Sir Bentley and Holbrook Court (7 page)

A PAUPER'S LIFE

Bentley felt the thunder in his feet before he heard it. At first he thought the dark clouds above were finally beckoning the rains to fall. But then he looked behind him just in time to see a contingent of mounted knights galloping down the road. He scrambled to get off the road, and they roared past him as if he wasn't there. Shame burned his face when he thought of the many times he had passed by peasants in just such a fashion.

He had been walking since early morning, traveling the road toward Holbrook with a small knapsack hanging from his shoulder. Demus had provided a coarse tunic, trousers, and cloth shoes that did little to protect his feet. The pebbles and cracks of the roadway bruised his soles, and he had to stop often to massage them. With every step, he missed his boots, tunic, armor, and belt—but most of all his sword. It had been such a part of him for the last six years that without it he felt awkward and vulnerable.

Small raindrops began to spit at his face, and his cloth shoes quickly became soaked as he passed the outlying farms of Holbrook. Here, Demus had told him, the growing season was just long enough to harvest two crops. The primary crops were corn, barley, and wheat, but most families supplemented their meager incomes with small vegetable
gardens. Bentley was saddened to behold the careworn faces of the peasants working the fields.

He stopped by one gray-haired man who was weeding a plot near the road. “I'm looking for work, sir. Do you know of anyone willing to hire me?”

“Lord Kingsley's the only one who hires in these parts,” the man said. “His agents live in the village.” He gestured with his head toward Holbrook.

Bentley nodded his thanks and continued on toward the village. Before he'd gone but a few paces, the man spoke once more.

“I don't know where you've come from, but if I were you I'd return there. Work for Lord Kingsley and you'll never leave.”

Bentley turned to see that the man hadn't stopped his work.

“He'll own you and all you have,” he muttered, almost as if he were talking to himself.

Bentley pressed on. The rain became heavy, and the dirt road, rutted heavily by the oxcarts traveling to and from the village, melted into mud. Bentley had to step carefully to keep from slipping.

“Move aside!” shouted a man from behind Bentley. He was pulling on the harness of an ox with a full cart of vegetables and tools. But Bentley had nowhere to go. The roadway was narrow, bracketed by ditches on either side. And another cart was coming toward them.

Bentley stepped off the right side of the road onto the inclined bank of the ditch and nearly lost his footing. The man muttered a few curses beneath his breath as he passed. Bentley slipped and grabbed a handful of mud to keep from falling farther. He found a foothold and carefully stepped back onto the road, shaking the mud from his hands. He heard the man yell again, but this time with much more vehemence.

Bentley looked up to see another oxcart coming from the direction of Holbrook. A lanky peasant guided the cart, which seemed empty except for a woman and two children. The road was so narrow that the two carts would have a hard time passing.

The angry man cursed again and pulled harder on his beast without moving any closer to the edge of the road. The younger man guided his ox and cart to the left to avoid colliding wheels, but his cart began to slip into the ditch. The children screamed, and the mother made a grab to keep them from falling off. The angry man ignored them and continued toward Holbrook, waving his arms in the air and muttering to himself.

“Get off the cart!” the man yelled to his young family as he struggled to keep his beast on the road and his cart upright. The harder he tried, the farther the cart teetered toward the muddy ditch. The ox bellowed in protest.

“Jump, Meg!” the mother cried. The older girl jumped to the road and fell into the mud. Bentley ran to the cart and held his arms out to the mother who was clutching the littler girl. She hesitated just a moment, then handed the little girl to Bentley. He set her down on the ground and reached up for the woman. She grabbed his arms and jumped just as one wheel came off the ground and threatened to flip the whole cart.

Bentley caught her and set her safely onto the road. Without saying a word he went to help the man. He joined him in pulling on the beast's halter, but it wasn't enough.

“I'll push on the cart!” The man ran to the back of the cart, which by now was almost completely off the road. Bentley pulled hard as the man tried to push against the cart, but his feet just slipped in the muck. He pushed again and fell to one knee just as one of the ox's hind legs slipped off the edge of the road, sending the cart over on its side.

“Creighton!” the woman screamed as the cart tumbled over. Her husband fell backward into the ditch with the cart on top of him.

Bentley released his grip on the ox's halter and ran to the man called Creighton. He slid down the embankment to discover that each moment of this crisis brought further disaster. The wheel of the cart had pinned the man's leg, crushing it, and the side boards were pressing his
face into the water. He was fighting with all his might to get his face out of the water for air.

Bentley straddled Creighton's body and struggled with all his might to lift the cart. It moved just enough for the man to lift his head and take a breath.

The woman was trying to free herself from the panicked children to come and help. “Get help!” Bentley told her through clenched teeth. She left the small girl in care of the elder one and disappeared.

Bentley's arms and legs began to shake. He couldn't hold the cart up any longer.

“Take a breath,” Bentley told Creighton, then slowly lowered the cart, pushing the man's head back into the water. Bentley shook his arms. “Help me!” he yelled, then grabbed the cart and lifted again.

Creighton emerged from the water, gasping for another breath. Bentley looked down between his strained arms and saw the man looking up into his eyes. He sputtered mud and water from his mouth as he begged, “Please… take care… of my family!”

Bentley's arms began to shake again. This time he weakened more quickly. Just as he was about to lower the cart again, another man slid down the ditch and reached for a corner of the cart. He was as young as Bentley, but a fair bit taller and twice as thick.

Creighton's wife was just behind him. She waded into the ditch and put her hands underneath her husband's head to hold it above the water.

“Can you hold the cart for a moment?” Bentley asked the newcomer.

“I think so,” he grunted.

Bentley released his grip on the cart and pulled on one of the loose side boards. After a couple of attempts, it came free. He pushed it beneath the cart near Creighton's head and levered it upward. Together the two men lifted, and Creighton's wife pulled on his shoulders to free him from the cart. They were able to get his torso from beneath the cart, though his leg was still painfully pinned beneath the wheel.

Bentley moved his lever to the wheel, and the two men lifted again. After two attempts the man was free. Bentley and his helper leaned against the cart, breathing hard.

“Thank you.” Bentley held out his hand. “My name's Bentley.”

The burly fellow took it. “I'm Walsch.”

“I owe you my life.” Creighton looked up from the ground at Bentley and Walsch. His wife nodded with tears streaming down her cheeks.

Walsch elbowed Bentley. “We wouldn't let Kingsley take one of us out that way, would we, eh, Ben?”

“Not today,” Bentley said. “Let's see about getting this man home.”

It required two horses and four other men, but eventually they recovered Creighton's cart with minimal damage. They placed him on it and took him to his mud and straw cottage. Walsch hurried to Holbrook to fetch the bonesetter while Bentley stayed with the family.

The cottage had dirt floors, a simple kitchen, and a second room with straw as beds for the family. While they waited for Walsch to return with the bonesetter, Bentley discovered that Creighton's wife was named Anwen and the youngest girl was Nia. Anwen was a pleasant-looking woman not much older than Bentley. Her brown hair was pulled back in a braid, and though she looked frail, Bentley soon learned she was anything but.

Bentley knelt beside Creighton and lifted his pant leg to reveal a large purple lump on the inside of his left leg midway down his calf Anwen took a wet cloth and cleaned the swollen leg, while Creighton clenched his teeth against the pain. Sweat poured down his forehead, and Anwen swabbed his brow. He grabbed her hand and looked up at her.

“'Twill be all right,” he said reassuringly.

Anwen shook her head, her face grave. “How will we manage the crops and the animals?” she asked. “We're barely surviving as it is.”

Creighton pursed his lips and mirrored her concern. “Two weeks, my dear wife. Two weeks, and I will be in the field if it kills me.”

Anwen closed her eyes against the tears. “That's what I fear.”

Bentley watched helplessly, caught up in the world of their pain. He would never see the kingdom of Arrethtrae the same way again, for these peasants were not the dull gray background behind the opulent and colorful lives of the nobility. They were men, women, and children who worked, loved, laughed, and cried just like the wealthy. They just happened to be born on the straw bed of a cottage and not on the silky linens of a wealthy lord's castle.

“I will help you,” he said.

“But you have already helped us,” Creighton said. “I can't imagine what more you could do.”

“I can stay on and work your field for you,” Bentley said with a quick nod. “You'll have to teach me, for I don't have much experience. But I have a strong back and a willing heart.”

“But we cannot pay you,” Anwen protested.

“A straw bed and food to eat is payment enough.”

Creighton and Anwen looked at him, perplexed by his offer, not daring to believe it. Anwen's eyes filled with tears, and she held out her hand to Bentley. He took it, and she squeezed it as tears fell down her cheeks.

“The men are here!” Meg shouted as she ran into the room.

Setting Creighton's broken leg proved to be a significant challenge. Bentley was thankful for Walsch's strength once again as they worked to hold Creighton still during the ordeal. The pain was nearly unbearable for Creighton, but they were able to set the leg and splint it.

“You're fortunate the bone didn't pierce the skin, or it would have festered for sure,” the bonesetter said after tying the last bit of cloth on the splint. “Then I would have had to come back in a week to cut off the leg.” Anwen paid the man his fee, and he left. She tended to Creighton as Bentley talked briefly with Walsch outside the cottage. The rain had almost stopped.

Bentley enjoyed Walsch's charming perspective on life. His hair was blond and his face broad. His husky frame suited him well.

“Are they kin of yers?” Walsch asked.

“No.”

Walsch tilted his head. “And yer stayin’ on to hep 'em?”

Bentley winced and scratched his head. “It rather looks that way. I don't think he'll be doing much in his condition for a while.”

Walsch snorted. “Yer an odd one, that's fer sure.” He squinted at Bentley. “Yer not from these parts, are ye?”

Bentley hesitated. He hadn't prepared himself for this question. Finally he replied, “I'm from south of here.”

Walsch smiled. “A stranger y' be then.” He slapped him on the back.

“Tell me about Lord Kingsley Walsch.”

Walsch's smiled vanished. “Lord Kingsley's a powerful man. The entire village and all the farms pay half their crop or earnings t’ the lord in taxes.”

“Half?” Bentley was surprised any family could survive under such heavy taxation.

“Aye, half It matters not whether the season be good or bad. And if someone can't pay, Lord Kingsley's knights'll take a child, or a wife, or the man himself. 'Tain't right.” Walsch's countenance turned to anger. “But it weren't always so.”

“What do you mean?”

“This was once a peaceful land, and Lord Kingsley was a fair landlord. But eight years ago, the Lucrums started t’ come in and rob Holbrook an’ all the farms.”