Chapter Eighteen #5
Blayth was still looking at the shield. “What do you mean?”
Jestin began to look around at the other things in his collection.
“Sometimes the fathers come looking for their sons,” he said.
“In fact, a year after the battle, an older knight came looking for his son. Some of the villagers had told him that I collect things from the battlefield, so he came to see if I knew of his son. Unfortunately, I did not. It has happened before, you know, men looking for their sons. But so far, I have never been able to help them. What I keep here with me are the bones of what once was. I do not deal with the living, or even the bodies of the dead. Just the bones of battle.”
Blayth set the shield down, feeling more emotion than he’d ever felt in his life. It was such a monumental moment to him in such an unexpected place. But something Jestin said stuck with him and the question that was poised on his lips was something he could barely force himself to ask.
But he had to.
For the sake of his soul, he had to.
“This older knight,” he whispered. “Who was he?”
Jestin was over by the broadswords now, pulling one forth. “He did not give his name,” he said. “But he asked if I knew of his son.”
“What was his son’s name?”
Jestin snorted, an ironic sound. “Your name, in fact,” he said. “James.”
Blayth’s breath caught in his throat. “Was… was he English?”
“He was,” he said. “He did look at my collection, in fact, and he saw the shields. He seemed to look at the one you were looking at, but he did not say anything about it. He did not ask to take it. I could not tell him about his son, so he simply went away.”
The de Wolfe shield. The old knight had been looking at the de Wolfe shield.
Was it a sign that he was from the House of de Wolfe, looking for a lost son?
Blayth closed his eyes, struggling with all his might not to weep because his eyes stung with tears.
He turned away from the shields, the swords, and sat back down by the fire, laboring with everything he had not to break down.
You were left behind, Morys had said. You were unwanted. Was it possible that the older knight had been his own father, coming to look for the son he’d lost? How many other knights named James were at Llandeilo?
Something told Blayth that his father had, in fact, returned for him. He didn’t know why he should think so, out of all the men who had fought at Llandeilo, but his gut told him his father had returned.
My God, Blayth thought to himself. He came back for me.
Opening his eyes, he blinked away the tears, noticing his cup of cider nearby and he snatched it, draining it and feeling all of that liquid fire course into his belly.
Jestin, however, was oblivious to his emotional turmoil, still rifling through the clutter he had in neat stacks against the wall.
He had absolutely no idea that this conversation, and those few words he’d delivered, had such an impact on the man seated before his hearth.
The clouds had parted, and the sun shone brightly now, the light of understanding and realization in that he hadn’t been abandoned.
He wasn’t unwanted.
Blayth poured himself another full cup of cider.
“Even if you could not help him find his son, I am certain that the families of the men who once owned these possessions appreciate what you have done,” he finally said, his throat tight with emotion. “I am sure it means more than you know.”
Jestin carefully replaced the broadswords, inspecting his collection before heading back to the hearth and his fire-breathing cider.
“I do it because there is something in me that demands it,” he said.
“I do not do it for the men who war monger. I do it for their souls, so that in death, they will know some peace. But the bones of war are not all I gather – I collect a great many things, as I told you. I have collected many documents over the years, and many items in general. You saw that the other chamber is full of such things. I even write down legends and stories that I have heard, local stories told to inspire or frighten the children. I record them so that someday, men will know of the legends of our land and they will know of our greatness.”
Blayth cocked an eyebrow. “Then you are a scholar as well as a priest and a healer?”
Jestin nodded. “When I told you that I was a Keeper, I meant it. I keep many things.”
Blayth downed his second cup of cider, finding that it went down easier the more he drank.
“You are like the birds that collect food and twigs to build their nests,” he said. “You feather your nest with anything you can get your hands on, including the bones of war, as you have put it.”
Jestin nodded. “Now you see why I did not unbolt the door for you at the first. I have much to protect.”
“I do not blame you.”
Now, they both had at least two cups of the potent cider in them and tongues, as well as everything else, were loosening. Whatever defenses they’d had up between them were melting away as Jestin poured himself more liquor.
“I am sorry if we started out badly,” he said as he poured. “I am not the rude sort, but I am careful. These days, we must all be careful.”
Blayth nodded, his head buzzing with drink. “That is very true,” he said, thinking of Morys and how the man had lied and manipulated him. “We must be careful even with those we are close to.”
“You speak as if you have known betrayal.”
Blayth sighed heavily. “You could say that.”
Jestin studied him carefully for a moment, the enormous man with the scarred and damaged head.
“Tell me of yourself, James,” he said. “You seem to me like a man who has seen much in life. What great stories can I write about you?”
Blayth lifted the cup to his lips, but he was grinning. “You would not believe me if I told you.
“Try me.”
Blayth took a long drink of cider before looking at the man.
Truth be told, the story of his life, or at least what he remembered of it, was something that folktales were made of.
Morys had always insisted that he would be a legend in his own time, but Blayth didn’t really believe it.
Perhaps as the real bastard son of Llywelyn, he might have been, but as James de Wolfe, an English knight who’d been used and manipulated by an ambitious Welsh lord, he really wasn’t anything at all.
But the tale of Blayth was a fascinating story.
Perhaps it was something worth remembering.
More cider, and a bit more prompting, and Blayth told Jestin the tale of Blayth the Strong, the bastard son of the last Welsh prince, and the greatest hero of all.
It was a story worthy of a legend.