The High-Tech Knight

Chapter Nineteen

But now it was a week before Christmas, and my stay of execution was over. I had to go and fight and kill or maybe be killed to see if a hundred forty-two children had the right to live normal lives.

My orders were to bring the children to Okoitz, and there wasn't any way around it. But I wasn't going to bring them in chained neck to neck as I'd found them. I was going to bring them as what they had become. The Christian children of Polish Christian people.

If the kids had to go to Okoitz, then their adoptive parents would go with them. That meant just about everybody at Three Walls, so we pretty much shut down the whole town, except for a skeleton crew who kept the chickens fed, the fires going, and the pipes from freezing.

But it meant that if I lost the fight, the Crossmen would have to take Christian children from Christian families, and I didn't think that even they could get away with that. Or maybe they could. But it was worth a try.

It meant a long, two-day walk for eight hundred people, but we were well fed and in good shape. It was cold, but we were well clothed and had plenty of blankets.

We had a long string of pack mules for our baggage and Sir Miesko was expecting us.

My new armor was done, and I'd made Ilya polish it like a mirror. If I had to go out and defend truth, justice, and the purity of childhood, I was damn well going to go as a knight in shining armor.

I had him polish my old helmet as well and was wearing it instead of the new one, which was hard to take off. My new chest and back piece had a circular hole on top for my head. At this hole the metal collar flanged up and then out. The new helmet was a clamshell affair that hinged on top, and it had a ring around the bottom that fit into the collar flange on the suit below. Two hand-filed bolts held the sides of the helmet together.

Once the new helmet was on, I could turn my head from side to side, but I couldn't tilt it. More importantly, it couldn't be tilted. With my old helmet, a heavy sword blow could break my neck, With the new one, a blow to the head was transmitted through the flange to my upper body.

But the damned thing was a nuisance to put on and take off. You needed a wrench and a helper.

Anna wore some armor as well. A face plate and a lobstertail guard for the top of her neck were all she would accept, and I only got her to wear that by telling her it was pretty.

The hooks to hold the lance for her were built into both sides of her face plate, in the hopes that their use wouldn't be obvious on something strange to people. We had them on both sides in case they threw a lefty at us.

Having a hook on the saddle was fine when we only had to hit the hole on a quintain. Hitting a knight required something sturdier.

I had a notch cut into the saddlebow of my warkak. I could set my lance in it with the handguard, or vamplate, ahead of the notch. That put the force of the blow on the saddle and thus on Anna, without my smaller muscles having to get involved. We had continued practicing every day and I figured that we were as ready as we would ever be.

Besides the armor, which covered me from crown to fingertip to toe, the only other thing I wore was a, huge wolfskin cloak. Anna and I must have looked pretty awesome. We got a lot of stares, anyway.

Sir Miesko was ready for us, and had a barn set up for the workers to sleep in. The booty taken from the Cross men was already at Okoitz, cooking facilities and supplies of food were arranged. Good neighbors are wonderful.

Sir Vladimir, Sir Miesko, and myself, along with all our ladies, were sitting at supper.

But Sir Miesko and his wife were still convinced that I was soon to die, fancy armor or not. When everybody who knows anything is of the same opinion, you can't help but start to believe them. For five months, everybody I met was certain that I was going to get killed. It was getting to me, and it was hard to stay cheerful. "Okay," I said. "I admit that there is some danger. I could die in a few days. So what do we do about it?",

"Have you given thought to your projects and your plans?" Sir Miesko asked.

"Well, everything goes back to Count Lambert, doesn't it?"

"It does if you make no other provisions for it."

"You're suggesting that I make out a will?"

"A will may or may not be honored. Tell me, is Count Lambert the man you would want to run your estate at Three Walls?" Sir Miesko asked.

"He might do a better job than most. Actually, I think that Sir Vladimir here would be about the best person for it. Can I make him my heir?"

Sir Vladimir looked shocked. "Me? But I'm no master of the technical arts!"

"No, you're not. But you have brains enough to listen to those who know more than you. You're a natural leader, and you care about people. Furthermore, you're an unimpeachable member of the old nobility. I couldn't leave it to Yashoo, for example. The nobles would never stand for it. No, Sir Vladimir, I think you're stuck with it."

Sir Vladimir started to say something, but Sir Miesko cut him off. "Now that that's agreed upon, the question is how best to accomplish it. I've mentioned that a will may or may not stand up. It depends on the duke's mood, which is, in truth, a fickle thing. Still, we should try it, for it costs us only a sheet of parchment…"

"But I think that neither the duke nor any other of the nobility would dare to interfere with, say, your daughter's inheritance. After all, their own wealth and position depend on this point of law."

"But I don't have a daughter!" I said.

"But you could. It's obvious that Sir Vladimir and Annastashia have been in love for quite a long time. Even an old man like me can see that. They want to get married but they can't, because Baron Jan would never stand for one of his sons marrying a peasant. His wife is worse."

Vladimir rose in indignation, but Sir Miesko shut him down. "Sit down, Sir Vladimir. I've known your folks for twenty years. They wouldn't even come to my wedding, despite the fact that I'd been knighted only weeks before, because my lady was still a commoner."

"Sir Miesko, you are talking about my father and my liege lord!" Sir Vladimir said.

"I'm talking about an old acquaintance, and every word of it is true. You want to marry the girl, don't you?"

"Yes! Of course."

"And you, Annastashia. You want to marry this impetuous young knight, don't you?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Then keep him shut up while we work out how that can be accomplished."

"But she's not my daughter."' I said.

"She can be. Her parents are both dead. You can adopt her. Once she's your daughter and heir, even Baron Jan isn't going to stop his son from marrying the wealthiest heiress in the duchy."

"Oh, I know that your funds are low now, but I've seen what you've accomplished in a few months at Three Walls. In a year, you would have been the richest man in Poland. Even without you, what you've started there will get fabulous wealth. Any man with brains can see it."

"So Annastashia gets the man she wants, Sir Vladimir gets a wife of his choice and more wealth than he's ever dreamed of, and you, Sir Conrad, get an heir who can carry out your plans."

There was no arguing with his reasoning, so Sir Miesko got out parchment, pen and ink, and drafted both a letter of adoption for Annastashia, and a will for me, in which I specifically gave my blessing on the marriage of my daughter to Sir Vladimir.

"You really should get yourself a seal," Sir Miesko said. "A bit late now, though."

Everybody present signed everything, and Sir Miesko affixed his own seal and promised to get the duke's seal on both instruments the next day.

As the party was breaking up, I announced that I had some presents to distribute. I gave Sir Miesko and Sir Vladimir wolfskin capes like my own. "I've had a dozen of these made up," I said. "I'll be giving them to the highest-ranking people who show up at the fight. It takes six wolves to make one of these. I figure that if I can make wearing wolfskin popular, it will give people more incentive to exterminate the wolves."

"Actually, wolfskin is a very sturdy and warm material. It has two different kinds of hair in it. There are the long, stiff hairs you see on the outside and there are shorter, finer hairs, much like wool, next to the skin. A wolf really does have sheep's clothing, underneath."

"Lady Richeza, I couldn't bring your present with me. Indeed, you won't get it until spring. But I've left the design of a complete home water-and-septic system at Three Walls, along with written orders to build one for you."

"You'll have hot, running water in your kitchen as well as a new stove, a complete bathroom, and a small, windmill-operated water tower." She was speechless. Actually. I'd owed her something nice for a long while. That, and I needed somewhere to set up a showplace for our plumbing products, and nobody missed stopping at her house when they were in the area. I was a socialist becoming a miserable capitalist.

"As to you girls,' I know what you want." I gave Krystyana, Yawalda, Janina, and Natalia each a purse of silver. They each poured it out on the table and squealed their appreciation.

I kept the purse intended for Annastashia in my hand. "As for you, daughter, you've been sleeping with a man before wedlock, and you'll get nothing more out of me until you mend your sinful ways!"

FROM THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR VLADIMIR CHARNETSKI

For weeks my soul had been troubled. All things for me were reaching a climax, great forces were moving about me, yet there was nothing I could do to affect their resolution.

My friend Sir Conrad was going to his death, and in his dying I would be failing in my oath to the duke to protect him with my life.

My brother Jan had visited me at Three Walls, informing me that my father's anger was even greater than I had feared. Months after the battle with the Crossmen, he was still shouting for my damnation. Never would he bless my marriage to Annastashia or to anyone else.

And lastly, my love was with child. Our child, perhaps my son, was growing in her, and unless I soon took bold action and defied my father, my son would be born a bastard, to be scorned all of his life, and my love would be labeled a strumpet.

I could not stay and marry her in defiance of my liege lord, nor could I go to some foreign country, either. The sum of my wealth was the nine silver pence that I had carried from my home last Easter. Not a penny had I spent since leaving that blacksmith. And nine pence might buy us a single night's lodging on the road. If we left, we would starve within the week.

If I asked it, I knew Sir Conrad would lend me money-rather give it to me-for once he was dead, there would be no way to repay him.

But part of my oath to the Duke Henryk was to report to him anything needful of Sir Conrad's doings. While I had seen the need to report nothing, I was in fact spying on my friend. How then could I with honor accept his money?

Then in but an hour at Sir Miesko's table, all was resolved. Sir Miesko's wisdom and clerkish knowledge and Sir Conrad's goodness days before his own death had resolved my impossible difficulties. I was in something of a shock, and perhaps did not behave quite properly. Even after it was all over, they had to raise me up to put Sir Conrad's death-gift fur cloak on my shoulders.

I had thought Sir Conrad's withholding of the purse from Annastashia to be a mere jest, and in fact he told me later that it was. He wanted to assure Krystyana and the rest that they were not being dropped from favor.

But when I put my arm around my love to lead her to our room, she became quite stiff. She removed my arm and told me that I was acting in unseemly fashion. Then she went off and slept with Yawalda.

We arrived at Okoitz the next day as the sun was setting.

The town was vastly overcrowded, and had not arrangements been made in advance for the housing of the peasants, they would have had to stay outside and freeze.

The entire membership of the Franciscan monastery from Cracow was there, along with many other citizens from that city.

Perhaps a third of the nobility of the entire duchy had arrived or had said that they would come. The Bishop of Cracow had come, and it was said that the Bishop of Wroclaw would soon be arriving.

And of course, merchants of every stripe and product had come sniffing after the profit to be made. Every one of Count Lambert's noblemen was there or would arrive on the morrow, and most brought their wives. This host included my father and mother, but thanks be to God in heaven my Uncle Felix was with them.

"Greetings, my father and my liege," I said to my father formally.

I "Vladimir. So you've come to watch the mess you've made," he said coldly.

"Father, the duke-"

"I've talked to the duke, as well as to the count! Somehow you've gotten them both on your side. But to think that my own son would make an oathbreaker of me, it's-"

He suddenly turned and walked away. My mother looked quickly back and forth between us, then fled after my father without saying a word.

Uncle Felix looked at me and said, "I'll talk to you later, boy. Keep your nose up." He went after them.

Sadly, I stared in the direction they had gone. Perhaps I had underestimated my father's anger and intransigence.

I had left Sir Conrad's party to speak with my parents, and in that incredible crowd I did not soon find them.

I know that most of the people had come to see God's will done, that is to say, for a serious purpose. But when old friends meet after months or years, the meeting must needs grow jovial, and the place had the feeling of a carnival wherein I was the only stranger.

As I passed a niche between the church and the castle, where Count Lambert had set some benches, I heard familiar voices speaking. I kept to the shadows and listened.

"I tell you, the man saved my life three different times. Remember when my boat was on the rocks on the Dunajec River, kid? If Sir Conrad hadn't come along our bones would still be there!"

"And a few days later at Cracow, the night I paid you off, he was there with a candle and woke me just as three thieves were about to cut my throat and steal my goods!"

"I hadn't heard about that, Tadaos," Friar Roman said.

"Just like him not to say anything about it. I tell you, Sir Conrad is a saint."

"Well, that's for the Church to say. But there's no doubt that this whole mess would never have occurred if he hadn't heeded my pleadings and gone to Sacz to get you out of Przemysl's donjon," Friar Roman said. "He led me to God! I was a sinner before I met him! I was a Goliard poet who sneered at the Church and all that is holy. But his goodness was the example that turned me from my old ways. And his generosity! Do you realize that every day for a week he took every penny he earned working at a job that did not suit him, and gave it to me so that I could eat and have shelter at night? And in return, I brought him the message that will result in his death."

"He never saved my life," Ilya the blacksmith said. "Fact is that one time he almost ended it, when he took off the end of the anvil I was working on with one swipe of that skinny sword of his."

"Did that really happen? I thought it was only a story," Tadaos said.

"It happened. But I'll tell you, Sir Conrad has taught me more about the craft than my father ever did, and my father was a master. I tell you he's too good a man to let die!"

"He's not going to die, not while I can draw a longbow. You've all seen me shoot. There's no man better at it in the world than me. It's a gift, I tell you. A gift from God. And now I know why God gave it to me."

"I mean to be at the top of that windmill of his on the day of the fight. From there I can hit any man on the tourney field, though none of the Crossmen would believe that an arrow would fly that far, let alone kill a man. "

"I've got arrow heads that can punch through any armor," Ilya said. "Even that fancy new stuff I made for Sir Conrad. You're welcome to them."

"I'll take them."

"It won't work, Tadaos. Too many people have heard of your shooting, besides those who have seen it. You haven't exactly kept it a secret!" Friar Roman said. "They'd find you and hang you, and it wouldn't do Sir Conrad a bit of good. Worse, they'd probably call foul on Sir Conrad, and kill him because of your doings."

"There's got to be a way."

The three conspirators were silent for a bit. Then the friar spoke. "If the Crossman was killed by a man, they'd catch him sure. But if it was an Act of God…"

"What do you mean?"

"What if golden arrows were to come down from the sky, killing the evildoers? Isn't that what this trial is all about? To determine the will of God?"

"But I don't have any golden arrows," Tadaos said.

"You will have." Friar Roman opened his painting kit. "I think I have enough gold leaf left to cover about eight of them."

I stepped out. of the shadows. "I have heard enough. You varlets are planning a mockery of all that the trial by combat stands for."

"It stands for grown men fighting because they don't have brains enough to settle their differences peacefully!" Ilya said and stood. The muscles rippled huge in the blacksmith's bare arms.

"And it stands for killing the finest man in Christendom because he had balls enough to free those poor children from the Crossmen," Tadaos added. He joined Ilya.

"You filthy peasants! You would speak like this to a true belted knight?"

The little friar stood up between us three big men. "Brothers! Christians, remember you are all brothers under God!" The little man's courage impressed us all, and the two big peasants backed off.

"You, too, Sir Vladimir," he said. "Come, join us. We need your help."

"I should join with peasants to besmear the knightly order?"

"You, too, are in Sir Conrad's debt. Word has it that he has arranged for you to marry his adopted daughter, and thus become his heir. Are you the kind of man who would wish a good friend's death so that you could collect his gold?"

"Of course not, dammit! But-"

"Then sit down and join us. We need your aid, and so does he."

"Just what do you expect me to do?"

Friar Roman said, "Now, here's my plan…"

So thus it was that I found myself riding across the tourney field in the cold of a winter's dawn, waiting to be shot.

The frivolities at Okoitz had lasted well into the night, and the field was completely deserted.

Tadaos had been sure that the weight of the thin gold would throw off his aim, and wanted some practice shots.

Since all was for naught if he missed, Friar Roman had spent the night carefully covering four arrows, and I was up with my shield hung on my lancetip, prancing around on Witchfire to give him a moving target. It is remarkable, the things a true knight finds in the path of duty.

The first arrow fell two yards too low, and I began to wonder if I would die out there. An arrow two yards to the fight would pierce my heart.

I tapped my shield four times to the ground in the signal to tell the bowman how low he had shot. He was so far away that he could not see his arrows.

The second just missed the bottom of the shield. Good. It seems Tadaos's problems were in range rather than direction. I might survive. I tapped the ground once.

The third struck my shield fair on, and I raised my arm to the bowman. The fourth struck a finger's width from the third, despite the fact that I had Witchfire at the gallop.

I dismounted to recover the arrows, for we had agreed on at least three practice rounds.

But as I recovered the last, I saw Sir Lestko riding out to me. I could tell it was he by the armorial device on his shield, though I could not have done this with most knights. In the West, it is the custom for a knight to wear his personal device on his shield and elsewhere. In Poland, one wore the device of one's family, and these must be awarded by the duke, or the king, when there was one. In all of Poland, there were less than a hundred of them. But Sir Lestko's people were from the Gniezno area, far to the north, and he is the only one of his family in the duchy.

I hid the arrows behind my shield.

"Sir Vladimir! You're up early! What, has your lovely intended thrown you out into the cold?"

"You might as well know, Sir Lestko. Word of the foolishness will be out soon enough. When she was a peasant girl she was easy, warm, and willing. Now that she is Sir Conrad's daughter, she is altogether too proper, and won't even hold my hand until the wedding! And my father has not yet approved our marriage! I tell you there is very little justice in the world."

Sir Lestko laughed, as I intended him to do. "You poor bastard! Still, what she's doing is fight, you know. As Sir Conrad's daughter, she must act with decorum for his honor and yours. And you, my friend, should do what every proper son of the nobility has always done."

"And what is that?"

"Salve your pains with another wench! Come along! There are skads of them available in Okoitz! Indeed, I have a spare to lend you. When it's raining soup, the wise man puts out his bowl!"

I promised to join him shortly, and we rode together toward the town. Dozens of people were out by then, and further archery practice was impossible.

It was agreed that Tadaos would shoot only when Sir Conrad was in trouble, likely though that event was. Perhaps there was still some shred of hope.