The Badger Knight Read online

  “If Good Aunt takes over we’ll all be dead.”

  Grandmother chuckles but stops quickly, slapping her hand to her forehead. “Ah! Your aunt ordered a complexion remedy for your cousin.”

  “For Bess?” I’m thinking it’ll take more than cream to cure that face.

  “No, for Jane.”

  I am aghast. “Jane the Perfect One?”

  There’s a twinkle in Grandmother’s eye. “A blemish has appeared on her chin and she won’t step outside, not even to pass water. I suppose I should’ve made the ointment before now, as it’s past noon and the poor girl must need to be going but” — she looks at me, her eyes still twinkling — “I’ve been busy, have I not?”

  I grin back. “Indeed.”

  “Nevertheless, stop there first lest Jane needs to be put out of her misery.”

  I mutter that I have other ideas for putting her out of her misery and everyone else’s.

  Grandmother winks and gives me a sack with the remedies for others in the village, as well as the vial for Jane. “She should apply it to the offending spot twice a day and, more importantly, tell her to wear a shawl.”

  “What does the shawl do?”

  “It covers her face!”

  I laugh, but as I step out in the rain I wish I had a shawl myself. My loose hood is soon wet and lets in too much cold. My tunic is soaked through and I can even feel the wetness between my toes as my boots quickly turn sodden. Still, I know it’s worse for Hugh out in the muddy field.

  I pass the practice field and see some men with their bows — made by Father, of course — as they try to hit the target on the butt, and miss more often than not. Maybe it’s the rain in their eyes. Or their fingers are shivering. Whatever it is, though, it’s a good thing they’re practicing because they’d best improve their shots. It’s a shame that Father can’t practice with the men, because he could teach them a lot, but he’s too busy with bow making. He can’t be spared for battle. That’s the one bad part of being a bowyer: You miss the battle itself.

  I slog on through the mud and gloomy grayness until I see Gerald Alberton entering the blacksmith’s, so I pull his leather bottle out of my pouch of remedies and run inside after him. “Gerald!”

  Both Gerald and the blacksmith turn to me.

  It’s warm and dry inside, with the fire blazing, and I wish I could stay all afternoon, but I hand him the bottle from Grandmother. “Here’s your medicine for the stomach ailment and gas.”

  Gerald takes it quickly, looking away, but turning back to give me his coin in payment.

  The blacksmith roars his hearty laugh. “Supping too much, Gerald?”

  “It’s my new wife’s cooking,” Gerald answers, “but don’t tell her I said so.”

  The blacksmith laughs again and I smile. “She must be following the recipes of Good Aunt,” I venture, knowing that the blacksmith, at least, is always ready to jest.

  At first, the men look at each other, somewhat aghast that I have spoken insolently. Gerald makes a sour face, still not looking at me. I see the hint of a smile on the blacksmith’s face but he doesn’t make eye contact, either. To them I am just a boy, and an odd one, at that. And useless.

  I return to the rain and head for Good Aunt’s. I hear her before I see her and I startle because I think she’s screaming at me. “What are you doing here?”

  There’s a quiet response and the name “Hugh” mentioned, but I can’t make out the rest. I’m relieved Good Aunt wasn’t yelling at me.

  “Then make yourself useful and feed the chickens!”

  “Yes, go, Bess!” Jane’s pompous voice shrieks. “Don’t bring that mess inside!”

  A mud-splattered Bess appears through the door and steps beside the house, pelting the ground with bits of grain. The chickens dash up to her like she’s a princess.

  I dash up to her, too, because I’d like to avoid approaching Good Aunt. “This is for Jane,” I mumble, holding out the vial.

  Bess makes a sourer face than usual and takes the vial between her thumb and forefinger as if it’s some filth from my body. She disappears without a thank-you or other acknowledgment and I turn away, happy to leave before Good Aunt might see me.

  I have gone not ten steps before I hear her. “Adrian!”

  I cringe, wondering if I can simply bolt, but she calls my name again. I turn around slowly and am relieved to see it’s Bess at the doorway, not Good Aunt. St. Jerome’s bones! The girl not only looks like her mother, she now sounds like her, too. What a fate!

  “Are you to bring the payment to Grandmother?”

  I cross my arms and stare at her. Since when is she allowed to call Hugh’s grandmother as if she were her own? Is she now his best friend?

  She must see my annoyance because she hesitates a moment, her eyes cast downward and her face turning blotchy pink. “I mean, Hu-Hugh’s grandmother.”

  “Yes,” I say, “I can take the payment to Hu-Hugh’s grandmother.” I know it’s unkind to make fun of her but I’m angry.

  Her face turns even pinker and she disappears inside. In a moment, I hear what I know to be Good Aunt’s voice because it’s so loud. “I will wait to see if the balm is effective first!”

  “But, Mother —”

  “Don’t ‘but, Mother’ me!”

  “Adrian is w-w-waiting.”

  “Silence! And stop that fool stuttering!”

  Then it’s that awful Jane’s voice. “This had better work! I won’t go outside ever again if it doesn’t!”

  “You will go out lest you burst!” Good Aunt shouts back.

  “Nay, I will not! Never, never, never, never!”

  Good Aunt’s and Jane’s bickering voices merge as Bess appears at the door. She doesn’t look at me, but at her feet. “I’m s-s-s-sorry. I c-can’t pay.” She wrings her hands, and now I feel terrible for making fun of her stutter.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say quickly, even though it matters a lot. It’s wrong and unfair to take Grandmother’s herbs and hard work and not pay for it, and Good Aunt knows that. Still, I feel bad for my cousin. “It’s not your fault, Bess,” I tell her.

  Bess looks up at me and I realize it’s the first time I’ve used her name, the first time we’ve had a real conversation.

  As I gaze at her I see the sadness in her eyes. In fact, her eyes startle me in how different they are from Good Aunt’s. I hadn’t noticed before. They remind me of someone, but I don’t know whom. She turns and steps inside before I can look long enough to know whose eyes they are.

  But after I deliver the rest of the remedies, give the payments to Grandmother, and walk back home in the gray gloominess of a rainy dusk, it hits me as hard as a branch thrown by Bryce, and I stop short. The rain pelts down even harder as I stand there, my shoulders shivering with the cold, my boots sinking into the mud, my mind bringing back the memories. I realize whose eyes Bess’s are. They are my mother’s.

  AFTER COLLECTING GOOSE FEATHERS AND BIRCH STAVES all morning, Father tells me to go to Uncle’s field to see if I can be of use there. I tell him my feet are sore and show him my blisters. He looks at my boots and says they are too small. Imagine! Something is actually too small for me! He says he’ll buy me a new pair on market day but, in the meantime, I must hurry along to the field. I remind him that Hugh is already working there, but still he insists I go. So I go slowly, by way of the practice field to watch the men from the village hit the straw bales with their arrows. Or more likely miss.

  The men are lined up a hundred feet from the row of target bales, eyeing them like they are the enemy.

  The blacksmith encourages them with his booming voice. “Hit the pagan Scots! Come on, men! If it were up to you, we’d all be deed by now,” he says, imitating how a Scot would say dead.

  The men laugh, albeit nervously.

  “Ready your bows,” the blacksmith’s deep voice commands. “Nock!”

  I watch the men as they place their arrows in the grooves on their bows.

  “M
ark!” he booms.

  The men take aim at the targets.

  “Draw!” As he calls out, the blacksmith draws his own large bow. Perhaps because he’s the only one almost as tall as the bow, he’s able to draw the string back farther than any other man.

  “Loose!”

  Arrows fly through the air with a whup-whup-whup-whup sound, many of them falling short or to the side of the bales. The blacksmith hits the bull’s-eye.

  He, and he alone, is a sure shot. I can hit my target as well as he can but, in truth, he can let his arrow fly from farther away and still have the strength behind it to stop a man dead. Other than that, I’m as good as he is.

  I watch Hugh’s father, his hair almost as pale as Hugh’s. He’s a fair to middling archer. I see Uncle halfheartedly tweaking his string and letting his arrow fall far short of the target. He’s only here because Reeve Elliot watches the practices to make sure all men comply with our lord’s mandate to practice. Maybe he’s hoping to be asked to stay behind because he’s a danger to his fellow men.

  Uncle looks around, as if looking for an excuse to leave. I shrink away lest he use me as his excuse. If he sees me he may report my lollygagging to Father, or even worse, Good Aunt. Still, I drag my feet, which is a good plan because when I arrive, Hugh and Bess are already leading the ox off the main field.

  “Adrian!” Hugh calls, waving.

  “Are you going to his other field?” I ask him.

  “Nay. Your uncle says we are done for the day!”

  “So we have all afternoon to practice archery!” I conclude triumphantly.

  Hugh’s face falls and he looks at the ground, then at me. “Bessie and I are going for a walk.”

  “You mean, you’re walking her to pasture and then you’re free. Bess can take her.”

  “No! I mean Bess, here, and I are going for a walk.” A shy smile crosses his face. “I call her Bessie.”

  A smile crosses her lips, too, but mine are simply cross.

  Bessie, he calls her now? Bessie? “You’re wasting a fine afternoon like this to go for a walk?”

  “It’s not a waste!”

  “When was the last time we had the chance to practice with our bows? Do you want to forget how?”

  “I won’t forget.”

  “You seem to have forgotten a lot, Hugh!” I say, and storm off, running to the woods. Hugh calls after me, but he doesn’t come after me, I notice, now that he’s besotted with my stupid cousin.

  I reach our secret place in the woods, where we practice, but my lungs are sore and I have to lie down for a while to calm my breathing, careful not to lie near any evil plants that will make my condition worse. Finally, I’m able to pull my bow and my precious arrows out of the hollow tree trunk, and I can’t help but admire my beautiful weapons.

  Soon I hear the blacksmith’s voice in my head: Nock! Mark! Draw! Loose! I spread some dirt under my eyes to counteract the bright sun, close my left eye, ready my bow, and take aim at a single leaf fifty feet away. On my second shot I split the leaf in two. As I practice more, I can hit a leaf on my first try, even when it sways in the breeze. I lose all sense of time and feel like I’m in another world.

  Until I hear someone approach through the woods, and I grab my arrows, stowing them quickly with my bow inside the tree trunk. For years I haven’t been discovered and I don’t intend for anyone to find me out now. When the time is right, I will shock them all. So I stand and look up at the branches to divert attention away from the trunk and to show that I’m simply addlepated Adrian looking at birds.

  But then I see who it is and I relax. “So, you’ve finally come to your senses?”

  “Good Aunt,” Hugh says in a mocking tone, “decided Bess had chores to do. Besides …” He frowns and looks at the ground.

  “Besides what?”

  “Bess says I shouldn’t abandon my friendship with you or you’ll like her even less than you do now.”

  I’m surprised that Bess would care about me, or what I think of her. And it pains me just a bit that she feels I like her so little.

  “I don’t dislike her,” I protest. In truth, I did, but now I see that she’s not like Good Aunt at all. Or like Jane. She’s like … Bess. And that’s a much better thing.

  “Maybe you should treat her better, then,” Hugh says, an edge to his voice.

  “I will,” I say, and I mean it.

  He deigns to look at me again. “Good.” And he smiles. “Come on, let’s shoot!”

  We challenge each other to hit a leaf, a knot on a tree trunk, even a stone thrown into the air.

  “Honestly, Hugh, we’re better than almost any man in our village. We should be the ones in battle.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Hugh says.

  “You’ve had no luck with your father?”

  “None.” He sighs. “And you? Does your father see you as an apprentice yet?”

  I snort. “Maybe I’ll run away to battle because I’ll work with a bow much more that way than in my own father’s shop.”

  Hugh shakes his head. “You’re too young for that.”

  From him, the comment angers me. “I’m almost thirteen.” And I’m hoping to see some battle, no matter what he thinks. There’s always a way around things, I’ve found.

  That’s when my brain comes up with a splendid thought. “Hugh! I have an idea for after mass on Sunday.”

  “There is no mass Sunday. The priest sent word that he’s needed at the manor.”

  “How did you hear?” But I answer my own question as he does, “Good Aunt.” Her ears are the size of giant fishing nets and she catches the news before it has a chance to reach anyone else.

  “The reeve said that the men must practice all day, even though it’s a Sunday,” Hugh adds.

  “Perfect! Because here is my plan: You show up with your bow and arrow and practice with the men!”

  “But Father will protest.”

  “Maybe, but you can claim, loudly, that you are near the age when it’s required to practice, and then quickly shoot a target in the center, and after the reeve sees that, he won’t let you leave!”

  A smile creeps across Hugh’s face and he nods slowly. “That could work.”

  We shake hands and suddenly his face falls. “I promised Bessie I’d go for a walk with her tomorrow.”

  I roll my eyes. “You can walk anytime. This is important.”

  “She’s important to me, too,” he says quietly.

  I hold my tongue so I don’t offend him, and try to think of a more artful way to say what I mean. “Why not spend most of the day at the practice, then the late afternoon and evening with her?”

  He looks doubtful. “Maybe you could spend some time with her? Until I’m free?”

  I stare at him. “Hugh! She’s not a newborn lamb who needs to be tended each waking moment.”

  “But your dear Good Aunt will come up with chore after chore for her if she’s anywhere in sight.” He fairly spits out “Good Aunt,” and I have to laugh.

  “It’s not funny! It’s unfair to Bessie. Jane is treated like a queen and poor Bessie is treated like a — a —”

  “An ox,” I finish for him.

  “Your aunt is most unkind.”

  “Haven’t I been telling you that for years? And all you’ve said is, Oh, Adrian, you shouldn’t say mean things about your own family.”

  “I have seen the error of my ways.”

  “Finally!”

  “You may say whatever you wish about your aunt. And Jane. Your uncle’s not so bad. And Bessie is a peach.”

  I know he means my cousin, not the ox, and I don’t even tease him about it.

  “I just don’t want to abandon her all day.” He says it in such a lovesick way I can’t help but grin.

  “You can tell her that you’ll be longing to see her all day.” I put my hand on my heart and make swooning eyes. “Oh, my darling Bessie, I don’t know how I can last an entire day with just putrid bows and arrows in my hands instead of
your sweet face.”

  “Stop it!” says Hugh, although he’s grinning and red-faced.

  “My dear love,” I continue, “I pine for you each moment —”

  “Adrian!” But he laughs.

  “My heart fair breaks at the thought of not seeing you for minutes, nay hours. I gasp my last breath —” And indeed I do because Hugh punches me, not hard, but enough to knock me over, and I start laughing so much it’s hard to breathe.

  IT’S MARKET DAY AND TOM THE COBBLER HAS COME ALL the way from Penrith. I head for his stall to buy my new boots because Father says Tom’s boots are of the best quality. For the first time, Father is letting me buy them myself, along with tallow he needs for the arrows. Perhaps he realizes I’m almost a man. Or, more likely, it’s because he’s too busy with the upcoming war. He gave me his whole money pouch, although he says to be frugal. I don’t know why. He makes plenty of money and he insists on living well below our means. Where does all that money go?

  Reeve Elliot is already at the market. I clutch Father’s money pouch and look around quickly, because the reeve is also Bryce’s father. I hope the unholy trinity is not nearby. The reeve would do nothing to stop them because he thinks Bryce is God’s gift.

  Uncle walks by with a tankard of ale that he tries to hide behind his back when he sees the reeve. When Reeve Elliot notices him, Uncle makes a mocking bow.

  “I’m pleased to see you have some decorum,” Reeve Elliot answers, also mockingly, “lest I should have to report you under the sumptuary laws.”

  Uncle looks up, both shock and anger on his face. “Me? With my plowman’s tunic and muddy boots, which have no sumptuous long and pointed toes, I might add.”

  “It’s your daughter I’m talking about.”

  The anger drains from Uncle’s face as his eyes shift back and forth, as a boy caught with his finger in a plum pie, and looking for escape.

  “Her shoes curl up at least an inch beyond her toes … possibly two.”

  If it’s two inches, then the reeve is within his rights to charge a fee. I know Bryce’s boots have curly toes that are likely two inches too long. Reeve Elliot thinks he and his family are far above everyone in the village.