Tales of the Old World (3 page)

He and Havelock had ridden from the castle as soon as the sun rose over the
World’s Edge Mountains, a distant smudge of dark rock on the eastern horizon.
Castle d’Epee was now several days behind them, and they had made good time
until the rains from the coast had closed in, turning Bretonnian roads to thick,
cloying mud. The grim weather suited Leofric’s mood perfectly and he had brooded
long over the last words the Dereliche had said to him.

Normally he would give no credence to the utterances of a creature of evil,
but it had known his name and spoken of the Red Duke, and such things were not
to be taken lightly.

As they had made camp on their first night away from Castle d’Epee, Havelock
had started a fire and begun polishing Leofric’s armour. Leofric himself had
found a nearby spring and offered prayers of thanks to the Lady for protecting
them from the foul Dereliche.

The sky above was dark by the time Havelock had prepared a thin stew for him
and as he sat on his riding blanket, Havelock said, “This Red Duke, who’s he
then? Someone you crossed before?”

Leofric shook his head, blowing to cool the hot stew. “No, Havelock, he’s
not. He’s something far worse. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him. He was
quite the terror of Aquitaine in his day.”

“Maybe he was, but I’m from Gisoreux and we got enough troubles of our own to
bother with them quarrelsome types from Aquitaine.”

“And you’ve never heard the Lay of the Red Duke?” asked Leofric.

Havelock shook his head. “Can’t says I have, my lord. Me and mine, well, we
worked the land, didn’t we? All we had was a red horse and a black pig. Didn’t
have no time for fancy stories like that.”

Leofric hadn’t known exactly what the reference to coloured farm animals
meant, but assumed it was some Gisoren expression for poverty. Havelock was of
peasant stock and Leofric had to remind himself that his squire was unlikely to
have been exposed to any culture or heard any courtly tales.

“So who was he then, my lord?” asked Havelock.

“The Red Duke was a monster,” began Leofric, wishing he remembered more of
the flowery passages of the Lay, “one of the blood drinkers. A vampire knight.
No one really remembers where he came from, but he terrorised this land over a
thousand years ago, murdering hundreds of innocents and slaying any who dared to
stand against him, then raising them up to join his army of the dead.”

“Sounds like a right bad sort,” said Havelock, making the sign of the horns
to ward off any evil spirits that might be attracted by such tales of dark
creatures of the night.

“He was,” agreed Leofric. “His blood drenched debaucheries are said to have
shamed the Dark Gods themselves.”

“So what became of him?”

“Like all creatures of evil, he was eventually defeated,” said Leofric. “The
noble knights of the day fought the great battle of Ceren Field and the king
himself skewered the fiend on the end of his lance.”

“So he’s dead and gone then?” asked Havelock, scooping up the last of his
stew with his fingers and wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

“So they say,” said Leofric, grimacing at Havelock’s lack of manners. Uncouth
and peasant born he most certainly was, but he was a fine squire and was the
only other human that Aeneor allowed near him. “It’s said that he rose again
nearly five hundred years later, but he was defeated once again, though the Duke
of Aquitaine was killed in the battle on the edge of the Forest of Chalons.
Accounts of the battle differ, but some say that the Red Duke’s spirit escaped
the battle and fled into the depths of the forest, where it remains to this
day.”

“And that ghost thing you killed says he’s going to rise again? That don’t
sound good.”

“No, it does not, and as a knight sworn to the quest it is my duty to see if
there is any truth to what it said. And if evil is rising there, I must defeat
it.”

Fine words, remembered Leofric as a droplet of rain fell into his eye and
roused him from the memory of his recounting of the Red Duke’s infamy. The
Forest of Chalons was still some days distant and there were more uncomfortable
days ahead. Leofric had no clear idea of where to seek the Red Duke, but the
Barrows of Cuileux lay crumbling and forgotten in the south-western skirts of
the mountain forests, and such a place was as good as any to seek the undead.

A low mist hugged the ground as the rain eased off and Leofric caught a scent
of woodsmoke carried on the evening’s breeze. The landscape around him was
undulating, but mostly flat and devoid of landmarks to help him find his
bearings.

“Havelock?” said Leofric, turning in the saddle. “Do you know where we are?
What villages are around here?”

His squire stood high in the saddle, cupping his hand over his eyes as he
surveyed the bleak landscape around him.

“I’m not rightly sure, my lord,” apologised Havelock. “I don’t know this part
of the country, but I think this road, more or less, follows the border between
Aquitaine and Quenelles.”

Leofric felt homesick as he looked eastwards towards the realm of his birth,
the lands that had once been his, and the heartbreaking memory of his family.

“So that means there’s maybe a few villages a few miles north of here, round
the edges of the Forest of Chalons. Maybe even…” said Havelock, his voice
trailing off.

Leofric heard the faint longing in Havelock’s voice and said, “Maybe even
what?”

“Nothing, my lord,” said his squire, staring at the mud.

“Don’t lie to me, Havelock,” warned Leofric.

“It’s nothing, my lord, just something the servants at Castle d’Epee were
talking about.”

“And what might that be?” demanded Leofric, tiring of Havelock’s reticence.
“Out with it, man!”

“A village they talked about,” said Havelock. “A place they called Derrevin
Libre.”

The name rang a bell for Leofric, but he couldn’t place it until he
remembered the long, rambling discourses of Lord d’Epee. The man had mentioned
something about the place, but his ravings had been too nonsensical to take much
of it in. Clearly the servants had been talking about it too, and probably with
more sense.

“Well, what did they say about it?”

Havelock was clearly uncomfortable talking about what he’d heard and Leofric
supposed some peasant code of honour kept his tongue in check.

He wheeled Aeneor to face his squire and said, “Tell me.”

They made camp for the evening and after finishing a meal of black bread and
cheese, Havelock told him what he’d heard in the sculleries of Castle d’Epee.
Derrevin Libre, it turned out, was indeed a village on the southern edge of the
Forest of Chalons, but it was a most remarkable village. Some six months ago,
Havelock said, the peasants there had risen up in revolt and overthrown their
rightful lord and master before killing him. Once over his initial hesitation,
his squire had relished the chance to tell the tale of the peasant revolt,
embellishing his tale with lurid details of how truly repellent the local lord
had been, even going so far as to link the man with the dark gods of the north.

Leofric sighed as Havelock continued with yet more details of the lord’s
vileness in an attempt to justify the overthrow of the natural order of things.

“So why didn’t the local lords just ride in and crush the rebellion?”
interrupted Leofric. “Why aren’t those peasants strung up by their necks from
the top of the Lace Tower?”

“They would have been, you see,” said Havelock, wagging his finger at
Leofric, before a stern glance warned him not to continue doing so. “Aye, they
would have been, except that the local lords was in the middle of not one, not
two, but three different feuds! You know how these Aquitaine folks are, they
don’t have to fight for their land so they fight each other.”

That at least was true, reflected Leofric. The nobles of Aquitaine were ever
in the grip of some internal feud or war and no sooner would one die down than a
new one would flare up.

“So the peasants were just left to rule the village themselves?” said
Leofric, horrified at the idea of such a thing. Were word of this to travel
beyond the borders of Aquitaine, who knew what might happen if peasants were
allowed to get the idea that their noble masters could be overthrown at will…

“More or less,” agreed Havelock. “Though Lord d’Epee’s scullion told me that
they’d managed to attract the attention of a few bands of Herrimaults to help
them fight to keep their freedom.”

“Herrimaults?” snapped Leofric, spitting into the fire. “I might have known.
Criminals and revolutionaries, the lot of them.”

“But sir,” said Havelock. “They’s good men, the Herrimaults. They only rob
from them’s as can afford the loss and give what they take to feed the poor.
They’s good men.”

Leofric could see the admiration in Havelock’s eyes, and shook his head.

“No, Havelock, they are nothing more than bandits who no doubt perpetuate the
stories of their code of honour and reputation as underdog heroes to gullible
people like you in order to secure their help in keeping them beyond the reach
of the law. Honestly, Havelock, if a dwarf asked you to invest in the Loren
Logging Company you’d say yes.”

The smile fell from Havelock’s face at Leofric’s dressing down, but Leofric
could still see the spark of defiance there, fuelled by the romantic notion of
peasants casting off their noble masters, and knew he had to crush it.

“Very well, Havelock,” said Leofric. “I have no issue with people wishing a
better life for themselves, but there is a natural order to things that cannot
be upset or the land will descend into anarchy. If every peasant wanted to rule
his village who would till the fields, gather the crops or rear the animals?
Nobles rule and peasants work the land,
that’s
the proper order of
things.”

“But, that’s not—”

Leofric held up his hand to stifle Havelock’s protests and said, “Let me tell
you of the last time a peasant tried to rise above his station. He was a young
man of Gisoreux, and though you say you never had time for fancy stories, I
think you’ll know it.”

“You’re talking about Huebald, my lord?” said Havelock.

“I am indeed. Yes, he was a brave and handsome young man who saved the Duke
of Gisoreux’s bride from the terrible beasts of the forest, but the thanks of
the fair Lady Ariadne should have been enough for him. Instead he used his
friendship with the lady to have her go begging to her husband to dub him a
knight of the realm. A peasant becoming a knight, I mean whoever heard of such a
thing?”

“I don’t think that’s quite what happened,” said Havelock, clearly hesitant
about contradicting a questing knight.

“Of course it is,” said Leofric, “This Huebald, despite the armour, weapons
and squire he was gifted with by the duke, was still a peasant at heart and his
true nature was what was to undo him when he sought to move in higher circles.
With the noble knights of Gisoreux, he rode into battle against a horde of
beasts and was slain as he fled the field of battle.”

“My lord, with respect, I do know this story, and if I might be so bold as to
say so, I think you might have heard a different version from mine.”

“Oh?” said Leofric. “And what happens in your version?”

“The way I heard it,” said Havelock, “was that Huebald was shot in the back
by his squire as he charged the monsters.”

“Shot by his squire?” exclaimed Leofric. “Why in the world would a squire
shoot his knight?”

“Rumour has it the nobles paid him to do it,” shrugged Havelock. “Gave him a
gold coin, more wealth than anyone like him would see in five lifetimes, to do
it. The nobles didn’t want some uppity peasant thinking he could be as good as
them and they put him back down in the mud with the rest of us.”

“I had not heard that version of the story,” said Leofric.

“Well you wouldn’t have, would you, my lord,” said Havelock, absently
stirring the embers of the fire. “You nobles hear your version ’cause it puts us
peasants in our place, and we hear our version and it gives us something to hope
for. Something better than grubbing in the mud and shit, which is what we
normally do.”

“So which version do you think is true?” asked Leofric.

Havelock shrugged, “Honestly? I don’t know, probably somewhere in the middle,
but that doesn’t matter, does it? All that matters is we each have our own
version that keeps us happy I suppose.”

Leofric said nothing, staring at Havelock with a little more respect than he
had done before. When Havelock had come to him and begged to be his squire,
Leofric had initially refused, for a questing knight traditionally travelled
alone, but something in Havelock’s demeanour had changed his mind. Perhaps it
was his newly acquired sense for things yet to pass that had made him change his
mind, a disquieting gift, he presumed, of his time spent beneath the boughs of
Athel Loren. Whatever the reason, he had allowed Havelock to accompany him and,
thus far, had no cause to regret the decision.

“Maybe you’re right, Havelock,” said Leofric. “I suppose each strata of
society perceives past events through its own filters and hears what it wants or
needs to.”

His squire looked blankly at him and Leofric cursed for expressing himself in
ways beyond the ken of a peasant. He smiled and said, “I’m agreeing with you.”

Havelock smiled back and said. “Oh. Good.”

“Don’t get used to it,” said Leofric and stretched, looking up into the
darkness of the night sky. The Forest of Chalons was still some days off and as
he watched a shooting star streak across the heavens, he wondered whether it was
a good omen or not.

The Forest of Chalons stretched out before Leofric in a wide swathe of
emerald green that lay in the shadow of the rearing crags of the Massif Orcal.
The outer trees were stripped of their leaves on their lower reaches by a
technique Havelock informed him was known as pollarding, and the dawn light
didn’t make the forest look any more appealing than it had when they had arrived
last night.