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| Sir Vincent had not sat long on his nice cold rock before a dim color
began to emerge around him. The familiar reddish morning sunbeams
were there, a welcome change from the horrors of a surrounding,
consuming blackness. The knight had sat speculating on the
meaning of recent events, a terrible thing to do alone. It had
been easier and less frighteningly random with Sham beneath him.
The feel of the horse under him was a staying element, something to
take the edge from his musings.
An alarming sensation crept around him. Among the red tint of
morning, he perceived a soft, unwelcome light, ghastly in its
pallor. It colored his flesh, but he could not discover its
source. This had never happened before! The light was a
dull bluish white and slightly flickering; though the flicker was
hardly noticeable. He stumbled on it because of the length for
which he stared down at his right hand, perplexed.
No cause presented itself, from the mountain path to the foothills, and
the sky above gave no clues. The sun rose normally, blazing
bright as ever, and in spite of the alarming aura, he found its
presence comforting.
Vincent trained his mind to the immediate task and glanced back along
the path toward the foothills. The path he had mistook for the
one leading to the castle was hauntingly familiar in the new light, but
the continuation thereof, the winding arrow up the face, was no more
recognizable than it would have been to a foreigner.
He sighed as he untied Sham. While he would not be late to the
castle - his time on this unknown path was not wasted, for he had set
out well before dawn - poor Vincent had become exhausted from the
night's ordeal. The only thing abnormal thus far had been the
unearthly glow on his skin, but normal though the rest had proven, the
trek had no less taxed his physical endurance.
Vincent wondered again about the king's summons. He could not
argue against the unusual timing, nor could he appease the awful,
unreasonable dread. The king was a kind man, though firm in his
ways, and Vincent knew the meeting would not be a reproach, so then
what had he to fear? This argument cheered him considerably, and
he puckered his lips and out came a beautiful ballad he'd heard the
troubadour sing in town a week ago.
Sham's spirits seemed to also be bolstered through the notes, although
it is likely Vincent himself merely imagined this. The horse was
nearly as tired as his master. He loped drowsily along behind
Vincent, who was scanning the sides of the path like an eagle.
Before long, the pair arrived at a fork, but to Vincent's dismay the
two choices did not choose between themselves for him! Having
become disoriented hours before, the knight could not be sure of which
path led castleward and which would return him home.
| | |
| A mist began to fall on the valley road. Vincent, already cold
from the night's chill, lifted his face up to receive the fine, invisible
spray. The path had all but disappeared from view, enshrouded by
a thick fog, and poor Sham slowed from his brisk trot to an uncertain
walk.
Ahead, nothing but a pale whiteness amid the trees. If he had not
traveled this same ground countless times, Vincent might have ventured
on, using the fog as a sort of guide to keep him to the road, but he
knew without sight that the shoulder had become rough and rocky.
Should the fog fail him, his horse would not speak of wandering off the
road until the poor beast had stumbled on a sharp obstacle.
The knight drew his horse to a halt and dismounted. To his
surprise, he landed not on dirt but on grass! He had already
drifted far to one side. Vincent took the reins over Sham's head
and set out leading the horse on foot.
The two traveled at a brisk pace now, though not as fast as Sham's trot
it was much faster than the speed they should have assumed if Vincent
had remained a rider. Gradually, the path began a curve to the
right, toward some foothills. Many times the knight stumbled off
the left edge onto the shoulder, and often this transition was marked
by a drop of several inches. This made him rather nervous and
hesitant, and he slowed in order to avoid unpleasant surprises.
The path through the hills wound strangely, here venturing up a rocky
slope, there threading into a narrow valley, an easy target for
thieves. Knowing this hazard well, Vincent had wisely strapped
his short sword between his shoulder blades.
Nearly an hour later, a steep grade loomed above them, and they drew to
a halt. Vincent searched his memory; the foothills must have
confused his sense of direction, for this was not the road to the
citadel! No former image made itself known. This place was
one he had never seen before.
There was no returning along the path for a search for the intended
route. The dark would have to be traded for dawn first.
| | |
| Vincent started in his sleep and leaned up on both elbows. It was
still dark, but the rain had gone, spent itself into his skin. He
sat thus, disoriented and alarmed, for a minute, perhaps two.
Sham gave a soft whinny and Vincent shook himself free of the trance.
"Hello, horse, where did you come from? I've had an awful
dream. Somebody wanted my help, I think." His brow furrowed
a bit. "Very odd, to want help from someone asleep and dreaming,
I should think. It was a short dream, I think you must have woken
me."
Packing up the lean-to and wringing the blanket as best he could, he
strode over to Sham and stuffed his things back in the saddlebag.
"We've a long way to go yet, I'm afraid. That bag of yours is
going to develop a terrible odor. I'll probably need to get you a
new one, the water on the inside will ruin it."
Vincent hopped astride the saddle, furrowed his brow once more and
hopped back down. "Now why would I do that?" he asked, more
to occupy the silence and prevent suspicion of his own sanity than to
entertain a relationship with faithful Sham. He stooped and
untied the reins.
Trotting along the path in the blackness, Vincent mused to himself that
perhaps the king wanted to discuss Herbert. He immediately
rejected the thought. "Herbert was a dream. Yes, a
dream. I only remember him because I have seen him, but it wasn't
real, was it?" Sham slowed a bit and shook his head
vigorously. "And anyway, if Herbert were real, how would the king
know about the visit he would have had to pay me?"
Satisfied with his reasoning, at least on the surface, he strained his
eyes to the task of keeping Sham safely on the path. It was a
difficult thing, as the moon was nothing but a tiny, muted sliver
overwhelmed by cloud.
| | |
| The lone knight skimmed across the grassy earth at a frightening pace,
his steed's ears and mane rippling back majestically. Up ahead,
the sky loomed black death. At least it wouldn't be the kind that
kills, thought Vincent.
Though in no danger of becoming pay for gravediggers, the knight feared
a thorough drenching, not only of his raiment but also of his spirits.
"I wonder, Sham." At his name, the horse flinched slightly, so
that only the rider would notice. Vincent's brow furrowed rather
more than it normally did. "This isn't normal. The king
only calls on me once in a month, and that at most frequent."
The night only grew blacker, and Sir Vincent leered into the trees on
either side of the path. Normally, messengers and merchants
traveling through these glades at this hour would fear hostile
creatures, for wolves were a familiar sight, even in the
daylight. Not Vincent. His quarry was much more unlikely to
venture hence.
Vincent heaved a sigh. He had rather he could draw his sword
against the scourge within, rather his foe were corporeal and
evident. A siege without weapons or shields he could not bear.
Sham whinnied as though nervous, and flinched again as a lumious fork
leapt from the sky and plunged into a treetop not half a mile
ahead. The harbinger was not long in fulfillment; a torrent began
raining upon the pair without warning, coming, it seemed, from the very
air around them. Sir Vincent gasped as the icy fingers sank into
his garments and thence into his bones. He drew the horse to a
stop and dismounted.
"Well, old friend, we're not going into the woods, dry though it may
make us." The sodden knight pulled three short poles, two beaming
nails and a thick sheet of canvas from the saddlebag. He led Sham
off onto the gentle grassy shoulder and tethered him by the reins to
one pole. The other materials he fashioned into a crude lean-to.
"I wonder." Vincent strode back to Sham and smiled as he drew a
large sheet of rough woolen cloth from the bag. He laid it
underneath the canopy and slumped over. The cloth instantly
soaked up all the rain from the patch of grass beneath.
Sir Vincent shuddered, wished he'd packed something more insulating,
murmured to himself, and tossed among his strewn thoughts for an hour
before he finally receded into fitful sleep.
| | |
| A knock. But no people? Difficult to move... can see bright
blue sparks above... wooden? Darkness all around, only sparks
above. What caused the knock? Now a voice.
Feminine. Crying out, sounds distressed. Moving more
difficult. Sparks dying out... voice screams from far away.
No! Can't move... a knock? A knock! Wooden? No
people... so dark... a knock!
The mist began to clear and Sir Vincent slowly sat up. A knock
came at the front door. He slid out of bed and drowsily made his
way downstairs. The lantern had exhausted its oil during the
night. Another rapping at the door. He opened it a crack
and found a messenger at his doorstep.
"Good day to you, sir! Abed at midday?" The messenger smiled slightly, his voice a hardy cockney drawl.
"Arrived late last night from my mother's. What have you got for me?"
"A summons from the king himself, sir. Oh, and I am to tell you
that your niece will be coming to stay for a few days because your
sister is bedridden with a fever."
An inconvenience, to be sure, for although he cared greatly for both
women, he already had too much to think about. "Thank you, you
may go. Ride safely."
"Give my regards to your sister, sir, and don't worry. The doctor
said the leeches should have the fever out in a matter of days."
Poor Corinne. Her mother had constantly been getting sick in
recent years. An epidemic had ripped through their village a few
years back, and Virginia's health had not been the same since.
A summons to the castle was not uncommon, but he had just been there a
week ago. Sir Vincent wondered what it could mean. Was the
king unhappy with the results of something he had overseen?
Worries, endless worries!
Sir Vincent readied his pack and walked out to the stable, where Sham
was nickering anxiously. He stopped dead in the doorway.
Memories of his resident ghost came back, suppressed rather well
despite their refusal to go away entirely. He imagined he could
see the man whose name he allegedly could not pronounce walking toward
him out of the dark of day. Sham whinnied, shattering his
reminiscence.
"Thanks, lad. I'm glad you live here too, otherwise I might go
mad. Perhaps I ought to do as Mother says and find myself a
bride." A damp, chilly wind whispered through the stable as
thunder made itself known on the horizon. "You think maybe we
should hurry? Camping tonight is the last thing I'd choose to do."
With one jump, Sir Vincent landed in the saddle and with a "Hyah!"
snapped the reins, sending both himself and his steed out into the
gloomy countryside. | | |
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