Blood Stone: Part XVIII

It was a long and somber ride back to Camelot.

They had kept Gryff busy helping Marcus assess the damage to the village, questioning the people and making a list of the supplies they might need. The biggest item was seed to replace the supply burned by the raiders. If Spring planting was to be done in time to ensure a good harvest, they'd have to move fast. Marcus promised that wagons would be sent the moment they reached home.

By the time they were done, the Black Watch casualties had been tended to and five bodies lay slung across the backs of their horses, wrapped tightly in the long black cloaks of the Watch. One of the horses was Aelf's, and Gryff silently rode over to take the lead reins. Timmons started to speak, then just nodded to him before wheeling his horse about and riding up to the head of the column with Blackthorn and Marcus. Gryff fell into line with the other men leading the horses of fallen comrades and the ride home began.

Gryff kept thinking about the day he had met the big Saxon on the road to Camelot just after Mid-Winter, both of them intent on becoming members of the Black Watch. Their two peoples were longtime foes, but the struggle to make it through cold and storms to enlist had forced them together, and then made them friends. It didn't seem possible he'd never see that wide grin again as Aelf tried to filch another apple from him. Gryff glanced at the cloth bag still tied to his saddle. He'd mindlessly grabbed the halved apple from the grass where Aelf had fallen; he was not sure why. He wished he'd let Aelf eat it all that morning.

They reached the main gates of Camelot shortly after midday and a shout brought the column of horsemen to a halt. Up ahead Lord Blackthorn was leaning over in the saddle, talking with someone in the uniform of the Archers. The figure standing there pushed red hair back from her eyes and Gryff recognized the Commander's wife.

"Wonder what that's about?" one of the men behind murmured.

"I don't know, " someone answered, "but whatever it is, the Commander isn't happy."

That was borne out when Blackthorn turned, said something to Marcus, and then went off at a gallop as soon as Lady Skye had climbed onto her own horse. Gryff watched them ride off dully for a moment, then an order was shouted, the men began to move forwards, and he rode into Camelot for the last time with Aelfric.

********

They buried the men in the church graveyard after the priest said Mass over them in the chapel. Gryff sat there letting the Latin words wash over him, not really understanding them, once struck by the thought Aelfric would have been astounded over all this fuss for a simple peasant gone for a soldier. He watched as they lowered the simple wooden caskets into the ground, then stood with the others and waited his turn to toss a bit of the dirt into each grave. Then he walked back to the barracks, stretched out on his cot and slept.

"Gryff! Wake up, Gryff!"

There was the familiar tug on the leg and for a brief second he thought it was Aelf and all that had happened had been just a nightmare. But the voice turned out to be Timmons.

"Wake up, Gryff. Come across to the firehall with the rest of us."

"I'd rather not, Sergeant."

"If it were the other way about, you know Aelf would be lifting a tankard in your honor, don't you? You're not the only one who lost a friend this day. Now come along; the others are waiting."

They walked out of the barracks and across to the brightly lit firehall, where the men who had ridden patrol that day and many who hadn't sat around tables at the back of the hall. Someone put an ale in Gryff's hand. Another waved him to an empty chair as Timmons held his tankard and began to speak quietly.

"We lost men today, good men, friends we will all mourn and miss. At times like this, it's hard to understand why such people are taken away from us in battle. So when you wake on the morrow, I want you all to walk outside and look about. See the people of this castle and of this town, and know they died defending those people, and the children of those people".

"Then look inside yourselves, and think of what Camelot stands for in this land: justice, honor, and chivalry. These are the ideals our friends died defending today. Knights are not the only men with Codes of honor. We have ours, and we are willing to die defending it and our land. In the end, while the bards will sing of kings and knights and we are long forgotten, still, in the end, it is all up to us. Five men died today in the trust that their lives had meaning. We will not betray that trust. Camelot will endure." Timmons held his mug high. "Gentlemen, to our friends, and to that trust."

*********

The next day, Gryff rose early and borrowed a shovel from the stables, then set out with it and a cloth sack for a meadow a mile back down the road from Camelot. There he scraped the manure off the blade of the shovel, dug a hole, and then reached for the bag. He drew out the halved apple and looked at it. He wasn't sure this would work, but the core was mostly intact and there were seeds. He dropped it into the hole, adding the manure, and some water from his water bottle before he covered it up. He nodded to himself and headed back to the barracks. Aelf had loved apples; maybe it would make him smile wherever he was now to know there would be an apple tree close to Camelot.

Over the years, Gryffyd planted other apple cores here and there. Not all sprouted trees; Gryff never would have made a good farmer.

But enough of them did, and so did others planted by his children and those who copied him.

Aelf's apples, people called them.