The Rogue Knight (2 page)

Today, without the squire, the bailiff or any of his men to help, Cord had to move the baron’s boarhounds to Tiny’s place.

The peasants of Pellinore Fief owed the baron many services. The most mundane took them onto domain land, that land which directly belonged to the baron. There they planted, tilled and harvested his crops. Only after the baron’s land received their attention could the peasants plant, till and harvest their own tiny plots of land. They also pruned and picked the baron’s apple trees, mowed and brought in his hay, chopped and carted firewood to his castle, slopped the muck out of his moat every spring and lent their hands but mostly their backs when castle repairs were called for. In return, Baron Hugh protected them from harm. Here in the Western Marches of Wales, that made the trade about equal.

There was one obligation that irked most on the peasants. That was lodging and feeding the castle hounds in their homes. The hunting dogs barked constantly, making sleep difficult. The castle dogs also ate more than the peasants expected and often bit people.

Usually the bailiff or his men assisted the dog boys. The bailiff helped convince an unruly peasant that it was better to comply with the ancient obligation than to grumble and fight. Tiny, however, bailiff or not, always complained. On at least three occasions, he’d savagely kicked a hound in the head and once he’d even punched a man-at-arms and endured in sullen silence several days punishment in the stocks.

Cord was to take the lodged boarhounds from Old Alfred’s home to Tiny’s. The switch was three days early. Tiny was known to be at home because he’d twisted his ankle a day ago, and he always drank a lot when he didn’t work in the fields.

Cord knew everyone wanted him to fail this test. He also knew that he didn’t want to fight Tiny. The man was incredibly strong and hardly felt pain. It wasn’t that Cord was afraid.... Well, maybe he was a little afraid, but only a little. Sergeant Hob had taught him to box, wrestle and wield knives. Nor did Cord lack strength. His bones were big and his nineteen-year-old muscles were lean, long and hard. His full weight wasn’t upon him yet, but his shoulders were as broad as any man’s. He might even win a fight with Tiny. Of course, he might also loose several teeth or have his head hurt for weeks to come.

The other reason Cord didn’t want to fight Tiny was to show Baron Hugh that he could make unruly characters like Tiny obey him through words alone. A forester needed to know how to talk to peasants, how to get them to do things without a lot of fuss. Upset peasants caused the bailiff problems, and that made problems for the baron.

Cord ran a big-boned hand through his hair.

A forester had several important duties. He told the peasants how many of their pigs could roam the acorn-littered woods. He also told the peasants when and how much firewood they could chop. On a grimmer note, the forester stalked the poachers. The rabbits, deer, boars, stags and other game animals belonged to Baron Hugh. Only the baron or his guests could lawfully hunt them. Too many hungry peasants thought otherwise.

Cord petted the nearest mastiff. The hound wagged his tailless rump, causing Cord to laugh. Others thought of these two mastiffs as vicious, savage beasts. He thought of them as clansmen, as his close friends. He’d trained them, lived with them and gone on every hunt with them. In fact, earlier this spring he’d been with Baron Hugh when they’d met raiding Welshmen. The mastiffs had pulled down one of the shaggy hillmen, and had helped convince the others to keep moving north. Word of this deed had passed throughout the fief with startling speed. Cord hoped to intimidate Tiny with these two black-and-tan brutes, and through the successfully completed chore win himself the position of forester.

Cord waded across the Iodo again, which wandered about the fief. He strode into one of the hunting parks. Soon, he’d be on East Village land. In time, the trees began to thin out.

A mastiff growled.

Cord became uneasy. This is where the old forester had died. Cord stopped and hissed at the dogs. They stopped, although the smaller mastiff kept growling low in his throat. Cord was relieved to hear people talking. They sounded excited. He frowned at Senno, the smaller mastiff. He shouldn’t have growled because of people.

“Stop that,” Cord said, giving the mastiff’s wedge-shaped head a shake. He hurried, and soon stepped out of the forest’s shade.

Peasants huddled around a man scooping earth from a hole in the baron’s grain-field, one near the forest. The peasant on his knees laughed and threw up a—

“Truffle,” Cord said. He grinned. Everyone loved truffles. Then he frowned. The peasants had found the truffles in Baron Hugh’s field. Should he demand them for the baron? To bring back a bag of truffles might help him secure the position of forester. No, he decided. He’d win the post through doing his job, not through robbing hard-working peasants.

When they were finished hoeing here, the East Village peasants would eat a quick lunch and then go their separate ways to work their own tiny fields. Each peasant owned several plots of land scattered throughout the fief. Every day except holy days, week in and week out, a peasant trudged back and forth between his and the baron’s fields, wasting a lot of precious time simply ambling along.

Cord strode through the field to the clump of happy diggers. Old Maude, a wrinkled-faced woman of forty-one, saw him. She scowled and whispered to the others. Everyone looked up and tried with varying degrees of success to hide their guilt.

“Good day,” said Cord.

A few of them nodded.

“Maude,” he said, “is anyone at your cottage?”

She closed the mouth of her sack, tying it to her belt. “Why do you want to know, dog boy?” Her rheumy old eyes took in the mastiffs. “You coming to lodge more dogs?” she asked sullenly.

“No, quite the opposite, in fact,” Cord said. “I’m here to take away the boarhounds lodged in your house.”

Maude glanced at the others. The man who had been on his knees stood up. The others shuffled in front of the hole where the truffles lay buried.

“If someone’s at your home then I can take the dogs away,” Cord said.

“Those boarhounds ate three of our chickens,” Maude complained.

“Er... yes,” Cord said. “That was unfortunate. I suppose that’s why the steward said to take the hounds three days early.”

“Three days,” she said. “It should be worth a week!”

Cord managed a shrug, understanding her plight but unwilling to speak against the baron or his hounds.

“Are you taking the pack to Tiny?” she asked with sudden glee.

Cord nodded.

She laughed, spittle dribbling down her chin. “He’ll knock your block off, dog boy. Tiny hates felons and their brats.”

Cord stiffened, his face going blank. He knew they gauged his reaction to the insult. He shrugged again, but with more studied indifference.

“I don’t care what Tiny hates. He’ll do the baron’s will. Now, if you’ve gotten your share of truffles, why not send someone home so they can be there when I am.”

Old Maude peered up into his face. “You ain’t taking the truffles?”

“You work hard enough,” he said. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t be allowed what treats you can find.”

“Well spoken,” the peasant with the dirty knees said, Lame Jack by name.

“And fair,” said Old Maude, as if surprised.

The others nodded.

Cord turned and strode away before they said something that might embarrass him. The two mastiffs followed.

After twenty long strides, a piercing scream made Cord twist around in surprise. The peasants bolted from the hole. Lame Jack was the only one who hadn’t run. He held his ground, with a hoe raised high as if it were an axe. He shouted angrily.

The high-pitched scream came again, from Maude. “My granddaughter!” she shrieked. “He’ll kill my granddaughter!”

Cord’s eyes narrowed. Then he saw a monstrous creature trot out of the forest’s shadows. Its brown and white mane bristled and long tusks gleamed.  Small eyes darted back and forth as it grunted. The beast was Old Sloat. By his huge size and bulk Cord guessed him to be something over eight hundred pounds in weight. He was the largest wild boar Cord had ever seen. Almost as bad, he saw the rutting shields. Before rutting season, wild boars grew tough, triangular-shaped skin plates on their sides. It protected them from the lateral slashes of other boars during rutting fights. Old Sloat’s shields seemed to be coated with resin, giving it an extra thickness. No doubt, he’d achieved that by rubbing himself against trees. It would be impossible to cut through the shields with a knife. Even with a boar spear, the shields would be hard to penetrate.

To the dog boy’s surprise, he saw something majestic in the pig’s arrogant pace. That frightened Cord even more for it was always easier to fear what you respect. Yet it couldn’t be possible that Sloat was majestic. Cord had heard that a devil lived in Old Sloat. Father Bernard had agreed it might be so. Christ had once driven devils out of a man, and those same devils had then inhabited a herd of pigs. Who but a devil could drive a boar to slay a forester?

In a mixture of awe and fear, Cord watched Old Sloat. The monster went directly to the truffle-hole, ignoring the frozen little girl and the others shrieking from a safer distance away.

“Somebody save my granddaughter!” Maude screamed.

Lame Jack hobbled toward the frozen child. No one else dared close with the snorting monster that pushed his snout into the truffle-hole.

Coming out of his surprised and frightened daze, Cord roared orders at the mastiffs and drew his knife. Sunlight gleamed off the polished blade. Just holding the eighteen inches of killing steel gave Cord confidence. He knew the laws and customs of the fief, but his heart went out to the small girl. His two mastiffs barked as they raced at Old Sloat.

The giant boar looked up from his hole. The small girl took a terrified step backward. Old Sloat grunted in surprise, perhaps not knowing until now that she stood so close. He charged her.

Closer to the boar than anyone else, Lame Jack hurled his hoe. It clipped Old Sloat in the side an instant before he reached the girl. The massive boar spun in rage, spraying dirt upon the moaning little waif. Lame Jack snarled his defiance, a puny knife now in his hands.

The mastiffs launched themselves upon what seemed like the unsuspecting boar.

The canny monster spun again, squealed in what seemed like glee and ripped open the belly of the first mastiff. Cord went cold with fear. Baron Hugh would whip him for allowing the mastiff to be killed like this. The second mastiff, bigger and more battle-wise than the first, dodged the bloody tusks that tried to rip into him. Boar and mastiff squared off, each circling the other, looking for an opening.

The small girl shrieked and somehow broke the spell that had rooted her feet to the ground. She fled to her Uncle Jack, who picked her up and hobbled away to join the others.

Unmindful of his safety, only knowing that he couldn’t lose
two
mastiffs, Cord ran up to Sebald and clicked a leash onto the spiked collar.

Old grunting Sloat, the enraged King, charged again.

Cord swore in fear, twisted and slashed with his long knife. Thick pigskin parted. Old Sloat squealed and slashed with his tusks. Cord’s hunting boot, made of armor-like leather, parted as if it was made of silk. For an instant, Cord felt the warmth of Old Sloat’s breath on his ankle. Then Sebald raked his teeth across the boar’s hindquarters. Old Sloat jumped away. Sebald tried to follow.

“No!” Cord bellowed, as he hung onto the leash. Although yanked brutally forward, Cord managed to keep Sebald by his side.

Old Sloat ran back to the truffle-hole. His dark evil eyes never left the madly barking mastiff.

Cord’s heart raced and his breath came in ragged gasps. He was trembling. The boot was ruined, but thank God, he wasn’t crippled for life. If he’d gone down....

The monstrous grunting old boar eyed him, clearly ready for another go. The coppery stink of blood hung in the air.

Cord looked away, afraid lest he entice the bloody beast by staring at him too long. His eyes lingered on the dead mastiff. That made Cord tremble anew. Flies already crawled over the exposed intestines. Cord was used to seeing his charges killed. Stags, boars and bears took a fearful toll of hunting hounds. But to lose such a costly hound without being on a hunt....

Sickened by fear of Baron Hugh de Clare’s future wrath, Cord almost vomited. He saw the forester position escaping him like a starling from a freshly cut pie. Taking the mastiffs along in order to awe Tiny now seemed like the stupidest decision of his life.

“You must run to the castle, dog boy.”

Cord turned. Lame Jack, wheezing his onion breath, stood behind him. There was another hoe in his gnarled hands. A small bent old man in a dirty sheepskin blouse, Lame Jack was considered by the others to be a wise village elder.

Jack hobbled a little closer and closed a callused hand around Cord’s wrist. “Hurry, and wipe away that blood,” he whispered. “Don’t let anyone know you cut Old Sloat. Someone might be telling Baron Hugh about it in order to gain his favor.”

Cord turned his back toward the knot of peasants who touched the little girl in wonder. He wiped the blood off his knife and sheathed it.