The Firedrake (9 page)

“Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon,” Laeghaire said.

The knight looked him up and down. “Are you waiting for the Duke?”

“Yes.”

“And you are—”

“Laeghaire from Tralee. I have five hundred Flemings down by the river.”

“Ah. Yes. He should be out at any moment.”

“I know. The Archbishop just told me.”

“Oh?”

The knight went into the office, unannounced. He came out almost at once with the Duke. The Duke looked at Laeghaire.

“You made good speed,” he said.

“Yes.”

“May I present Sir William Fitz-Osbern, Lord Steward of Normandy. This is the Flemish commander, Laeghaire of the Long Road.”

“We have met, my lord,” Fitz-Osbern said.

“Good. Get that map. Come with me, Sir Laeghaire.”

Laeghaire followed him. The Duke turned. “Néel of Saint-Saëns says you were in England. He says he saw you.”

“He might have.”

“Why did you deny you spoke Saxon?”

“You surprised me, I guess.”

“You do speak it.”

“Yes.”

“You could be valuable to me.” The Duke held a dagger in his hands. “When I go to claim England.”

“That might be years from now, when I won’t be around.”

The Duke looked up from the knife. “It might.”

Fitz-Osbern came in with the map.

“We leave within the week,” the Duke said. “I have already sent part of my men to the Vexin. Under the Montgomerys and d’Avranches. You and I and Fitz-Osbern will invade straight into Maine. Le Mans we must take. First we must take the land between the border and the city. Mayenne and Walter are here, in Mayenne. I don’t think they’ll come to meet us. They’ll fall back to Le Mans. I want them to. These villages here are your responsibility.” He swept the land between Le Mans and the northeastern border of Maine. “Small, with only two fortresses near them. Take them and occupy them.”

“Yes, my lord,” Laeghaire said.

The Duke studied him. He glanced up al the map again. “I’ll give you scouts. I’ll send them to your camp tomorrow. How is your French?”

“Not very good.”

“You’ll learn.” He smiled suddenly. “You’re least obnoxious when you keep your mouth shut. I’ll expect you here in three days, in the afternoon, with the rest of my captains.”

“Yes, my lord. Thank you.” He turned and went out.

Josse was waiting for him in the courtyard. They mounted and went down through the town. Josse said, “Did he receive you well?”

“Why shouldn’t he?”

“There was some talk of disagreement between you.”

“Who told you that?”

“I just heard it.”

“He received me well.”

“He’s a strange man. Did you meet anyone?”

“Fitz-Osbern. And the Archbishop.”

“The Archbishop isn’t the important one. Of the priests. The Duke’s half brother Odo and the Prior of Bee, Lanfranc —they run things, I’ve heard. We hear a lot about Normans, in Flanders. Priests are very strong here, I’ve heard. Very strong.”

Laeghaire said nothing.

“Although no man’s really close to him. They say not even Fitz-Osbern and his half brothers know his mind completely.”

They were in the middle of Rouen, full of knights and townspeople. The dust was thick.

“He is one of God’s chosen,” Josse said. “Or else one of the Devil’s.” He looked around and crossed himself. “No normal man has his success at everything.”

“He looks like a prophet”

“Yes.” Josse nodded. “That’s good. He wasn’t made to plod along in the dust like the rest of us.”

“Your vision is very slightly offensive.”

“I didn’t mean to include you, sir. I hope you don’t—”

“It was a joke, Josse.”

“Good.”

“Why should it matter to you what I think, anyway?”

“Of course it matters,” Josse said. “Are you thirsty? There’s an inn down there.”

“All right. Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because, at the risk of seeming preacherly, we all are responsible for what other men think of what we say, because everything a man says has some effect on every other man. That’s why lies are so dangerous, more dangerous even than murders, because they delude.”

“More dangerous than heresy?”

“Why, heresy is lying, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you joking with me again, sir?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. It was a bad joke.”

“All lying is heresy, anyway,” Josse said.

They went into the innyard. Laeghaire dismounted.

“That was very well put,” Laeghaire said slowly. “Very well put.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The inn was mobbed with fighting men. It was stiffing. They sat down at a bench. Josse shouted for wine. Laeghaire rested his forearms on his knees. He shifted a little so that his sword rested more comfortably. He wished he had not come in here; it was crammed. He wondered if his son would ask him awkward questions.

Josse brought wine in cups. Laeghaire took his and raised it. He set it down again on the bench. Néel was sitting across the room. Laeghaire looked down and saw an empty wine cask on the floor nearby. He hooked it with his foot, rolled it to him, and smashed in one side with his heel.

Néel turned at the noise and saw him. He stood and came over. Laeghaire stretched out his legs before him.

“So you came after all,” Néel said.

“I hear you’ve been telling tales about me to the Duke.”

“I told him you spoke Saxon.”

“Did he ask you?”

“No.”

“Who gave you license to meddle in” my life?”

Néel darkened. “Who gave you license to talk that way to me?”

“I’ll talk that way to any man who takes liberties with me.”

“Get up and face me, you—”

“It would give me great pleasure. Here or outside?”

The others were dead-still, listening. Néel glanced around at them.

“Outside. There’s more room.”

He turned and went out. Josse caught Laeghaire’s arm. “Are you mad, sir? You’ll have them all down on us.”

“He suggested it.”

“That—” Josse glanced around. The other men were pushing out into the innyard to watch. Their voices rose in a high excitement.

“Well,” Josse said, “you’ve got the right one. They don’t seem to like him. Good luck.”

“Thanks, Josse.”

Josse grinned. “It’s your business, I suppose.”

Laeghaire went outside. The knights had made a circle. Néel stood alone in it. He had his sword out. The crushing wall of knights parted to let Laeghaire into the circle. He took off his cloak and threw it aside and drew his sword.

“He’s got reach over you, Néel,” someone shouted. “He’ll take your ears off with that long arm.”

Néel snorted. He held his sword in both hands, took a deep breath, and charged. Laeghaire dodged away from him. He came up almost against the wall of men. He feinted to draw Néel off and ducked by him into the middle of the circle. He held his sword low. Néel followed him hard. He drew Laeghaire a little off balance and leaped in, swinging at shoulder level. Laeghaire parried the blow. He felt the sting of the meeting swords even through his heavy gloves. He disengaged his blade and struck at Néel’s body, stepping into the blow. He missed and almost fell. He avoided Néel’s lunge only by throwing himself to one side. He rocked to get his balance and parried two heavy strokes. He felt the men behind him like a wall.

“Get back. Give me room or it’s your ears.”

Néel flailed at him. Laeghaire circled him. He crouched. He weaved back and forth. Néel was panting. His mouth was open.

“Christ,” Laeghaire said. “I’ll kill you, Norman.”

Néel struck out, almost tentatively, and Laeghaire caught his blade on his own and held it and pushed him. Néel staggered back and Laeghaire followed, battering at him. Néel moved back rapidly, groping with his feet. His sword was high against Laeghaire’s. Laeghaire clubbed at him. The clanging of the swords filled his ears with a roar. He held the sword two-handed and smashed it at Néel. Néel just met his blows. Laeghaire wanted to smash his head apart. He saw the sweat like blood on Néel’s face. Néel ducked under a blow, trying to get past. Laeghaire swung backhanded. He felt the sword crash into Néel’s body. His own stomach contracted like a good fist. Néel screamed. Laeghaire wheeled toward him. Néel wobbled back. He dropped his sword. The blood leaped from him. He fell and lay in the dust.

The watching knights were silent. One of them came forward and looked at Néel. “He’s done. He won’t be going to Maine.”

The others withdrew slowly into the inn. Laeghaire went after, wiping his sword. He saw two men carrying Néel upstairs. He picked up his untouched wine and drank it.

“God’s ears,” a Norman said. “I’m glad you’re on our side. You’re Flemish, aren’t you?”

“Irish.”

“Irish? Irish?” A man shoved his way through the others. “I thought I recognized that berserker’s swinging. Laeghaire. Laeghaire of the Long Road. By God.”

“Who’s that?”

“Tell me you don’t remember me.” The big man stood in front of him. The others were watching.

“Jehan.”

“Yes. Jehan. Here, bring me some wine, somebody.”

“It’s a long way from Burgundy, Jehan. What are you—”

“I took up the knight-errant’s trade, having learned of it in good places.” He turned to the others. “You screaming bastards, we have, fighting for the side of right, God and William of Normandy, the greatest sword-fighter in all Christendom. I use an ax myself.”

The knights decided to be pleased. They cheered and pressed in around Laeghaire. They drank a toast to him and to William of Normandy.

“I told you,” Laeghaire said to Josse. “These are cousins of mine.”

“You never told me, sir.”

“Cousins, Irish?” Jehan roared.

“Not you. Only Normans. It’s Viking blood; it makes all men cousins.”

“Let’s drink to that.”

They all drank. They sat on the benches and tables. Laeghaire wanted to go. He couldn’t. He thought, Pay the price. Kill a man, you must drink with his friends. Somebody gave him more wine. Josse swallowed his the wrong way and Jehan pounded on his back.

“When we take Maine,” a Norman said, “I want this Irishman right next to me.” He grasped Laeghaire by the wrist and raised his arm. “And we’ll have every woman between the border and Le Mans.”

“Drink to that,” Laeghaire said.

“And the rest of you can wait in line.”

The other knights shouted him down. Josse sat nervously by Laeghaire. They switched from Latin to French, and the Normans laughed at Laeghaire’s difficulties with it. Laeghaire and Jehan spoke Burgundian for a while. They drank all through it, all through the rest of the afternoon. By evening some knights came down to say that the lord Duke had heard them and wanted them to disperse. They tied up the knights and put them in the empty wine casks, but the effort of this sobered them up a little, and they thought it timely to go back to their camps.

Karl held the head of the brown stallion, patting him and talking to him. Laeghaire had one of the great hoofs in his lap. He shaped the outer wall of the hoof, clenching his teeth. It was hard to hold the dagger right, lie put down the stallion’s hoof and stepped back. Karl led the horse in a little circle.

“That’s better,” Karl said. “Whoa, now, my beautiful.”

“I have to trim it some more. Hold him right there.”

He bent and caught hold of the stallion’s fetlock. The horse set himself. Laeghaire drove his weight against the horse’s shoulder. The stallion jumped sideways, trying to rear, and Laeghaire wrestled up the hoof and held it against his knee. The stallion stood braced. Laeghaire swore gently in Gaelic.

“Perhaps you should hobble him,” Karl said.

“He’d hurt himself. He’s stupid. Hah.” He put down the hoof and went to the anvil. The shoe was red as a cherry in the fire. He took it out with the tongs and set it on the anvil. “Great ugly brute,” he said to the horse. He took a spike and made the holes and threw the shoe into a bucket of water. The steam blew up like smoke.

“Does your head still hurt?” Karl said.

“Yes.”

Karl stroked the stallion’s face. “He’s a beauty.” The stallion put his ears forward to hear. When Laeghaire took the sweating shoe out of the bucket and came toward him, the horse pinned his ears back and snorted.

“He’s an infernal misbegotten dog of a horse foaled in the dark of the moon from a sow mated with a banshee.”

Laeghaire got the hoof up again, braced himself, and fitted the shoe to the hoof. The stench of burning hoof made him gag, the stallion smelled it and reared. Laeghaire fell against the anvil. The stallion swung his hindquarters, snorting.