Chapter Eighteen #4
Jestin began pulling out other things. It seemed as if the man was constantly busy, unable to remain still. The cat that Blayth had swept from the bed came slinking into the chamber and the priest petted the cat, putting it up on the table and pouring it some goat’s milk.
“She also said that you were going to visit your family,” he said. “Where are you from?”
Blayth didn’t know how to answer that, considering he didn’t really know himself.
“North,” he said, simply because that was the direction they were traveling.
He found his attention turning towards the broadswords in the corner again and he meandered in that direction, hoping to change the subject away from him.
“How did you come by these swords? They are quite beautiful and expensive, I would imagine. Did someone give them to you?”
Jestin came away from the table in the shadows where he had been standing. He had two cups in his hand and held one out to Blayth as he approached. “Go on,” he said. “Take it. It is cider.”
Blayth complied. He sniffed it before taking a drink of quite possibly the most potent alcohol he’d ever had the misfortune to drink. It was like a stream of fire going down his throat.
“God’s Bones,” he muttered. “That is cider?”
Jestin nodded. “I make it myself from the apples in the orchards surrounding Sanctiadd.”
“What is Sanctiadd?”
“My church.”
“I see,” Blayth said, taking another sup of cider and trying not to cough. “You make liquid fire from those apples.”
Jestin gave him a lopsided grin. “Mayhap,” he said.
“Usually, I drink alone. It is rare I have someone to share it with. Even though you barged into my home and were rude, I forgive you. Now you will sit down and tell me of your journey. Your lady will sleep for a long while, so we will have time to converse.”
Blayth planted himself on a stool near the hearth, a small thing against his considerable size.
“There is not much to tell of our journey, other than the attack,” he said.
“I am more interested in knowing about all of these things you have collected. If I am not mistaken, you also have English shields against the wall.”
The potent liquid fire had the effect of loosening Jestin’s tongue because he had already downed nearly his entire cup, indicative of a man who was used to the strong drink.
“They are indeed English,” the priest said, moving to pour himself more of the cider. “You could say that I am the Keeper.”
Blayth looked at him. “The Keeper of what?”
Jestin glanced at the man. “Of what you see,” he said. “I am the Keeper.”
“But where do you get it?”
Jestin brought the pitcher over to Blayth and poured more into his cup.
From the tension they’d endured since pushing their way into the residence to the relative peace of the moment, it seemed rather strange to Blayth that they were now drinking together like old friends, but he went along with it.
He was glad he didn’t have to spend the entire night protecting an injured woman from an irate priest.
“I get it from the battles in this valley and others,” Jestin said as he plopped down onto a chair that nearly gave way because he sat down so hard.
He steadied the chair and himself before continuing.
“This entire valley has seen many battles and there are always things left behind. Sometimes there are battles to the south, at castles along the southern hills, and sometimes I go there, too. When I hear of them, I go. I gather what I can and bring it back here for safe keeping.”
Blayth thought that was an extremely odd thing to do. “But why?”
Jestin pondered the question as he slurped his cider. “Why not?” he said. “These are the fragments of men that must be guarded. These represent men who have died in senseless ways. These are the remnants of lives and, in God’s eyes, they must never be forgotten.”
It was a touching thing to say and, in a sense, Blayth could understand. “So… you keep these to remind God of the men who owned them? Of the men who died?”
Jestin nodded. Then, he peered more closely at Blayth, studying the man in the firelight. “You look as if you have been badly wounded in battle,” he said, gesturing to the left side of his head. “You speak slowly, as if the damage is lasting. What happened to you?”
Blayth wasn’t sure how much to tell him. “I do not remember,” he said honestly. “It was a terrible battle and I was wounded, but I was eventually healed. It took time.”
“Then you understand when I say that these remnants of battle must be preserved. They are tributes to the dead.”
Blayth nodded slowly. “I understand,” he said. “There are a good many English remnants here as well as Welsh.”
Abruptly, Jestin stood up and went over to the great clutter against the far wall. He began to rummage through the wooden shields, once proud symbols of the men who had owned them, and he pulled one shield out to hold it up.
“Do you see this?” he said, displaying a blue and white striped tri-cornered shield.
It was beautiful and well-made. “This is from Llandeilo. There was a great battle there a few years ago and the English army was badly destroyed. I found this near a dead de Valence knight. That is the Earl of Pembroke, you know.”
Llandeilo. Blayth’s heart began to pound when Jestin brought up that fateful battle, the one that had changed the course of his life.
God, he knew so little about it, but hearing the priest speak of it, he was almost frantic to know what the priest knew.
Had he seen anything? Did he witness the carnage?
What did the man know?
“I am aware of Pembroke,” Blayth said, sounding surprisingly calm. “You… you were at Llandeilo?”
Jestin carefully set the shield against the wall. “It is not far from here,” he said. “Panicked men came to tell me about it, so I took my cart and went to the battlefield.”
“Did you see the battle?”
He shook his head. “Only the aftermath,” he said. “Only when the English wounded were being killed and the Welsh were stripping the dead.”
Blayth wasn’t sure what more to ask the man even though he had a thousand questions on his mind.
His speech simply wasn’t swift enough to keep up with them, so it was better if he kept his mouth shut and didn’t sound like a fool.
But one prevalent thought came to the forefront – if the priest came after the battle, then the armies were already gone at that time.
That meant the House of de Wolfe and the other English had retreated.
They would be heading north whilst the priest was heading south along the same road.
Did he see them?
“If you were heading to the battle when the English were retreating, the surely you saw their armies,” he said, feeling anxious and curious. “They must have come this way, heading to the Marches.”
Jestin was pulling forth another shield. “I saw them,” he said. “They were fleeing quickly. They left their wounded; I know because I saw them. It was a slaughter, I am afraid. The English were ambushed, you see, and they could not take the dead.”
Blayth stared at him. They could not take their dead.
He had no idea that just those few words could mean so much to him.
Morys had told him that he’d been abandoned and unwanted, cast aside by the English, but the priest was telling him otherwise.
A man who had been there, and who had seen the carnage, was telling him something completely different.
So Morys had lied to him yet again.
“You are certain of this?” he found himself asking.
“There is no doubt,” Jestin said. “I saw them fleeing and they could only take what they could carry. They left wagons behind, animals, and the dead and wounded. I was able to save some of the wounded from the Welsh, who were killing them all, but there were so many more I could not save. So… I brought their fragments back with me to preserve them. With me, they are protected, and they are remembered. They are not the lost dead.”
He sounded sorrowful as he said it, a man who seemed to have no country boundaries.
He was a man of God and that was all that mattered to him.
Before Blayth could respond, Jestin held up a big shield, tri-cornered, with a dark green background, gold around the edges, and a black wolf head in the middle.
The wolf had its mouth open and big fangs, a very fearsome head, indeed.
“See this shield?” he said. “Someone told me this is the House of de Wolfe. This is one of the greatest families in England. I have one of their tunics here, somewhere. They left a good deal behind when they fled.”
Blayth stared at the shield, feeling something strange wash over him.
He couldn’t stop looking at the shield because there was something oddly familiar about it.
He was certain he’d never seen it before – or had he?
Either way, he had a very strange feeling when he looked at it, as if he knew it but didn’t know it.
It was both confusing and mesmerizing. Before he realized it, he was on his feet, moving to the shield even as Jestin set it down.
Blayth took the shield from him and held it up in front of his face, looking at it, feeling oh-so-unsteady as he did.
And then it hit him.
He’d seen the shield in his dreams.
When he realized that, he almost dropped the thing. It was the strangest sensation he’d ever known but, as he continued to stare at the shield, he knew for a fact that he recognized it now. He had seen it in his dreams.
A de Wolfe shield.
Oh, God.
“What you have done,” he said, his voice trembling, “is noble. That you would remember men who have been left on the field of battle is one of the greatest acts of kindness I have ever heard. I am sure that if their families knew, they would thank you.”
Jestin could hear the quiver in his tone and turned to see that he was still looking at the de Wolfe shield. He seemed oddly awestruck by it.
“Sometimes, they do thank me,” he said.