One last glance over his shoulder was all Hans needed as encouragement, and he grabbed the scrolls from Kim and darted away, running like a rabbit for the security of the slum’s maze.
Kim watched him go and then let out a long breath, letting all the tension flow from his body. He bent to pick up his staff, and as he stood, he pushed back his hood. The sun felt good against his face, and he waited until the leader of the Mongol group shouted at him before he turned around.
When they heard the signal—the distinct weeka weeka weeka of the black-tailed godwit—Andreas and his students stopped their sparring. After the last unannounced visitor, they were more sensitive to the appearance of strangers in the wood surrounding their Brethren chapter house. Weapons in hand, they moved toward the front of the ruined monastery—not aggressively, but with a clear unfriendly disposition.
A hooded figure emerged from the tree line, guiding a small figure. The sentry’s name was Eilif, a blond-haired phantom of the woods, and his captive was a scrawny lad, yet lithe and active—this boy wasn’t like the typical urchins who seemed to spring out of the ruins like weeds growing in an unplowed field. “Said he has a message for Feronantus,” Eilif said as the group of Shield-Brethren gathered around.
“Does he now?” Andreas said, appraising the boy. It was not lost on him that the boy seemed to know a little Latin; he tried to seem bored and without a care, but his eyes tracked them too well. He was listening intently to their words. “Was he alone?” he asked Eilif.
“Been following him since the river.”
Andreas nodded. Eilif took that as a dismissal and faded back into the trees, vanishing once again to his phantasmal role as the chapter house’s watchful eye.
“Boy,” Andreas said, catching the youth’s attention, “what message do you bring?”
“For the leader of the Red Rose,” the boy said, haltingly. He pointed to the standard flying over the ruined monastery.
“I’m their leader,” Andreas said. “You can give it to me.”
The boy screwed up his face and shook his head. “Feronantus,” he said, holding steady to his demand.
Andreas squatted and looked the boy squarely in the face, intrigued by the youth’s persistence. The youth didn’t know Feronantus wasn’t here, but he knew enough of the Shield-Brethren master to know that Andreas wasn’t the man he was looking for. “Who sent you?” he asked, wondering whom the boy had been talking to. Haakon? The Mongol camp continued to rebuff their inquiries about the fate of their missing Brother. It had been more than two weeks since the young fighter had gone through the Red Veil, and no one had been able to discover what had happened. The mood among the Shield-Brethren was turning more and more murderous, and Rutger had his hands full with their tempers in check.
“Flower Knight,” the boy said, and when that name failed to produce any response from Andreas, he performed an exaggerated pantomime—whirling his hands around.
Like he is swinging a staff, Andreas realized. The boy had no real training, and the technique was raw and unformed, but clearly he had been watching someone whose skill had made a deep impression on him. “The Flower Knight sent you?” he asked.
The boy stopped and nodded. “Feronantus.” Back to the beginning again.
“You can tell me or not,” he said with a tiny shake of his head. “But you will come no closer to our camp.”
The boy was shaken by this statement, and his tough mien threatened to break. He glanced at the woods behind him and then back at the standard again. When his gaze returned to Andreas’s face, his expression had softened, and some of the ferocity was gone from his eyes. “Protect…” He pointed at the standard and then made a circle with his fingers. He held it over his heart. “Protection?”
The men muttered amongst themselves. “By the Virgin,” one of them swore, and Andreas kept his expression neutral as he glanced at the man next to him. “Go fetch Rutger,” he said, using the Northmen tongue the boy did not know. “And some food,” he added, noticing how the boy’s ribs pressed against his ragged shirt.
“He said Kim—this Flower Knight—sent him?” Rutger continued to pore over both of the messages. They were both written by the same hand, and both were addressed and signed the same. The difference lay in what they actually said.
Andreas nodded. “He” said there was only supposed to be one message. Kim told him to deliver both. One would be true, the other false, and we would know which was which.”
Rutger looked up and glanced over to where the boy— Hans, as Andreas had managed to learn, finally—was still hungrily working on the wings and thighs of a grouse given to him. “Do you think he knows what the messages say?”