The Last Knight Read Free Page A

stand straight and proud, which is hard when someone is twisting your arms behind your back. “What is the meaning of this?”
    This was no time to call attention to myself. Maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t recognize me. Though if they didn’t, I was sure Sir Michael would truthfully remind them.
    “If this is your cloak then you know what it means, you son of a mongrel cur,” said the patrol leader pleasantly. “You’re under arrest, on the authority of Lord Dorian.”
    “On what charge?” Sir Michael demanded. I was curious myself, in a sick, stomach-knotted way.
    “On the charge of helping a murderess escape the liege’s justice.”
    “What!” Sir Michael beat me to it, but not by much. Our shrieks blended perfectly.
    The leader grinned. “Well played, scum. But this cloak, which matches the saddle down below, was found at the foot of Sorrowston Tower. And the rope that was hanging from the window of Ceciel Mallory’s cell matches the tether ropes in your pack, so playing innocent isn’t going to save you.”
    I kept my mouth shut as they tied our hands and prepared to haul us off to jail—probably the same tower we’d just broken that lying, murderous bitch out of.
    No matter what happened, I wanted a few words alone with my employer—but not yet. There wasn’t a wisecrack in the world that was worth the risk of hanging for it.

Michael
     
    F isk clanked into the cell and flashed a sharp look about. Seeing that I was the only other occupant, he stalked over and sat on the second small cot, arranging his manacled wrists in his lap. His expression was angry and sullen, as it had been since our arrest, but now there was strain around the edges. If the judicars had interrogated him as fiercely as they had me, ’twas no wonder.
    The guard stepped into the cramped, stone-walled room to make certain that nothing was amiss. The late-afternoon light streaming through the high, barred window showed all there was to see, but they took no chances with the “daring villains” who had broken a murderess out of Sorrowston Tower. A final hard look assured the guard I was lying on my cot, staring gloomily up at the ceiling, so he departed.
    The click of the lock still echoed when my squire spoke. “I thought you planned to save me from a life of crime. What does a knight errant do now, Noble Sir?”
    I sighed. Fisk only calls me Noble Sir when he’s being sarcastic—a thing he thinks I haven’t noticed, though I’d have to be stone stupid to have missed it. I’ve invited him to call me Michael, for I know that the philosophers are right when they say a man’s birth rank is no measure of his worth. Fisk hasn’t yet called me anything but Sir, or Noble Sir. Mayhap he’ll come to it, someday. In the meantime, however, I should like it if he called me Noble Sir less frequently.
    When I didn’t reply, Fisk went on bitterly, “Though knight erring would be more like it. Of all the stupid, lamebrained, half-assed stunts…”
    It isn’t proper for a squire to scold a knight, but I saw no way to stop him. Besides, being in jail again must have brought back fearful memories of his last imprisonment, which was too recent to be easily forgotten.
    When I first encountered Fisk, little more than a week ago, ’twas early in the month of Appleon and the road into Deepbend teemed with carts of apples being carried off to fruit cellars, cider mills, and the larger towns. We’d had several bright days, by the Green God’s grace, and the cart wheels raised a fine dust that coated my clothes and the inside of my mouth—but a few fracts tossed to a carter fetched me a crisp apple, which cleared the dusty taste wonderfully.
    I was happy that day, as I’ve been, by and large, since I left my home. The life of a knight errant wasn’t quite what I had expected. In the old ballads, errantry entails heroic deeds, terrible risks, and the defeat of great evils. I’d spent more of the last year doing odd jobs than good deeds.