lord,” she began, her voice quavering, “Lady Sylvanie s-s-said that t-the stones have a n-n-name, and that w-when stones have n-names, they have a story. Is that t-t-true?”
Sayre smiled at his sister-in-law. “Miss Avery, there are always tales, nonsense really, about old things: old castles, old tombs, old trees, old stones. The King’s Men are no exception. I am sure there are any number of stories about them.”
“King’s Men?” Miss Avery’s brow creased in confusion. “Lady Sylvanie did not c-call them th-that!”
“Ah…well,” Sayre responded but then lapsed into silence.
“Miss Avery is correct, my lord,” Lady Felicia said. “Lady Sylvanie called them the Knights, I believe.”
“The
“It is all rot, I tell you! Nothing to it!” His Lordship’s eyes stormed black in his pale face. Miss Avery cringed visibly.
“What is ‘rot,’ my dear brother?” Trenholme advanced his mount to take up the place on the side opposite Darcy’s.
“The Knights!” Sayre huffed. “Rubbish, all rubbish!”
“I would like to hear the tale,” Lady Felicia said, smiling up at Trenholme, “rubbish or no.” Trenholme cocked a brow at his brother, but Sayre only snorted and looked away.
“It is a dark tale, my lady, and perhaps not fit for delicate ears,” Trenholme began solemnly. Darcy rolled his eyes as the man baited his audience. As Darcy expected, Trenholme’s listeners demanded he begin immediately. “The stones have been called the King’s Men for only the last hundred years. From time immemorial, they were known as the Whispering Knights.”
“Why was the name changed?” asked Manning. “King’s Men…Whispering Knights! What nonsense!”
“As I told you,” interrupted Sayre.
“It is said,” Trenholme continued, regathering his audience, “that our great-grandfather took the opportunity to change its name when some writer fellow came through Oxfordshire gathering local tales. Our grandsire told him they were called the King’s Men, made up some Banbury tale about them, and sent the fellow on his way. So, to the world outside Chipping Norton, they are the King’s Men, but those who have lived here all their lives know better.”
“Why d-did he d-do that?” Miss Avery’s fascination was complete.
“Because of the legend, Miss Avery, the legend of the Whispering Knights. He wanted to put a stop to it. But I ask you, can a mere change of name confound a legend?” Trenholme looked to his rapt audience for an answer, but no one ventured to gainsay him except Sayre, who snorted again and shifted his bulk in his seat. Darcy bit his lip to prevent himself from laughing at the easy success of Trenholme’s strategy. He was quite good, really.
“The legend, Mr. Trenholme, tell us the legend.” Lady Felicia reached across and took Miss Avery’s hand.
“Yes, the legend…A thousand years ago the land here was the domain of a powerful lord. Norwycke Castle faces toward his fortified hill, actually.” Trenholme’s voice dropped. “As with many such men at that time, he had enemies from both without and within, including one of his own sons. This unfaithful son was assisted in his disloyalty by six of his father’s knights, to whom he had promised wealth from his father’s strongbox or deeds of land if they would support him. The night came when they were to strike, but within moments of their appearance, the cry of ‘Treason, treason!’ rang through the keep.” Miss Avery clutched Lady Felicia’s hand at Trenholme’s cry and gasped aloud. Manning and Lady Felicia were hardly less caught in the tale, their eyes trained upon Trenholme.
“Yes, and then?” demanded Manning.
“The conspirators knew they had been betrayed, but which one was the betrayer? They had no time to determine who among them it was, for flight was their only chance to survive. They fought their way out of the keep and past the gates, never thinking to ask themselves how they had succeeded in winning past all their lord’s mighty men. All they knew was that life lay across these fields and on to the sea and Ireland.”
“Rather careless of this lord to let them slip through his fingers when he had been warned,” Manning observed, his air of disinterest now flown.
“Careless? Or part of the plan?” Trenholme countered. “The traitorous son and his men fled for their lives over these very fields, only to be met by his lord father and his personal guard. The lord cried out to his son to lay down his arms, but he answered his father with great curses and called his men to resist. They formed a circle, the better to protect each other’s backs, and railed against the lord and his guard, challenging them to come to and fight. All, that is, except one. The betrayer, or rather the knight loyal to his lord, stepped from the circle and stood with his lord. Enraged with the man at whose hands his dreams had been slain, the son drew a knife from his boot and threw. It flew true, and the faithful knight fell dead at the feet of his lord.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Lady Felicia and Miss Avery, their eyes as wide as the buttons on Manning’s greatcoat. Darcy smiled. Yes, Trenholme was very good indeed. It lacked now only the curse. There was always a curse. He looked away to Sayre and discovered a listener who was no longer derisive of the tale being told. The hand grasping his walking stick was actually trembling! The other was occupied in loosening the knot at his throat while he attempted to take in gulps of air without attracting the notice of his companions. Good heavens, the man was clearly rattled! Darcy narrowed his gaze upon Trenholme.
“‘Oh’ indeed!” repeated the storyteller. “The lord knelt at the side of his fallen knight and pulled the knife from his body. Then he rose and faced his son. In the hearing of all he disowned him, called him traitor and worse. The rebels jeered and rattled their swords against their shields. ‘These are the dogs that have sworn you fealty, bought men you bribed with your own birthright?’ the lord asked. His son said nothing, but his eyes spoke everything that was in his black heart.
“‘Tonight, I curse you,’ declared the lord, ‘and all who would sell their patrimony. To you it is given to hunt down such curs to join you here in this field forever.’ With those words, he threw the bloody knife into the ground at the son’s feet, and in an instant, they all were turned to stone.”
Miss Avery cried out at Trenholme’s end and moved to sit between her brother and Lady Felicia. Manning swallowed several times before he was able to summon up a laugh. “Sayre was right, Bev, a great deal of rubbish fit only for frightening children.” The stones could now be seen across a small dale. The drivers turned the teams away from the main track into a smaller one prepared for the passage of Sayre’s guests.
“A dreadful tale, Mr. Trenholme.” Lady Felicia brushed at her coat. “It is no wonder that your grandsire desired to change it.” She paused and then queried, “But why ‘whispering’? Is there something you have not related, sir?”
“Why, yes, there is, my lady,” Trenholme replied, as if she’d reminded him of something he’d forgotten. “It is said that the rebel knights watch over the lands that make up the old lord’s estate for any who would break up the holding or sell it off piecemeal. And if they find such a one, he is given warning so he may mend his ways before they come for him.”
“A warning?” Darcy asked, an appalling suspicion forming in his mind.
“Yes, Darcy, they whisper his name.”
As the drivers pulled the teams to a halt at the base of the hill from which the Knights maintained their reputed vigil over the countryside, Darcy dismounted and handed the bay to a stable boy who had appeared rather suddenly from behind a less sinister outcropping. Evidently, the party had been preceded to the site by a number of Sayre’s servants. Now visible to one side was a sledge from which refreshments for the guests had been unloaded and a cheery fire prepared against their arrival. As he watched the occupants of the sleigh disembark, Darcy could not determine whether Miss Avery or Sayre was the most affected by Trenholme’s recital. Once coaxed out of the conveyance, Miss Avery made obvious her wish to stay close to her brother by clinging to his arm. Manning, just as clearly, desired her elsewhere and finally sent her over to the fire with an order to “drink something hot and try to stop behaving like a little fool.” Sayre made straight for the fire as soon as he descended, demanding a flask of whiskey be produced immediately. No sooner was the flask in his hand than he availed himself of a prodigious gulp, all the while regarding the stones with a baleful eye.
