THE USURPER

Chapter 2 of The Frog and the Grog

by

Christopher Stasheff

Copyright 2010

 

            "I can't believe no one else saw this blood."

            Harry sat in the great hall.  The dead bodies had been cleared away, the blood washed from the stones, and the healers were tending the wounds of those living.  He seemed to have better luck than most—instead of a bald-headed, shriveled old monk, he had the attentions of Jane, a beautiful young woman, dark-haired, with great flashing brown eyes and full lips and a figure that was enough to make the blood spring afresh from the cut in his shoulder.  She stripped the armor from the wound and cast it at his feet, lanced the padding beneath with a delicate and sure touch, and laid it back to show the whole of his shoulder.  Harry heard her gasp.  "Is the sight so horrible as that?"

            "No, quite pleasing, really."  Jane swallowed thickly, then explained, "The blood wells up freely but does not spurt.  That's good—but I still need to clean it."

            Harry's flesh seemed to burn as she wiped the blood from it; her touch did anything but soothe.  The knowing look she gave him made it clear she knew the effect she was having on him, and enjoyed it.

            "It's only a cut," Harry said, "isn't it?"

            "Yes, thanks to the armor you were wearing."  Jane nodded at the sharp break in the pauldron that lay at Harry's feet.  "The sword was sharp enough to cut steel, but there was little enough force left to pierce all that muscle."

            A spirit of recklessness seized Harry.  "If anything can heal it, your touch will."

            Jane laughed with delight, teeth flashing in her smile, and laid a compress on the wound.  "The herbs and the bandage will do more."  She gave him a roguish glance.  "Though I think your life-force is high enough as it is."

            Her gaze promised more than she said, and the spasm of desire that shook Harry was frightening in its strength.  He gasped, and she frowned.  "Surely my touch hasn't hurt you!"

            "No," Harry said.  "It pleases me greatly."

            Jane looked down at him in surprise, then gave him a slow smile.  "Boldly said, for one so new to knighthood."

            "If I were not bold, could I be a knight?"

            "Surely there will be enough test of your mettle, king's man."

            Harry's face clouded; he looked away.

            "What have I said?"  Jane's voice was gentle, concerned.  "You are a king's man, are you not?"

            "I'm Earl Shakle's man," Harry told her, "for it was he that dubbed me knight—but in the end, I thought myself a king's man, because when I swore fealty to Lord Shakle, I knew that he was loyal to his liege lord, Duke Viburnum, and the duke loyal to the king."

            Jane's lips thinned a little.  "So he was—until the old king died so suddenly last year."

            "Why would he not have been loyal, then, to the new king?" Harry asked.

            "Because the lad is only ten years old?" Jane shrugged.  "What would I know of it?  I'm only an apprentice healer, not a grand lady."

            "And I only a squire newly become a knight," Harry said.  "But I must have faith in Lord Shakle, and if he holds faith with the duke, then so must I—for surely, Duke Viburnum must be a good and wise man if Shakle is loyal to him, and if he has reasons for seizing the throne, they must be good ones."

            "No matter how wrong it seems to we who serve them?"  Jane nodded.  "Surely the high and mighty must understand things hidden to we who only stand and watch them ride by."

            "Sooner or later, I will find out how Duke—no, King Viburnum—is right!" Harry said.  "I must persevere in my loyalty to Lord Shakle!" 

            "And I, in my loyalty to my calling."  Jane bent and pressed a kiss to Harry's shoulder.  "Perhaps that will help it heal."

            But the flesh seemed to burn where her lips touched.  Harry stared after her as she turned in a swirl of skirts, pacing away with a little laugh, and wondered how her lips would feel against his own.

 

 

            The raiders rode their tough little ponies up the rise and looked down on the village in the valley below—a dozen houses with two large corrals, one filled with cattle, the other with sheep.

            "How can they keep all their cattle together?" asked Devon.  "How do they know whose is whose?"

            "Town lad, aren't you?" asked Albuin, his leader.

            "Each villager knows his cattle by sight," explained Toluen, the man on Devon's right.

            Devon smiled his thanks, then looked past Toluen to the rest of their band—hard-faced men all, grinning with the anticipation of their theft, eyes gleaming with lust for battle.  Devon wondered if he had that look, too.  Certainly he'd had enough of his own brushes with the law— poaching as a lad, fights with other soldiers while he'd served under the old king, brawling after he'd been mustered out.

            He looked back at the corral, counting cows.  "Two for each of us, eh?"

            "No, one apiece and the rest for Earl Bravekil," Albuin said.

            Devon turned to stare.  "Why would we give him half?"

            "Because he says he'll haul us before a judge for our crimes if we don't."  Albuin shrugged.  "Mounting one quick raid instead of a dungeon?  And with a cow into the bargain?  I'll take it."

            "I hate doing what the king wants," Toluen said, "but we'll have a bit of fun, anyway."

            "The king ordered this raid?"

            "No, Earl Bravekil did," Devon answered, "but we know who he goes to for his orders, don't we?  Hit them hard, lads, and so fast they won't know what happened."  He kicked his horse; the beast sprang forward into a gallop.  The other raiders laughed and followed.

            Halfway down the hill, Albuin began shrilling his war-cry.  The others took it up.  The two village lads at work in the corral looked up, saw, vaulted over the rails, and ran for cover.

            The raiders rode into the corral and chased the cattle out, shrilling and howling.  As they rode for the hills with their herd, a peasant sprang up in their path, pitchfork thrusting.  One prong scored the chest of Devon's horse; the beast screamed and Devon, with a curse, slashed with his saber.  The peasant fell, blood spreading about him.

            By the time the rest of the villagers had caught up flails and scythes,

the raiders were gone, out of sight, with all the cattle.  The villagers ran to help their brave companion instead.