Quest of the Five Clans

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Knights, maidens, and the world beyond the cell

I have never held title beyond Seraph. Twice I've been offered knighthood. Once on the field of battle, once at a state dinner.

I refused both times. The state dinner became awkward. An embarrassment to Green, alas. There were glares all through the aperitif; hurt silence chilling the turtle soup. Only by dessert (pudding) did we resume polite conversation. By the third brandy served, we saw the philosophical side of the situation, tossing toasts to swine, pearls, pig's ears, silk purses and the inescapable destiny of blood.

The earlier promotion sur-le-champ of battle came from a serious blue-blood determined to show scouts how to navigate French forests by a noble's instinctual feel for where civilization lay across the water.

I returned him to camp alive. The scouts were not so lucky. There came mild cheering at our return. Flushed by the cheers, he turned to me, sword drawn.

"Kneel, sirrah."

I stared puzzled. Did he intend to cut my head off? You heard stories of these genteel officers slaughtering adjutants for incorrect placement of a fork. Perhaps I had fought with a faux-pas of a dirk, when manners required a saber?

He waved sword in the air. "Kneel, man, kneel," he demanded.

"No, thank you sir, no."

We stepped our dance of demand and demure while the crowd grew, more interested by our quarrel than our return. At some point the idiot tried to force me upon my knees. I had killed five men to rescue him from a French jail. We had lost a dozen of our own in the retreat. I felt out of patience. I ignored his hands, took his sword away.

It was a beauty of steel, gold inlaid. I could not bear to toss it to the trees. So I held it beyond his reach while he beat at me furious. He began swearing, almost in tears. He ordered me arrested, flogged, branded, keel-hauled. That last, problematic in a forest. The commander came, ordered all to dismiss. He solemnly promised our Plantagenet he would see me skinned alive, by and by, by and by. That flaying was a sincere intention of my commander, though nothing to do with refusing knighthood. Mere personal animosity.

When asked why I refused the title, I gave honest answer. It had no survival value. I dismissed it as I would a velvet coat on a summer march, or gold crown to wear in a battle-charge. My whole being was devoted to staying alive. I weighed every last sock and shadow for its threat or benefit. Weapons, food, companions; each element of my existence was judged upon careful scales for what would help or hinder me to live another day.

Knighthood would separate me from those beside whom I fought, and gain no real allies elsewhere. It would have been a useless tin epaulet to shine when I wished to hide. There was also the delicate issue that I knew myself a better man than the idiot ass-headed buffoon-of-a-baboon shit-in-his-pants flattering himself judge of my worth. I would never kneel to such, not to be Duke.

Nevertheless, crouching chained in a dank stone cell, watching screaming men rush past the open doorway, I felt sudden longing for noble title. How much more striking it is to be a prince in a dungeon, than mere mad arsonist-colonial. I had no idea if I faced rescue or slaughter. Whichever, I could take no part in the fighting. Merely watch from my chains.

But title of nobility would grant me heroic lighting. Whether for the crowd beating me to death; or the lunatics come to free me. Whether 'Sir Gray freed from durance vile' or, 'thus perished noble Lord Seraph'.

King of the Oak had served nicely upon the roof of a burning house. Dated now, faded as a crown of summer laurel... Ha, I was starting to think like Flower's race. But why not? They were kings and queens of moonbeams, more subtle than fairies, more proud than cats, more mad than hatters. Probably more inbred than the royal family.