The Mystery Knight Read Free

could not recall the
half of them.
     
    The lord reined up abruptly,
scowling at the thornbush. “You. In the bush. Show yourself.” Behind him, two
crossbowmen slipped quarrels into the notch. The rest continued on their way.
     
    Dunk stepped through the tall
grass, his shield upon his arm, his right hand resting on the pommel of his
longsword. His face was a red-brown mask from the dust the horses had kicked
up, and he was naked from the waist up. He looked a scruffy sight, he knew,
though it was like to be the size of him that gave the other pause. “We want no
quarrel, m’lord. There’s only the two of us, me and my squire.” He beckoned Egg
forward.
     
    “Squire? Do you claim to be a
knight?”
     
    Dunk did not like the way the man
was looking at him. Those eyes could flay a man. It seemed prudent to
remove his hand from his sword. “I am a hedge knight, seeking service.”
     
    “Every robber knight I’ve ever
hanged has said the same. Your device may be prophetic, ser ... if ser
you are. A gallows and a hanged man. These are your arms?”
     
    “No, m’lord. I need to have the
shield repainted.”
     
    “Why? Did you rob it off a
corpse?”
     
    “I bought it, for good coin.” Three castles, black on orange . . . where have I seen those before? “I am
no robber.”
     
    The lord’s eyes were chips of
flint. “How did you come by that scar upon your cheek? A cut from a whip?”
     
    “A dagger. Though my face is none
of your concern, m’lord.” “I’ll be the judge of what is my concern.”
     
    By then, the two younger knights
had come trotting back to see what had delayed their party. “There you are,
Gormy,” called the rider on the black, a young man lean and lithe, with a
comely, clean-shaven face and fine features. Black hair fell shining to his
collar. His doublet was made of dark blue silk edged in gold satin. Across his
chest an engrailed cross had been embroidered in gold thread, with a golden
fiddle in the first and third quarters, a golden sword in the second and the
fourth. His eyes caught the deep blue of his doublet and sparkled with
amusement. “Alyn feared you’d fallen from your horse. A palpable excuse, it
seems to me; I was about to leave him in my dust.”
     
    “Who are these two brigands?”
asked the rider on the bay.
     
    Egg bristled at the insult: “You
have no call to name us brigands, my lord. When we saw your dust, we thought you might be outlaws—that’s the only reason that we hid. This is Ser Duncan
the Tall, and I’m his squire.”
     
    The lordlings paid no more heed
to that than they would have paid the croaking of a frog. “I believe that is
the largest lout that I have ever seen,” declared the knight of three feathers.
He had a pudgy face beneath a head of curly hair the color of dark honey.
“Seven feet if he’s an inch, I’d wager. What a mighty crash he’ll make when he
comes tumbling down.”
     
    Dunk felt color rising to his
face. You’d lose your wager, he thought. The last time he had been
measured, Egg’s brother Aemon pronounced him an inch shy of seven feet.
     
    “Is that your war horse, Ser
Giant?” said the feathered lordling. “I suppose we could butcher it for the
meat.”
     
    “Lord Alyn oft forgets his
courtesies,” the black-haired knight said. “Please forgive his churlish words,
ser. Alyn, you will ask Ser Duncan for his pardon.”
     
    “If I must. Will you forgive me,
ser?” He did not wait for reply, but turned his bay about and trotted down the
road.
     
    The other lingered. “Are you
bound for the wedding, ser?”
     
    Something in his tone made Dunk
want to tug his forelock. He resisted the impulse and said, “We’re for the
ferry, m’lord.”
     
    “As are we ... but the only lords
hereabouts are Gormy and that wastrel who just left us, Alyn Cockshaw. I am a
vagabond hedge knight like yourself. Ser John the Fiddler, I am called.”
     
    That was the sort of name a hedge
knight might choose, but Dunk