Chapter  3      The Fortified Manor at Norbury

 

 

 

Thomas of Oakham, son of John fitzStephen of Oakham, grandson of Gilbert of Oakham, mercurial keeper of horses and arms for the fledgling court of Baron Javier de Oakham, a ruthless castellan who raided his non-royalist neighbors in the name of God two generations before, awoke to the sound of a cock's crow.  He rolled over, threw his arm over his ear and was soon asleep again.  But now, he dreamed.

"Thomas ... Thomas?"  It was his nurse's voice.  Long ago.

In his dream, he opened a sleepy eye, squinted at the dim, blue sky through an unglazed window, and let his eye close again.

"Thomas.  You must get up."  His nurse was insistent.  "Your father has something very important for you to do today."

This was interesting.  "What?" he asked sleepily, ready to fall back asleep if this was just a ploy to get him up.

"You are going to visit someone very important."

His father was John fitzStephen, Marshal of Oakham.  There were important people around all the time, and without exception, they paid little attention to a fifth son, except to poke fun at him.  He was not interested.

"Who?" he asked in his dream, already letting warm sleep overtake him again.  He did not understand the answer.

"Oh," he said.  And in his sleep, was asleep again.

With that, the dream was over.  When he opened his eyes again, it was abruptly, for young Stewart was prodding his shoulder.

"Thomas!" said Stewart.  "You had better get up and moving!  They rang Prime several minutes ago."

"All right."  Thomas cleared his throat.  "I am up."

"No, you are not," answered Stewart, quite certainly.

Thomas shifted to a sitting position, still stupefied with sleep.  He opened his eyes and squinted against the early blue light diffusing through the waxed linen windows of the dormitory.  He looked upward until he met the disdainful gaze of Stewart, already dressed.

"Satisfied?" inquired Thomas.

Stewart shook his head and strode away.  Thomas could see other dim figures moving around the rough trestle beds.  Some were dressed and already putting their beds against the wall.  Others, he was pleased to note, were more or less in his position.

He closed his eyes again, nodding his head until his chin hit his chest.  The nightshirt tickled his neck, but not enough to cause remedial action.  King John had a nightshirt.  Did linen tickle a king's neck too?  He felt himself beginning to drift again.  It was pleasant.  He had dreamed.  He did not remember the dream except that it had been uncomfortable.  He pushed the thought away.  There were duties to perform.  Besides, Stewart might come back and he could not face another one of his withering glances before breakfast.  With the last, tapering threads of consciousness still at his disposal, he intentionally took a deep breath of cold dawn air.  That was all it took.  He coughed and opened his eyes.  He stood up, got his balance, looked around and felt hungry all at once.

"Stewart!" he bawled.  "I do not want to be late!"

Thomas waited for the inevitable reaction.

Stewart appeared with fresh chauces and shirt.  Very quiet.  Very efficient.  He acted unperturbed.  He laid out the chauces on the bed, the hose, the shirt and belt.  He placed shoes in easy reach, then stood quietly aside, the good servant awaiting the next command.

A little disappointed, Thomas began putting on his clothes.  Chauces were tied.  Linen hose pulled on, straightened, attached to the string belt, Stewart quietly assisting when necessary.  Shirt.  Now, there was an opportunity for Stewart to exact revenge.  Quickly, Thomas pulled the shirt over his head and located Stewart again.  He still stood in place, the embodiment of humility.

Thomas stooped for his shoes, realizing a split second before he felt the flat of Stewart's foot on his backside that this was just what his servant had been waiting for.  Too late!  Thomas found himself face down on the rush matting, the shoe still in his hand.  The dormitory grew quiet.  Everyone watched.

Thomas whirled to his feet.

"You should show more respect for your master!"  He pointed the shoe accusingly at Stewart.  "Anyone but me would have you flogged!"

"Ha!" Stewart responded in similar volume.  "Any other servant with you for a master would have joined a Crusade long ago!"

"Well, that does not say much for your intelligence, does it?"

"It says less for yours!  Who but a fool would let his servant kick him in the backside?"

They stood glowering at each other a full quarter minute, then broke into smiles and an embrace.  There was general laughter around them, soon replaced by the sounds of everyday activity.  Tom-foolery was not uncommon, particularly on such weighty mornings.

"This may be our last day together, Thomas," said Stewart.  Emotion thickened his voice.  "If the rumors are true."

"So what if they are?" asked Thomas heartily.  "I would still need a good servant."

"A knight needs a squire, not a valet."

"He needs both," said Thomas.  "If the rumors are true."

Stewart took a step back.  "It really depends on Lord William, does it not?"

Thomas looked fondly at Stewart, then threw a too-heavy hand around his shoulder and pulled him towards the door.  The young man could not but follow.  At twenty-one, Thomas was strong, well-proportioned and not known for physical subtlety.  They strode together towards the dining hall, following some of the other squires, servants, stable boys, and the like.

Stewart was blond, waiflike, with the sensitivity and grace of a choir boy, but possessed of a mischievous streak which lay concealed beneath an innocent smile.  Even so, he was still an innocent, knowledgeably naive teenager.

Stewart glanced at his young master's face as they walked, wanting to preserve in memory the elements of Master Thomas of Oakham, Squire.  It was pure sentimentality and it probably came from his mother's side.  She often cried when the troubadours sang their ballads.

Thomas had brown hair and eyes, brown beard, as seen briefly between shavings, and the stamina and even nature of a horse.  Even if some of the more black-humored scuttlebutt painted him as rather old for a squire, and accused him of receiving favoritism and worse, he rarely lost his balance or his wit.  It was not lack of prowess that held him back for he was well trained, not that he chose to show it often.  More likely, it was the natural protectiveness of Lord William for his young nephew.  Knighthood under the reign of King John could spell quick death or disfigurement.

Thomas's was a stubborn, self-confident, self-possessed face.  His prickly wit sat around his eyes and mouth like banked coals, ready to flare at a moment's notice.  Everyone remarked on his open manner, but only a few knew how very self-contained he really was.  Few knew he was bothered by bad dreams, for example, but Stewart had noticed that on the rare occasions when he behaved recklessly, he had, the night before, been plagued by one of his dreams.  Otherwise, Thomas existed in enviable equilibrium.

Thomas smoothed his hair back with both hands, absent-mindedly making sure it was parted in the middle and lay evenly against his neck.  He was not a dandy, but he did like making an appearance.  Stewart looked to the ground in front of him just in time to avoid a steaming pile of horse dung.  He sighed quietly as he lengthened his stride appropriately, feeling Thomas smile at his near collision.  He noticed everything.

They approached the hall door.  Long tables were visible, already two-thirds filled.

"We better find ourselves a seat," said Thomas, breaking away. He headed for the squire's table, leaving Stewart to find his own way to the servant's table.  A big Irish Wolfhound named Lovel, who advantageously accompanied different people at different times of the day, had already attached himself to Thomas and was accompanying this soft touch to his place at the bench.  Thomas, characteristically, thumped the big dog on the shoulder and took a seat.

Stewart watched him go.  "Thomas," he said to himself, "you are the closest thing to a brother I will probably ever have, but you are no more capable of understanding that than Lovel."

Servants brought goblets, spoons and bowls, half the number of goblets as eaters, for it was the custom to share drink, as Christ did, and thereby strengthen the bonds of community among the household.  Steaming hot cakes were dumped on platters down the length of the tables, enough to feed a hundred and a score.

The cook harassed his kitchen boys with phrases such as, "Hurry, boy!  What is wrong?  Did you put your legs on backwards this morning?"  Taking the suggestion, the squires cried, "What kind of squires will these pages make?"  And, not to be outdone, the new knights answered with, "What kind of knights will these squires make?"  There was much joking and laughter.  The morning was filled with tension.

Two cauldrons of millet meal, each held by two young boys struggling under their weight and suffering the verbal lashings of the squires with stoic good humor, moved along the tables as a pair of cook's helpers ladled the contents into outstretched bowls.  They served everyone.  Then came the silence.

Grey Friar Robert stood before the hall and clasped his hands.

Many would consider it odd that he was suffered to be there at all by the manor house chaplain, but the chaplain hailed from high-visioned stock and suffered him easily enough.  The chaplain even seemed amused, in a friendly fashion, by the friar's manner of speech.  The friar was considered a "good fellow" by the knights, and Lord William sometimes extended him special privileges, the opportunity to speak at this occasion and partake of a meal, but one of his boons.

The friar offered a prayer before breakfast commenced.  His prayer, fortunately, was simple and short, the "Amen" following it devout, the subsequent sounds of eating cacophonous.  The men in the hall were of one mind.

The hall attached to the kitchen was old, at least parts of it were.  It was made of heavy wood beams, some of ash, others of oak or pine, all darkened by age and smoke.  Some cross beams fastened to uprights with mortise, tenon and trunnel joints, others by iron spikes or straps.  Sturdy walls of stone, pocked by odd depressions marking the positions of former doors and windows, now plugged with unmatching rock or wattle and daub, rose to twice a man's height.  Past lords had expanded the hall, rebuilt it after fires, fortified it after roof collapses, rebuilt and re-expanded it so many times, the architect's name could only be Legion.  The room comfortably reflected generations of knightly activity.  Smoke curled languidly from tallow lamps fastened to the wall and spaced too far apart to give any real illumination.  Smoke clung damply to the joists and rafters like a sluggish stream of cobwebs, finally disappearing into the perpetual, soot layered darkness of the loft.  If any hall could be said to reflect fellowship, it was this one.

Shortly after everyone had been served, the friar again approached the head of the hall.  This was unusual and a reasonable silence, punctuated by unselfconscious eating sounds, followed him.

"What is a knight?"  Friar Robert asked, letting his steady gaze drift over the crowd.  His voice swelled again, louder.  "What is this thing we call a knight?"

Of course, no one answered.  Years of church services had taught everyone the trappings of clerical rhetoric.

"I will tell you," said the friar, at last.  And he did, at length.  He spoke of the three estates of Man -- those who rule, those who work and those who pray.  He described the ploughmen and villagers, the lords and rulers, and of course, the men of the clergy bringing the word of God to all.  He talked on and on, growing quite fond of his metaphors and imagery, sometimes completely losing track of his point.  He settled again from one of his leaps of simile and began a new tack, pivoting on his original premise.

By this time, most of the bowls were empty and the breadboards covered with nothing but crusts and crumbs.  The assemblage stirred uncomfortably.

"Why this perfect trinity, mirroring our own holy trinity?" asked the friar.  He paused.  He finally answered himself, "Just as every brick and stone in a strong wall has its place, so too, does every man.  Each holds onto those around him, strengthening and in turn strengthened by these contacts, preserving the holy order of the world.

"Today will be a special day for three of you and an instructive example for those who will but watch.  Today, we will witness the initiation of three squires into the honorable and holy order of knighthood!"

This news charged the hall.  Everyone listened, half-filled stomachs momentarily forgotten.

"You unnamed three, for many years, you have lived for this day, trained, ached, and been fed and clothed by your lord.  Today, you will find your place and stand in defense of God and country against the foes that would crush us!"

The friar again paused, concentrating on the expectant faces of the squires.  He had their full attention at last, and it invigorated him.

"For the three, this will be the last day you attend your knights.  From this day forward, you will be attended!"

The squires looked at one another, then of a sudden, burst out with a cheer.  Hot ale and milk shot towards the ceiling and down again in a rain of sticky spray, but the squires cared not a wit.  A few droplets hit the friar, who deigned not to notice.  The murmur from table to table quickly assumed a roar.

Abruptly, a sharp retort cracked from the back of the hall as the banneret, a humorless knight of great reputation, picked up the end of a trestle table and slammed it to the stone floor.  He said not a word, but his meaning was clear.  A painful quiet fell like a curtain.  Attention again focused on the friar, who resumed as if nothing had occurred.

"The honorable estate of knighthood holds more responsibility than most of you realize.  Only through battle in defense of your king will you come to understand the great honor, and the great burden, which rides alongside."

This statement brought some genuine, if short lived, contemplation.

"This thing called knighthood has a tradition.  Three words, hammered into you from the day you first arrived, which have now become as forgotten as the beat of your own heart.  Three words, three ideals, three codes of conduct, the guiding principles of your lives from the moment the lord fastens his spurs upon your heels.  Do you remember these words?"

It took a moment for everyone to realize rhetoric had stopped and the friar now intended the squires to respond in unison, as in an Amen after a prayer.  The younger squires glanced to the elder squires for direction.  Thomas and another squire, James Beaumont, rose in an voluminous exhortation of three intended words, with the others joining in just as loudly.  The hall echoed with:

"Loyalty!  Prowess!  Generosity!"

Even the banneret nodded approval.

The friar nodded approval, too, made the sign of the cross, enjoined everyone to say "Amen," then retreated out the door to a warm bowl in the kitchen proper.  In the hall, breakfast ended amid vigorous discussion.  A tumult of bodies headed purposefully into the yard.  More than usual activity stirred the manor house.  Fleeting glimpses through open windows in the upper stories spied servants passing with quicker than usual step, often with bundles of clothing or chests in their arms.  Colorful banners hung from the upper windows and flags had been fastened to the masts.  They had known for days an expedition would depart, but with how many new knights?  That was the question that mattered.

The squires attired themselves for work and crossed the courtyard to the stables, where the knights' war horses were kept.  The banneret, and the household knights who rode beneath his flag, could be seen talking to one another behind their quarters.  Indeed, this day was shaping up to be somewhat different.  The last knighting had been over a year before, amid a flurry of ceremony insisted upon by the bishop.  Squire Henry, who came from Portishead on Bristol Channel, and who maintained that his lord had found the Grail and in fact had it hidden away in one of his coffers, had spent one entire day floating about the chapel in a white gown, fasting and praying, before entering the courtyard shortly after dawn the following day to receive his spurs.  For all that holy effort, Knight Henry had caught influenza crossing the channel and died in Cherbourg less than a fortnight later.

Things seemed to be moving faster this time, and thank God for it!  Thomas could not truly picture himself in one of those gowns.  They made a man look like a Cistercian monk.  There was something feminine about the new ceremony that vaguely upset him.  Knights were knights and monks were monks.  Just because an occasional bishop rode into battle and bashed a few heads with a blunt mace so as not to offend the scriptures by spilling blood, that did not make a cleric an expert on men or knights, the Templars not withstanding.  I will take their blessing, he thought, but let them keep their robes!

The stable boys had already rounded up the horses, stabled them, and brushed them down.  They were huge and tolerant in the shadows of the barn.  Thin, grayish blue leaves of light entered the building through the unbattened timbers and fell in contours over the powerful backs of the horses.  Fine motes of dust danced amidst the light but disappeared the moment they drifted out of a beam, as if sliced by a fast-moving knife.  The faintly sweet smell of new mown hay, straw, the breath of the horses, the muffled fall of hoof against packed clay, the creak of leather and metal, impinged his senses with comfortable goodness.  Thomas was not so much aesthetically aware of the ingredients as of the overall effect, which played upon him like blissful music.  So much seemed possible in the atmosphere of the stable.

"Hard winter," remarked Rich, a younger squire, to Thomas.

"How so?" replied Thomas.

"Winter coats are coming in heavy.  In my horse, anyway."

Thomas pinched a tuft of hair between his thumb and forefinger.  Yes, the long rusty brown hairs seemed more numerous than in previous Autumns.  He thought it commendable that animals knew such things in advance while men merely vied opinions over ale cups.

A derisive voice shot from one of the adjacent stalls.  "Our Thomas has more on his mind than a destrier's winter coat, Rich.  I wager he is worried the lord may finally decide to give him his spurs!"  James Beaumont's angular head flashed through several leaves of light.  Out of the corner of his eye, Thomas could just see the too wide smile over the back of a war horse.

The barn grew quiet in the vicinity.  Talk still could be heard in the distance, but within earshot of James's remark, all sound died.  Tack was held suspended in darkness from a half dozen nearby stalls.  Only Thomas continued fitting the saddle and breast straps to his horse.  His easy sounds of work were conspicuous.  He continued at the same pace as if he had not heard a thing.

Ranking high in persistence, if not courtesy, James continued.  "Why the lord will be hard pressed to decide whether to give him a sword or a cane.  The oldest squire in the Cotswolds might need the latter first!"  One could almost hear James fall back upon his verbal haunches to observe the effect of this latest barb.

Silence continued.

Rich crept around the dividing wall into Thomas's stall.

"Are you going to let him spew that garbage at you without even saying anything?" he whispered violently.

Thomas gave him a wink and continued his work.  He slid the rear girth into the saddle loop and pulled strenuously.  The horse let go a long, warbling fart.  Thomas waited until the sound had expired, then said, "Did you say something else, James?  I could not quite make that out."

Laughter erupted from all around.  Thomas continued cinching the girth, this time unremarked.

Bridle fitted, saddle retightened, stirrups turned and pulled to length, Thomas led the war horse to the hitching rings outside, but since the horse no longer wore its halter, Thomas handed the reins to a stableman only slightly younger than himself.  While most of the other squires paraded their status to the stablemen by calling them "stable boys," Thomas always accorded them the dignity of referring to them as men, though at a lower social stature.  That went unsaid.

The sun had warmed the air to a peach tint, though you could still see your breath.  The horses exhaled turbulent clouds as they emerged into the dawn air.  Excitement rippled through man and beast.   Horses tossed their heads nervously and shifted their weight from hip to hip.  The squires held a keener stance than usual, and all stole glances at the banneret.

The elder squires, having turned their horses over to pages or stable boys, dusted off their clothes.

Stewart stood unnoticed in the dormitory entrance watching Thomas, the other squires, the horses, and the knights, as if they were all on stage awaiting the arrival of the leading character, himself the audience.  He leaned against the door frame and remembered something he had seen in the village two summers before.

A particularly boisterous jongleur had made a bubble the size of a man's head with a loop of willow and soap from Normandy.  The bubble glistened like a rainbow, and when Stewart looked close, he could see himself, huge and distorted, surrounded by lesser images of the people and shops around him.  It seemed, for a brief instant, that he was the center of the world.  When the bubble at last burst, the jongleur shouted as if he had commanded the disappearance, took a bow, and basked in everyone's applause at such a fine and mysterious feat.

Stewart watched the squires, each swaggering in his own way, feeling the power of strong shoulders and imagining the lanky weight of hauberks they hoped to one day wear.  They were all looking into bubbles.  He could almost see their images as they saw themselves.

There was Thomas, standing perhaps a bit farther from the bubble than the others, aware of himself, but within a context.  He would have denied anything but the most average of ambition, but he was a bit too aware of his place to ever be content with it.

Thomas saw him and gave a brief, warming nod.  No one else noticed a little valet standing in the doorway.  It was the little things that made a man cede himself to another.  Indeed, Thomas would go far.  If he lived.

And there was James Beaumont, standing too tall, his shoulders held too wide, with a matching smile of the same dimensions.  Very capable, very confident, but flawed by a Narcissism that almost blinded.  He gave Stewart the uneasy impression of a soul for sale to the highest bidder.  Where Thomas inspired an instant trust, Beaumont made you grasp unconsciously for your purse.

There was the thin form of Rich, Richard of Faringdon, watching Thomas as a dog watches for a scrap.  He must have been weaned too young.  He seemed to still be looking for his mother, but settled for a father instead.  He was a weak vessel, but would never know it.  He skulked around the edges of life, fed insinuations without malice, and would probably live to a very old age and die unremarked.

The stable boy, stableman, Alexander, stood out.  He looked tough, capable, but with an introspective side Stewart found redeeming.  Introspection was so rare a thing among the household of young squires and knights.  Either they were incapable of it or repressed it because introspection slowed reflexes and muddled the clarity of colorless thinking.  He knew Alexander as well as any of the squires, probably better, but in actuality, not at all.  Alexander was sad and secretive, stoic and impassive.  He did his job, silently hoping to rise above the station his parents had borne him into.  The envious glances he gave the squires could not be misread.

There was a shout from the gate watch.  Activity in the courtyard abruptly halted.

"Horses!  Twenty!  A mesnie!"

The door of the manor opened, and the lord's nephews, sons by his eldest sister -- anachronistically, he called them his house-carls, after the old Saxon warriors -- trotted down the steps into the courtyard.  They were clad in full hauberk and wore surcoats of fine, green fabric.  Behind them, the marshal appeared in the door and said something to a sergeant who stood ready.  The sergeant trotted down the steps and into the center of the yard.

"Open the gates," he shouted to the gate keepers with full voice.  "Horses to the line!"

At once, the squires led the horses to their positions on the line, the horses of senior knights nearer the manor.  Thomas held the banneret's horse and thus stood at the head of the line.

Lord William, himself, appeared in the doorway, hands on hips.  He carried his armor easily, despite his years.  He was fifty-five, at least, maybe sixty, and had fought in many battles.  His hauberk was made of so-called single, or four to one mesh of the old days, but he wore a doublet over his shoulders and chest for added protection against quarreled crossbow bolts and the fiercely pointed tips of Swiss pikes.  In places, the mail showed a peculiar flatness, where the links had worn smooth and thin from years of movement against one another.

Thomas, thought Stewart, it is good to have a veteran lead you into your first battle.

The lord surveyed his yard and prepared to make an entrance as soon as the mesnie of twenty horses arrived.  The banneret hoisted his lance into the air, letting the red and green tassel flutter with effect.  The six knights in his company fell in two abreast behind him and followed the banneret to the line of well outfitted war horses.  Another twelve knights of the household followed in a bunch and took positions near their destriers.  The marshal would lead them all, but the banneret would have say over the knights under him.

The sergeant went to the knights' quarters and took the marshal's lance, which carried the household banner, a rectangle of green and red with a black oak branch emblem.  He spoke to the knights' stewards a moment, then turned abruptly and carried the lance to the marshals' own horse.  It stood tethered to a post before the lord's door, a squire and page waiting impatiently close by.

At the east end of the courtyard appeared the chaplain with a retinue of choir boys, all dressed in long white robes with red sashes.  One boy carried a Celtic cross on a high pole, another a monstrance of gold, within which the venerated and consecrated Host rested.  Another boy swung a censor uncertainly.  Theirs was an assembly designed for slow procession and the boys were nearly tripping over their own feet, being forced to stand still and watch.

The chaplain alone seemed indifferent to his surroundings.  Stewart had rarely seen such a practiced gaze so well carried on anyone less than thirty, but their chaplain was Welsh and seemed to have a fair amount of actor's blood.  Stewart nodded with pride.  He would conduct himself well before the arriving mesnie.

By now, the dull thunder of hooves on earth could be heard, or rather felt.  The sound seemed like a prolonged roll of thunder.  Louder!  The gatekeepers pressed themselves into the stone work a moment before a hoard of metal clad horses and riders burst into the yard.  Shouts and hooves!  Metal, unsheathed swords, the clack of lances striking one another!  A glorious swirl of movement, sound and color.

The horses pulled into a rough line facing the lord's knights, the leader, a young gentleman, short, but of good carriage, a horse length in front.  Sunlight suddenly spilled through the morning clouds and splashed the tower wall with a swath of yellow.  The air felt suddenly warmer, and a resonance of invincibility echoed through the yard.  A retinue of squires on palfreys rode through the gate, almost without notice, and ambled their horses to the side of the yard.  They were used to waiting without fanfare.

"Heigh!  What a morning!" shouted Stephen, the leader, the eldest son of a minor baron from the hills near Chipping Ashby.  He was son of one of the lord's dearest friends.

The lord raised both arms and descended the steps toward the baron.

"Aye, what a morning!" he shouted.  "Welcome!  A fine portent!"

Stephen dismounted and walked with solid purpose toward the lord.  They embraced and pounded each other's backs, and exchanged more personal greetings in voices too low to hear.

The lord broke away and surveyed the arriving mesnie of knights, squires, and palfreys.  They sat tall and proud.  Their mail hauberks were gray and rust free, in repair.  Their surcoats gleamed, as did saddles, tack, swords, and lances.  Axes swung from saddle stays.  The lord liked what he saw.

"Stand down, good knights!" he bade them with a sweeping gesture, and moving as one, they dismounted.  He turned again to Baron Stephen.

"You have outrun your sergeants, my friend.  How far are they lacking?

"But the time it would take to pour and drink a tankard of ale, they will be with us!  Fully forty on the road."

"Ah," said the lord, "ale, is it?  Then lets measure the time together!"  The lord swept his arms towards a row of trestle tables the stewards had erected.

Rows of empty tankards of all shapes, sizes, and conditions were set out.  Pewter and copper, some of fired clay.  Two big iron cauldrons hung from tripods at either end of the tables, and by the approving glances of the knights, Stewart felt assured they held copious amounts of ale.  Bread was produced.  Stewards, squires, knights, all partook.  The chaplain and his young entourage exchanged glances.  The chaplain shook his head and the boys pouted and shifted their weight.

The stable crew grouped themselves into bunches and mimicked the activity at the tables.  Maids and other girls of the household, doubtless ordered to remain out of sight, peeked curiously from the edges of windows and doors, each face longing to join the party.

Only Alexander stood aloof, watching.  Alexander surveyed the yard and discovered Stewart watching him from the opposite end.  His glance lingered, but he made no other gesture.  What was he thinking? wondered Stewart.  We are two birds on opposite branches of a tree, watching a pageant.  What should birds care of such things?  As if in answer, a little finch descended to the ground and plucked up a bit of food left from breakfast.

Stewart glanced back to Alexander, but the young man had disappeared into the gloomy depths of the stable.  It was a shame his low station pinned him so.  God's purpose sometimes seemed aimed at driving good men to desperation.  But what could he, the servant of a squire, know about God's purpose?  Stewart shifted himself out of his thoughts and watched the young knights laugh and cavort.

Word was received that the sergeants had arrived and took their rest a ways outside the gate.

"Shall we invite them in?" asked the lord.

"No," responded the baron.  "They would raise a ruckus, and if I am not mistaken, you have a couple of knights to make 'ere we ride this morning?"

Contemplating, the lord nodded.  "If we leave them outside with nothing, though, listening to our celebrations, it could breed ill will.  Why spoil such a fine morning?"

"It is your mead.  But they are a rowdy lot and in poor temper.  Most were up late drinking to their departure."

"Still...."  The lord motioned for a steward and instructed him to knock the head out of a barrel and take enough ale for one full tankard per man to the sergeants.

"Done," said the lord.

"You spoil them."

"I do not want one of their arrows in my back some dusky night."  He gave the young baron a wry smile.

Stephen nodded thoughtfully, apparently perceiving an aspect of hospitality he had not appreciated before.

The lord motioned for another steward.

"How much have they had?" asked the lord, indicating the knights.

"At least one tankard each, maybe two," said the steward, a young boy trying to act a man for his lord.

A knight fell at their feet.  Another sloshed a half full tankard in his face, shouting, "It is Christ's way to share!"  They were unaware of their audience.

The knight holding the tankard offered his hand to the fallen knight, who took it with laughter and let himself be pulled to his feet.  His surcoat was a mess of ale soaked mud, dirt flaked from between the links of his mail, the pommel of his sword was dripping, but his face could not have registered a higher degree of happiness.  One was Stephen's man, the other from Norbury, but they obviously knew each other well.  Abruptly, the two horseplaying gentlemen noticed the lord and the baron.  Before they could assume a look of contrition, which instinct told them was required, but which their spirits would find difficult to produce, the lord motioned them away with a smile.

To the baron, he shouted, "I think we had better have our knighting or our witnesses will soon be too drunk to officiate."

"I think that wise," Stephen agreed.  Then in a more sober tone, said, "A man's knighting is the most important thing to happen to him.  Already they are being cheated out of their vigil and bath.  They should not think back in old age upon the occasion as a drunken brawl."

"I do not think they care.  What they want is the colee, only that.  Once I deliver them their spurs and the blow of remembrance, they will not miss the other.  These are soldiers, not priests."

The young baron seemed less sure of the lord's assessment of the church's role in a knighting, but he nodded for politeness sake.  The lord made his own knights and it was no man's business how he did so.

The lord grabbed two tankards, emptied their contents back into one of the cauldrons, and climbed onto the table, clanging the vessels together vigorously.  In short order, they were quite dented, but they produced the desired effect.  Slowly, the roar of voices died away.  He tossed the tankards aside and placed his hands on his hips.

"Knights and squires!" he resounded.  "In but a while, we will ride to Rochester where we will do battle with the enemies of King John and England!"

The courtyard roared.  Several knights unsheathed their swords and held them aloft.  A few waved them around for emphasis, to the distress of those nearby.

"Before we go, we will increase our number by three!  Three worthy squires from my household shall join our ranks as knights!"

More shouting.  Several of the baron's men broke into a chant, which was picked up by the younger knights -- the older knights were above such things, but they smiled with indulgence, with the exception of the banneret, who stood back in formal dignity, looking dour and disapproving.  The younger knights were as drunk on themselves as on the ale.  One voice began, but many voices joined in, rendering in staggered, half-inebriated unison, a familiar chant with the easy rhythm of a tavern song:

 

"The sky is dark!

The moon is bright

The girl is willing

Make a knight!"

 

They repeated the lyric several times, each repetition with more leer and swagger and suggestive variation.  At last, the debauch died away of its own weight.

Six stewards appeared, each pair carrying between them a heavy chest.  Atop each chest was a white surcoat covering what could only be a sword and scabbard.  The Stewards soundlessly set the chests in a line between the horses in the center of the courtyard and courteously stood in attendance behind the chests.  The rabble of knights slowly stopped their shouting and cheering and formed a wide semicircle before the chests.  The lord moved into the center of the assembly.

"Witnesses!" he shouted in a sonorous voice, and the rabble quieted further until the only sounds were of fabric against mail, the creak of leather, and the dull thuds of horses quietly stomping away the last flies of the season.

Stable boys replaced squires in their duty of holding the horses.  The squires stood in a group situated towards the manor house end of the knightly semicircle.  Stewart saw Thomas standing tall, expectant.  James Beaumont's mouth was a thin line, his eyes dark and anxious.  Only one other squire, Cyril of Tutbury, had the intense look of knowledgeable expectation.  These three, then, had been chosen, and had known for some time.  He felt a bit sad at not having been confided in, but if Thomas were bound to secrecy, Thomas would never betray the trust.  That was simply his way.  Never mind.  It was time for a knighting!