“Step back, Urgol, into the far corner,” Zalmyra instructed. “Lest you share the same hideous fate I have arranged for the Black Wolf and his cohort.”
Twenty-Four
Earl Lucan’s party made their departure from Arthur’s encampment without fanfare.
They were thirty in total, including himself and his scout, Maximion. The rest were his household knights and their squires, and a handful of longbowmen originally recruited from the Penharrow demesnes. Dawn mist still flooded the land as they rode out.
The only person to see them off was Bedivere. He stood by the stockade gate, wrapped in a heavy cloak. Lucan reined up alongside him and dismounted.
“Let her go, brother,” Bedivere advised quietly. “Haven’t you been tortured enough? You can’t force her to love you by violence.”
Lucan pondered. “It’s not about love anymore.”
“So what is it about… hate?”
“You don’t understand, Bedivere. Because…”
“Because what?” Bedivere interjected. “Because I’ve never suffered?” He held up his bandaged stump. “I’m a lesser man now than I was before.”
Lucan half-smiled. “You’ll never be less a man to me.” They put their arms around each other and hugged fiercely — as they often did, for they never knew when, or if, they would see each other again. “I should have given her children, Bedivere.” Lucan’s voice thickened with emotion. “What kind of husband are you if you can’t give your wife a child?”
“I’m sure it wasn’t for lack of trying,” Bedivere replied, and faltered. “What I mean is… these things are God’s decision, not Man’s.”
Lucan climbed back into his saddle. “Well, if it is God’s decision that my line will end with me, He needs to be aware… it won’t end easily.”
With a solemn smile and a wave goodbye, he rode away alongside his men.
The troop was fully mailed and heavily armed. They took laden pack-horses, but had also crammed their bolsters with sausages, salt pork and biscuit-bread, for it was uncertain how long they would be on the road, especially if the weather turned before they reached the high country. Most of the men were glad to be away from Sessoine. Much wasted flesh had yet to be interred, and was now putrefying. And the cremation pyres were little better.
In truth, only Malvolio found difficulty in leaving. He had not taken well to life in the military camp, nor to badly preserved food, or water from animal skins.
“Gods, my bowels are set to break again,” he moaned.
“And you with your mail leggings on,” Benedict chuckled. Over the last few days, he’d grown used to seeing Malvolio walking gingerly around the camp wearing naught but a long-tailed shirt and a pair of socks. “There’ll be no quick evacuations this time.”
“This is a curse, and now we’re away from the physic.”
“You never saw the physic before.”
“I hoped it would pass,” Malvolio said, grimacing as their horses jogged along.
“You’d had it three weeks before we even engaged the enemy, had you not?” Benedict shook his head. “A cynical man might say you hoped it would pass, but not until after the battle.”
“I was on the field with the rest of you!”
“Aye, but late… because you had, as I recall, an evacuation.”
Malvolio scowled, but clamped a hand to his stomach as his innards grumbled. Benedict chuckled again. It was true; Malvolio had made it onto the battlefield eventually, but mainly to encourage the men from behind. No-one was annoyed by this — Malvolio was Malvolio, and this was no less than they’d expected from him. Benedict, for his part, felt rather proud. He had fought well, and hoary old warriors had commended him for it. The gash on his left cheek, neatly stitched but “a lifelong blemish on otherwise pretty features” as the surgeon who’d applied the needle declared, didn’t worry him. It was a badge of courage. Such badges made a pretty fellow prettier still.
It was mid-morning by the time they reached fresher climes. The sun had risen, the mist had burned away, and they found themselves proceeding through open grassland. Maximion, who at last had accepted fresh clothing — riding boots, leather breeches and a loose linen shirt with Celtic embroidering at its cuffs and collar — was riding at the point, on a fine roan charger whose master would never have need of it again.
He found himself alongside a rather serious-looking knight whose plate and mail were gashed and dented, and yet who was fresh-faced, almost a babe.
“You are called Sir Alaric, are you not?” Maximion asked.
Alaric seemed surprised to be spoken to. “That is so.”
“Forgive me, but you seem a little young to be a fully-fledged knight.”
“The situation was forced on us by the war. Mine was a battlefield commission.”
“Aah… the honourable way to win one’s spurs.”
Alaric regarded him suspiciously. “Why are you helping Earl Lucan?”
“Why are you helping him?”
“He’s my lord.”
Maximion chuckled. “My reason is more practical.”
“How so?”
“I seek to stay alive.”
“You’re our prisoner. Earl Lucan will not murder you.”
“Are you so sure?” Maximion gave him a sidelong glance, noting the young knight’s tension-taut posture. “I suspect you are not.”
Alaric tried not to show how troubled he felt. “This is a dark quest we embark upon.”
“Well… you serve a dark master.”
Alaric looked stung by that comment, but elected not to respond.
“Do I detect a divided loyalty?” Maximion wondered.
“He’s not as dark as men say.”
Maximion glanced behind them. The cavalcade stretched backward over maybe a hundred yards. Turold, Lucan’s banneret, was closest but out of earshot, the black standard angled over his shoulder. Behind him rode a clutch of squires. Lucan himself rode alongside the squires, but twenty yards to the west — alone.
“On the surface, I would agree,” Maximion said. “But… the ‘Black Wolf of the North’? How did he earn such a soubriquet?”
“Did you not see him in the battle?”
“He fights like a bare-sark. It’s a frightening sight, but that does not make him unique.”
Alaric looked thoughtful. “I think it’s also to do with who his father was.”
“His father was a villain?”
“Of the first order. But… Earl Lucan was never that. He reviles his father’s memory, though there were incidents when he too showed a crueller side.” The lad paused to get his memories in order. “When I was very young — just a child really — I was kept as a slave at Tower Rock Keep, which was held by Baelgron, a robber baron of the Northern March. He used me as a climbing-boy for his chimneys. He and his knights lived by pillage, but they weren’t so foolish as to pillage in Arthur’s lands. They raided across the border into Rheged, where their depredations were merciless. Many complaints were made by King Owain of Rheged. At length, Arthur ordered Earl Lucan, as Steward of the North, to censure the miscreant. Lucan did as required. He assembled his host and invested Tower Rock Keep. Baelgron was happy to surrender, for he had committed no crime in Albion. But when Lucan announced his intent to extradite the criminals across the border to Rheged, there was an outcry; Archbishop Valiance of York threatened dire consequences if Christians were handed to pagans for justice.
“Earl Lucan thus sent a message to King Owain, who assembled his court on the northwest side of the border. Then Earl Lucan took his prisoners, Baron Baelgron included, to the southeast side — and beheaded them. Thirty men in total. Because his vassals feared excommunication, Earl Lucan wielded the blade himself. He used his own battle-sword — Heaven’s Messenger. Satisfied, King Owain and his entourage went home again.”
Maximion’s eyebrows rose. “That was an extreme resolution.”