. Surely you can see that you’ve hidden behind peasants.” De Ferrers shook his handsome head. “That is unknightly, sir, unlike you, I’m certain.”

  “So speaks the earl with the superior host.”

  De Ferrers stopped suddenly, facing Philip. “Is that the only problem then?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Eagerly Sir Robert asked, “If I offer to detach an equal number of horsemen from my host to face Sir Guy’s, do you think he’d agree to meet us in open combat?”

  Philip laughed harshly. “What, so you can ambush us with the rest of your force?”

  De Ferrers turned red. “Do you accuse me of guile, of base trickery?”

  Philip almost said yes. He looked deeply into de Ferrers eyes, however, and saw the only outcome of such a statement. De Ferrers would call him out in such a way that he’d be unable to refuse. And Sir Robert would no doubt kill him. That galled him, galled him deeply. Shame ate into his belly. He said, “No, of course I don’t accuse you of guile.”

  Robert de Ferrers nodded coldly and strode once more toward the tent.

  After a moments hesitation Philip followed, silently damning his aging body for its injuries. To strike this Earl down in fair co
mbat—Philip ground his teeth together, then forced himself to calm down. He told himself that now more than ever he had to think, to plot, to connive his way out of this tight spot.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Earl Robert and Sir Philip entered the tent, and Guy rose to greet them. De Ferrers pulled up short at the sight the skeletal Guy. He attempted to smile. A grimace was all he could manage. “Sir Guy,” he said. Then speech failed him.

  “We’re pleased that you agreed to a parley,” Philip quickly said, deciding to act as mediator, to show Guy how valuable his services could be.

  Still speechless, de Ferrers turned toward Philip.

  “Better in times like these for good English knights to talk rather than to spill each others blood,” Philip said.

  De Ferrers grunted in a way that could have meant anything. His color finally began to return to his pale-shocked face.

  “You have the advantage of more armored horsemen,” Philip said, “We have the advantages of numbers, provisions and a secure camp. Maybe even more importantly, we’re near to both of Sir Guy’s largest castles, Pellinore and Gareth. On the other hand, you, Sir Robert, are far from your lands and deep in unfamiliar territory. How long can you afford to tarry here?”

  “As long as necessary,” de Ferrers said bluntly.

  “Ah, Sir Robert,” Guy finally whispered. De Ferrers’ initial reaction seemed to have upset Guy. Now he’d recovered. “Welcome, my Lord, welcome.” Guy poured his expensive French wine into two chalices. He nodded to Aldora. She brought de Ferrers the heavily wrought silver cup embossed with hunting-scenes.

  Philip moved beside the ornate table and poured his own chalice full of wine.

  “To a friendly exchange,” whispered Guy, his hand trembling as he raised his chalice.

  De Ferrers sipped delicately, his manners at last reasserting themselves. He savored his sip and nodded in approval. “An excellent vintage, Sir Guy. I commend you on your refined tastes.”

  “You’re most kind,” whispered Guy, who clunked his chalice onto the table. Beads of sweat were strung across his brow.