Two horsemen reached the top of the quiet hill and looked out over the territory that opened up before them, an extensive valley of fields and estates, mottled by some modest huts, something that could hardly be called a village.
"It can't be that place," said the first traveler.
"The comrade back at the inn said it was," commented the other traveler. "Eight kilometers, just take the road to the east, and you'll see when you get to the top of the hill."
"I know what a cavalry member's property is like. If I had one here, we would see, believe me."
They saw a man alone down there, pushing a plow on one of the small plots where the territory was divided,
"Let's ask that guy."
They rode down the rocky slope carefully to avoid rocks and slippery parts. Many sections of Auriana's countryside were picturesque and pleasant to ride; this was not one of them. A wrong step on the ground could mean a horse's broken ankle and perhaps a random rider's broken neck.
When they reached the bottom of the valley, they galloped up to the sweaty man who worked in the field, opening a ditch deep in the earth with the plow. Cast with heavy iron, it seemed better suited to being pulled by a horse, but the man pushed him without help, as if he knew no other way. The two mounted men exchanged amused looks. Farm helpers were not known for their intellect, but one who didn't even know how such a basic tool worked? The surprises never ended.
The peasant had his back to the hill and, consumed by his arduous task, he seemed indifferent to the horsemen who had just arrived behind him, even when the horses snorted loudly.
"Hey, you there!"
The plow stopped. The peasant turned and raised his hands both to protect his eyes from the sun and to wipe the sweat that soaked his forehead. He looked like an especially uncivilized guy, his face dirty with dirt, his hair long in a tangled, fibrous tangle.
"What?". he asked.
The two horsemen exchanged another look, this time not one of amusement, but one of irritation. Didn't that peasant recognize the uniforms? The royal insignia on the tunics?
"What?" Said the first rider. "Is that a commoner's way of addressing two of the king's men?"
The peasant took a step forward, out of the sunlight. I could see them better there
"Ah. There you are."
The knights expected some gesture of respect or some kind of humility to follow the perception of who they were, but none of this happened. The peasant just stood there, narrowing his eyes at them, as if the original question was still hanging in the air. Well, what's up?
At that moment, the second knight spoke. "Did you know that the plow is to be pulled by a horse"
"Of course, I'm not an idiot," said the peasant. "My mare is sick. Belly pain."
The first rider was getting impatient. "We are looking for .."
"I should have known that those carrots were suspicious"
"Stop talking. Where is Sir. John's property?"
The peasant laughed to himself. "I wouldn't call it property."
"So, do you know him? Do you know where to find him?"
The man turned and pointed to the far side of the field where he worked. Smoke was rising from the chimney of a modest farmhouse on the edge of the village beyond. The two horsemen looked at each other in bewilderment, and the first spurred the horse to approach, looking ugly from the saddle, and said impatiently.
"We are not playing games, friend."
"No kidding, buddy. That's really his home."
Then, the second knight went back to saying "That house too withered to be home to any member of the cavalry."
"Well, to be honest, John also owns this field, and that one over there, and that one over there," said the peasant, pointing out "Everything is good, good crops. If you ask me what I think, it's not bad. "
"Sir John, peasant!" Scolded the first knight. "Pay attention when referring to a Knight of the Kingdom."
"And not just any knight, peasant," added the second knight. "The greatest of all knights."
"Yes, I heard the stories," said the peasant, who seemed to be getting tired of that conversation as well. "Great exaggeration for the most part."
The first rider was finally satisfied. He dismounted and marched towards the man, giving him a threatening look.
"Now, pay attention, peasant. I've heard too much ..." The sun, still rising over the hill, now cast its light on the silver pendant, worked in the shape of a beetle, which hung from a leather cord around it of the peasant's neck. Its design was simple, but familiar to every man and boy sworn to the king's service. That same medallion had been seen by everyone who passed through the army barracks at Wythchester, in a painting that hung in its main hall. It was depicted hanging from Sir John the Savage's neck. Knight of all knights. The man who saved King Joshua's life and changed course at the Battle of Ethandun, and with that the whole war against the Nordic invaders.
The knight's legs faltered, and for a moment he thought they might give in completely. Instead, he bent down on one knee, bowing his head in front of the dirty-faced peasant "Sir John, please accept my most humble apologies for having eyes, but unable to recognize you."
"Ah, shit," exclaimed the second knight shockingly through his teeth and faster than a ray of sunlight. He quickly dismounted the horse and knelt beside his colleague.
"This field is too muddy for you to kneel on," said John, who, despite the post, will never be comfortable with the sight of one man overwhelming himself in front of another. All men were equal in the eyes of God, so why not in the eyes of men themselves?
"Get up."
And they stood up, looking at that dirty peasant with the kind of reverent admiration normally reserved for Gods or Kings.
"I apologize," said John as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the dirt off his hands. "but the plaster right in the field can be alone and I have to find my own fun. Now what does Joshua want from me?"
John left the schedule in the field and headed for the house when the king's horsemen leaving on the path that came to the spot was still early and there was a lot of land to sow that now would have to wait. As a rule, he had little time for the king's orders, but Joshua was more than a king. He was a friend, in one that did more for John to stay in. And so John, while testing whether the idea of taking up arms again, and that was certainly the only goal because Joshua or summoning, knew that he could not refuse the request of his great friend and king.
***
As a young man, John was an apprentice blacksmith, instructed to forge a sword and make it strong, but not to wield one. That was for others, not him. The mere thought of violence made his stomach turn like a fish writhing in his belly Like every Englishman, he had been raised as a Christian, but his father had also encouraged John to think for himself, and thus take whatever sacred teachings he could. From what he knew of the Bible, a single verse had always spoken to John more than any other: 'You love your neighbor as we love you.' He did not want any man to raise his hand, and so he would not raise his hand against any man ... That even the Nordics arrived. He had been raised in his hometown, a small village called Caengiford, London was only a few kilometers to the southwest, and it was there, when John was seventeen, that the Danish looters arrived, tearing down the great walls that the Romans had built centuries before, claiming the city for itself, killing anyone who didn't have the good sense to flee.
John could still remember the displaced and wounded people crossing Caengiford, horribly burned, with entire limbs missing, mothers still carrying the bodies of their babies who had been trampled or thrown against walls by barbarians who had come across the sea. John refused to protect himself from these visions. I wanted to see. You should see. Although he did not understand the suffering he had witnessed, he knew that turning away, trying to pretend it was not real would be somewhat irresponsible and inhumane on his part. And he knew that those horrors could easily afflict him and his relatives. I just didn't realize what it would be like soon.
The Scandinavians arrived in Caengiford the following week. An assault group sent to hunt down those who fled the city found John's village on the way, and since it was their nature to destroy everything they saw ahead, they started to set it on fire. John barely made it out alive, passing an open window at the insistence of his beloved mother while the Danish brutes outside hammered on the door. He escaped a moment before they burst into the house. He ran into the forest as fast as he could without looking back. Therefore, he did not see the fate of his mother and father, nor of his four younger brothers, too small to run. But his imagination did the job well, and even years later he couldn't think about it, except when the old memories came spontaneously, in nightmares.
After escaping the destruction of his village, John clandestinely hitchhiked a merchant's cart until he was discovered and expelled. After that, he walked. I had no destination in mind, nowhere to go. Where the Nordics were not, it was already good for him. He lost count of the weeks he traveled alone, sleeping by the side of the road, eating anything he could find in the forest or, on a good day, anything that fell - or had a mysterious help to fall - from a passing wagon . One day he asked a passerby where he was and found that he was wandering to Wiltshire. He went to the small town and, after demonstrating his skills with hammer and forge, was sheltered by the local blacksmith. He went on to earn a living by making agricultural tools and horseshoes for horses, and, over time, an increasing number of swords.
King Joshua's war against the Scandinavians was not going so well, they said, and there was a need for weapons to equip men from all counties, who were pressured to enlist in the army.
It was a blacksmith's job to check the weight and balance of each sword as it cooled from the forge, but John always made up an excuse to pass that task on to other apprentices. Even holding a sword hurt him: the thought of crossing a man with one of those made him sick. He tried to say this to the king's recruiters when they arrived in the city to gather all the physically capable men they could find, but all he managed was a tug on the ear and orders to report to the barracks at Chippenham at the end of the week or to be marked as deserter John considered the options and considered for a moment what to do. But he knew of the army's harsh persecutions of cowards who defied the king's summons, and he was not encouraged to face another long flight, much less punishment if he were captured - which at the time was stoning. And so he arrived in Chippenham on the last day before he was declared a deserter. The instructors gave him a uniform and a wooden sword to train and immediately threw him into simulated combat. In peacetime, their training might have gone at a less hurried pace, but the Nordics were advancing on all fronts, and there was little time for anything but launching new recruits into the skirmish and hoping they could fight or learn how to do it in a short time.
Even a fake sword it looked horrendous in John's hands, but he found that, although he had no desire to fight, he undoubtedly had a knack for it. More than a training ground, he went straight to the weapons master, a soldier with a long beard with a barrel chest and more years of combat experience than John had on earth. Armed only with a blind wooden sword, he fought with such dexterity and ferocity that the instructor ended up on his back, surprised. The other recruits applauded and shouted, but John was more surprised than everyone there; it was as if some entity had taken possession of the sword arm, of its entire body, propelling it forward. In those few seconds, he had become someone else, someone horrible, brutal and insane. In other words, exactly the type of person your superiors were looking for. Although there was little artistic talent in John's way of fighting, there was a savage purity about him. He fought more like a Scandinavian than an Englishman - in time, it would make their blood run cold. Scandinavians had - an instinct. On the first day of training - a fact that, they have a name for men like John, men who fought and killed without fear, mercy or grace. Berserker.
The nickname soon caught on. Throughout the ranks of Chippenham he became known as John the Savage. John hated that nickname, not the respect that went with it. Nobody gave him any more soup in his ear. Instead, from there John was closely watched by his coaches, marked as one of the few to have something special, something that could be used as a major advantage in the field.
When the time came for the battle, and inevitably it would, he and others like him would be kept close to the king to offer the greatest protection. The battle came earlier than expected, in the deep cold of midwinter and on the Night of Kings, no less. John and other apprentices were eating the rest of their Christmas rations the night the Scandinavians burst through Chippenham's walls.
The alarm bells rang, pulling soldiers out of bed; outside the barbarians entered the walls and broke down the gates of the English fortress. Officers rushed to the barracks' rooms to mobilize as many men as they could. There, a sergeant who knew John grabbed him by the collar and sent him in the opposite direction of his young comrades. It was where he was sent and he found himself in the Royal Chamber itself, where Joshua's personal guard and a troop of heavily armed men were taking the king to safety. It was the first time that John had seen Joshua, although he thought he had seen the king once before, looking out over the parapet training ground. But there was no mistake this time: John was just a few feet from the king when the man was removed from his half-naked rooms, having been awakened from the royal bed just before.
"John, come here, boy!" John's weapons master, the man he had attacked and will knock back on the first day of training, urgently waved at him. When John approached, he felt the leather strands of a sword hilt clench against his hand. It looked much heavier than the fake wooden swords he had been practicing. He looked down and saw the metal blade gleam in the light of a torch. The first real sword he held as a soldier.
"Stay with the king! Stay with the king!" The Weaponmaster spoke and threw John along with the rest of Joshua's company, while they rushed the king down the hall.
Everything was happening so fast, you could hear the sounds of battle - the crack of metal with metal, the crackle of fires, the screams of wounded and dying. Sounds that John has not heard since he left his village two years ago. He took the rear of Joshua's protective group when they stepped out of the hall and into the cool courtyard air. John's first thought was how cold it was and how he wished he had time to get on a warmer tunic before he was dragged out of the room. Then he heard a battle cry that made his blood clot and he turned to see the giant Nordic advancing on him, his face hidden behind a long braided beard and a battered metal helmet.
The warrior was undoubtedly twice the size of John, and looked more like a bear that had learned to walk on two legs. But that was all the observation he had had to make before the barbarian was on him, striking with a large hammer that was the most unlikely weapon of war that John had ever seen - and he had forged many. John jumped back, avoiding the first charge, but the Nordic was more agile than his size suggested, and the second blow came too quickly for John to anticipate. This time, he only managed to dodge in half before the hammer hit him in the shoulder and knocked him to the floor. He looked up, dizzy, to see the great bear-man advancing, threatening, hammer on his head, preparing the killing blow. But John had not let go of the sword. He struck low, severing the Scandinavian's ankle. The barbarian screamed and fell to the floor with one knee, releasing the hammer. He pulled a knife from his belt, but at this moment it was John who surprised him with his speed. He jumped to his feet and struck with the sword upward, like a farmer cutting wheat with a scythe. He hit the barbarian at the base of the neck and buried the blade deep in the throat. When the giant's blood splashed on the cobbles, the weather seemed to slow down, and John noted that it was curious how the blood looked black, not red, in the pale moonlight. And then, time returned to normal speed, and John pulled the sword back. The movement dug up the blade from the barbarian's neck and brought him to the ground.