THE SOUND WHICH WAKES YOU
By Ben Chessell


YOU NEVER HEAR the sound which wakes you. It remains in the realm of sleep while you enter the world of wakefulness.
Tomas sat up like a bending board and willed his eyes to open. He slept on the smooth, black stones beside the forge; a good place to sleep, especially when the winter chills rolled down like waves from the Grey Mountains, leaving a coating of frosty brine come morning. One night a spark from the forge had spat out and ignited his bed of grass and bracken while he slept but, unlike his father, Tomas was not a heavy sleeper.
His father! Pierro was smith to the people who lived in the village of Montreuil, under the jagged shadow of the Grey Mountains, in the north of Bretonnia. Tomas came to the realisation, as he did every morning, that the sound which had woken him must have been that of his father's first hammer stroke for the day, which was closely followed, with mechanic inevitability, by the second.
Each blow of the hammer bid Tomas an ungentle good morning, before departing the smithy to wake the creatures of the forest, and reminded him sternly of the amount of brandy he and Luc had consumed the previous evening. Tomas prised open his eyes and, through the narrow slit which he managed in his visor of sleep, located his smock and boots.
Manoeuvering around his father, Tomas began slowly to dress. Neither acknowledged the other. Tomas pulled his smock over his head and squeezed into his boots while Pierro bent over the forge, puffing great blasts of air from his lungs with every swing of his hammer: a set of human bellows. Tomas's father worked hard and never left the smithy, unless it was to tend to the grove of ancient oaks which stood at the edge of the forest beyond the common pasture land.
It had been his father's responsibility, and so on down to the very roots of the family tree. One day, Tomas supposed, it would be his. Tomas left the smithy as soon as he was ready, as he did every morning.
In the doorway he met Marc, who was Pierro's apprentice and had held the post ever since Pietre. Tomas's elder brother had been the most promising young smith Montreuil had seen since the brighter days of Pierro's youth and the old regime. Marc was capable enough in his own steady way, and he and Tomas were friendly, accounting for the fact that Marc held the job which might have been thought most rightly to belong to Tomas. When his time had come, Tomas had refused to take up the position as his father's apprentice and it was only because of the prayers of his mother who had lost one son already, that Tomas was permitted to continue to live under Pierro's roof. Tomas brought in a little money to the family through different jobs for farmers in the district and Marc became the smith's apprentice. The two exchanged a polite greeting and Tomas plunged into the bright, grey world.

MANY IN THE forest-edge village saw fit to comment about the estranged family, wondering whether it was Tomas who refused to meet his inherited responsibilities or Pierro who refused to fulfil his parental ones. Whatever the facts of the matter (and actually it was both), it was fortunate for Montreuil that young Marc, whose father had perished in the cells of the Marquis, could step in and fill the need.
These things wandered through Tomas's mind as he rounded the back of the smithy and stuffed his head and torso into the barrel of ice and water. Tomas practiced this routine every morning almost as though it might harden him as his father tempered a glowing blade. Tomas had need of the hardness of iron, if he was going to rid Montreuil of Gilbert: Gilbert de la Roserie, Marquis, holder of the King's commission - and tyrant.
Montreuil was a political enigma, a political embarrassment. Squeezed like a stone between the toes of a giant, the village lay in the foothills of the northern Grey Mountains. Further north even than the great spa city of Couronne, Montreuil had almost no value to the thriving rural heart of Bretonnia many days to the south.
The King, however, who wielded the complicated feudal system like a well-weighted blade, had found a use for Montreuil. He made a grant of land there to one of his lords whose outspoken militaristic opinions had become unfashionable in these times of detente. This commission, this putting out to pasture, had been bestowed on Gilbert Helene, who had become the Marquis Gilbert de la Roserie more than thirty years ago, after he had served the king faithfully, if a little bloodily, in the wars of their youth.
Most of the villagers guessed, quite rightly, that the King had entirely forgotten about the existence of Monueuil and the man who ruled there. Marquis Gilbert certainly behaved as if the village was his own private kingdom and the troop of border guards - a dozen aging career soldiers and petty officers - was his royal army.

THIS WAS THE sad situation that Tomas was determined to upset. Approaching his twentieth year, Tomas was brimming with the rebelliousness of youth and the sense of invincibility which comes with it. He dreamed constantly of calling the hundred or so villagers to arms and ousting the tyrant with his twenty men. There were practical problems of course. The soldiers, called ''sergeants'' by the villagers because most of them had held at least that rank in the national army before their ambition had got the better of them, were the only armed folk in the village. One of the Marquis's many laws prevented the villagers from owning anything more warlike than a bow for hunting and a knife for cutting meat.
What made this restriction all the more unbearable for Tomas was the fact that his own father forged the swords and spears with which Gilbert's men enforced his laws. Every helmet, every breastplate had begun life in the forge at the end of Tomas's house, beside which he slept each night and yet not one blade remained there.
This alone would have been enough to estrange father and son but the situation was aggravated for Tomas by the fact that his own father, Pierro, refused to talk about any aspect of his work with Tomas since Tomas had declined to become his apprentice. Pierro was a talented smith and on Gilbert's own hip hung a rapier, hilted in fine gold set with uncut topaz, made by Tomas's father. Besides which, the villagers of Montreuil were an infuriatingly peaceful people and took each new injustice as simply another trial to be borne in silence.
Lost in such thoughts, Tomas broke free of the woods and began the climb up the slope above the village. Sheep and goats picked among the scree for the meagre spring grasses, having only recently made the trek from their winter quarters themselves. Tomas headed toward the shepherd's hut, made from dark pine logs lashed with the innards of stock unfortunate enough to be chosen for the table.
Tomas knew that, after last night's drinking episode, Luc would still be sleeping while his sheep strayed where they chose, unprotected from wolves, bears or rustlers.
The brandy had hit Luc a little harder than it had Tomas and besides, Luc loathed to leave his bed without the strongest provocation. He was just like any other villager, Tomas reflected as he chose a large stone with which to announce his arrival: happier sleeping, but waiting for the right signal to rouse him. Tomas heaved the stone overarm and watched with satisfaction as it bounced from the side of the hut with a loud thump. He sat on a rock to wait.
Luc stumbled out soon enough and, having realised how seriously he had overslept, looked about frantically for the source of the danger. Tomas sent another, smaller rock sailing in a graceful arc toward the younger boy. It struck him on the hip and he spun to discover his laughing assailant. His relief was clear to see and it occurred to Tomas that Luc was more worried that he might have to confront one of the owners of the sheep, come to check the flock, than a wolf come to eat it.
Luc was a simple enough lad as far as Tomas was concerned though there was something about him the older boy could never quite grasp. The two breakfasted together among the stones and picked up their conversation of the previous evening. The plans they had made seemed less practical in the grey light of morning than they had by the lively dance of the fire the night before.
'Firelight makes all things seem possible, Tomas.'
'But did we not agree that all that is needed to begin this thing is for the right spark to be set to the tinder?'
'Tomas we did, but we had the confidence of the brandy then,' Luc paused to consume a piece of bread, 'and besides we do not know how to set that fire, where to place the spark.'
'I hear you, I hear you,' Tomas gestured, stabbing the air twice with his piece of bread, 'but what if I told you I had discovered where the spark should be set, what if I told you I will not wait any longer?'
'I would not believe you, and I would say you were still drunk.'
'But we do nothing! Even when my brother is killed my father does nothing. He accepts the blows of fate with the meekness of one of your sheep, in the jaws of a wolf.'
'Tomas, your brother killed a sergeant...'
'Who killed his lover...'
'Who poured wine over his head and threw him from the tavern...'
'This is senseless Luc, what matters is that nobody here does anything but work, eat and sleep. And I will be different.' Well that is what I want too Tomas, but...'
'Good, then bring your flint.'
'Now?'
Luc stopped chewing as the conversation which he had had many times with Tomas became something else altogether. 'Now.'
'But my sheep-'
'The sheep can see to themselves, we have a more important flock to tend.'
Tomas leading, Luc following, the pair descended from the mountainside down the path to Montreuil. The view afforded by the summer pastures mapped out the tiny village, clustered around a green common from which a tree-lined avenue led to the manor. The large house, more in some ways a small castle, was surrounded by a thick hedge of briar and roses, thus ''The Roserie''. The hedge was more decorative than defensive, although it would take a determined attacker to hack through its thorns, and in spring, as it now was, it bore a crop of white and pink roses of notable beauty.
It was forbidden for any villager to pick a rose with which to adorn their own dwelling, or to make a cutting from the ancient tangle. Occasionally the Marquis would make a gift of a small bunch of the blooms to some young woman of the district he had chosen for his amusement, but otherwise he enjoyed his exclusive hold on beauty. It was towards this hedge, and the dwelling it concealed, that Tomas led an increasingly dubious Luc.
Although there would be no guard set at this time of day, Luc pulled Tomas up behind the last copse of trees before the rose hedge. Luc said nothing but looked hard at Tomas, perhaps willing him to reconsider, perhaps something else. Tomas returned the stare, expecting to find uncertainty, and saw instead a testing glance, questioning, whatever the truth of it, Luc solemnly handed over his flint and tinder and climbed up into the oak to observe the crime.
'If you are not back in half an hour I will come looking.'
Tomas nodded, watched him climb in silence, and then turned toward his objective. A large brown arm descended from the tree and signalled to Tomas. Sufficiently comforted, Tomas sprang into a low run. There was a part of the hedge at the back corner of the manor which was particularly wild and Tomas headed for that now. It concealed the beginning of a tunnel which led through the vicious thicket and which was a dangerous children's challenge in Montreuil. Tomas had made the run many times as a youth, winning ale, sweets or merely admiration. The punishment if caught depended on which of the sergeants found you, and how drunk they were on that particular day. Having never been caught, Tomas had become something of a village champion at the game and in his later years had taken to making the trip around the hedge for his own sake, seeking no accolades. Today those journeys of childish rebellion seemed like the memories of another boy.
He found the entrance to the tunnel with little difficulty though it had been some years since he had last been here. Indeed the architecture of the place had changed as does the shape of any childhood haunt when revisited. The dimensions shift, not just because the viewer is taller, but also because of the years spent away from the place. Certain things were more important to Tomas now than when last he had navigated the spine-wrought passageway and these things changed the very shape of the tunnel through the hedge.
He crawled in and lay still. The sounds of the manor drifted across the lawns which lay in between. Marquis Gilbert would still be asleep, but the maids and gardeners were at work. The sergeants slept in a long, low barracks on the other side of the house and Tomas wasn't sure how many of them would be awake. A few maintained notions of martial excellence and practised drills regularly with his father's swords upon the well-cut lawns which ringed the manor like a bright, green moat. Tomas listened hard for the sound of metal on metal, one the smith's son knew very well, but heard nothing. He began his work.
The driest fuel in the hedge was high in the branches but the best place to set a fire is low to the ground so Tomas set himself the task of fetching some down.
Climbing up through the hedge was a process best undertaken slowly and carefully, and ensured a certain amount of scratching nonetheless. After four trips up and back and about a half an hour's work, Tomas had a pile of kindling which reached his waist, topped by an old bird's nest.
At this point he paused and sat, sucking his arm where a thorn like a doornail had dug deep. With his other hand he took out the sheepskin pouch which contained Luc's flint and laid it on the mat of thorns and leaves which formed the floor of the rose-hedge.
Certain actions, certain distances are, when it is you that must travel them, very much greater than they appear. Such was the tiny fall which the sparks made to the tinder as Tomas struck steel against grey stone. He had set many fires in his time, every night before bed until the age of fifteen, but none so hot as this.
At first he thought it wasn't going to catch. The fuel was dew-laden and in some cases had been lying for a long time, but it did begin to burn. Tomas nursed his fire to the fulcrum point, beyond which it could take care of itself, coaxing it with small twigs and grass from the nest. In a final poetic gesture he pulled a hair from his head and added it to the blaze, watching it curl and snarl, the acrid smell lost in the sweet aroma of burning rosewood. Tomas accepted several deep scratches on his arms and cheeks as he made his way forcefully from the hedge, already breathing smoke, his eyes seeping tears. The final part of the plan was simply to run, low and quick, and climb the hill to watch the drama unfold.
Tomas began his ran, flat and hard, toward the tree where he had left Luc. He heard his name called. Luc's voice, not from in front but from behind. Tomas spun and fell, rolled and regained his feet. Looking back he was first struck by how quickly his work was taking effect. The fire had moved quickly upward and fifteen foot high flames now claimed the top reaches of the hedge. Rose blooms dropped to the ground in a burning rain as the upper limbs of the hedge bent, snapped and plunged backwards into the hungry blaze. Then Tomas saw Luc.
It is often something totally simple and yet totally unpredictable which undoes a great plan, or even a modest one and Tomas watched in horror as Luc stood as near as he could to the base of the blaze and called ''Tomas!''.
Tomas hesitated. The sergeants, were any awake, would be at the fire any moment and Luc would be seen. He ran back, driving the ground with his legs, and felt the intense heat of the fire. He dared not call Luc's name in case the sergeants heard. That Luc had called his could not now be helped, both of them need not be revealed.
The younger boy was almost blinded by the fire and would not see Tomas until he was close. Coughing out the smoke which invaded his lungs with each breath, Tomas watched the manor gate as he reached Luc. Two sergeants ran out, buckling their belts and fanning smoke away in order to better gauge the extent of the blaze.
Tomas shouldered Luc in the back and both hit the ground hard. The two rolled away from the fire Luc following Tomas, and rounded the corner of the hedge. There they stood and sprinted for the relative safety of the woods which backed the manor. Reaching the trees they crouched and Tomas wiped black tears from his eyes while striving to regain his breath.
Luc lay in the bracken and looked up at Tomas. 'I'm sorry. I was scared. There were men in the grounds. I came to warn you.'
Tomas did not look at Luc when he spoke but instead kept his gaze fixed on the fire, which now consumed the entire east corner of the hedge and was almost at the gate. He bit down hard on his lip and said nothing.
Above the gate, a span of almost twenty feet, there was a thin archway of hedge fronds and thorn-bush. The fire snaked out one end of the span while one of the sergeants tried to hack it down with his sword. The work was too much and the heat too great and as he fell back the fire made the journey across the bridge and the entire hedge was doomed.
Tomas had seen enough and took Luc's hand to lead him away. He was surprised to hear himself accuse, 'Luc, you said my name.'

BY THE TIME the two parted company the news was all through the village. So was the smoke. Tomas joined the steady stream of spectators walking cautiously up to the manor to see the fire and soon most of the inhabitants of Montreuil stood by as the rose-hedge collapsed inwards into a pile of coals and ash. At one point the blaze threatened the manor itself but a few of the younger sergeants managed to keep it at bay, filling buckets from the stream. Noon came, grey and dull; the show was over and the talk had begun.
Tomas mingled and listened with satisfaction to the rumours as they evolved. Some said it was out-of-towners, others that it was one the many lovers Gilbert had jilted and a third tale conjured enemies from the Marquis's past. Tomas joined some of the conversations enthusiastically, encouraging whatever theory held sway. He was relieved to hear no mention of his own name on anybody's lips.
As the crowd dispersed Tomas turned to leave - and walked directly into the leather apron which his father wore, dawn until sleep, at work or abroad. He did not know how long Pierro had stood there, his face golden in the glow from the hedge. Tomas's name was on his father's lips and Pierro's hand was firmly on the boy's shoulder. 'Tomas, come with me. Now.'
His father propelled Tomas away from the crowd which had begun to disperse and marched him back to the smithy. Tomas felt no fear from what was about to happen. He had more serious concerns than familiar discipline, and besides, the actions of the early morning had hardened him to the point where his father's leather belt was no more than a light switch of rush grasses. Pierro pulled the hide across the door of the smithy and turned around. Tomas cocked his head to one side and planted his hands on his hips. He waited for his father to unbuckle his belt and administer the punishment. Instead Pierro looked at his son, long and deep. Tomas found himself able to meet the gaze but the beginnings of confusion stirred in his stomach. His father had not looked at him in such a way before.
When Pierro finally spoke it was not with the tone, nor indeed the words, that Tomas expected. 'Go and say farewell to your mother.'
'My mother?'
'Did you not hear me, Tomas?' Normally his father called him ''boy''. 'She is mourning your loss already.'
'What loss?'
'They will be here soon.'
'How do you know? How could you know that?' Tomas's anger came from fear but also from losing control of the conversation.
'I have friends among the sergeants.' His father's calm certainty frightened Tomas even more. He hit back.
'Because you are their friend, because you help them to hurt all who live in Montreuil, because you are a traitor even to your own family!'
Pierro sighed, his apron rising and falling with his bellows lungs. 'No, Tomas. Because an uprising such as the one of which you dream must be planned properly and with patience, otherwise good people have to die.'
Tomas tried to grasp the meaning of this last and very unexpected answer. He failed, drowning in uncertainty, and waited desperately for his father to throw him a rope.
'Did you think, Tomas, that I bore this injustice willingly, that I befriended tyrants for my own betterment?' Tomas's head was suddenly light and he leant against the forge, warm clay against his back.
'The blood which flows in your veins, my son, was my blood before it was yours. That is the reason that I cannot be quite as angry as I might. In some ways, Lady forgive me, I am proud.'
Pierro stopped as they both heard voices from outside the smithy. The smith peered through a hole in the hide door and turned back to Tomas with a grave expression. Without saying anything he picked up his son and placed him on top of the forge like he had many times when Tomas had been a young lad, to warm the soles of his feet on winter mornings. He removed his leather gloves and handed them over. Tomas put them on without understanding why.
'Go to the grove and wait for me there. I must think what is best to do.'
The sound of several riders dismounting could be heard clearly from outside. Pierro looked hard into Tomas's eyes and then, touching the hot metal pipe which was the chimney of the forge, said one word: ''Climb''.
Tomas watched the ensuing scene from the thatched roof of the house in which he had spent his entire life. The events which occurred seemed even more unreal framed by this most normal of settings. The surprise Tomas might have expected when his father produced a sword from underneath a stack of raw iron ingots and bundled it with the apron in his right hand, never occurred. Neither did the shock register when the Marquis himself, with four of his men, stood in Tomas's front yard. He wriggled to the apex of the roof, where he himself had knitted the thatching together and saw his father approach the men. By the time the exchange began he felt himself ready to witness anything and remain unsurprised. He was wrong.
Tomas could not hear the conversation in detail and voices reached him only when they were raised. His father faced away, leather apron folded and hanging from his right hand. Tomas could hear none of Pierro's words.
The Marquis remained mounted, untouchable on his black perch, while his men spread out, their hands never far from their sword hilts. They were clearly looking for Tomas. How they knew, with such certainty, that he was responsible for the rose-scented smoke which still clung to the valley, he could never be sure. Perhaps they had heard Luc's cry; maybe Tomas had made one too many drunken speeches on sunny festival afternoons. Whatever their source of information they were only angered by his father's denials. The Marquis stabbed the air with his gloved hand and early in the exchange augmented his gesturing by drawing the rapier which Pierro had made for him. The blade was dull in the grey light but Tomas knew that the edge would be well honed. His fingers clutched handftils of straw and he breathed moss and dust as he watched the scene unfold. Two of the men entered the house while the others kept Pierro from following.
The Marquis rested his blade on the smith's chest and pushed to emphasize a heated point he was making. Pierro stepped back, between the two sergeants who crushed him between their shoulders. The others returned from the house, having failed to find Tomas. Both had their blades drawn; one also carried a red-hot iron from the forge. Tomas strangled a squeal.

WHEN RELATING THE details of his father's last moments, as he later had to do many times, Tomas could never exactly account for what happened.
At the Marquis's signal, the two men behind Pierro grabbed his arms and, with some effort, pulled them from his side. The apron fell to the ground, revealing Pierro's sword. Gilbert shrieked hysterically and pointed with his own blade. The sergeants looked with open mouths and one pounced to retrieve the blade. He was rewarded with Pierro's boot in his face and he rolled backwards into the Marquis's horse. Tomas's father swung his huge arms in front of him and his captors crashed together, bone on bone. He twisted his hands from theirs and sprang back, claiming his sword and apron from the dirt. Pierro backed cautiously toward his house, and the sergeant who remained uninjured followed up hard. Gilbert's man crouched and stretched his arms, willing them to remember the long lost training grounds and infantry manoeuvres of his youth. He lunged and Pierro beat the attack away with his left hand, wrapped in the heavy leather apron. With a booming cry Tomas had never heard his father utter before, the smith covered his attacker's head with his apron and smashed his knee out and away. The man fell and Pierro looked up to consider his options.
The Marquis sat safely on his horse behind his men who moved slowly forward, trapping Pierro against the wall of the smithy. Tomas crept further up the roof as his father retreated under the eaves. He couldn't see him anymore, only the expressions on the faces of his foes. At a command from the Marquis the three rushed Pierro in an unsophisticated charge. All combatants disappeared from Tomas's view and all he could see now was Gilbert's face wearing a feral snarl. One sergeant reappeared immediately, one hand grasping the other to stem the wellspring of blood which gushed there. Tomas didn't see his father die - but he heard it.
As he slid off the roof behind the house he tasted blood and realised he had bitten down on his tongue. The sound of his father dying was still in his ears, the cry and the unholy punctuation of the body meeting the ground. Tomas dropped from the straw eaves and set off for the woods at a barely controlled scamper.
Tomas wasn't sure whether they had heard him or not and he didn't care. He kept running, weaving between the trees like a fox before the chase. He rested only when he reached the grove of oaks, heavy and dark in the late afternoon sun. Tomas propped his back against the largest of the trees and slid to the ground, the shadow of the canopy reaching down and embracing him in its lattice. Tomas cried then. He sat and cried and watched the shadow grow and twist and finally fade as the pale sun faltered. He thought about his father. He thought about their final conversation and the sound his father had made as he fell to the ground. He felt like a little boy. Tomas decided what he had to do and only then could he fall asleep.

HE WOKE IN the pre-dawn hour when the deep-green canopy of the oaks gathered the mist and distilled it into crystal drops. A drop landed on Tomas's nose and rolled down, pooling between his lips. He opened his eyes and adjusted slowly to the flat, grey light. Standing at the other end of the grove, barely visible through the curtain of fog, were four figures. Tomas drew breath. He lay still and examined the group. They did not appear to be sergeants; the outlines were too slim and lacked weapons. They were talking quietly to each other and occasionally one would glance in Tomas's direction. He lay still, nestled between the bony roots of the oak. The figures knew he was there but not that he was awake. He determined to lie still until he could learn who they were.
The four became six with the arrival of a pair from the direction of the village. The two newcomers came in at a run and spoke to the others in breathless tones. Their message was clearly urgent though Tomas could catch none of its detail. The smaller of the arrivals grabbed the shirt of the figure he addressed with both fists to add emphasis to his news. Tomas studied the silhouette of the messenger against the growing dawn. He recognized the shape of the shoulders and neck and wondered hard what it was that had roused Luc from his bed before the sun itself. By the time dawn was undeniably upon them the six had become nine, and then twelve, and Tomas could see who they were: men from the village, men he knew, farmers, shepherds and Ludo the tavern keeper. They were deep in discussion. Suddenly a decision was reached and all turned their faces toward the tree at whose feet Tomas lay. 'Tomas, wake up.'
Tomas stood slowly and looked around the group. Their faces were grim and not altogether friendly. They seemed to be sizing him up.
'That you have done this thing you have done is brave, we acknowledge.' The speaker was Paul, a lean farmer and a friend of Tomas's father.
'What we need to know is how brave you will be now.' The group seemed to move closer to Tomas, blocking the morning sun.
'What does it matter what I do?'
'It matters a great deal.'
'I don't understand any of this. I am the one who must run and hide. It is my father who is dead, Lady watch over him.'
'Did you speak with him before he gave his life to save you? Have you opened your eyes just a little?' Now Tomas was addressed by a younger man, whose anger was palpable. Gerni the miller pressed his questioning further. 'Did he give you his blessing?'
'He told me to come here.'
There was a general murmur concerning what this might mean. Some thought that Pierro's last request was of great significance and that the smith had intended and foreseen the conversation which was taking place. Others were more skeptical, citing the less than perfect relationship between father and son. Tomas was almost forgotten for a moment.
Luc stepped from the huddle and asked him in a low voice. 'What will you do?' Tomas looked at him, hard.
'Have you always been part of... part of whatever this is?'
'Don't be angry, Tomas. Your father always wanted to know what you were thinking, what you were saying.'
'And you told him?'
'Everything.'
'What was my father to these people?'
'He was our leader.'
'He was what?'
'From the very beginning.'
'Leader, leader in what?'
'Are you so very blind, Tomas?'
'What is this meeting? What are you here for?'
'To decide what should be done.' Luc looked away. He might have been about to say more but Paul turned back to Tomas.
'What would you have us do, boy? What would you do?'
No response of Tomas's would have satisfied the group. Their expectations were based on their respect for and memory of a dead man, and their palpable disappointment with his replacement.
'I am going to the manor to kill the Marquis, or I will join my brave father, that is all.'
The men thought for a moment. Before one of the more senior figures could respond, Luc spoke up.
'We could come with you. Perhaps you need not die.'
'That would mean war. We can't fight soldiers with sticks, Luc.'
'The village is already full of sergeants, looking for us, and besides...'
Gerni choked a little laugh and walked past Tomas to the oak under which he had slept. The miller reached up into a hole near the bole of the tree and his hand returned with a large hessian sack, sewn shut at both ends. He lay the bundle heavily at his feet and cut a careful, longitudinal slash with his knife.
Tomas still could not understand what he was seeing as the bright blades spilled onto the grass. Something about the simple, elegant ironwork was familiar but a part of him still refused to understand. 'Where did these come from?'
'Your father, boy. Pierro forged these over years of crafty, secret work. An ingot of iron here, a few spare hours there. Paid for by the Marquis and crafted by his own smith. Intended for his downfall. There aren't quite enough but we will have to make do. That is, unless you have a better idea.' The bitterness in Paul's speech cut Tomas and his eyes stung with salt.
'My father?'
'Your father.'
The men distributed the weapons and made final repairs to the leather handles. They sharpened the blades on stones among the trees which seemed to be too well placed in the grove to have lain there by chance. Others spent the day practicing, or preparing a meal for the group. By nightfall they were ready. There had been no discussion, no decision and there was no plan, but a general consensus had spread through the group that they would move at night. It was agreed that the sergeants would know something was up but would not be anywhere close to ready for exactly what was. Tomas felt unable to claim a sword when others were without them, and he gripped his knife as if someone was trying to wrest it from his grasp.

THE FIRES WERE well and truly out around the manor and the huge house lay strangely naked in the moonlight when the mob arrived. They hid at the edge of the woods and watched for long enough to establish that four sergeants were out in the grounds, patrolling, and that fires burned in many of the manor's hearths. What they didn't know was how many of the sergeants remained in the village and how many were in the barracks. Facing all the armed men at once they would be fatally outnumbered. Their only hope was to deal with their enemy piecemeal. The distance between the forest and the manor, only about a third of a mile, seemed an uncrossable chasm of open ground.
Tomas heard himself give what sounded like an order and thought only later about how easily it had come to him. 'This way. Follow me.'
Tomas, Paul, Gerni and Luc went ahead, the others waiting in the woods for their signal. The four scouts crept as far as the scar of the hedge and hit the ground. Nothing remained but a few twisted black bones of the great growth and a two-foot deep ditch of coals and ash. Tomas felt the warmth of it on his face, even now, and took some comfort from that. They waited for two of the sergeants to pass further away and then Tomas demonstrated his idea. He found a deep pile of ashes and took a double handful. With this he painted his face and clothes black and grey and almost disappeared into the background of the burnt hedge. The others followed suit and the four crept up the hedge-line, keeping low, almost invisible towards the main gate where the two men stood guard. The gates looked forlorn and foolish with their stone gateposts standing alone and no hedge to justify them.
Tomas, Paul, Gerni and Luc crept as close as they dared and halted again, looking briefly into each other's eyes and waiting for what must come next. Tomas looked at Luc's blackened face and saw his brown eyes brighter than the ash, wide and fearful. Gerni wriggled over to Tomas, making too much noise for Tomas's liking.
'What's your plan now, boy?'
Tomas didn't like the diminutive but could only agree that the doubt on the older man's part was justified. He thought quickly.
'I will gain their attention while you and Paul rush them from behind.' A sound enough plan.
'What about me?' Luc whispered.
'You can go back and bring the others to the hedge, what's left of it.' Luc was clearly relieved by this job. He pulled his sword quietly from his belt.
'Give me your knife, Tomas. You will have more need of this.'
Tomas took the sword and felt its cool weight. He looked briefly at the simple, sturdy ironwork in the moonlight and thought of his father. 'Not now,' he told himself, 'not now.'
They watched Luc crawl away down the hedge-line and melt into the black scar, one more grey lump, and turned to their allotted task. Paul looked up at the moon.
'Time to move, Tomas.' Tomas was grateful not to be called ''boy'' this one time. 'How do you mean to get their attention?'
'Be ready and you will know soon enough.' Tomas wished he had a better answer but he did not. Paul, however, took his brusqueness as evidence that he had everything under control. Paul and Gerni moved quietly into position.
Tomas crept toward the front of the hedge and the gate. He could see the two men clearly now, he even thought he knew one of their names. Alain, an older sergeant, had come to the smithy more than once to have his armour adjusted to suit his expanding girth. Tomas willed a clever idea to come into his head but none did, so he fell back on the only notion he had. He stood up, walked several steps away from the hedge and began to stroll toward the gate. He tried to whistle but his mouth was shaking so much that he couldn't form the proper shape.

ALAIN AND HIS colleague didn't see him until he was quite close. 'Who's there?'
'It's me, Tomas, I've come to see the Marquis.'
'You've what?'
'Gilbert. I've come to pay him a visit.'
The soldiers peered into the night to ascertain whether Tomas was alone. Alain stepped forward a little and peered at the boy in the darkness.
'Let me get this right. You've come to see the Marquis. We've been looking for you all the last night and day, and you waltz up here, bold as you please, asking to see the boss?'
'That's right.'
'Well you got balls on you, boy, even if you don't have brains.' In a strange and somewhat terrifying development to Tomas, he was beginning to enjoy himself.
'Please don't call me ''boy''. My name is Tomas.' He hoped Paul and Gerni would not take too much longer and his ears were rewarded with the sound of a stealthy footfall. If he could just hold the attention of the guards for a moment longer... Alain's companion joined the conversation.
'Well, boy, the Marquis will be very pleased to see you, but not with that sword at your hip. Where did you get it?' Tomas had forgotten the weapon stuffed through the rope which held his trews up. Tomas still couldn't see Paul or Gerni but decided that if they didn't arrive soon he was in serious trouble anyway.
'This sword?' One last stall.
'Yeah, boy, that sword. What are you going to do with it?'
'I'm going to stick this sword into Gilbert's soft belly and watch his bright blood spill out.'
The men stopped for a second and looked at each other. They reached for their own blades and Tomas dragged his from his belt. For a brief moment he found himself facing two experienced fighters with a weapon he had never wielded before. He bit his tongue and opened the wound from the day before, tasting iron.
Had Paul and Gerni synchronised their attacks a little better it would have been over instantly. As it was, the younger sergeant went down under a double handed stroke to his neck, not pretty swordplay by any means but brutally effective. Alain had a breath after this had happened to turn and put his arm in the way of Gerni's upward thrust. The tip of the blade pierced his much repaired chain-mail vest at the bottom of the ribcage and both men fell to the ground. Alain was a big man and had taken wounds before, though not for many years. He punched Gerni in the mouth with a mailed glove and the miller rolled away spitting blood and teeth.
Paul was still engaged and so Tomas grabbed his weapon tightly and approached the panting Alain. The fat soldier was having trouble getting his sword out of its scabbard which had fallen underneath him and he was concentrating on this task when Tomas arrived. He looked up at Tomas's face. 'Now, boy...'
Tomas stamped hard on his sword hand and kicked at his face. Looking down at the older man, cradling his broken fingers against his bleeding face Tomas paused, but he quickly realised he had come much too far for remorse. He reversed the sword in both hands and struck downward as hard as he could. The brief battle was over and the three men fought to regain their breaths.
Hardly had they drawn three lungfulls each when they heard Luc cry, 'Tomas!'
The distance and the dark made it hard to discern the situation but this is how it seemed to the three at the gate. Luc must have run into the other patrol and now fled across the open ground toward the forest with the two sergeants on his heels. The unarmoured Luc was faster but was done for if the soldiers caught him.
Paul grabbed Tomas, 'Quickly! We must help.' Tomas was torn.
'No, wait.'
'There will be more men.'
'We knew we'd have to fight. Wait.'

LUC ALMOST REACHED the eaves of the forest before he fell. He rolled and tried to stand but he had hurt his leg or his ankle and he pitched forward again. The men were on him. From the trees which offered him safety came a roar and eight villagers sprang out, charging toward the soldiers who stood over Luc. The sergeants did a quick head count and attempted a rapid about face. The farmers caught them and Tomas lost the details in a whirl of bodies and blades. He counted eight men standing at the end of it and that seemed to be a comforting thing. He couldn't tell if any of them were Luc. A door at the end of the house burst open and six armed sergeants carrying torches ran out and down the hill towards the forest. Paul gripped Tomas's arm again.
'They need us. They aren't trained soldiers.' The door stood open and firelight spilled out.
'We'll never get a better chance to get inside the house.' Tomas heard the sound of raised voices from the barracks on the other side of the manor.
'They'll be cut to pieces.'
'It's now or never.'
In the end Paul ran back to help the others and Tomas and Gerni made a dash for the house.
They ran hard, bent double, and plunged without hesitation into the fire-lit kitchen whose door stood open. Tomas led and Gerni followed. Had they stopped to think at the door Tomas might never have found the courage to go in at all. The kitchen was empty as they discovered after picking themselves up off the wooden floor. Gerni had slid all the way under the table and stopped against a sack of flour. A cloud of white snow settled in his hair. Tomas's elbow caught on the door frame and sent him spinning against the stone trough in the corner. He splashed his face and combed a handful of water through his hair with his fingers. If he strained his ears Tomas could hear the sounds of a battle from outside in the grounds. Inside the house it was silent. Gerni and Tomas shared a ''you first'' look before gripping their swords and going further into the house.
Heavy carpets lay on the floor and hung on the walls eating the sound of their footfalls so that Tomas and Gerni rounded a corner and found themselves almost seated at a table with two sergeants before either group was aware of the other. One of the men was almost asleep and the other strained to read by the guttering stub of a candle. A bottle lay on its side, resting against the book. Their position stood sentry over the main staircase of the house which swept up to the private apartments of the Marquis. The four men looked at each other, unsure of what might happen next.
Had Gerni or Tomas been a competent assassin the outcome would have been simple and quick but the struggle in the dark at the gate had not prepared them for striking in cold blood. The sergeant with the book, a young man with reading spectacles, woke the other with one hand while folding his spectacles and replacing them with his sword in the other. The sleeper stirred and made an inquisitive snort as his eyes opened. He grasped the situation quite speedily and stood, clearing space as he drew his blade.
Tomas and Gerni circled away from each other a little and exchanged a nervous glance. The odds were hardly even. The sergeants were veterans and the older one wore armour, Tomas and Gerni were farmers with weapons they had never, until recently, even held in their hands. Neither side seemed willing to make the first move. Tomas realised that the sergeants had everything to gain by waiting, and he much to lose. It was unlikely the battle outside would go his way and soon more soldiers would return to the house. Tomas swallowed the urge to run and hide. An indistinct shout made its way in from outside and he could wait no longer. The soldiers continued to stand at the table, blocking the stairs. Gerni hung back, the point of his sword wandering aimlessly in front of his face.
In what he was sure would be his last and most foolish action, Tomas leapt forward with his sword in front of him, almost closing his eyes in silent supplication to the memory of his father.

YOU NEVER HEAR the sound which wakes you. He was fairly sure something was amiss in his house, however, and so Marquis Gilbert sat up, letting the satin sheet slide down his naked, hairless chest. He heard something then, a thud and a crash from outside his room. He dressed quickly but clumsily, missing the aid of his dresser who had left for the evening. In the polished silver mirror he frowned at his paunch as he did every morning. He had to admit to himself that he was not the lean and dangerous man he had once been, but there wasn't much that could conceivably be in his house which could cause him to raise a sweat. He buckled on his rapier, which hadn't struck a blow in all its elegant life, and composed himself, risking one more glance in the looking glass before unbolting the door and walking onto the landing.
At the top of the stairs stood two boys. One, the elder of the two, was bleeding seriously from a cut in his cheek. Gilbert looked to the bottom of the staircase. Two of his men lay there, probably dead, certainly on the way. On the table the stub of a candle illuminated one of his books, some spectacles and an empty bottle which would once have contained port, his port.
He snorted. His useless soldiers spent more time drunk than sober. Gilbert's eyes climbed the stairs and settled again on the boys. They held swords in their hands. They held them far from their bodies, as if the blood on the blades might poison them. A good swordsman loved his blade, especially when bloody. Gilbert walked quietly towards the pair. One of them, the younger one, yelled something indistinct and charged along the balcony toward him. The other, the bleeding one, stayed put. Gilbert sank into a fencing stance and waited patiently. The charger realised he was alone about three quarters of the way to his objective and spun around, exposing his back. The older boy was clearly too scared to charge; clever boy.
Gilbert lunged forward, hopping on his back foot first for extra distance, and whipped his blade across the younger boy's back. It raised a welt from waist to shoulder and the lad fell, screaming. Gilbert gently broke his nose by stepping on the back of his head with his boot heel and walked over to attend to the frightened one.
He seemed to find a morsel of courage as he squared up and faced the Marquis rather than run down the stairs as he clearly wanted to. Gilbert feinted low and the boy followed like a trout to a fly. The Marquis's knee connected with his face and the lad cart-wheeled backward and down the stairs, taking every third one as if he were eager to reach the bottom. He lay still and Gilbert turned around.
The young boy had got up again. Bravo. Gilbert assumed a dueling stance with all of the proper flourishes and detail, and signaled as was proper that his opponent might begin when he was ready. As the boy looked into his eyes, with some anger it must be said, Gilbert noted with amusement that it was the wretch they had all been looking for. How fitting that he might kill him here, with the sword made by his own father. Gilbert doubted that the child would appreciate the irony.
The Marquis set about playing with his victim a little. He stepped out of the way of the increasingly desperate attacks, spinning and pirouetting like a dancer. In between each of the boy's sorties he gave him a little cut, on the face or the arm, with the tip of the blade. Eventually Gilbert tired of the game and it occurred to him he should find out if there were other intruders in his house. He imagined with a certain amount of grim glee the retribution he would exact from whoever was responsible for this little insurrection. He turned to his opponent.
The boy lunged, straight and unimaginative, slow and clumsy. Gilbert was an enthusiastic user of the stop-hit, a manoeuvre in which one fencer, instead of parrying his opponent's offence, attacks instead, hitting before the original blow lands. He employed it now, bringing his blade inside the boy's, and placing the tip accurately at the base of his ribcage. The golden-hilted rapier cut the boy a little, bent - and then snapped.
Gilbert had a brief, very brief, moment to comprehend his mortal danger before the boy's sword penetrated deep into his stomach. Both fell to the floor and blood poured from two wounds. Only the boy managed to stand, however.
It occurred to Gilbert, only in his very last moment, that in truth he had never fully trusted the smith, and had been unsurprised when he had discovered that the smith's son was a troublemaker.
Like father, like son, he thought, as he died.

THE AFTERMATH OF the battle at the manor was a sad time in Montreuil. The surviving sergeants, which turned out to be most of them, drifted away when it was discovered that the Marquis would no longer be paying their wages. One stayed on and married a village girl, when their affair was made public, and another downed his weapons and installed himself at the mill, now that Gerni was gone.
Tomas didn't stay long in Montreuil and not all were sad when he left. Though nobody was sorry to see the end of the Marquis, many thought that the cost in lives was too steep, and that things had been bearable as they were. Tomas didn't say where he was going, though perhaps he told his mother.
The manor house stood mostly empty at one end of the village and fell quickly into disrepair. It became custom in Montreuil, when a roof was leaking, or a hinge fell off a door, for the villager in need to make a trip to the manor and to take what he sought to make the repair.
The rose hedge slowly grew back, but was kept to a modest height, perhaps the waist of a tall man, and on festival days in honour of the Lady the village was covered in a garland of roses.
It was purely speculation on the behalf of some villagers that the new flowers were brighter and more fragrant than those which had grown there before.