The Firedrake

The Firedrake

Cecelia Holland

Copyright © 1965 by Cecelia Holland

Published by E-Reads. All rights reserved.

www.ereads.com

To Miss Susan Harris

Prefatory Note

The name “Laeghaire” is the Gaelic spelling of Lear, as in
King Lear.
It may be pronounced that way, although a speaker of Gaelic would undoubtedly correct it,

The historical details of the story are as close to truth as possible. The major exception is the events of October 1066, prior to the occupation of the town of Hastings. I have rearranged the facts here to suit purposes of plot and characterization. I ask the reader’s pardon for these and any other inaccuracies.

The greatest inaccuracy a writer of historical fiction can commit is to assume the inevitability of events. I ask the reader to approach the events of this tale not as accomplished facts, but as the unfolding of the continual, unforeseeable present. The decisions of the dark and violent eleventh century were no more inevitable and no less agonizing than the decisions of the dark and violent twentieth century.

Cecelia Holland

THE FIREDRAKE

In the trees it had been very dark. Here in the clearing the sun still shone a little. He turned in the saddle and looked back. He could see only a little way into the forest. The trail wound back down the slope and vanished into the deep heavy darkness.

He moved the black horse a little farther from the trees and dismounted. The grass was thick and high. The spur of the rock would make good shelter. He lifted the reins over the head of the black horse and let them trail. He went slowly to the rock spur. The rock lifted in a great arched crest. He thought the ground was level beyond it. But when he rounded the rock he saw that the ground fell sharply away, sweeping back down to the forest. He had not realized how high he had come, following the ancient trail.

He was tired. He stood a moment, not thinking. He lifted one hand and thrust back the hood of his cloak. He looked around. He saw the fire bed at once. It was crowded up to the rock and heaped with black ash find stubs of wood. He started a little. His hands rose, and he turned and looked all around. He could see everything from here, all the clearing; there were only the two horses, grazing, the lead line drooping between them. The brown stallion lifted his head once, nosed at his shoulder, and lowered his head again to the grass. Laeghaire relaxed slowly and went down to the fire bed.

It had been used before the rain, some three or four days ago. He kicked idly at the heap of rubble. Gypsies, he thought. Heinrich’s knights would not have come so far so quickly. He wandered around the clearing. The ground was rough under his feet. The clearing tilted like a tent to the crest of the rock. Near the edge of the forest on the north side there was a flat space. Here the grass was still crushed down from the weight of horses. He found the hole a picket pin had made. Gypsies, he thought. He shrugged.

His heel scraped on metal. He knelt and probed at the ground with his forefinger. It was a bit shank. He weighed it in his hands. The shank was long and curved back sharply. He rose and flung it into the trees. Thuringians, after all. He went back to his horses. The black horse lifted his head. Laeghaire pulled off the saddle and bridle and dumped them in the lee of the rock. He took the waterskin from the saddle and turned. The black horse was right behind him. He unlaced the skin and gave the horse water. The horse raised his head. The water dripped from the fine hairs around his muzzle. The horse butted at Laeghaire. Laeghaire shoved him away. The horse laid back his ears and snapped at Laeghaire’s hand. Suddenly he wheeled and galloped off, leaning into the curve of the slope. Laeghaire went to the brown stallion and led him to the rock spur. He unpacked him and hobbled him. The black horse trotted back and began to graze.

Laeghaire ate a little dried meat and drank some water. He gave the brown stallion grain. While the stallion ate, Laeghaire stayed by him, keeping the black away. The black stood watching curiously. Laeghaire took the empty nosebag and put it down and made a fire. He sat by it and leaned against the rock. It had become very dark. There was no moon. The stars were small and sharp. He burrowed into his cloak. He was not tired for sleeping. He thought of the Thuringians who had stayed by a fire in almost the same place, tethering their horses down by the forest. He wondered if they had spoken of him. He wondered who they had been. They would be ahead of him now. Probably there were more behind him. He had followed the old trail too faithfully. He took a mouthful of water and held it on his tongue. Finally he swallowed it. They would surely not expect him to stay on the old trail now, not with the fire and the bit for good evidence of their passing.

He dozed. Several times he woke up, stood, and looked around. Before dawn he harnessed the horses. He had thought a long time in the night. He left the horses, packed and ready, and went down to the forest. He found the bit shank on the even pine-needle floor of the forest. He knocked the dirt from it and looked at it. The broken edge showed uneven knife cuts. He, put the shank in his pack when he returned to the horses.

He left the old trail and rode southwest, picking his way through the tall slender trees. The ground was fairly open. He made good speed. The horses moved quietly over the soft thick ground. Toward noon he found another trail, much newer than the one he had followed to the clearing, that ran south. He turned along it. It was marked with cart wheel ruts; the more he followed it, the wider and clearer it became. He camped by it that night and slept well. He rode on along the trail. In the dusk of that day he came from the forest onto a plain. He camped on the edge of the plain. The horses grazed in the wild grass. He thought about the Thuringians. He wondered which of them had left the bit shank. They were heavy-armed, broad-faced men, as strong as the Slavs. They did not talk deeply. He remembered their faces, lit up by firelight, in the camps they had made campaigning. They talked of women and the loot they would have and how strong they were. He wondered how many of them hunted him. Their faces in the firelight had had pits of shadow for eyes.

He thought about the bit shank the next day, riding on. Once he reined in and looked for the shank in his packs. He studied it while he rode. It was like any other Thuringian bit. It was like the bit the black horse wore. He put the shank back.

The plain stretched out on all sides. On it many farmers worked. He saw men in the fields and carts and mules. He stayed away from them. The grain was half cut down. The stubble stuck up out of the dark earth. He stayed away from the men, who turned and watched him pass and bent back to their harvesting. The women carried slings on their backs to put the ripe grain in. Hay wains stood in the middle of the fields. Laeghaire moved steadily along, never changing his course.

This was rich country. He rode for days in the fields, and always he saw the harvesters; once he crossed a deep river valley, and in the valley he crossed a road so worn with wheel ruts that the brown stallion stumbled to his knees on it. Finally he came to the end of the farmland. The plain continued but the farmland stopped. The fields of stubble and mown hay stopped and wild grass grew up. The plain sloped steadily higher. He saw no men. In the twilight he rode to a little rise and looked all around. The grass shivered under the wind and the darkening sky closed down over him. He saw a tree far down the plain. The first stars came out. He relaxed himself into his saddle. His legs felt as if iron rods were bound to his knees. He shifted his weight a Little and rode on to the base of the rise to camp.

The next day he saw a fortress, far away, and found a road. The road led to the fort. All day long he rode before he came to the fortress. It lay on a river valley, where the river had worn deep into the plain. One side of the fortress was against the plain, and the other lay hard on the valley’s edge. He saw men on the wall of the fort. It was a small fort, but the wall was high.

He reined in. The brown stallion came up to the end of the rope, his head raised. His eyes turned steadily on the fortress. Laeghaire slouched into the saddle. He let the rein slide between his fingers. The black horse moved two steps to the side. He pushed against the bit. Laeghaire thought, I can ride around that wall and go into the valley. These men would ask him questions. The stallion tugged at the rope, and the wind lifted his mane.

Laeghaire shrugged. He drew the rein through his fingers and rode straight to the fortress gate. Men dug around the outside of the wall, repairing the earthwork there. He rode by them without looking at them. He rode straight to the gate.

“Who goes?”

“No enemy of yours. I want a bed. Food, for myself and my horses.”

“Are you knight?”

“Dubbed and spurred.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“God’s peace to you.”

Laeghaire sank down into the saddle. He took his feet out of the stirrups. He decided it was worth the risk if he could sleep lying down for once.

The gate opened. The man on the wall shouted something in a German dialect. Laeghaire decided he was repeating Laeghaire’s answers. He kicked his feet into the stirrups and started forward.

A man walked through the gate. “Hold in,” he said. He spoke Latin also. “Who are you?”

In the pause the man’s eyes narrowed.

“I am Laeghaire from Tralee. Laeghaire of the Long Road.”

The man said nothing. He looked Laeghaire up and down. He turned suddenly.

“Wilfried.”

Wilfried appeared on the wall.

“How Jong ago did the knights from Thuringia come by?”

“Two days, my lord.”

The man looked at Laeghaire. He looked only as high as Laeghaire’s breastbone. “Wilfried will take care of you.”

Laeghaire rode by him. He rode through the gate. In the courtyard he glanced around, elaborating his ease. He dismounted slowly.

The lord came up behind him. “The boy will take your horses,” he said. He gestured. A small ragged child stood beside him.

“No matter,” Laeghaire said. “I can do it.”

“The boy is very capable.”

“I always tend my horses myself.”

The lord turned abruptly and went off. Laeghaire took the reins and started toward the stable. The boy fell in beside him. It felt good to be walking. The boy jogged beside him. The boy ran ahead to open the door to the little stable. Laeghaire put the horses in the nearest corner. He tugged at the harness straps. The boy ran off and came back with water in a bucket. He swung himself up over a beam and sat, looking down.

Laeghaire put the pack under the manger. He fed the stallion his grain. The boy kicked his heels in the air. Laeghaire unsaddled the black horse. He drew his sword and scabbard out of the pack and buckled the belt around his waist.

An older boy came into the stable and approached them. He said, in fair Latin, “My lord is in the hall, if you will come, sir.”

Laeghaire knelt and opened the pack. He took out the little sack of coins. He looked at the boy on the beam. The boy grinned suddenly. Laeghaire hung the sack from his belt, near the hilt of his sword. He followed the page away. At the door he turned and looked back. The stableboy was down under the manger, rifling through the pack. Laeghaire went out after the page.

* * *

He left that place the next morning and for a week saw nothing but the open plain. Finally he came to some fields, full of harvesters. He was far from the travelers’ road. The people in the fields looked up to see him pass and looked harder when they saw that he was not of their country. He stopped for water. The people spoke only a dialect. He made signs with his hands. He watered both horses well and filled his waterskin. The children came out of the fields to stand and look at him. A woman came boldly up and fingered the heavy carved leather of his rein. She pointed to it and her brows rose.