Some of the peasants stopped and stared at the procession; a few began nudging their fellows. Others pointed fingers, and a low murmur rose in the gathering crowd. Jo silently willed the knight to move faster. Please, she thought, please don’t let them recognize me!
Just then, a peasant with a booming voice called out, “’Oy! Ain’t that the squire of the Mighty Flinn?” Others took up the cry, and Jo found her horse surrounded, cut off from Sir Sieguld and Karleah behind her. Grimy hands grabbed at Carsig’s reins to draw her attention. Jo glanced in desperation at the peasant who had given voice to the people’s thoughts. The tall, burly man swung down from his wagon and worked his way through the throng. Carsig started to fidget at the nearness of the people closing in on him, and the gelding reared halfheartedly.
The peasant caught Carsig’s rein in a black-gloved hand and quieted the horse. His black hair was unkempt but clean, and his face and bare arm were covered with more black hair. Jo looked down at him in anger but was distracted by his flashing golden eyes. She wondered briefly if she had ever seen a man with such unusual eyes before.
The peasant’s voice boomed throughout the courtyard, so that every man and woman could hear. “’Oy, miss! Ye are Flinn’s squire! Where be the Mighty Flinn?” he asked in mock concern. He held up his gloved hand and turned to the crowd. “Or has Flinn the Mighty fallen again?” Some of the crowd bristled at the insult, but a few of them joined the booming peasant’s laughter.
Jo jerked Carsig’s rein from the man’s hand. He tried to regain control of the gelding, but Jo kept the horse prancing. “I’ll thank you to leave me and the name of Fain Flinn alone!” she said loudly. The peasant laughed brutally and caught the beleaguered horse. Jo was about to force Carsig to rear, knocking the man away with his hooves, but a commotion just ahead stopped her.
Someone was coming from the donjon. The crowd, protesting mildly at first, soon parted quickly and quietly for the man and his horse. Sir Sieguld stepped his mount aside, too, and at last Jo caught sight of the fully armored knight. With a stern and disciplined silence, the knight pulled his horse to a stop immediately before Jo.
Her attention drawn from the malcontent peasant, Jo held up her hand in greeting, and the knight did the same with his gloved hand. Then Jo caught the flash of a gold pendant hanging about the man’s throat. It carried the stamp of a gyrfalcon, a large white raptor that hunted the rocky reaches of the surrounding Wulfholdes. Only then did Jo recognize Sir Lile Graybow, castellan of the Penhaligons. Reaching up, he took off his helmet.
The aging castellan nodded to Jo, unaware that his thinning gray hair had been ruffled by the helmet. His watery blue eyes looked over Jo’s comrades, lingered on the supplies tied to Fernlover’s back, then circled back to Jo. “Squire Menhir!” the castellan barked gruffly, loud enough so that all the courtyard could hear. “Your report!”
Jo sat straighter on Carsig. Once, and once only, she thought. “Sir Graybow,” Jo began formally. Then, to her horror, she felt her eyes fill with tears and spill over. No! Not now! she thought wildly. Not in front of the castellan!
Unexpectedly, Sir Graybow urged his horse forward a step. He took off his metal-and-leather glove and put his gnarled hand over Jo’s. She looked into the castellan’s eyes and saw only kindness there. She smiled bleakly, wiped her tears away with the back of her hand, and nodded at the castellan, who withdrew his hand. Jo looked away once, took a deep breath, and turned back to Sir Graybow. Her composure had returned, and she nodded again gratefully.
“What happened, Squire Menhir?” Sir Graybow asked more quietly. The crowd of peasants literally leaned closer to hear.
“We … we attempted to track the dragon, and at first we failed,” Jo said coolly. “One night, Sir Flinn left our camp. He found Verdilith in the same glade where they had fought their first battle, and—” Jo stopped, unable to go on. Something felt lodged in her throat. Silently she implored the castellan.
Sir Graybow said only, “Continue, squire.”
Jo drew her breath. She would get no quarter from him. She suddenly realized she respected him for that. Jo nodded and said as calmly as she could, “We … found … Sir Flinn the next day, barely alive. He … died shortly after that, and we paid our last respects according to the old tradition—by burning his body.” Jo’s voice sank to a whisper. The nearest peasants murmured in awe and quickly relayed the information to those behind them.
“And Verdilith?” the castellan asked, equally calmly, though Jo had seen a flicker of emotion cross his face at her tale of Flinn’s end.
Jo shook her head. “The dragon survived Sir Flinn’s attack, Sir Graybow. We … tracked the wyrm to his lair, and we confronted him inside, but… the dragon escaped. My companions and I are out of provisions and in need of rest.” Jo hesitated. “They thought it best to return.”
The castellans face grew stern, and he admonished Jo, “Never be too proud to come back to the castle to report a setback; time for completing a mission will come if you are patient enough. Remember that if you wish to remain a squire in the Order of the Three Suns, Johauna Menhir.”
Jo heard only the terrible if, Her face blanched, and she reached out to touch the castellan. “Sir Graybow,” she murmured, disregarding the peasants who leaned still closer, “what do you mean ‘if’? Am I not still a squire—?”
Once more the castellan closed his hand over Jo’s, and she saw again the spark of kindness in his pale eyes. “Don’t worry, my dear. That’s something to be discussed later. First things first. We’ll get you settled, and then the baroness will want you to report at council. Follow me.” The castellan turned his horse around, signaled for Sir Sieguld to follow after Jo and her companions, then moved his mare into a trot back to the donjon. The peasants parted the way immediately.
As Jo fell into place behind Sir Graybow, a new fear entered her heart, one she’d avoided considering before. Can they really take away my status as squire? she thought miserably. With Flinn dead, I have no knight, that’s true. I guess I just assumed I’d be assigned as squire to another knight. That thought seemed suddenly repugnant to Jo. The idea of working closely with someone other than Flinn didn’t sit well with her.
Carsig carried Jo smoothly under the gate separating the outer portion of the castle from the inner. She passed low buildings lining the perimeter of the inner wall, then the guards’ dormitories, craftsmen’s dwellings and shops, stables, and the like. She and the castellan rode on through the gigantic, rose-granite courtyard. It was even larger than the last one and it led the way to the castle proper—the donjon. Sir Graybow slowed his mare to a walk, and Jo did the same with her gelding.
Hawkers and merchants milled about, vying for customers. Starving peasants begged for food. A shepherdess herded a small flock of sheep across the castellan’s path, and Graybow pulled up short, waiting for the last pregnant ewe to pass by. A man proudly displayed the paces of a pair of matched draft horses to a ring of interested buyers. A number of knights and their squires engaged in practice swordplay. They stopped immediately upon seeing the castellan. Several pointed and saluted, then they began gathering their things and hurrying to the large central tower.
The donjon was eight stories high, its windows placed at equidistant intervals. Its walls of white limestone shone as if newly scrubbed. Jo looked south of the donjon at the far tower; it had been Flinn’s home many years before and had been the home of his former wife before her recent death. Then, every window of the tower had been fitted with bars of black iron, and behind those bars had flitted birds of all colors and sizes. Jo noted that the bars were being removed; a man perched precariously atop a tall ladder as he removed yet another. So the tower’s been reclaimed from the birds, Jo thought. Yvaughan’s passion must not have appealed to Baroness Penhaligon. Or perhaps the baroness wanted no reminders of her mad cousin, Jo thought, recalling some bits of gossip she had heard the last time she had been at the castle.