THE SHIELD OF LOCKSLEY
CHAPTER 3 THE ORKNEY KNIGHTS
Our weary travellers stop for the day at The Inn of the Red Lion—a common whorehouse—where Locksely, being a young bachelor knight, is given the coveted “first Ride” of the day, and while so occupied, the others are attacked; Grummer bars the door on Locksley, trapping him in the room, as he is taken captive with Ector…
CHAPTER THREE
THE ORKNEY KNIGHTS
Grummer pushed the door open with his shoulder, stepping into the room with the staff pounding on the wooden floor with each step he took. He leaned on the staff, trying to look relaxed, and then laughed as he leaned the staff against the wall behind him.
“Well Grummer,” the large woman in charge called out as she made her way down a steep flight of narrow stairs. She was holding her hands out against the walls as if she was balancing herself on a rope in the circus.
“Ellsbeth!” Grummer called out to her, his arms thrown wide. She moved her enormous girth in close to him, rubbing her crotch against him seductively as he folded his arms around her.
“G-G-G-Rummmmmer!” she screamed at him. “What’s all that banging about you’re doing, you old fool? I came because I heard your voice. It was the crutching about that gave me a fright. I was thinking you’d lost your leg.”
“Ah, Bessy! I din’t mean t’ give ye nae fright. I’se jest teasin’ Ector with it, him callin’ me an old man, now.”
“Why? Is that something you’re going to deny?” Ector laughed.
“I can’t now then, can I? Not with Geoffrey carving me a walking stick good enough to riot with!” He laughed, and then reaching back, brandished the weapon over his head as if in victory.
Ellsbeth reached out for the staff, putting her hand around the knob of the stick.
“And it’s a stick to do you justice, if memory serves,” she cried out, and they all laughed again.
“Maybe ye’re in need of a mem’ry jog?” Grummer smiled. “After all, the bigger the cushion, the better the pushin’.”
“You had your dance with me, old man!” she laughed, slapping his chest as she stepped away. “This could’ve all been yours. Imagine the life you could have had. The proprietor of the biggest brothel Beyond the Wall. I don’t ask just anyone to join me,” she smiled as she stepped up to Locksley and put her hand on his crotch.
“You boys and your chain,” she said, stepping away from Locksley, laughing.
“Only let me get this off an’ see if ye call me boy then,” Locksley said, and Ector almost choked on the ale he was drinking.
Grummer slapped the boy on the back.
“A boy after me own heart!”
“And isn’t that a frightening thought,” Geoffrey laughed, coming in through the door.
“Ellsbeth! What say we get the boy someone ‘e can prove his prowess to?” Grummer said, reaching out and slapping the woman’s large bottom, much to her delight.
“Girls!” she called up from the bottom of the stairs, and turning, leaned against the wall. “I’ve got me some new girls since the last time you were here.”
“New ones? Now why’d ye go an’ do somethin’ like that? A man gets so that ‘e finds comfort with a whore,” Grummer said.
“And isn’t that exactly what the problem always ends up being?” she said, angry.
“An’ what’s that?” Grummer asked. “Are ye gonna blame me for somethin’ I wasn’t here t’ do?”
“The men from hereabouts all fall for the girls at one time or another. They end up promising these girls the world. They want to leave with them and start life all over. The problem is the girls get so they believe them, and the next thing you know they’re spreading their legs for them, and them alone. They weren’t making me money. What good are they to me then? So I have to go out and recruit, and start this business all over again, until the next dumb farm boy comes along and thinks he’s fallen in love.”
The six girls came racing down the stairs with giggles, screams, and laughter. They all came down in various states of undress. (Three of the girls were busy retying the fronts of their tops because their breasts had spilled out in the mad dash down the stairs.) They were all barefoot, the heels of their feet stained with dirt. Their hair was all messed up too, each one of them, and Grummer grinned when he saw three of the girls eyeing up Locksley and running a hand over their hair a time or two.
“I’m thinking it’s the boy should go first,” Grummer said after some thought.
“An’ why would ye be thinkin’ that?” Geoffrey asked.
“Because it’ll take him that long just t’ climb the stairs with that new stick ye made him,” Ector laughed.
“Two, girls! He should have two girls!” Grummer said.
“What!” Ector called out.
“An’ have ye forgotten the first time ye were made a knight? How many houses ye stopped off at on your way here? And how many times did they tell ye to go first?”
“But that’s not a real thing,” Ector said.
“Who says it’s not? Lance? He’s not one for leading by example, now then, is he? Ye’ll want Lam, or even Gawain, for that.”
“I’m not about to argue with you. If I did that, no one’d get any time upstairs. The boy goes first, fine. He can go first.”
“And two girls.”
“Don’t tell me you weren’t serious when you said that?” Ector said.
“I never make demands in a whore house I’m not prepared to meet,” Grummer smiled.
“There’s only six of them to begin with.”
“And that leaves four for us. Ye din’t listen that day they did numbers in class, did ye?”
“You’re a very funny man. Did you know that?”
“I’ve heard it noised about some,” Grummer nodded.
Grummer heard the sound of horses approaching. He walked to look out of the dirty window which was no more than a piece of mica held in place by two sticks of wood hammered into the sill on top, and one on the bottom. He couldn’t see enough to know who it was, only that there were four knights and their outriders.
“I canna see if it be friend or foe,” Grummer said quickly, picking up Ector’s scabbard and tossing it to him. He snatched his own sword, undoing the leather strap and waiting for the door to open. “Boys,” he said. Geoffrey and Godfrey motioned for Breunor to follow.
“It’s no friends of ours,” Ector said slowly, melting into the shadows as best he could.
Grummer looked up the stairs. He heard the door crack open. Ector followed his gaze.
“The best place for him right now is to stay where he is,” Ector said, and Grummer nodded.
“Have ye started up yet?” Grummer called out, creeping up the stairs. He stopped on the landing and looked out of the casement to the courtyard below. He leaned his sword against wall before making his way up the steps again.
“I’ve yet got my kit but half clear,” Locksley laughed. “Did I hear horses?”
“Never ye mind. Take yer time an’ doan worry none for us. There’s plenty o’ time for all of us,” Grummer added, creeping up the stairs and grabbing the rope nailed to the wall outside of the door; there was one on the outside of every door. It was meant for unruly guests. Ellsbeth need only lure them into the room and she’d have it tied closed from the outside with no hope for escape.
Grummer pulled on the rope and tied the door tight.
“Hey! What’re ye doin?” Locksley called out.
“Stay quiet,” Grummer said through the door. “I’m afeared there may be trouble.”
“I can help!” Locksley called out.
“Yer unarmed an’ naked. There’s nae ye can do but avenge us if you must,” Grummer said, bounding down the stairs. He grabbed his sword again, waiting as the door opened, a bright bar of light falling across the doorway.
“Grummer? Is that yerself, then?” a voice called out.
“Aye. State yer name.”
“T’is I, Aggy.”
“An’ what makes ye think I’d be wantin’ to see the likes of yerself, lad?”
“And what of me, then?” Le Breunis Sans Pité, said with a laugh, stepping around Agravain in an attempt to get his broadsword free.
“Not. Under. My. Roof!” Ellsbeth screamed—one syllable at a time—her voice getting progressively louder with each count. “I mean it! Get out! I’ll not have you coming into my establishment, and breaking it to a shambles because you don’t want to share the girls! I won’t allow it! Do you hear me! Now, get out!” she screamed, pointing at the door. “Out! I’ll have no blood spilled in my house! If you want to fight? If you want to bleed? If you want to die?” she added. “Go and bleed in the dirt outside! Now!” she added, standing in the centre of the room.
“We’ve nae come this far t’ pummel our way in,” Agravain laughed. “We come t’ meet Gawain an’ Gareth. But I’ll not have the likes of yerself screaming all bloody murder at me, just the same,” he added, and drawing his sword ran three feet of steel through her. She gasped, falling back against the wall and sliding down to the floor.
“Ye bastard!” Grummer screamed, swinging his sword at Agravain as the large man recovered his balance and blocked the blade before it took his head off.
Grummer made a mad dash at Agravain, leaving Sans Pité to Ector. He knew he’d have no better chance at killing the bastard than while Agravain was caught in the doorway—when a cloth bag was slipped over his head from behind him. His feet were kicked out from under him, and his hands bound while a knee pressed into the middle of his back.
He’d meant to scream out a warning for Ector, but there was a punch to his midriff at the same moment Grummer meant to call out. He felt himself folding, doubled-over and gasping for air as he sensed himself being picked up and tossed into the back of a wagon.
In a moment, Ector was thrown into the wagon with him.
“Grummer? Grummer!” Ector called out.
“Aye, I’m with ye,“ Grummer said, finally able to catch his breath. “Caught me unawares on that one, they did,” he added.
“Where are you taking us?” Ector demanded, getting up on his knees.
“They’re not taking you anywhere,” Sir Turquine said, in front of them. “I am.”
“You? Why?” Grummer asked. “Why any of this? Aggy? Aggy! What’re ye’s up to? This makes nae sense. We’ve done nae more’n meet up with Ector—Lanucelot’s brother, if ye recall?”
“I think that’s half-brother, if you were t’ properly recall? Anyway, it’s not yerselves we’re wantin’ to see,” Gaheris said, stepping out of the darkness of the stables and into the light. “We’re t’ meet Gawain an’ Gareth here, an’ then all ride t’ Camelot.”
He was the third eldest of the Orkney clan. Gaheris was not as large a man as Gawain was by height, and nowhere near as wide as Agravain, but he was the brains of the brothers—as long as he was only thinking three or four steps ahead. Grummer doubted if Gaheris properly understood what the endgame should be. He had ambition—it was hard to deny that—but they were minor ambitions according to a properly ambitious man. And among the Orkneys, the only one who could lay claim to any sort of ambition was Modred.
“We should kill ‘em an’ burn their bodies with th’ others,” Agravain said.
“What others?” Grummer asked, trying to think of where the Boys were hiding.
“The whores, of course.”
“Yer gonna to kill ‘em? For what reason?”
“How about the fact that they know us?” Gaheris mocked him. “Can’t ye even figure that much out for yerself?”
“Burn it!” Agravain called out. “And kill anyone who comes out.”
“Ye canna get away with it. Anyone who comes across this scene’ll know it’s yerselves,” Grummer said, and sensed Ector looking at him.
“And how do you imagine that?” Ector asked.
“Well, there’s the stench of ‘em, for one thing,” Grummore said.
There was silence for a moment, and then Ector laughed.
“Is that meant to incite my brothers?” a second voice said.
“Modred,” Ector said in a hush.
“What’s that?” Grummer called out, hearing Ector’s whisper at the sound of the voice. “Is that the youngest of ye then, Harry? Is that who that is? No one left at home now to suck on mommy’s tit anymore? Oh, but that’s where Gawain is, ye said.”
“He’s not Lot’s lot,” Ector mocked.
“Ye mean…he’s the bastard everyone’s been noisyin’ about? Is that who it is? ”
“Aye,” Ector said.
“Och!” Grummer laughed. “From what I know of Lot’s lot, half of them aren’t his lot to begin with!”
“Mock us all ye want, for what good it’ll do ye,” Gaheris said. “Yer still leavin’ with Turquine. D’ye know what that means? Oh, did we forget t’ tell ye that part? To be honest, we ‘aven’t even asked ‘im what ‘e did with the last batch of knights we captured for ‘im. He doesn’t really have a dungeon there—not from what I’ve seen. He throws ever’one into the same room, an’ then throws in a tray of food later. It’s a matter of first come, first served. Later, it’s kill or be killed. Ye see, ‘e never throws the food in at the same time of the day, or in the same place either. Ye’ll make enemies of yer brothers just trying to stay alive.”
“Is that why we’re bound and hidden?”
“Bound you may be, but you’re not hidden. Not in the cart ye’re in. Of course, anyone who sees you in this cart will know exactly what it’s for,” Gaheris laughed. “You two are the only ones’ who don’t know what you’re in.”
“And what’s that?”
“It’s the leper cart.”