By Derek McMillan
‘Sir Poncelot they call me,” he thought as he waded through the ditch filled with sludge. He remembered how his colleagues had called him that when they first found out he had been born in St Ponce and somehow the name had stuck.
“How did I get here?” he wondered as his hose were getting steadily more disreputable. He had been on the tiles until dawn, he vaguely recalled. Then he had unwisely decided to go for his normal morning ride and been unhorsed.
What blackhearted villain had unhorsed him? He remembered riding out on his chestnut mare, Doris. He remembered suddenly finding himself in the ditch.
“I must have unhorsed myself,” this did not improve his mood.
He dragged himself out of the ditch and looked around for Doris. She was long gone. She would know how to make her way home to the stables. He hoped.
He set out in what was probably the direction of Camelot. He could never navigate by the sun. It kept moving. So he found himself in the dark forest which covered most of the south in those far gone days. He was thankful that he wasn’t wearing armour. Doris was a tough warhorse but he knew she heaved a sigh of relief when he turned up in doublet and hose.
“And this damned doublet is stained to hell thanks to Doris. Well, thanks to me probably.”
Dusk was falling when he espied a cottage. He espied things in those days rather than looking at them. He only hoped the peasants wouldn’t be overawed by his knightly bearing.
“Get out of here, you stinkrat,” was the unpromising reception from the ill-favoured fellow who opened the door.
“I have gold. I can repay you well for a night’s bed and er directions.”
“Oh lost are you, stinkrat?”
“My name is Goodman Prentice,” he was tiring of the soubriquet and borrowed a name from his varlet.
“Well Prentice I’ll be the one to decide if you are a good man.”
“My gold is good.” Fortunately he carried a small purse in case he encountered a wayside inn. He held out a gold piece and the stranger tested it with his eye tooth. He didn’t look like a man who had much experience of gold and the hovel was disreputable in the extreme.
“It’ll be a floor for the night. I’m not giving up my bed for the likes of you, Prentice. I’ll kill you in your sleep and take that gold.”
“I beg your pardon? You aim to rob me?”
“Oh did I say that out loud? Come, Goodman Prentice, it was obviously a joke. I don’t get much company out here.”
“If you kill them and rob them then I can understand that.”
The man laughed and offered the knight his hand. It was none too clean and smelled strange but ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ as the newly minted phrase had it.
“Josiah Grim at your service. Come inside.”
Mrs “call me Gert” Grim was a pleasant soul. Or so it seemed.
“Don’t you worry about Josiah wanting to kill you and rob you. It’s just his way isn’t it sweetheart? Now ‘Goodman Prentice’, if that be your real name for you have not workman’s hands, sit you down and you can share our humble meal.”
Her laugh revealed a jagged array of brown teeth.
“What is this?” he asked after tasting the stew.
“Cagmag, lovely isn’t it with a bit of pepper and some taties thrown in?”
“Mm”
The cagmag was foul but Sir Nigel (his true name) was so hungry that he would have eaten Josiah if there weren’t some pettifogging rule against cannibalism to consider.
He slept uneasily on the mud floor while Josiah decided it was a night for marital bliss with Gert. Sir Nigel turned his face away and checked that the dagger he always carried was to hand. After what seemed a long while he could hear the couple snoring like contented hedgehogs. He still didn’t relax.
His mind was racing.
“They won’t miss me at Camelot yet but if Doris returns without a rider they might send out a search party. Or Sir Kay might decide to claim Doris for his own. More than likely. And Josiah is more likely to slit my throat than give me directions.”
“At sunrise I will head towards the sun and try to remember my direction. I must get somewhere eventually. The sea is to the east I think. Or the west.”
He lapsed into an uneasy doze. The cagmag was rumbling in his stomach and threatening to send him running to the privy any moment.
Actually the unfortunate qualities of the cagmag were a blessing in heavy disguise. In the dead of night, Sir Nigel had a sudden urge to get to the privy. In the darkness he bumped straight into old Grim whose knife dropped to the floor with a clatter.
“I was just going to sharpen…” was as far as he got. Sir Nigel was outside by this time relieving himself of the cagmag.
“I’ll never need a laxative again!” was his first thought.
“I’d better get out of here,” was his second.
“Goodman Prentice? Where are you? Damn the man he’s gone and I wanted that bag of gold. I’ll not stop for breakfast, wife. I’ll follow him.”
“I know these woods like the back of whatever. He can’t escape me blundering around like a thingummy.”
Josiah followed Sir Nigel’s footprints easily in the damp forest floor. He paid little attention to the foliage until he came to a bramble.
“Well now, that is a most unusual fruit,” he said, looking at the bag of gold which was hanging from it.
He had to reach up to clutch at it and suddenly he pitched forward into the brambles. They didn’t hurt him at all. By the time he hit the ground he was already dead. Sir Nigel’s knife with its elegant curved handle was the prime suspect.
Sir Nigel extracted the knife and cleaned it as best he could on Josiah’s clothing which was not itself an example of cleanliness. He took the bag, emptied out the stones he had put in it and replaced the gold.
“Not exactly knightly conduct in the best tradition,” he reproved himself but added, “It hardly counts with Grim. He wasn’t a person of noble blood and up to all kinds of knavish tricks.”
Sir Nigel wasn’t used to tracking wary prey in the forest, his dogs would normally perform that office. He had no idea whether he was being tracked or not. He was humming to himself and failed to notice any stealthy movements in the undergrowth as he went eastwards.
As the day went on he started veering south easterly with the sun. All that day he saw nothing but forest and more forest. He’d never had to tell one tree from another so they were just trees to him.
As the evening drew on, the last rays of the sun showed him a clearing ahead. For want of any alternative he made haste towards it.
He saw a pond and reflected in the pond the grey stonework of a small church.
He knelt to drink from the pond.
Unwise.
#
“Ah, goodwife Grim or I am mistaken.”
“You aren’t mistaken father. I have come to confession but first of all I have something for you from a well-wisher.”
“My…goodness. That really is a lot of gold. This well-wisher must wish St Agnes extremely well. This will mean a lot to the poor of the parish. You must give this well-heeled well-wisher my blessing. I wouldn’t dream of asking where you came by this money or the well-wisher came by it rather.”
“I did come to confess, father but there is one other matter which might need your attention. A wandering vagabond seems to have drowned in your pond. A drunk probably but one of God’s children all the same.”
“Yes, the vagabond will be dealt with. How is that husband of yours?”
“Oh old Grim has his little ways but there’s no harm in him.”
Father Perkins looked as if he doubted that but held his peace. He knew she loved her husband. When the confession was over and done with he knew exactly how much.
Author Bio:
Derek McMillan is a writer in Durrington in the UK. His editor is his wife, Angela. He has written for print and online publications in the UK, USA, Australia and Canada. His latest book is the audio-book “Murder from Beyond the Grave” which is available on eBay.
Contact Author:
Derek McMillan is the editor of the #worthingflash blog http://worthingflash.blogspot.com and his latest book is ‘Murder from Beyond the Grave’ which is available as an audiobook on eBay.
