Michael Spradlin: Orphan of Destiny

Finally I was conscious, but it was dark. I heard Maryam and Robard talking quietly. I tried to speak, but no words would come, and there was a burning, throbbing, stinging pain in my side. It was as if there was a hornet’s nest beneath the hide and muscle of my hip. Then I remembered the fight at the docks in Calais, and a crossbow bolt protruding from my side.

Something warm, rough and damp touched my cheek, and the smell of wet dog assaulted my nose. There was another odor, a fire burning, the smell of something cooking. The sense of all these things surrounded me, and I pushed and concentrated and lunged up from the depths of unconsciousness. My eyes flew open and I gasped aloud, “Hornets!”

Light reflected off a large boulder where I lay sprawled on the ground, and in an instant the faces of Angel, Maryam and Robard appeared above me.

“He’s finally awake,” Robard said.

“Tristan, how are you feeling?” Maryam asked.

Angel barked.

“I feel. . Where did. . pain?”

“Where did the pain come from?” Maryam tried to finish my sentence for me. “You were shot. By a crossbow. You lost a lot of blood. We thought we were going to lose you more than once.” Her hand tenderly pushed the hair from my eyes.

“What happened?” I asked.

“What do you remember?” Robard asked back.

“We were on the street, close to the docks. Then something punched me in the side and I looked down to see a bolt. Not much after that. The King’s Guards showed up, didn’t they?” The pain in my hip rose up and nausea overtook me. Closing my eyes and breathing deeply, I tried to settle myself.

“He should rest,” Maryam said. “It makes no difference what happened. We’re safe for now.”

I opened my eyes again and saw something pass between Robard and Maryam. He stalked away from the fire out of my line of sight. I tried to follow him with my eyes but couldn’t yet.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her quietly.

She pushed a log deeper into the fire. “He blames himself for your getting shot. He insisted we sail immediately, and now he feels foolish and selfish. I’ve told him you would never blame him, but he’s a hard one. Hardest on himself, actually. He-”

“I’m standing right here. I can hear you!” Robard exclaimed from somewhere behind me.

Finally I was able to rise up on my elbows and scoot around to sit leaning against the boulder. Angel scurried next to me and curled herself up next to my hip and went immediately to sleep. How often I envied dogs.

“Robard, don’t fret about it. We were surrounded, with pursuers all over the town. Trouble would have found us no matter where we went.”

He relaxed his stance a bit. We had traveled together long enough for me to know he would condemn himself for a long time over my wound.

“It’s my fault, squire,” he said. “If I weren’t so headstrong on the idea of getting home-”

“Robard, had you not insisted on heading straight to the docks, I would have worried something was wrong with you. Since I met you in Outremer, you’ve spoken of little else but returning to your forest. It was wrong of me to think otherwise. It’s done. I’m going to be fine, so let us speak no more of it.” He looked at me and smiled. His hair now reached his big shoulders, and his fair skin was windburned. But his blue eyes were clear and strong. When I was growing up at St. Alban’s, Brother Rupert often told me tales of the Viking hordes who swept over England many hundreds of years ago. I had no doubt Robard was their heir. He finally relaxed a little more, then rested with his bow on the ground and his arms crossed over it.

“You gave us a fright,” he said. Maryam concurred.

“You were delirious and running a horrible fever. Ranting out of your head,” she said. “For a while, I didn’t think we’d ever make the shore. But we finally landed not too far from here.”

“Where is here? Where are we?” I asked.

Robard smiled. “We’re home, Tristan. We’re in England.”

Robard and Maryam recounted the events of the last two days. My memory ended at the docks, with the crossbow bolt sticking out of my hip.

“There were four of them waiting there,” Maryam said. “Sir Hugh will be furious they let us slip away. Robard wounded two of them. My daggers claimed another. The other one turned and ran.”

“We gathered you up,” Robard went on, “and found a suitable vessel, small, much like the one in Tyre, only less of a wreck. It had three oars to a side, and we cut it loose and I started rowing while Maryam tried to keep you from bleeding the boat full and sinking us on the spot.”

I winced at the thought.

“So much blood for a tiny flesh wound,” Maryam remarked.

“Tiny?” I said, agitated.

Maryam shrugged. “It wasn’t like you were shot by a longbow.”

I glared at her. Maryam’s compassion apparently had its limits.

“Didn’t they try to chase us?” I asked.

“Of course,” Maryam said. “They took two boats out right away, but I rowed and Robard discouraged them from getting too close. When we cleared the harbor and he had wounded a third man, they turned back. While you were sleeping, Robard and I kept going until we could no longer lift our arms.

“When we had a moment where it appeared no one was pursuing us, we removed the bolt. You were lucky. The guard was either a poor shot or he only sought to wound you. It was buried deep in the flesh of your hip and you lost a lot of blood. But it was not a killing blow. Robard held you down while I removed it.” She added, “It was not pleasant.”

“She means you screamed like a little gi-like a person in great pain,” Robard corrected himself as he felt the sting of Maryam’s baleful stare. “Grew up in a monastery, you say? Never heard such curse words.”

My face grew hot with embarrassment.

“Stop teasing him, Robard,” Maryam insisted. “You’re lucky you’ve never felt an arrow pierce your thick hide. I can assure you it hurts, although a longbow does hurt more.”

“Thank you, Maryam. . Robard, I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t stopped those Guards from capturing us,” I said.

“Most likely died,” Robard replied. Maryam and I both couldn’t help but laugh. We were all relieved to at least be temporarily free and alive.

“So you rowed us all the way to England?” I asked.

Robard and Maryam looked at each other, something passed between them and they decided to abruptly change the subject.

“Yes, well, now we’ve arrived in England and I’ve found it cold, gray and wet. Why didn’t the two of you tell me the sun never shines here?” she said.

“It does,” we both answered at once.

“Well, we’ve been here three days and all it has done is rain and grow colder by the minute,” she complained. She pulled her tunic up around her neck and scooted closer to the fire.

“Go back to the how-you-sailed-here part,” I said. “I’m not quite following.”

“I need to go on a scout,” Robard said, “and see if I can find a stand of birch where there might be some seedlings. I have a few points left and need to make some arrows.” He fussed with his wallet, counting the shafts he had left.

“All right, both of you stop. Tell me what happened,” I insisted.

Robard swallowed. Maryam was silent. Apparently it was his tale to tell.

“Nothing happened. Not really. It wasn’t a very large vessel. Three oars and a small sail.

“We tied you down in the front and rowed until we were well out into the channel. After the other boats turned back, we kept at it. You were still bleeding and crying out all the time. After a while we got tired and I thought it might be better if we raised the sail and caught the wind. We just pointed it west and hoped for the best,” Robard said.