Christopher Buehlman - Between Two Fires

“Goddamn it,” he added, and felt better.

A piece of the moon hung in the sky like a polished bone.

He would be able to see her if she came.

He fell asleep watching for her, then eased seamlessly into a dream about her walking down this very road; she had a basket of wildflowers, and she scattered them as she went. He felt as proud as a father when he saw what she was doing. It was brilliant of her to think of strewing wildflowers behind her; he smiled in his sleep. He would be able to find her now.

The traffic on the road to Avignon astounded him.

He had not seen so many people since the Death had fallen on them those few but very long months ago. A cart of mystery players went by, beating drums, two men in skull-faces dancing to show they were risen, an angel Gabriel blowing his horn while a ridiculous halo, painted gold but scratched to show the wood beneath, wobbled behind his head. An ox, of all things, pulled them.

“A whoring ox,” he said, waving as they went by.

Later that morning he was walking in the road because the ground on the shoulders was loose and gravelly; he did not want to turn his ankle and hobble the rest of the way into Avignon. A man shouted at him to clear a path, and he obliged, shielding his eyes against the sun as the most recent of several military processions he had seen cantered by. Four knights headed this one, followed by a dozen men-at-arms.

This was, for Thomas, no ordinary procession.

This group of men and horses changed everything for him. It drowned his foal-legged love of mankind and his suckling desire to let even the wicked live in peace. It took him back to the days after the tragedy at Crécy-en-Ponthieu, when hate had draped the furniture of his heart and left him willing to damn himself for revenge.

One of the four knights was Chrétien d’Évreux, heir to the throne of Navarre, and the man who had stolen his land, his wife, his knighthood, and his soul.

He trotted after the horsemen until the weight of his hauberk and the warmth of the day slowed him to a fast walk. He knew where they were going, of course. And he had no idea what he would do if he caught up with them, whether in Avignon or on the road. He would prefer the road.

I should have taken one of those goddamned horses.

But then I would have been in front of them.

It was when he came around a limestone bluff that he saw the stream. The road humped in front of him to form a small bridge that went over a stream feeding the Rhône. It was an old stream, then, one that soldiers had likely been stopping at for years to water their horses.

As these men bearing the quartered arms of Navarre had also stopped. Chrétien and his men were here, all sixteen of those Thomas had seen ride by. Putting on helmets and mounting their lovely Spanish and Norman destriers. They were just getting ready to take to the road again. If Thomas was going to do something, it had to be now.

But what?

A dense thicket and a sort of hill braced the clearing by the stream; it would have been easy to approach in force and deal these men an ambush, but what was a single man to do?

Stop thinking of ambushes and stealth.

You are a knight again, not a brigand.

Act like a knight.

“I seek an audience with Sire Chrétien d’Évreux. It is a matter of honor,” he said in his war voice, walking up to the men, staring at the comte.

A squire, holding his helmet in one hand and leading his horse with the other, walked closer to Thomas, looked at him from his boots to his head, and then called behind him, “Sire, there is a sort of routier or raggedy-man here who speaks of honor.”

Thomas stepped past him.

Men surrounded the comte now, unsheathing their swords and taking axes from their saddle-hooks.

“You should teach your squires respect, sire. It is unbecoming for a man to let his dogs bark for him. I have come here hoping that there is enough honor in you to grant a knight audience.”

A big man reined his horse closer. He was nearly close enough to give Thomas a chop with his axe. Thomas’s hand drifted for the pommel of his sword.

Don’t.

It was Delphine’s voice in his head.

Don’t.

Thomas did not unsheathe his sword.

The comte, still three horse lengths away, leaned forward in his saddle to peer at Thomas. Thomas had never seen him before; he knew him only by his heraldry. He was a big man, like Thomas, but softer in the face and very young, not twenty-five. Had his wife really shared her bed with this puppy?

He was a resplendent puppy, though; that armor was the ransom of a village.

“I know of no knight,” the young man said, “who goes alone on foot, with no surcoat, and a month overdue for a shave. Who are you?”

Some of the men-at-arms laughed to show their loyalty.

A boy of ten, a page in Navarrese red and yellow, leaned closer, his pale face excited; this could be the first time he saw blood shed in earnest.

The comte’s horse was excited, too; it wanted to wheel about and get to open ground, but the nobleman reined it firmly and heeled it back the two steps it had taken.

The raggedy-man spoke.

“I am Thomas of Picardy, once seigneur of the little village of Arpentel, until it was stolen from me while I served our king.”

“Hoooo!” one knight called out, apparently familiar with the story and aware of the implications.

Another of the knights near the comte blanched.

Thomas cut his eyes to this man.

It was André, his squire, the one who had saved him on the field; but he was a squire no more. He wore a fine suit of chain now, and had a moustache coming in. He rode a horse from the stables at Arpentel, one that Thomas had left behind when he went to war because it was too young and green.

What was the horse’s name? He had ridden him only twice.

Jibreel, Arab for Gabriel.

Though this was a warhorse, no Arab.

My goddamned horse.

And my squire.

André. I hope your dubbing was the best day of your life. How could you serve this bastard now?

The squire did not lower his eyes, but those eyes moistened with shame.

The big man with the axe had cheated closer to Thomas and now nudged him with the head of his weapon.

“Leave him,” the comte said.

Thomas turned his gaze back to the comte.

He knew what the young man was thinking: How could he be shut of this nastiness and come out looking honorable? Thomas had been respected. Everyone knew that his excommunication was unjust and that his lands had been stolen. Every man who served a king or a seigneur looked at Thomas’s betrayal and wondered when an accident of loyalty and war would leave him vulnerable to a powerful opportunist like Chrétien.

His hands and more were up your wife’s gown she loved it she loved a pretty young man in her bed and he is pretty not a scarred old bullock like you have you seen your ridiculous beard you look like a whoring prophet

Thomas blinked his eyes hard to bring him back to now; this was not a time to let his thoughts wander.

“What is it you want?” d’Évreux said.

Your Christless head lying in the grass for me to kick into that stream.

“Justice.”

A crow cawed in the trees.

“And what sort of justice might I give you in a field, in Provence, away from my lands?”

Some of which are my lands