Quicksilver's Knight

CHAPTER 6

"I would not say selfish!" Geoffrey sat up, frowning. "A woman must never submit to such abuse as that, and your brothers and sister would have been the first to tell you so!"

"They have," she said, eyes downcast, "but if any of them come to grief, I shall blame myself eternally."

"What, blame yourself for Count Laeg's sin? Nay, surely! Besides, your brothers and mother came to you out of their own free will, and not from any constraint."

"None but that they saw the grief that would befall them, if they did not flee," Quicksilver retorted. "Since we were all outlaws, I saw that our only safety lay in beating young Count Laeg at his own game of tyranny, and that right quickly, before he could expect us."

"And you saw all that before you told your bandits you would take Sir Hempen's manor?"

"Aye, but it was not the careful and considered plan you make it out to be."

"No—the thoughts flashed through your mind, and you were instantly sure of their answer, were you not?" Quicksilver's look became guarded. "How did you ... ? Oh. It is even so with you."

"It is," Geoffrey agreed. "Your plans were excellent! Did your father teach you this?"

"Why—I really cannot say." Quicksilver spread her hands. "Some of it, I am sure he did. Most seems to come by common sense—though I will own I have learned some things by watching the commanders sent against me."

"Of whom the other outlaw bands were the first?"

"Oh, the outlaws!" Quicksilver dismissed them with a wave of her hand. "Bulin spoke truly—his band was the best, no thanks to him. He had bellowed and browbeaten them into doing what he wanted, but it was Stowton who had the sense to see what needed to be done."

"Bulin the strongarm, and Stowton the brain? How long did it take him to discover he could not make you front for him as Bulin had?"

"One night—that first raid. 'Do you not think we should break down the door with a tree trunk?' he asked, and I snapped, 'Nay, for they've crenels above it for pouring down boiling oil.' I pointed to the stonework above the entrance, then drew my finger down to point at the portal. 'Why do you think it is five feet above the ground?' I demanded. 'So that you must mount steps to reach it—and why do you think the steps are laid against the side of the wall?' 'Why,' he answered, wide-eyed, 'so that attackers must come right up beneath the crenels, where boiling water may be dropped upon them!' 'You are quicker than the rest,' I told him, 'but you must be quicker still, or you will be dead. We will seek out the postern whiles my brothers draw the defenders to the walls.' Then, when we had chopped our way in through the postern, Stowton said, 'I shall take a band to bear away the knight's strongbox!' But, 'No,' I said to him. 'We shall take only my mother's goods, and Sir Hempen's horses and cattle. He shall be wroth with us, and seek to punish us—but so long as we stay within the greenwood and out of his way, he will be content. If we take his gold, he will never hold back until he has haled it back out, and us with it, that he may slit our throats.' His eyes grew big, but he made no comment, nor did he argue when I bade him take five men and bind up the soldiers my brothers had knocked senseless. But he did tell me that we should drive the cattle gently, so that we need not make any great noise. I told him, 'What matters it, when we have made so great a hullabaloo here? If a few villagers awake to watch us pass by, let them! They will think twice ere they seek to enter the wood without a by-your-leave.' He looked thoughtful at that, but he went to drive the cattle. He never left off making suggestions, and does not to this day—but I take his notions when it will do no harm, and it keeps him content."

Geoffrey grinned. "Why, what a fox you are!"

"Do you not mean, a vixen?"

"I doubt it not," Geoffrey assured her, and managed to restrain himself from telling her that he enjoyed hunting. "But what of your brothers? Did they not find it galling to take orders from their little sister?"

"Nay." There was a gentle amusement, perhaps even tenderness, in her tone. "They knew enough of command to realize that if they challenged my leadership, the outlaws would cease to respect me and would desert one by one—and they knew also that it was better to have an outlaw band, than to be beset by one."

"Wisely thought," Geoffrey said, with approval. "Did they tell you this?"

"Aye, when I demanded to know. 'Twas two days after the raid on the castle, look you, and I had braced myself for them to come to me all three together to say, 'You have done bravely, sister, but now you may sit back safely and leave all to us.' "

"What would you have said if they had?"

"I would have told them that I had won the outlaws' obedience, through fear if nothing else, and that if I were to step aside, they would have to win that obedience all over again."

"You would have held onto what you had won, then."

"Aye." Quicksilver's smile turned predatory. "I had begun to enjoy the taste of power."

"It does whet the appetite," Geoffrey agreed. "Did not your brothers hunger after it?"

"'Of course,' my eldest brother told me. 'Who does not? But we have discussed the matter, sister, and are all agreed that you will be our surest route to power.' "

"So simple as that?" Geoffrey asked, amazed.

"Aye. Mayhap they thought of me as a useful tool, but if so, they have not sought to master that tool. I think, though, that they were sincere—and I know they are proud of me." She smiled, a glow in her eyes.

"I doubt it not," Geoffrey assured her. "I would be proud of such a sister." He looked up, thinking over that statement.

"Have you such a sister?" Quicksilver asked.

"Aye, now that I think of it—though Cordelia fights with magic, where you fight with steel. And I am proud of her."

"But do you seek to rule her?"

Geoffrey gave a bark of laughter at the thought and shook his head. "I would never dream of it—but if I did, I would be grasping my head with the king of all aches in an instant."

"But you would not think of it."

"Nay, and I'd string out the guts of the man who did!"

"Then you should not find it hard to believe that my brothers do not seek to rule me."

Geoffrey thought that over, too, and nodded. "Even so. If Cordelia were to win what you have won, I would not seek to steal it, but would help her guard it, even as your brothers have done."

"Then why do you take me to the King and Queen, so that they may steal it from me?" Quicksilver asked softly. That brought Geoffrey up short. "Because it is the law," he said slowly, "which I am sworn to uphold—and because what you have, you have stolen from its rightful owners."

"The county, do you mean? And are you so sure that young Count Laeg is its rightful owner?"

"He is, in the law," Geoffrey replied.

"But in morality? Does not the land rather belong to them who till it? Should not its fruits belong to those who have drawn them from the earth?"

"There might be right in that," Geoffrey admitted, "but it is the world as it perhaps should be, not the world as it is. I live in the world that is, and will let Their Majesties decide whether or not it is right or wrong."

"But what know they of County Laeg?" Quicksilver protested. "What know they of the ways in which the Count and his father and, aye, his grandfather, abused their office and their peasants?"

"Little," Geoffrey admitted. "But if you tell them, and bring them some sort of proof, they shall see the right of it and amend it."

"You have greater faith in Their Majesties than I," Quicksilver said bitterly. "But then, it is not hard to have more than nothing."

"I have just such faith, for I have known them from childhood," Geoffrey returned. "They are good folk, look you, and if you review the actions they have taken for the good of the land and the folk, you will be reassured."

"I would like to think so," she said darkly, "the more since I am going to appear before them."

Geoffrey frowned. "Are you so sure that you are so much better a ruler than the Counts Laeg?"

"I am," Quicksilver returned, "for I was close to the peasant folk, and knew their distress and their grievances. When I gained power over them, I saw to it those grievances were redressed."

"Tell me the manner of it," Geoffrey urged her. "When three bands had sought to attack us, and been beaten for their pains," Quicksilver explained, "others began to give us a wide berth. But those we had beaten, we put to work hauling and hewing, for we had builded us a little village within the forest. However, when we went to raid Count Laeg's tax collectors, I placed them in my brothers' commands, though armed only with staves ... "

"You did not put one band for each of your brothers!"

"Of course not." She gave him a look of contempt. "How great a fool do you think me?"

"None at all," he said promptly.

She colored a little, and looked away, but her voice ground on. "I split each band among the four commanders—my brothers and myself. There were never more than a dozen to a band, so what is four more among trusted and seasoned men?"

"Aye—eight trusted, and four new!"

"But each of those eight had beaten one or two of the others at practice," Quicksilver pointed out. "Besides, they had seen how well we lived, and were minded to give my captaincy a try. We captured the tax collectors and sent them back to Count Laeg with only their tunics and hose, for we kept their shoes, their gold, and even their robes. The new men sang my praises then, though they grumbled against me when I kept the greater part of the loot for myself. They might have mutinied, had I not sent some of them out with packets of money to help friends in the villages who were hard pressed for food to live on, since the tax collectors had taken nine parts out of ten."

"Did the poor ever receive the money you sent?"

"Most of it. I sent other men to make sure, as I had told the messengers I would—and if they kept a coin or two for their pains, I did not trouble myself about their hire."

"Surely not, since it bought their loyalty."

"It did," she sighed, "though I wondered at the worth of loyalty that could be bought, and still do."

"Surely they are loyal for better reasons now!"

"Aye—for winning." She gave him a sardonic smile. "But such loyalty lasts no longer than a few losses. Praise Heaven I have never had more than one loss at a time!"

"Heaven?" Geoffrey asked. "Or your own good judgement, in next choosing an easy target?"

"I would like to think there was some sense to my planning," she conceded. "But now that I myself am lost..." She flashed him a bitter smile. "Well. Now we shall truly learn of their loyalty, shall we not?"

Geoffrey felt his stomach sink, and wondered why he should feel guilty about doing his duty. What spell was this woman working on him? "So you conquered all the other bands in the forest."

"There was no need—one by one, they came and asked to join us. I made them swear loyalty, though I doubted their vows were worth more than the rags they wore. Still, I gave them good broadcloth clothes, and hoped their steadfastness would improve with their cloth."

"You must have prospered mightily," Geoffrey said. Quicksilver shrugged. "I was an outlaw already, and dead if captured—and I had begun to think that I was more fit to rule than Count Laeg or his son."

Geoffrey frowned. "High thoughts, for the granddaughter of a peasant."

"You must not have met Count Laeg," she returned, "or Sir Hempen. I declared my rule over the forest, and sent men to pronounce it in every village."

Geoffrey stared. "In public? That was as good as a challenge!"

"It was a challenge," Quicksilver said with a hard smile, "and young Count Laeg knew it. Oh, he sent Sir Hempen after me first, but I defeated him and his band with a right good will. I sent them home all a-foot and bereft of arms, though I did regret the two slain in the battle, and the three of my own. But Sir Hempen I had scourged with a horsewhip besides, and sent him home without even his tunic."

Geoffrey frowned. "I thought you let your enemies keep their pride."

"Not him—he had cost me too much that was dear. I told him to thank his mother for his life—that if it had not been for the thought of her grief, I would have slain him outright. Well, no," she amended thoughtfully, "perhaps not 'outright.' Perhaps slowly..."

Geoffrey couldn't suppress a small shudder, and wondered why this woman still seemed fascinating to him. "He had to punish you for that, or lose the obedience of his peasants."

"That he had already lost. They began to come to me by twos and threes, young men and old, who had fallen a-foul of Sir Hempen's tyranny—crops and cattle taken as taxes, sweethearts and daughters taken as toys..." She shook herself, trying to dispel rising anger. "Faugh! What a dog is he! If I had not seen so much good, steadfast bravery and caring among my own band, I might have despaired forever of the breed of men!"

"I am glad that you have not," Geoffrey told her. "Well, I nearly have, anyway," she told him, "for among the bands I conquered were women who were virtual slaves, forced to cook and clean, and fill the filthy outlaws' beds, and bear them brats which they then were forced to tend."

Geoffrey stared. "The sorry creatures! How had they come to such a pass?"

"Some had been kidnapped when they came to gather berries in the woods, poor innocents. Some had been captured from parties of travellers who were foolish enough to dare the wood without an armed guard. But most were those who had fled to the greenwood rather than bear the attentions of knights and their soldiers, or even of village bullies. Poor things, they exchanged bad for worse."

"But not when you found them?"

"If I had not needed the outlaws for an army," Quicksilver said bitterly, "I would have slain them then and there. As it was, I made to scourge them—but the women themselves actually begged me to desist, claiming that the men were their only source of livelihood and protection!"

Geoffrey closed his eyes in pain. "The poor bewildered creatures."

"So I thought," she said grimly. "I told them that I would provide their living henceforth, and their protection—but still they begged me not to punish their men overly much, for their captors were all they had."

"Why, they thought of themselves as wives!" Geoffrey said, astonished.

"So they did. I bade the men arise and treat their women gently and with respect henceforth, or it would go hard with them. I kept my word, too, seeing that any man who beat a woman received more blows than he had given. The females gained some measure of happiness then, tending their children and keeping house—but to my amazement, most of them continued to speak with the men who had been their captors, and even to bed with them!"

Geoffrey just stared at her for a second. Then he said, "Well, if they had come to think of themselves as wives, they must have thought of the men as their husbands."

"So it seemed—but I made sure each couple passed through a ceremony, when next a friar passed through the wood. I was most amazed that the men submitted with good grace, seeming even happy with the matter."

Geoffrey smiled. "Perhaps they were flattered to think that the women actually chose them, without being forced."

"There is that, and they did seem content with their company. I was forced to admit that I had not just an outlaw band, but also a village, a true one. Some of the women even asked their men to dig gardens, and began to grow crops. But there were others who rejoiced at their liberation, and wished to have nothing to do with any man again. These hailed me as their savior, and I was amazed when I woke one night and found two of them sitting up to watch my door, not trusting my brothers' vigil. I saw then that I must teach all women to bear weapons, and to fight with their hands, whether they would or no. I did, and there was never a wife-beating again—and my sentrygirls gave my brothers relief from their sleepless nights."

"Thus did your bodyguard grow?"

"Aye. They are a great comfort to me, for I know there is not a one of them would not rather lose her head than see an enemy come nigh me. Indeed..." Grief shadowed her face. "...three of them have died beside me, in battle. I could not ask for more worthy friends."

Geoffrey could sympathize, but he could also realize what those Amazons must be planning for himself, right at that moment. If they could find him... "And word of this spread? For surely, your men must have now and again stolen out to talk with old friends or kinfolk."

"They did indeed, though I did not realize it until village women began to come to me, one by one, then two and three together."

Geoffrey held his face carefully neutral. "Your men did not harm them, of course."

"Oh, certainly not," Quicksilver said softly, "for I had declared to all of them what I would do to the man I found hurting a woman. No, my sentries brought them in with courtesy and good cheer, and I welcomed them and bade my women shelter them. Then I taught them all the way of fighting, with and without weapons, and was amazed how many of them balked, and did not wish to learn. But I told them that they lived in a band of outlaws, and must be ready to help fight off the shire-reeves' men at any time. They took my meaning, and learned—and some among them chose to join my bodyguard."

"Did the others marry?"

Quicksilver shrugged. "There is no need—even if they do not, they shall be given food, drink, shelter, and fuel. Each must do her share of the camp's work, of course, and her own—but in my band, coupling will come from the desire of both, or not at all, and marriage will come from love, not from need. If there is anything left of my band in a week..."

Her face darkened, and Geoffrey knew only that he had to lighten it. Plague, he would not feel guilty about capturing her—it was she who had chosen to be a bandit war lord, and he who had chosen to be a royal knight! "Still," he said, "if Sir Hempen let your insult pass without punishment, he would have lost all power over his peasants. Did he not come again?"

"No, the King's shire-reeve came next, with a much larger force of men—in truth, half again as many as my band. My outlaws quailed at the news of their number, and would have faded into the forest leaves, had I not harangued them and shamed them and reminded them that this was their wood, and no man of the open lands could stand against them in it. They liked the sound of that, and took their stations where I bade them—though with my brothers keeping watch upon them, you may be sure. The shire-reeve rode in among the leaves, and walked out without his horse, as did all his men. Some chose to stay with us, under guise of having been captured and held hostage..."

"Holding peasant guardsmen hostage?" Geoffrey smiled at that. "Surely the shire-reeve saw that for the fiction it was!"

"No, I think he thought me so innocent as to actually expect him to offer a ransom for his men. When he did not, of course, I was able to keep them without his suspecting their treachery. So he left me a dozen of his men, and the rest of his band left us their armor and weapons, and five of their number dead. We buried them, though nowhere near the one of my men who died in the fight. My mother and sister led my officers in binding up the wounds of my men, then of theirs—I was enraged when I saw that the shire-reeve made no move toward tending his own wounded, and gave him a wound of his own for his pains, then forebade anyone to bind it for him. I relented at the last, when he had to set out walking, and knew he would have to come again, to recapture his arms, and his pride."

"You wanted to have them attack you!"

"Aye." She gave him a brittle smile. "To come against me here on my home ground, where I had the advantage of the terrain, and a great deal of cover. Finally young Count Laeg found he could not countenance this challenge to his power without losing respect and obedience among his own knights and squires, and surely among his peasants—so he led all his army against me, or almost all."

"With the shire-reeves and Sir Hempen among them."

"Oh, they led parties of knights themselves," she said softly. "That was a bloody battle indeed—ten of my band died, and twenty of his, with three times that number wounded. But when the fighting was done, it was Count Laeg who was chained and his men who were bound, and we who went back to his castle."

"This time," Geoffrey said softly, "you were prepared." Quicksilver nodded, gazing off into space, seeing the battle all over again. "We were ready, and his castellan was not—his mother, I should say; but he had left her only a dozen guards to hold the walls, never thinking that we might come upon her. Come we did though, and my brothers raised a howl of battle all about the walls and the gatehouse, firing flaming arrows and hurling rocks from small catapults, but never coming close enough for the guards to pour oil on them, or have a decent chance of striking them with the crossbows that were their only weapons."

"While you forced the postern," Geoffrey inferred. "Aye. We had brought a light skiff with us, and rowed across the moat to the little gate, a dozen of us, six men I trusted and six of my bodyguard ... five of whom still live—"

Geoffrey saw the tear in her eye, and pushed her past the remorse. "No battle can be won without risk," he said softly, "and to spare others from the grief and pain of a tyrannical lord is worth the gamble of a life."

"Aye." She lifted her head, giving it a shake. "'Twas nobly done! And while I ruled, the price bought good worth."

"There was no guard upon the gate?" Geoffrey pressed. "Aye, but he stood back and waited till we had chopped through it. Then he shot his arbalest, and one of my women died." Her face hardened. "'Twas wrong of me, I know, for he did no more than his duty—but I was afire with rage. He drew a battle-axe, but I feinted once; he swung, and I lunged, stabbing home. We kicked his dead body out of the way and ran in, lightfoot, staying against the walls, running silently in the darkness. The guards were too busy howling insults at my brothers and firing their crossbows at shadows to look down and see us. We came to the gatehouse undetected, but found the windlass guarded by a poor old lubber of a porter. He gibbered with fright when my sword touched his throat, and my women let the windlass go. The drawbridge fell down as my men cranked the portcullis up. Too late, the guards realized they had been invaded, and made the further mistake of charging against us, leaving my brothers free to lead all my men over the drawbridge and into the courtyard. There they fell upon the guardsmen from the rear, where they strove to wrest us out of the gatehouse—and we who had been the quarry suddenly became the hunters, falling upon them with steel and arrow. They were caught between two forces, and threw down their weapons with cries for mercy."

"Did you give it them?"

"Aye, for that time—though I held trials of the Count's men all that next day, finding who had beaten and despoiled the peasants and who had not. Two of those guards were hanged, along with five of the Count's army."

"Few enough, for the men of a tyrannical lord."

"Few indeed. The rest had friends among the villagers, and would not see them wronged—so they refrained from wronging others. Then I gave those who remained the choice of enlisting with me, or of exile. Most chose to stay; a score chose to go. I sent them with the Countess, and her son the new Count, to go where they wished. Then I entrenched myself in the castle and sent my brothers out and about the county, to put government to rights and see justice done. I cut the taxes in half and discharged corrupt magistrates—I knew them all by name, after all—and declared that no woman should be abused, most especially not by her husband, and that the workman was worthy of his hire."

"Your words have the sound of victory won, and enjoying its fruits," Geoffrey said, "but your tone is one of vigilance."

Quicksilver shrugged, her hands on her thighs, eyes downcast. "I have held myself, and my men, ready to fight any lord who may come against us—for I know that those born to rule will not abide an upstart squire's daughter to live without challenge. And, too, I had no knowledge of where the Countess had gone with her son."

"She went to Runnymede," Geoffrey said, "to Queen Catharine and King Tuan—and therefore no lord has come against you with his army, but only one knight, alone."

"One knight—who, Rumor says, is worth a whole army by himself," Quicksilver said bitterly. "If I had not been so chary of my outlaws' lives, and so wary of your magic, I would have tried the truth of that rumor."

"But it might have been true."

"It might," she said, though it pained her. "It might, and my band of rogues and stalwarts dead. No, better to gamble my own freedom than their lives. But it is still better to chance my own death than your attentions!" Her hand reached automatically for the sword that wasn't there, then clenched in frustration.

"Rest easy," Geoffrey told her. "I am not one who takes pleasure from a woman's pain, no more than you delight in the torments of those who have not hurt you."

"Of those who have not, no," she said judiciously, "though I confess I take pleasure in seeing the suffering of those who have wronged me."

"Then you have not tyrannized the peasants?"

She frowned, unsure about the change in subject. "Ask among them, if you can disguise yourself so that they do not know you come from Their Majesties. I have."

"What?" Geoffrey demanded. "Gone among them in disguise?"

"Aye, and though they have many grievances, my rule was not one of them."

Geoffrey wondered if her disguise had really been all that good. "They found you fair, then."

"Do not you?" she demanded, with a vindictive smile. Geoffrey stared, then realized the pun and reddened. He was appalled at himself—no woman had been able to embarrass him for years. He forced a leer and said, "Most fair, indeed—but I speak of your conduct, not your face."

"I know you speak not of my face," she said tartly. "As to my peasants, be mindful that I grew up among them—that as a squire's daughter, I was ever in converse with them. I know their grievances far better than could any lord who was born to his title. Mind you, I have dealt severely with those who seek to prey upon their weaker neighbors—and many men in my villages must smoulder with rage because I will not let them use the women as they would. To them, no doubt, I am a tyrant—but not to any good husband nor respectful swain. I doubt not there are many women who resent my seizing power, and decry me for an unwomanly rogue, but I do not seek to silence them."

"Here is no tyranny, then, nor any great oppression—but you are an outlaw, and have fought against the duly appointed nobility. I fear we must go to the Crown for judgement, no matter how wrong it may seem. Will you give me parole, or must I bind your hands?"