The Orphan King (10 page)

Thomas made straight for the marketplace, feeling satisfaction at the weight of the gold coins in a pouch hanging from his neck.

The town square was crowded. Thomas noted with amusement that a noblewoman was bargaining hard for a delicate flea cage, accusing the silversmith of a flaw in the intricate design. A flea cage was a small cube that held a piece of fat. It hung on a long chain from the wearer’s neck, hidden beneath clothing. As fleas moved up and down the person’s body, they would enter the cage and get stuck to the fat. At the end of the day, the wearer opened the cage and threw out the fat and the fleas.

Thomas found this amusing because she was berating the silversmith for an object that would never be seen in public once she began to wear it. The silversmith didn’t bother to argue but simply told her the price was the lowest he could offer, and he was thinking of melting it down to turn into a pendant anyway.

Thomas didn’t wait for the end of the discussion and stepped over horse droppings on his way to a farrier.

“Hang on, lad,” William said. “I’m a little worried about that look of determination on your face. What do you have in mind?”

Thomas shrugged. “Something I have been planning over many months.”

“And something you obviously don’t intend to share with me?”

“We’re hungry,” Thomas said. He pointed at a woman roasting a pig by turning it slowly over glowing coals. “I’m sure the boy and the girl would like some of that.”

“Ah, so I’ve become a servant?”

“I’ll be happy to get the food. After I’ve returned.”

“We’ll wait then,” William said. Nothing in his voice betrayed how he felt about Thomas’s curt statements.

Thomas wasn’t too concerned about how the knight felt, however. This was not where he needed the knight.

Without hesitation, he continued to his destination, where he found the farrier, a burly, bearded man, beside a black horse roped to a post. The man had raised the horse’s hind foot so that the hoof faced the sky. The hoof rested on the man’s thigh, and he was pounding nails into a horseshoe.

Thomas waited until the man finished.

“Aye?” the farrier grunted.

“I’d like to buy a pair of horses,” Thomas said.

“Aye?” This time, surprise filled the man’s face, and he examined Thomas more closely, looking him up and down. “And I’d like to buy a castle, myself. Now that we’ve shared each other’s dreams, what would you really like?”

“A pair of horses,” Thomas repeated. He started to reach inside his shirt for his pouch of coins to prove he had enough gold, but someone grabbed his arm from behind.

“Ignore the dolt,” William told the farrier. “He’s been touched in the head ever since a horse kicked him as a boy.” He laughed. “It’s probably why he wants so badly to have one or two for himself. To deliver a few kicks in return.”

“Let go,” Thomas said, trying to pull himself loose. He was astonished at the knight’s strength and at the futility of his attempt. “I have plenty of gold!”

“Certainly I’ll let go,” William said in a laughing voice. “Once I have you back where you belong.” He shook his head at the farrier. “He’s a nice enough boy but suffers delusions that make it difficult on his mother.”

The farrier grinned in return. “Better your problem than mine.” He stepped to the other side of the horse and lifted the other hind foot.

William kept what appeared to be a friendly arm on Thomas’s shoulder and moved him away, well out of earshot. Then he hissed, “Want us all arrested?”

“I want two horses,” Thomas said. He shook himself loose. Rather, it seemed as though William allowed him to shake loose. “It will cut our travel time in half.”

“Or perhaps now that you have more gold than you can spend, you want the status that comes with sitting on a horse as all the peasants scatter out of your way?”

Thomas fought a tinge of guilt. He had pictured himself in a noble posture atop a horse’s back. After years of enduring harsh treatment by the monks, didn’t he deserve the elevation that would come with a horse?

“I don’t need you to lecture me,” Thomas said.

“How about to give you some perspective that will save your life?”

“I—”

“You don’t have a choice in this. I won’t tell you what to decide. Ever. But you’d better have as many facts as possible before you make a choice. So my role will be to supply you with facts that you don’t have. After that, if you prefer suicide, I’ll not stop you.”

“Suicide? That’s a harsh—”

“Suicide. First, we had agreed that it was a risk to travel through towns. All of us are fugitives, after all.”

“I’m no fugitive.”

“No? What’s a judge going to say after discovering that you assisted the escape of three people condemned to the gallows? You’re as stuck with us as we are stuck with you.”

Thomas had no reply to this.

“And you were about to flash a year’s wages of gold in front of that farrier. Think that wouldn’t get some gossip going? Then he’d wonder how someone in garb barely better than suits a peasant managed to secure the gold. He’d have asked plenty of questions after that. If not to you, then to all he meets. And among them would be those who would decide you were a nice fat goose that needed plucking. And in defending ourselves from them, again, we’d draw attention to ourselves. Is attention what you want?”

Thomas shook his head.

“Even if the farrier was discreet and said nothing about a young
man carrying enough gold to buy two horses and still have a full pouch of coin left over, you need to take into consideration how much more attention you would draw riding a horse through the countryside. Word would travel far faster than any horse, I promise. Might as well leave a trail of crumbs for anyone searching for us to follow.”

“Enough,” Thomas said.

“Enough? Hardly. Now imagine the reaction to those at the entrance to Magnus. Men approaching on horseback? Those are the kind of men with enough money and power to be a threat. No, lad, you want to appear weak. The more you are underestimated, the better it will suit you in battle.”

“I meant enough said because I was wrong and you were right. You’d made your point. No sense beating me further.”

“It felt like a beating, did it?” William said. He grinned. “Good. I meant it as one.”

I
’m glad for a warm summer evening,” William said, sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree.

The group had traveled until the approach of dusk, then stopped on a hillside to eat cold duck and cheese and bread. Darkness was nearly upon them.

“You have a reason for saying that,” Thomas told him. He sat farther down, not on top of the trunk of the fallen tree but leaning against it. “You always have a reason for everything, don’t you? And I’m guessing you are pointing out how pleasant it is because you’re about to tell us we’ll not build a fire. Best not to attract attention.”

“Now that you mention it, there was a reason I insisted on the purchase of blankets,” William said.

“Always a reason.” Thomas had not departed from the town with the magnificent horses of his dreams but a few knapsacks of sensible provisions. “And the reason for rope?”

“Rope is something a man can always use. That’s enough reason.”

The mute-and-deaf girl, who lay on her side on the ground, stared at the stars, oblivious as always to their conversation.

“No fire?” John said. He perched beside William on the trunk and gave a theatrical shiver. “What’s going to keep away wolves and such?”

“The heart of a brave man,” William said, patting him on the
shoulder. “And that brave man is Thomas. He’ll stand guard half the night. I’m not near as brave, but I’ll stand guard the other half.”

“No,” John said. “I’ll take half myself. If three of us each take half the night, it’s a burden easy to share.”

“But if you add three halves,” Thomas began, “the total is—”

William cut Thomas off. “The boy is right. Half the night for you as sentry. Half for me. And half for him.”

John puffed out his chest, proud to be included. “And when I see a wolf, I’ll yell so loud it will run. And if it doesn’t, William has a sword and he’ll wake up in time. Right?”

“Of course.”

“But how many nights will it be like this?” John asked. “We can’t expect every night to be warm. If it rains, we’ll want a fire.”

“A couple more nights,” William said. “Then we’ll reach Magnus.”

“Magnus!” The mute-and-deaf girl whirled toward them. “Magnus!”

John fell backward off the trunk, scrambled to his knees, and peered over the fallen tree. “She speaks.”

“Indeed,” William said. “She does.”

“She never told us she couldn’t speak,” Thomas said, happy for the chance to defend the enchanting woman who’d walked beside them their entire first day together in silence.

“Of course not,” John said. “If a person says they can’t speak, it proves they can. But she pretended she couldn’t speak. That’s almost like saying so.”

“People leave you alone if they think you are mute and deaf and have no wits about you,” the girl said. “I’ll not tell you the abuses I suffered until I learned to make myself someone that nobody would want for fear of an episode.”

“Yet you speak now,” William said. “What is your name?”

“Isabelle.”

“Isabelle, why choose now to speak?”

“Only to stop the madness,” she answered. “Magnus! Surely you’ve heard the stories about Magnus. We can’t go to Magnus. Anywhere but Magnus.”

“Tell us the stories.” William spoke quietly.

“It contains terrible secrets. Strangers who enter the castle never come out. Their bodies are roasted, fed to the peasants. There is witchcraft practiced openly, so it’s told.”

“It’s just a castle,” Thomas said. He wished he’d been able to put more conviction into his voice.

“Just a castle? It once was ruled by King Arthur himself! And you know where he got his power, don’t you? From a witch. Merlin.”

“How do you know this?” the knight asked.

Isabelle stood. “I’ve spent years listening. When people assume you are deaf, they talk as if you don’t exist.”

“There is a grain of truth in her words, Thomas,” the knight said. “Magnus is more than an ordinary castle. Witchcraft and cannibalism, those are stories encouraged by those who live there to keep strangers away. But there is a certain darkness to it. Somehow, it remains a small kingdom of its own within the king’s realm of Britain. Not that it has ever officially been recognized as that. The lord pays taxes, to be sure, but not once in the last two centuries has any king tried to place authority directly upon it.”

“That’s because the last king who tried it died a horrible death, eaten as if by invisible goblins,” Isabelle said. “Insects crawling out of his head as he begged for help.”

William sighed. “No. But the king’s eldest son died in mysterious
circumstances. And in his sorrow, the king left Magnus alone. And I must repeat, that was two centuries ago.”

“Eaten by invisible goblins,” John echoed. “That’s mysterious.”

“What’s mysterious is the broad range of human illnesses,” William said. “I’ve traveled the world, enough to know there are dozens of natural ways to die that seem like the act of an invisible hand.”

“Nobody visits Magnus!” Isabelle said. “Nobody. It’s riddled with witches. I don’t care what the knight says against that.”

“You’ll not be forced to go with us,” Thomas said.

“What choice do I have? If I travel alone, I’m as good as dead. Please, please, let’s go anywhere but Magnus.”

“I must,” Thomas said.

“But why?”

“Nothing matters to me more,” Thomas said. “And you will get no other answer from me than that.”

“If we go to Magnus, then we die,” Isabelle said. She stood and turned away from them, her arms crossed, forming a silhouette against the stars. “Screaming, with insects crawling out of our heads as we fight for our last breaths. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

John let out a deep breath. “I have to say, it was better before, when she didn’t speak.”

A
s they traveled through the forest, John roved ahead with the boundless energy of a puppy, and, like a puppy unsure of its master, he just as frequently ran back to check on the progress of the rest of the group.