Tales of the Old World (50 page)

Pierro sighed, his apron rising and falling with his bellows lungs. “No,
Tomas. Because an uprising such as the one of which you dream must be planned
properly and with patience, otherwise good people have to die.”

Tomas tried to grasp the meaning of this last and very unexpected answer. He
failed, drowning in uncertainty, and waited desperately for his father to throw
him a rope.

“Did you think, Tomas, that I bore this injustice willingly, that I
befriended tyrants for my own betterment?” Tomas’ head was suddenly light and
he leant against the forge, warm clay against his back.

“The blood which flows in your veins, my son, was my blood before it was
yours. That is the reason that I cannot be quite as angry as I might. In some
ways, Lady forgive me, I am proud.”

Pierro stopped as they both heard voices from outside the smithy. The smith
peered through a hole in the hide door and turned back to Tomas with a grave
expression. Without saying anything he picked up his son and placed him on top
of the forge like he had many times when Tomas had been a young lad, to warm the
soles of his feet on winter mornings. He removed his leather gloves and handed
them over. Tomas put them on without understanding why.

“Go to the grove and wait for me there. I must think what is best to do.”

The sound of several riders dismounting could be heard clearly from outside.
Pierro looked hard into Tomas’ eyes and then, touching the hot metal pipe which
was the chimney of the forge, said one word: “Climb”.

Tomas watched the ensuing scene from the thatched roof of the house in which
he had spent his entire life. The events which occurred seemed even more unreal
framed by this most normal of settings. The surprise Tomas might have expected
when his father produced a sword from underneath a stack of raw iron ingots and
bundled it with the apron in his right hand, never occurred. Neither did the
shock register when the Marquis himself, with four of his men, stood in Tomas’
front yard. He wriggled to the apex of the roof, where he himself had knitted
the thatching together and saw his father approach the men. By the time the
exchange began he felt himself ready to witness anything and remain unsurprised.
He was wrong.

Tomas could not hear the conversation in detail and voices reached him only
when they were raised. His father faced away, leather apron folded and hanging
from his right hand. Tomas could hear none of Pierro’s words.

The Marquis remained mounted, untouchable on his black perch, while his men
spread out, their hands never far from their sword hilts. They were clearly
looking for Tomas. How they knew, with such certainty, that he was responsible
for the rose-scented smoke which still clung to the valley, he could never be
sure. Perhaps they had heard Luc’s cry; maybe Tomas had made one too many
drunken speeches on sunny festival afternoons. Whatever their source of
information they were only angered by his father’s denials. The Marquis stabbed
the air with his gloved hand and early in the exchange augmented his gesturing
by drawing the rapier which Pierro had made for him. The blade was dull in the
grey light but Tomas knew that the edge would be well honed. His fingers
clutched handfuls of straw and he breathed moss and dust as he watched the
scene unfold. Two of the men entered the house while the others kept Pierro from
following.

The Marquis rested his blade on the smith’s chest and pushed to emphasize a
heated point he was making. Pierro stepped back, between the two sergeants who
crushed him between their shoulders. The others returned from the house, having
failed to find Tomas. Both had their blades drawn; one also carried a red-hot
iron from the forge. Tomas strangled a squeal.

When relating the details of his father’s last moments, as he later had to do
many times, Tomas could never exactly account for what happened.

At the Marquis’ signal, the two men behind Pierro grabbed his arms and, with
some effort, pulled them from his side. The apron fell to the ground, revealing
Pierro’s sword. Gilbert shrieked hysterically and pointed with his own blade.
The sergeants looked with open mouths and one pounced to retrieve the blade. He
was rewarded with Pierro’s boot in his face and he rolled backwards into the
Marquis’ horse. Tomas’ father swung his huge arms in front of him and his
captors crashed together, bone on bone. He twisted his hands from theirs and
sprang back, claiming his sword and apron from the dirt. Pierro backed
cautiously toward his house, and the sergeant who remained uninjured followed up
hard. Gilbert’s man crouched and stretched his arms, willing them to remember
the long lost training grounds and infantry manoeuvres of his youth. He lunged
and Pierro beat the attack away with his left hand, wrapped in the heavy leather
apron. With a booming cry Tomas had never heard his father utter before, the
smith covered his attacker’s head with his apron and smashed his knee out and
away. The man fell and Pierro looked up to consider his options.

The Marquis sat safely on his horse behind his men who moved slowly forward,
trapping Pierro against the wall of the smithy. Tomas crept further up the roof
as his father retreated under the eaves. He couldn’t see him anymore, only the
expressions on the faces of his foes. At a command from the Marquis the three
rushed Pierro in an unsophisticated charge. All combatants disappeared from
Tomas’ view and all he could see now was Gilbert’s face wearing a feral snarl.
One sergeant reappeared immediately, one hand grasping the other to stem the
wellspring of blood which gushed there. Tomas didn’t see his father die—but he
heard it.

As he slid off the roof behind the house he tasted blood and realised he had
bitten down on his tongue. The sound of his father dying was still in his ears,
the cry and the unholy punctuation of the body meeting the ground. Tomas dropped
from the straw eaves and set off for the woods at a barely controlled scamper.

Tomas wasn’t sure whether they had heard him or not and he didn’t care. He
kept running, weaving between the trees like a fox before the chase. He rested
only when he reached the grove of oaks, heavy and dark in the late afternoon
sun. Tomas propped his back against the largest of the trees and slid to the
ground, the shadow of the canopy reaching down and embracing him in its lattice.
Tomas cried then. He sat and cried and watched the shadow grow and twist and
finally fade as the pale sun faltered. He thought about his father. He thought
about their final conversation and the sound his father had made as he fell to
the ground. He felt like a little boy. Tomas decided what he had to do and only
then could he fall asleep.

He woke in the pre-dawn hour when the deep-green canopy of the oaks gathered
the mist and distilled it into crystal drops. A drop landed on Tomas’ nose and
rolled down, pooling between his lips. He opened his eyes and adjusted slowly to
the flat, grey light. Standing at the other end of the grove, barely visible
through the curtain of fog, were four figures. Tomas drew breath. He lay still
and examined the group. They did not appear to be sergeants; the outlines were
too slim and lacked weapons. They were talking quietly to each other and
occasionally one would glance in Tomas’ direction. He lay still, nestled
between the bony roots of the oak. The figures knew he was there but not that he
was awake. He determined to lie still until he could learn who they were.

The four became six with the arrival of a pair from the direction of the
village. The two newcomers came in at a run and spoke to the others in
breathless tones. Their message was clearly urgent though Tomas could catch none
of its detail. The smaller of the arrivals grabbed the shirt of the figure he
addressed with both fists to add emphasis to his news. Tomas studied the
silhouette of the messenger against the growing dawn. He recognized the shape of
the shoulders and neck and wondered hard what it was that had roused Luc from
his bed before the sun itself. By the time dawn was undeniably upon them the six
had become nine, and then twelve, and Tomas could see who they were: men from
the village, men he knew, farmers, shepherds and Ludo the tavern keeper. They
were deep in discussion. Suddenly a decision was reached and all turned their
faces toward the tree at whose feet Tomas lay. “Tomas, wake up.”

Tomas stood slowly and looked around the group. Their faces were grim and not
altogether friendly. They seemed to be sizing him up.

“That you have done this thing you have done is brave, we acknowledge.” The
speaker was Paul, a lean farmer and a friend of Tomas’ father.

“What we need to know is how brave you will be now.” The group seemed to move
closer to Tomas, blocking the morning sun.

“What does it matter what I do?”

“It matters a great deal.”

“I don’t understand any of this. I am the one who must run and hide. It is my
father who is dead, Lady watch over him.”

“Did you speak with him before he gave his life to save you? Have you opened
your eyes just a little?” Now Tomas was addressed by a younger man, whose anger
was palpable. Gerni the miller pressed his questioning further. “Did he give you
his blessing?”

“He told me to come here.”

There was a general murmur concerning what this might mean. Some thought that
Pierro’s last request was of great significance and that the smith had intended
and foreseen the conversation which was taking place. Others were more
skeptical, citing the less than perfect relationship between father and son.
Tomas was almost forgotten for a moment.

Luc stepped from the huddle and asked him in a low voice. “What will you do?”
Tomas looked at him, hard.

“Have you always been part of… part of whatever this is?”

“Don’t be angry, Tomas. Your father always wanted to know what you were
thinking, what you were saying.”

“And you told him?”

“Everything.”

“What was my father to these people?”

“He was our leader.”

“He was what?”

“From the very beginning.”

“Leader, leader in what?”

“Are you so very blind, Tomas?”

“What is this meeting? What are you here for?”

“To decide what should be done.” Luc looked away. He might have been about to
say more but Paul turned back to Tomas.

“What would you have us do, boy? What would you do?”

No response of Tomas’ would have satisfied the group. Their expectations
were based on their respect for and memory of a dead man, and their palpable
disappointment with his replacement.

“I am going to the manor to kill the Marquis, or I will join my brave father,
that is all.”

The men thought for a moment. Before one of the more senior figures could
respond, Luc spoke up.

“We could come with you. Perhaps you need not die.”

“That would mean war. We can’t fight soldiers with sticks, Luc.”

“The village is already full of sergeants, looking for us, and besides…”

Gerni choked a little laugh and walked past Tomas to the oak under which he
had slept. The miller reached up into a hole near the bole of the tree and his
hand returned with a large hessian sack, sewn shut at both ends. He lay the
bundle heavily at his feet and cut a careful, longitudinal slash with his knife.

Tomas still could not understand what he was seeing as the bright blades
spilled onto the grass. Something about the simple, elegant ironwork was
familiar but a part of him still refused to understand. “Where did these come
from?”

“Your father, boy. Pierro forged these over years of crafty, secret work. An
ingot of iron here, a few spare hours there. Paid for by the Marquis and crafted
by his own smith. Intended for his downfall. There aren’t quite enough but we
will have to make do. That is, unless you have a better idea.” The bitterness in
Paul’s speech cut Tomas and his eyes stung with salt.

“My father?”

“Your father.”

The men distributed the weapons and made final repairs to the leather
handles. They sharpened the blades on stones among the trees which seemed to be
too well placed in the grove to have lain there by chance. Others spent the day
practicing, or preparing a meal for the group. By nightfall they were ready.
There had been no discussion, no decision and there was no plan, but a general
consensus had spread through the group that they would move at night. It was
agreed that the sergeants would know something was up but would not be anywhere
close to ready for exactly what was. Tomas felt unable to claim a sword when
others were without them, and he gripped his knife as if someone was trying to
wrest it from his grasp.

The fires were well and truly out around the manor and the huge house lay
strangely naked in the moonlight when the mob arrived. They hid at the edge of
the woods and watched for long enough to establish that four sergeants were out
in the grounds, patrolling, and that fires burned in many of the manor’s
hearths. What they didn’t know was how many of the sergeants remained in the
village and how many were in the barracks. Facing all the armed men at once they
would be fatally outnumbered. Their only hope was to deal with their enemy
piecemeal. The distance between the forest and the manor, only about a third of
a mile, seemed an uncrossable chasm of open ground.

Tomas heard himself give what sounded like an order and thought only later
about how easily it had come to him. “This way. Follow me.”

Tomas, Paul, Gerni and Luc went ahead, the others waiting in the woods for
their signal. The four scouts crept as far as the scar of the hedge and hit the
ground. Nothing remained but a few twisted black bones of the great growth and a
two-foot deep ditch of coals and ash. Tomas felt the warmth of it on his face,
even now, and took some comfort from that. They waited for two of the sergeants
to pass further away and then Tomas demonstrated his idea. He found a deep pile
of ashes and took a double handful. With this he painted his face and clothes
black and grey and almost disappeared into the background of the burnt hedge.
The others followed suit and the four crept up the hedge-line, keeping low,
almost invisible towards the main gate where the two men stood guard. The gates
looked forlorn and foolish with their stone gateposts standing alone and no
hedge to justify them.