The King’s Arrow (11 page)

The king laughed. “Yes, Walter, and you couldn't hit one of them—not with a quiver full of arrows.”

“We were but boys,” said Walter.

“Long-legged, and coltish,” said the king, aglow with nostalgia. “And you with a squeaking new bow.”

Simon followed Walter across the rush-strewn hall, and into the sunny fresh air of the courtyard.

Everything had changed.

The formerly desultory, nervous, halting day was gone. It was replaced by another, brighter, crisper morning, with louder hoof clops and more eager whispers as the servants hurried. The horn blower tried an experimental
menee
—a blast of his brass instrument. It sounded sour and thin, but instantly—on a new attempt—was whole and bright, a note that captured Simon's heart.

Nicolas, the youthful herald, joined Bertram, the boy's cheeks flushed and his eyes bright. Simon was glad to see Nicolas, and greeted him.

“It is a very fine morning for a hunt, Lord Simon,” agreed the herald in return. “A splendid day for a kill,” he corrected himself. “If Heaven wills it.”

Hounds were led off, frantic with zeal for what they knew was coming, horses mounted, final cups of wine quaffed. Roland was assisted onto a horse by one of his sergeants, as Oin the chief huntsman barked out commands. Bows were gathered, clattering armloads; quivers of goose-feathered arrows were brought forth. As slow as life had seemed in the early hours, now it was all organized haste.

Simon felt a hand on his sleeve, and he turned to meet the continuing gaze of Nicolas. “Stay close to my master,” said the herald.

“Of course I shall,” said Simon, puzzled by the boy's worried air. “Is there any particular threat?”

Nicolas pursed his lips. “I thought I heard plots of mayhem, but this royal court mutters when it speaks. And with such accents—forgive me, Lord Simon—I'd have better luck eavesdropping on a flock of ganders.”

“But if you have cause to worry, Nicolas,” said Simon, “shouldn't you tell your master?”

“My lord does not always listen to me, Lord Simon. And besides, when has danger discouraged a man like my worthy lord?”

Nicolas might have said more, but at that moment the king hurried from the lodge and sprang onto a great bay horse. Frocin cavorted in the gate yard. “Joyous hunting, my lord king,” he cried. Simon was sorry to see that the comic would apparently not be joining the hunting party, but in the daylight the jester's advanced years were all the more apparent, and so was the athletic effort it took for Frocin to prance nimbly among the clattering hooves of animated horses.

Dogs trembled and danced with anticipation. They knew what the presence of the king meant, and so did every man. Oin called to the
lymerer
, a lash was cracked harmlessly but meaningfully over the heads of the pack, and within minutes they were all in the field, grouse breaking into the sky as the horses breasted the golden grass.

Far off, a peasant turned and shooed his children into the family cottage. Safely on the verge of the hunting preserve, but close enough to attract royal attention, no farmer wanted to risk losing a limb or a child to the king's whim.

The feeling of prideful power was pleasing, Simon felt to his own dismay. He was one with a company that any commoner would dread, a rambling group that goose girls and millers alike would flee. The fact gave Simon a certain undeniable thrill.

But soon his attention was drawn to his personal safety. An assistant huntsman turned in his saddle and fell back to Simon's side.

“The lord king, Lord Simon,” came the word, “desires a moment of your company.”

Simon's horse was all too eager to catch up with the king's spirited mount.

Soon Simon rode beside the king, biting his lip lest he blurt out some artless, fatal remark.

19

“Your father was a slayer of vicious dogs,” said the king, giving Simon a long, appraising glance, “and a defender of my own father, from what Oin tells me.”

“My lord king,” Simon heard his own voice say, “the story can be told very tall or quite short, as the occasion warrants.”

The king had a warm laugh and sounded every bit the happy monarch. His eyes were impatient, however, taking in the sight of horse and man with the keen restlessness that Simon had often observed in hunters.

“As for my father,” said Simon, “I do believe that there was a wandering dog, perhaps growling, perhaps mad. My father smote it with a stick, and drove it away from the camp of the lord king your father.”

Simon allowed the flourishing
smote
, his only embellishment to a legend that he wanted to share with the king in a straightforward manner. At the same time, he wished Gilda could see him just then, riding easily along as though he were accustomed to conversing with sovereigns.

“Does your father prosper?” inquired King William.

“My father was thrown by a horse,” said Simon, “and died, ten years ago on the feast of Saint Anne.”

The day had been hot and sweaty, dust and the fragrance of wheat heavy in the air. Certig had come running, through gleaming mirage and the ever-scribbling flies, calling
my lady, my lady
in a tone that could not be mistaken. “My father was a good-hearted man,” added Simon, unsure why he felt the need to talk about his late father with the king.

“My own father was gentle-spirited, too,” said the monarch, an assertion that came as novel tidings to Simon. Then the king added, pensively, “He suffered greatly from every festering humor before he died. Perhaps an instant death is a gift.”

Then King William switched his horse playfully with the loose end of the reins, dismissing all sad discourse as he called for a skin of wine. He drank deeply from a goatskin handed up by a footman, and Simon drank, too, in turn.

Simon did not mention one important chapter in the life of his father. In reward for chasing off the dog, William had giver Fulcher Foldre the manor of Aldham and all its lands, making yet another loyal follower a landed duke or count—the Normans were careless when it came to titles. It was the Conqueror's way of extending his dominion over his new kingdom.

Simon did not mention, either, that the news had killed Simon's maternal grandfather—dropped him with a stroke before he had been forced to abandon his home to a usurper. It was a tribute to Fulcher Foldre's gentle nature, and his loving persistence, that he was able, over time, to win the trust and devotion of Christina.

Simon doubted the wisdom of what he was about to say. Nonetheless—perhaps emboldened by the unusually delicious wine—he said it anyway. “Prince Henry took the horse from me, my lord king. Bel, the young fighting horse. It was no gift.”

The king laughed, but this was not a friendly sound. He said, “Think of the horse as a tax.”

Simon smiled grimly. Life was a hazard course of fees, taxes, duties, to be paid by service, silver, or livestock.

The king added, “You know, of course, that the steed is all but useless. I've had him stabled near the woods. Other horses make him angry, and he attacks the ostler, although he lets the hounds lick his muzzle.”

There was anger behind the king's smile. But having begun this considered frankness with the king, Simon saw no reason to hesitate now. It was not the brief taste of wine rushing to his head, Simon believed. Plain speaking was a virtue—although Simon wondered for a moment how ill any mortal would look, shorn of a nose.

Simon had not expected to mention the slain poacher, but a sudden surge of duty caused him to speak. No one else would ever have such an opportunity to honor Edric's memory.

“A man was killed yesterday, my lord,” said Simon.

“Who?” the king asked, with some interest. In every report of violence, men liked to hear where the wound fell, what body part was pierced, and what weapon was involved.

Simon kept to the bare, unsatisfactory truth. “Edric, a freedman, a father and husband. And a friend to many.”

“I have heard nothing of it.”

Simon described the flight, the javelin, the unshriven death.

The king gave his horse a soothing pat, ruffling the bay's mane. “How far was Marshal Roland from the outlaw?”

Simon did not like the course of the king's inquiry. Simon said, “Perhaps one hundred paces.”

King William closed his eyes, as though picturing the javelin's flight in his mind. He glanced back, observing the marshal riding well behind, Roland watching the tree line, alert to possible harm to the royal party.

King William smiled and said, “I wish I had seen that.” But then he shifted his weight, the saddle creaking beneath him. “Did this poacher owe you a debt, dear Simon?”

“My lord king,” said Simon, “he did not.”

“Then his death cost you nothing.”

Simon could not keep the feeling from his voice. “We all thought of Edric as a neighbor. I liked him well.”

The king looked away, over the windswept field they were riding across, a former pasture. Walter rode a short distance away, talking with Bertram, and Vexin of Tours was holding the reins with one hand while a servant rode beside him, brushing the sleeve of his master's cloak. The ruin of a farmer's cottage hulked among the bracken, and the road was faintly scored by old plow lines.

“Perhaps, Simon,” said the king, his tone one of gentle menace, “you should teach your friends to honor their king.”

20

The greenwood was lofty, its foliage so thick that the blue sky was covered over. Ivy cloaked many of the trees and mantled the fallen patriarchs. Holly bushes, as large as trees, flourished in the sun breaks between the oaks.

Wild apples blushed among briars in the open spaces, and a dragonfly teased the shade, seeking, hiding, and seeking as the woodland closed in around the hunting party once more. Human voices were muted by the verdure, and amplified by it, whispers echoing, careful footsteps crashing unexpectedly among the leaf meal underfoot.

Walter and Simon were directed to a place by Oin the chief huntsman, and now that they were in the woods, Simon was aware of a further change in the temper of the day.

Walter was quiet now, his lips pressed together, his eyes downcast with some private resolve. For his part, Simon, who had always loved hearing Oin tell the legends of the hart—an animal who could grow younger with the passing years—now felt how life-giving farmland was, by contrast, with its tranquil cows and friendly herders.

The scant shafts of sunlight illuminated tangles of tiny flies. Fairy flocks, folk sometimes called these knots of insects; they believed that gnats foretold bad weather. Simon wondered whether a rain would wash out their hopes for a successful hunt. And he wondered, too, if that would be such a bad thing.

The
boisineor
—the horn blower—waited ahead of them, a silver-chased ox horn gleaming at his side. His duty would be to alert man and beast to the chase, when it was under way at last.

Oin fitzBigot handed Simon a quiver of arrows. The shafts rattled, the feathers gently brushing together. Simon withdrew an arrow and gazed upon it as though he had never looked at such a potentially deadly shaft before now.

“Your obligation,” said the huntsman, “is to be as quiet as the horses yonder. When Lord Walter puts out his glove, hand him an arrow, feathered end foremost.” The arrows had iron points, the metal smelling slightly of sulfur from the smith's coals. Some of the arrows were barbed; most were not.

“Simon will have no trouble,” said Walter, giving his varlet a quick smile.

But the royal huntsman was nervous, many months of culling sick deer, clearing away fallen branches, and chasing off poachers culminating in this day. “I've seen barons cut by their own arrowheads, my lord,” Oin replied, “and deer spooked by a footman's snicker.”

“I shall not laugh,” agreed Walter with mock solemnity. “And Simon will be as quiet as a wooden angel.”

Walter held a bow, strung and waxed, the tall weapon graceful in his grasp. In warfare, the crossbow was the preferred weapon, but the yew bow was in fashion among aristocratic hunters.

The mounts were tethered and followed the example of the royal horse, the big bay evidently well trained at meditative grazing. Wreathes and screens of woven elm leaves encircled the horses' necks and half shielded their flanks. Bertram and Nicolas were obscure figures, and Certig, too, all in earthen brown and forest green.

To a deer, the horses would appear to be a welcoming herd. To reach the decoy horses, the approaching quarry would pass the ambush—Walter flanked by Simon on one side of the deer path, and far opposite, perhaps ninety paces away, the king and Roland. The king swept his hood back as Simon looked on, the shadow-splashed sunlight brilliant in his hair.

Simon likewise tugged off his hood, and heard a hiss from behind a nearby tree. Oin gestured, and Simon pulled the hood back over his head. It was hard to hear very well, and the hood also constricted his view.

Simon was sweaty, and too excited to make a further sound as he peered at his surroundings. Vexin of Tours and his own varlet had found a position between the king and the decoy horses. The handsome lover of many women fussed with his bow, a silver-tipped
arcus
of such splendor that Oin must have positioned him last so that the approaching stag would not be startled.

Oin now made his way north, taking quiet steps through the leaf mold, until the huntsman could be seen no more. Simon tugged the hood away from his head, just enough so that he could hear something more than his own excited breath.

Walter lifted an exultant fist. The sound of a hunting pack could not be mistaken. Far off, their barking distorted by the undulations of the forest floor, the dogs had found their quarry.

21

The king pulled the hood back over his head and conferred with the marshal, the two men side by side as the king pointed out places on the holly bush where the ground was bare.