The King’s Arrow Read Online Free PDF Page B

exchange of pleasantries.
    â€œYou have overloaded your cart,” added the marshal’s man, speaking heavily accented English. The oxen turned their yoked heads toward the snorts and sneezes of the horses. One of the bovine behemoths shook his head, whether in dull fellowship or because a fly teased his eyes, it was hard to tell. The yoke shifted back and forth, and the cart creaked.
    â€œOh, yes, indeed I have, my lord sergeant,” agreed Plegmund.
    â€œI might almost wonder, my lord,” said Grestain, turning his attention to Simon, “if your folk are shipping weapons under their oats.” The sergeant had a broad, weathered face, and a solid-looking body, like a man who had been put together by a saddle maker, and constructed to last a long time.
    Simon knew all the marshal’s men by sight and reputation. For years they had ruined stiles, defiled wells, and set animals alight in the name of amusement. Repairing the damage they had caused over the seasons was a chief burden on the manor’s earnings.
    â€œHa-ha,” exclaimed Plegmund, his forced laughter sounding nothing like the real thing.
    Simon said evenly, “My people are loyal subjects, Sergeant.”
    His tone was deliberately and coolly dismissive, and Grestain was quick to say, “Of course, my lord.”
    Grestain was a sandy-haired man, with sun-browned features and yellow eyes. Simon knew him to be Roland’s aide, a West Country man trying to rise in a world of knights who preferred dull imported wine to the local cider.
    â€œI herded oxen,” the sergeant said, “when I was a boy. I have never been happier.”
    â€œThe ox,” said Simon, judiciously, “is an agreeable beast.”
    When a lawman spoke, he was collecting information. Even the lord of a manor had to speak with care. Oxen certainly seemed like a safe subject, in Simon’s view, and subject to no controversy, but Plegmund’s nearside ox was a brute of spirit, and had once swung its massive head at a traveling flute player.
    Grestain and two of the sergeant’s men dismounted and heaved their weight against the cart, and together with the others they powered the load over what had to be a very large slumbering giant. This, too, was typical of the king’s men, thought Simon. An imperious bunch, they often wanted simply to be liked.
    Only afterward—with farewells given and taken, and best wishes for a pleasant afternoon—did Plegmund confide to Simon in a whisper, “I have an ax under my load, if they’d searched.”
    â€œOne ax is not a rebellion, Plegmund,” said Simon with a smile. He was glad Grestain and his gang had ridden off, and he was eager to be home.
    â€œAnd I have that sword I bought from the Bremen town squire,” added Plegmund. “And that spear I found out by the old wellhead and mended myself last winter. And one or two other blades I keep by me, you might say, against danger.”
    â€œDanger, dear Plegmund,” said Simon uneasily, “is exactly what you will discover.”
    â€œBut I hear of trouble everywhere,” said Plegmund. “Coming trouble, my lord, and all of us unready.”

6
    Simon was glad to be home again, under the smoke-cured oak timbers of the manor house.
    â€œI must pay Swein at once, as soon as I give him the tidings,” said Simon. “The horse breeder has a temper, and we don’t want him riding off to try to wrest Bel out of the royal stable.”
    â€œAh, Simon, Swein will endure this indignity, and so will you,” said his mother with an air of indisputable judgment. “I shall pay a visit to Edith,” she added, thinking of Edric’s widow, “and her two daughters.”
    Simon stood in the wide, quiet hall of his family home. His sword nick had been bandaged with clean linen, and after a bite of wine-soaked simnel bread, he was not feeling the least fatigue or pain. Or only a very