TW01 The Ivanhoe Gambit NEW (9 page)

Rebecca looked at him with astonishment. "You quote the Prophet Isaiah?
And in Hebrew!"

"Armorers are still making swords and spears," said Lucas. "They have not yet turned to making farming implements. I do not dispute your faith, but you would be wiser to take your fate into your own hands instead of trusting it to God."

"An easy thing for a man to say, my lord, but not so easy a thing to do for one who is both a woman and a Jew," she said. "I wish you well, good knight."

She inclined her head toward him and left.

"Interesting woman," Hooker said.

Bobby and Finn entered the pavilion. It was dark outside and all was quiet, most of the knights and nobles having gone to the banquet while the spectators dispersed until the next day's festivities. The sound of crickets filled the cool night air.

"Had to wait until your company left," said Bobby. "Striking looking woman. Who was she?"

"Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York. A Jewish merchant whom John's been milking for money."

"How does she fit into all of this?"

"I don't know if she does, yet. I take it you didn't see the jousting?"

Bobby shook his head. "We made some contacts. What happened?"

Briefly, Lucas brought them up to date. "I don't know how our fake Richard intends to make his move," he said, "but he may not have an easy time of it. With people like De Bracy, Bois-Guilbert and de la Croix in his service, John's not going to be easy to displace."

"That's always assuming that our friend Irving's going to play by the rules," said Bobby. "Don't forget, he's a crackpot. He might just decide to come on strong with some technology and blow these boys away."

Lucas shook his head. "I don't even want to think about it. You said you made some contacts?"

Bobby sat down and sighed. "Finn and I met up with a few of Locksley's men."

"Any problems?"

Bobby snorted. "Problems? Try disaster."

"What happened? You don't mean to tell me that they didn't buy that you were—"

"Oh, I was accepted easily enough, that wasn't what I meant," said Bobby. "What did you expect these people to do, see through my cover? There's no chance of that."

"So what's the problem?"

"The problem is a bit of disillusionment," said Finn, chuckling.

"Hey, it's not so funny," Bobby said. He looked at Lucas. "The legend of Robin Hood was always one of my favorite stories, you know? The truth is somewhat less attractive. Seems Locksley wasn't quite the man I thought him to be. After the archery bout, we made ourselves scarce. Then we ran into a few of the merry men. You might say they were impressed. They never saw anyone shoot like that before.

More to the point, they never saw
Locksley
shoot like that before."

"Turns out the famous Robin Hood wasn't all he was cracked up to be," said Finn. "The impression one gets is that he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if he was standing in the hayloft."

"They were also surprised to see me sober," Bobby said. "See, Robin's been gone for a while, no one knows where to. Locksley's a fucking lush. Every now and then, he gets so blitzed he just takes off somewhere and doesn't come back for days. This time ‘I’ was gone for longer than usual. Marion's fit to be tied."

"You mean Maid Marion?" said Lucas.

Finn guffawed.

"Everything's a joke to this guy," Bobby said irritably. "Yeah, Maid Marion. Only nobody calls her that. That's because she's about as maidenly as Anne Bonney. Our referee friend who sent us out on this suicide mission didn't do his damn homework very well. The idea was that, as Robin Hood, I'd be able to use the merry men to help us out if need be. The only problem is, Robin Hood isn't in charge of the merry men.
Marion
is. Seems my main task is keeping her bed warm."

"And he's in a bit of trouble because he's been delinquent in his duties," Finn said, grinning. "Fact, he's A.W.O.L. right now and if he doesn't get his ass back soon, the boys said, she'll put it in a sling!" He started laughing uncontrollably.

"God damn it, Delaney, put a lid on it! That's an order!" Bobby said.

"Fuck you, son. I've been busted from master sergeant, captain and lieutenant, just to name a few.

Don't give me any shit about orders. I was getting my ass shot off with the Lost Battalion when you were still sucking at your mother's tit. I made it through some pretty bad scrapes and I intend to make it through this one, so if you're smart, you'll button it up and listen, both of you." Hooker chuckled.

"And that goes for you, too, squire," Delaney said. "Plant it and listen up."

"Okay, Finn, no one's disputing your experience," said Lucas. "What do you suggest?"

"Well, for one thing, forget about the fucking rules," Finn said. "There's nothing in the manual about a hitch like this, so you can just throw out the regulations. If we play by the rules, we're going to die and that's all there is to it. All we have to worry about is nailing this Irving character and then we can leave it to the refs to clean the mess up, because they got us into it in the first place. Unfortunately, we don't have much in the way of ordnance to give us an edge, but we do have a few of those trick arrows Johnson here brought back with him. The first chance you get, you draw a bead on this whacked-out ref and blow him to hell and gone. The shaped charges might not penetrate nysteel if he's in armor, but the shock of the explosion will kill him very nicely."

"Suppose we don't get a chance to catch him alone?" said Bobby.

"So what?"

"It might look a little strange if an armored knight suddenly explodes in the middle of a crowd," said Bobby, wryly.

"Who cares?" said Finn. "Somehow I don't think it's going to change the course of history. At most, it will become one of those wild stories that no one will believe."

"I think you're right," said Lucas, "but we may not get that opportunity. If we do, then our troubles are over. But we've got to decide what to do meanwhile."

"I've been thinking about that, too," said Finn. "This character's no fool. He knows several attempts have been made against him already, so he will have taken precautions."

"But we do have the advantage of surprise," said Bobby. "He doesn't know who we are."

"Yes, and that's the only advantage we
do
have," Lucas said. "If we luck out and get a crack at him, one of those arrows should do the trick. But if we blow it, then we've given ourselves away."

"So we lay back unless we get that chance," said Finn. "And in the meantime, we forget about preserving the status quo. There's still a lot that can be done without revealing ourselves. The first order of business is to straighten out this mess with the merry men. If the rest of them are anything like the ones we met, they're the most dissolute bunch of comical buffoons I've ever met. Nothing but a bunch of low-lifes. We're going to have to whip them into shape, cause we may need them. Look at it this way,"

he said to Bobby, "the Robin Hood of history may be the result of what you're going to do."

"What about Marion?" said Bobby.

Finn chuckled. "Well, when those lads report back to her, she's going to expect a changed man, anyway. Surely, you can handle a simple 12th century peasant woman?"

"I'm not looking forward to it," Bobby said. "I doubt she's anything like the lady who just left."

"Well then close your eyes and hold your breath," said Finn. "Either that, or teach her how to bathe."

Bobby frowned. "Thanks."

"That doesn't leave me with much to do except wait around for the fake Richard to show up," said Lucas.

"That's where you're wrong," said Finn. "You've got a lot to do. You've already become a hero to the Saxons as the white knight. Now it's time to reveal yourself to Cedric and make it up with him."

"You mean throw Rowena over and convince him that I've changed my ways," said Lucas. "It might work. A lot can happen to a man while he's away at war. Cedric might believe that I've come to my senses. Then all I've got to do is convince him to throw his lot in with Richard when the time comes.

That's not going to be easy."

"Well, if you wanted easy, what the hell'd you join the army for?" said Finn.

"It's a question I've asked myself frequently. I think I was looking for adventure," said Lucas with mock seriousness.

"Now's your big chance, son. Make the most of it."

"What'd you join for, Finn?"

"The tests said I had no aptitude for anything else."

"You think that's true?"

"I don't know. I've never done anything else."

The banquet at the Castle of Ashby was a noisy affair. John sat in the place of honor at the tables in the great hall with Fitzurse sitting on his left hand and Bois-Guilbert upon his right. All around him, knights and barons were tearing into their food with both hands, ripping off drumsticks or lifting whole roast chickens up to their mouths. Wine ran down their chins and onto their doublets, gobbets of masticated venison were sprayed across the room as revelers erupted into laughter or shouted with their mouths full.

Meat was tossed onto the floor for their dogs to fight over, tables were pounded upon, toasts proposed and drunk and curses shouted, oaths proclaimed and prowess boasted of.

It was all too much for de la Croix, who fled the banquet hall for a walk along the parapets. The scene was bad enough, but to her dismay, it seemed that she had gained an ardent admirer. In the absence of the Jewess, John had seen fit to grant Rowena the honor of presiding over the banquet.

Cedric had reluctantly attended, along with Athelstane, and they sat there glowering while Normans made disparaging remarks about the Saxons. Clearly, Cedric had not wished to come, but his daughter had prevailed upon him, flattered by the attentions paid her by the men her father hated. Andre did not envy Cedric such a daughter.

What was worse, Rowena was blatant in her undisguised infatuation with the red knight, ignorant, as were all the others, of "his" true sex. She made cow eyes at de la Croix and made as if to swoon each time she glanced in her direction. She had contrived to procure for Andre the seat on her right hand, telling all other contenders for the same position that de la Croix deserved it, being the knight who had done the best against the white-garbed challenger. Once seated, Rowena took every excuse to create an opportunity for their hands to brush, for their thighs to come in contact. She had pressed with her knee and when that failed to provoke response, she had started rubbing Andre's leg with her foot. Failing in that, she sought to slip her hand between de la Croix's legs, at which point Andre fled, pleading dizziness as a result of the joust, for it certainly would not do for Rowena to grope about between her legs and not find what she sought.

Andre was not ashamed of being a woman, nor did she have any desire to be a man. Her decision to pose as a male had been one of simple pragmatism. In the society in which she moved, it was almost impossible for a woman to exist independently of a man. Certainly, it was impossible that she be treated as an equal and given the same opportunities as a man. Andre had lost her parents when she was only nine. They had been farmers. Her mother and her father had been hapless enough to slaughter a goat that had been contaminated. In the process of the butchery, they had breathed in the spores from the animal's hide. The same flesh, cooked, had not harmed the children, but for the parents, the die had been cast.

Within a week, they had manifested the symptoms. Both had high fevers, their bodies racked with aches and pains as the infection spread. Their glands swelled, a fine red rash appeared, their blood pressure dropped and their lungs filled with water. They both became delirious, ranting for hours on end and hallucinating and finally, within another week, first the mother, then the father went into shock and died.

Thus, at the age of nine, Andre had become both mother and father to Marcel. She even tried to manage their tiny farm, but the children failed dismally. Leaving behind their simple home, and their parents, whom Andre had buried in the field, they started wandering, never knowing from one moment to the next what fate had in store for them or where their next meal would come from. Those meals were few and far between. They got by at first by stealing. Andre wasn't very good at it at the beginning and she often starved so that Marcel could eat, but she got better.

Their lives took a turn for the better when the orphans were taken in by an abbot who treated them kindly and taught them how to read, giving them what little education both possessed. The demands he made on her young body did not seem too much to give him in return. When he began to make the same demands upon Marcel, Andre decided it was time to leave.

It was very shortly after that that she took to passing as a boy. It made things easier, although not by very much. They traveled constantly, stealing what they could to see them through. They both learned how to fight and they survived, although the odds against them were incalculable. Then they met up with Sir Giles.

Andre never knew Sir Giles' full name. Giles, himself, was no longer certain what it was. A knight errant who had taken one blow to the head too many, Giles was addle-brained without any hope of recovery. He imagined himself to be upon a quest and, indeed, when he had set out upon his journey from wherever it was he came, he may have had some purpose in mind, but he could no longer remember what it was. Though he was a lost soul, Giles was a gentle man who had brief periods of relative lucidity interspersed with fugue states. He was a sad knight, barely able to take care of himself.

Frequently, he forgot to eat and he was given to experiencing extremely painful headaches. In spite of this, however, he was supremely functional when it came to exercising his fighting prowess. It was as though his body could remember what his mind could not. Whenever it came to practicing his knightly art or speaking of it, something inside him clicked and, for a time, he was almost normal.

He had not seen through Andre's deception and he took her and Marcel at face value as two orphaned boys out on their own. They touched a chord of sympathy within him and he made them his squires and proceeded to instruct them. It was a touching, symbiotic relationship. They took care of him, and he gave them protection. When it came to instructing his two young squires in the art of combat, Giles was a relentless taskmaster. He transferred the feverish intensity with which he sought to grasp his past into his teaching and he rode them hard. Marcel, a delicate young boy, was ill suited to such work and he pleaded with his sister to run away from Giles; but even then, Andre understood that the knowledge being imparted to them had no price and that it was an opportunity that would never come again.