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“Throw down your weapons,” the knight called to his men, “for it is knights that we fight, not merchants or villeins!”

Reluctantly, the men-at-arms dropped their staves—all that was left of their pikes. “Go find your steel,” Dirk told them, and let go of the rope. They thrashed and pushed their way out of the knot of men, then spread out to find and pick up their spearheads and halberd blades.

The knight turned back to Gar. “I am Hildebrandt de Bourse. Whom have I had the honor of fighting?”

“Gar Pike,” the giant said, with a small bow, “and I am honored indeed to have crossed swords with so doughty a warrior as yourself, Sir Hildebrandt.”

Sir Hildebrandt returned the bow, apparently not realizing the humor in the name Gar gave—but Coll did, and had difficulty throttling a laugh. Gar Pike, indeed! And a most amazing fish he was, too!

“So you know us for what we are,” Gar said, amused. “Is it only because I know how to duel?”

“That,” Sir Hildebrandt agreed, “but I know you also by your chivalry; you could have slain me by nothing more than a thrust that cut deeper by inches, but you chose not to—then honored my surrender, and even set me on my feet.”

Yes, chivalrous and merciful, Coll agreed silently, to another knight!

“I rejoice in meeting a man of enough gentility to recognize me for what I am.” Gar inclined his head. “However, though I am a knight, I am one whose lord was slain in battle, and am therefore without house or lands. I live by my sword and my wits now, pledging myself to whatever lord needs me.”

“And your friend, too?” Sir Hildebrandt looked up at Dirk, who nodded. “Well, if you are true free lances, I cannot think to impress you into His Majesty’s army—but I will offer you his shilling, and the chance to win his favor.”

“How pleasant an invitation!” Gar grinned broadly. He glanced at Dirk, who nodded, then said to Sir Hildebrandt, “We will be honored to accept! Tell me, whom are we to fight?”

“Earl Insol,” the knight answered, “for he has most grievously insulted our king.”

Coll heard the words with a sinking heart. Visions of his village rose in his mind, visions of it burned and smoking, of the cottage trampled into the mire-mud reddened by the blood of his neighbors—and of Dicea struggling in the arms of a soldier, who laughed through a gloating, gap-toothed smile as he displayed his prize to his mates. Yes, Coll felt a bit of resentment at having his destiny decided by these two strange knights without asking him—but he was far more pleased to be in the army that would attack Earl Insol. Perhaps, if he could be one of the first soldiers to reach the village, he might protect his mother and sister—and warn his neighbors.

Sir Hildebrandt led them to a river, then south along its banks until they came to a broad road. At the river’s edge, it slanted down to a ford. There were guards at that ford, wearing blue tunics with a silver lion rampant on each.

“What does that livery mean?” Dirk asked Coll. “Whose is it?”

“The king’s.” Coll eyed the soldiers with some awe: he had never seen the monarch’s troops before. “The blue is the color of the royal household.”

“So you were hiding in wastelands that were just barely out of Earl Insol’s demesne?” Dirk gazed out across the water. Forty feet away, on the farther bank, stood guards wearing red. “Whose color is that?”

Coll swallowed. “Earl Insol’s—my former master.”

“I take it this river is the border of the king’s estates?” Gar asked. The outlaw nodded.

Insol’s men stood with their backs to the river and to the royal guards—but one turned and called across, “What’s the hour?”

A royal guard glanced at a sundial, then called back, “Not yet noon. We must go hungry a while longer, eh?”

“It’s enough to make a man bait a hook,” Insol’s man grumbled.

“The soldiers don’t seem to have anything against one another, at any rate,” Dirk commented.

They followed Sir Hildebrandt toward the east, on a well-packed road through fields of ripening grain. Coll couldn’t help but think that those stalks would soon lie trampled in the mud, with soldiers’ bodies among them. So much labor wasted! So many lives! So much hunger!

They camped for two nights, and Gar and Dirk struck up conversations with the soldiers, who seemed surprised to find themselves forgiving the men they had sought to kidnap—but Sir Hildebrandt talked to the stranger knights by the hour as they marched, so they could tell themselves they were only following his example. Coll just sat and watched, saying as little as possible, and realized quickly that Dirk and Gar really didn’t say much about themselves—only enough to lead to the next question, and to bring the soldiers to talking again. Coll decided that was why everyone enjoyed talking to them so much: they listened well.

Of course, if Sir Hildebrandt and his men had known why the two strangers paid such close attention to everything they said, they might not have taken so much pleasure in talking—and from the comments Dirk and Gar made, Coll saw how quickly they were learning about the land.

They were learning so much that Coll decided they had originally known even less than he had thought. It was amazing they spoke with such slight accents.

Halfway through the third morning, Coll looked up and saw a castle’s turrets rising above the ridge ahead of them. He caught his breath, awed at the thought of actually seeing the royal stronghold. Unable to believe it, he turned to the soldier next to him and asked, “Is that the King’s House?”

“King’s House?” The soldier grinned. “Aye, lad, and if that’s a house, I’m the giant Tranecol!”

Coll took his meaning and smiled. “Bigger than my mother’s cottage, eh?”

“Summat bigger, yes,” the soldier allowed.

As they came closer to the ridge, though, the turrets seemed to sink below it, so that, as they came to its top, the royal castle seemed to burst upon Coll’s eye, its towers reaching for the sky, its curtain wall stretching a mile wide, its moat a veritable lake.

“Impressive,” Gar murmured.

“You would find it very much so, if you sought to take it,” Sir Hildebrandt assured him. “The moat is fresh and fed by springs within it, so there is never a lack of water, and its granaries are always full. That drawbridge rises in several sections, and those battlements can rain scalding water on any who come close enough to raise ladders.”

“It’s almost as though it stands on an island, not as though a ditch has been dug about it,” Coll breathed.

“It is an island,” the soldier told him, “and you could grow enough grain to feed an army in its courtyards, if the soldiers didn’t need them for drill.”

Another soldier nodded behind him. “That wall’s seven hundred yards long, lad, and I should know, for I’ve paced it time and again on sentry-go, counting my steps as I went.”

Coll believed it more and more as they came closer until, as they came to the gatehouse that stood on the landward end of the bridge, the castle seemed to fill the whole landscape. The sentries challenged them, but saluted when they saw Sir Hildebrandt’s colors and stepped aside. They rode through the sudden darkness of the short stone tunnel, with its arrow slits to either side and the slits in its roof for pouring down hot oil, then rode out across the causeway, where the castle filled the whole world. Sentries challenged them again from atop the inner gatehouse, then recognized Sir Hildebrandt and cried a welcome. They rode through the chill of another entrance tunnel, longer this time; then sunlight struck them as they came into outer bailey.