Neither William nor Bula took more than a moment to gloat before they returned to their work with sword and tooth. The dog had positioned himself beside William, snatching at the legs within his reach. Bodies had piled up around the dog who so deftly avoided the swords aimed at him. For William’s part, he’d parried the most obvious blows to Bula and taken advantage of the attackers’ preoccupation with defending their feet. The bodies piled deep around his side, too, and now he watched for a chance to leap out of the circle and find Nicholas.
Beside him, the drawbridge gave a crack and leaped, then fell back. Looking up, William saw the mercenary commander twisting the great wheel that operated the entrance. William roared with rage, the knight looked down, and smirked. Leaning all his weight on the mechanism, the lone knight slowly inched the heavy drawbridge up. Fresh blood coursed through William’s veins, and he leapfrogged over the groaning men-at-arms with Bula at his heels. William ran up the tiny stairway to the landing while Bula stopped halfway and kept the pursuing men at bay.
The mercenary cranked and watched from the corner of his eye. William reached the top before the knight could close that gate, and he waved the weapon in his hand. “I have your sword,” he called. “Come and get it.”
The knight loosened his grip on the wheel and the drawbridge rattled back down. “I have no need for my sword.” He snatched a lance off the arsenal on the wall and pointed it at William’s chest. He charged, and William barely stepped aside, teetering on the edge of the narrow landing. He whacked the lance in half with the edge of his blade, but the knight had already retreated, securing a mace for himself and swinging it like a man who knew what he was doing.
Its spiked iron head could be deadly in such small quarters, bludgeoning with indifferent conviction, and William grinned. He liked this knight. He was inventive, loyal, willing to fight. “You’re a mercenary, eh?” William asked.
“Aye.” The mace swung in wide circles.
“There’s a huge force outside who’ll soon be inside, and Lord Nicholas, I promise, will be in no position to pay your wages.”
The mace drooped a bit. “I don’t betray the lord who pays me,” the knight said tersely, but William’s gaze was on that mace.
“He’s a treacherous, shifty, lying man who has deserted friendship and personal honor. You’re not bound to him, for he’d never do more than toss you to the dogs.” The mace’s swing diminished to a half circle. “And the dogs,” William jerked his head toward the stair where Bula held sway, “are fearsome.”
The sway of the mace creaked to a halt. William kept his eyes on the spiked head of the mace and eased toward the gate’s closing mechanism. Jamming the wooden shield deep into the gears, he effectively disabled it. The mercenary watched, and William turned to him. “Find me when this is over. I have uses for fighters such as you.” Turning, he called Bula and ordered him to stay. “Bula will protect you from my father’s vengeance, if you protect Bula from the swords.”
Running lightly down the stairs, William glanced around. The bailey roiled with armed men astride destriers. He spotted his father, Raymond, and another man. A leader; big, bold, shouting the commands that directed the battle.
Who was he?
William had no time to stop and question. Eager now, he raced toward the keep, knowing he’d find Nicholas there.
The castle relied on its position on the cliffs for defense. The outer curtain wall hung almost over the edge on the three sides; the gatehouse opened onto the plain. Within the walls, only one bailey surrounded the keep, and William smiled with grim satisfaction when he found the door to the keep open.
Perhaps that should worry him, but he knew Nicholas was such a poor strategist, such a dreadful excuse for a knight, that he’d never planned for the enemy inside the walls. All his men fought at the gate; all of them. William had seen the steady stream of mercenaries who emerged from the keep. Only Nicholas cowered within, surrounded by the weapons he’d never bothered to practice with; the weapons that would not save him.
William entered the keep and glanced around. The abrupt change from light to dark made it difficult to adjust, but no one lurked in the entry. Running on the balls of his feet, he mounted the stairs, his sword at readiness. Before he entered the great hall, he paused and listened.
Nothing. Only the sound of fighting outside disturbed the silence.
He strode into the room. The fire burned on the hearth, the table was set for dinner, but nary a soul stirred. All the servants, all the folk of the castle were gone.
But Nicholas wasn’t. William’s instincts tuned to the stones of the keep. The entrance to the undercroft drew him like a magnet; it was the entrance to the dungeon, too, and Nicholas’s only remaining hope. William knew Nicholas would try to secure the prisoners he thought he held for ransom.
Had Nicholas already discovered his fettered birds had flown the cage?
Moving softly, William started down into the dusk of the undercroft. A lone torch sputtered in reluctant illumination. The trapdoor that hid the dungeon lay close to the foot of the spiral stairs, and William listened for the crash of its closing. It didn’t come, and he wondered for the first time if Nicholas really lurked there.
Did Nicholas have a secret tunnel? Had he slipped out the postern gate? Had he lowered himself into the dungeon and found their escape route?
William remembered the climb up the cliff and smiled a most unpleasant smile. That, he thought, would be a fitting justice.
But rounding the last corner, he came face to face with his nemesis. “At last,” he said, his teeth bared through his beard.
“At last, indeed.” Nicholas lifted the sword he held and pointed it at William’s throat. “This time I will finish you. You see, I have the advantage.”
Nicholas gleamed with chain mail. His sword was fully half again as long as William’s. His belt sagged with the combined weight of mace and dagger, and he held a shield that covered him from his knees to his neck.
William laughed out loud. “’Tis not arms that make the man,” he jeered, “but ability.”
“Then I shall win,” Nicholas replied, too quickly.
William snorted. “I could beat you with my knees in a bucket and my feet in the well.”
The tip of Nicholas’s sword trembled just a bit. “Too true. If only you had a shield.”
His false sympathy set William’s teeth on edge. “I climbed the cliff that guards this castle. What makes you think I can’t get a shield if I need one? The shield I earned before now holds the gears to the drawbridge open, and ’twas an investment well spent. Now if I were you, I’d worry about my own situation.”
“Why should I?”
“These stairs wind around the wall to give the advantage to the right-handed swordsman who defends from the top. You see? I’m right-handed.” William swished his blade with exultant freedom. “I’m at the top. So I have the advantage.”
Nicholas grinned, his teeth brown and stubbled. “I am left-handed, and thus a hard man to fight.” He also swished his blade, free from the need to watch the wall. “So I have the advantage.”
“Left-handed because of a broken arm,” William remembered. “Perhaps if you’d practiced more as a squire.”
He shrugged, a bit of elegance, and Nicholas lunged at him.
William easily moved aside. “Practicing now?” he asked, bored.
Nicholas halted, breathing hard, thinking hard. Sliding down a few steps, he mocked, “I’d be respectful if I were you. The last time I practiced on you, you were blind for months.”
“You struck the blow?” Astonished, William thought about it and then shook his head. “Nay. You weren’t even in that battle.”
“You fought that battle because of me. I did it. I did it all.”
The ring of pride in his voice forced William to evaluate his scorn. “How so?”
“I urged your neighbor, what was his name?”
“Sir Donnell.”
“I told that old fool
Sir Donnell that you were involved elsewhere, that he could take that land of yours, and by the time you discovered it, it would be accomplished. I knew you’d come running, I knew you’d attack, and I knew I could wear a helmet that guarded my whole face.”
“’Tis difficult to fight in a helmet that so diminishes your vision,” William commented, not yet convinced.
“I didn’t fight. I just rode up behind you and—”
“You don’t fight. You play dirty, underhanded, treacherous games.”
“Games where the forfeit is death.”
Moving with well-oiled speed, William reached in and slashed Nicholas on the wrist that held the sword. He stepped back with insulting ease and watched as Nicholas stood and shook the drops of blood from his hand. “You’re playing my game now,” William pointed out softly.
Nicholas recovered his wits and made an attack of his own. “Who commands the troops that unfairly besiege me? Not your father. I never heard his braying voice nor saw him from the arrow slits.”
“If you’d ceased your cowering and come into the light, you’d have seen my father. And Raymond, too.”
“Raymond!” Nicholas shouted, his face mottling. “Raymond! That traitor. He was willing to kill you for a cut of your lands, but when the tide turns he bellies up like a dead fish.”
“Raymond would never kill me.” William spoke with the same assurance he always used. “Raymond is my friend.”
“And Charles?” The note of evil amusement crept into Nicholas’s voice. “Did you see Charles in my bailey? Is Charles your friend?”
“He wasn’t there.” William thought about that. “I wonder what happened to Charles.”
“He lies under a gorse bush and bleeds and dies,” Nicholas said harshly. “I know all. I know everything. I know you sent him to tell your father to rescue you. I arranged a little accident for Charles.”
With a shout, William leaped at him. He slipped under his guard, cutting a slice into his cheek and then jumped over Nicholas’s swing like a boy with a jump rope. He backed up the stairs out of reach, and counseled, “Hold that sword a little higher. Didn’t my father teach you any better than that?”
Tight-lipped with pain, Nicholas snarled, “He taught me never to fall for the same trick twice.”
“I don’t know how you can help it. That’s a man’s sword you carry, and you haven’t the muscles to fight with it.” Studying the agony that marred his enemy’s face, he asked, “Is that the first time you’ve been blooded, dear boy?”
The trickle of red dripped off Nicholas’s chin and matched the fiery glare of his eyes. “On my face, you bastard.”
Nicholas came up the stairs after him, sword clenched firm by fury, and William backed up with slow deliberation. “Don’t worry about your face,” William said softly. “You won’t be needing it any more.” That checked the forward advance, and William chuckled. “Didn’t you find what you sought in the dungeon?”
“How did you know I’d been down in the dungeon?” Nicholas asked.
“Where else would a spineless worm find his pass to freedom?”
“I should have known better than to trust that bitch you call your wife.” He stepped back. Awkward with the weight of chain mail, he tipped back, waving his arms for balance, and righted himself.
William waited, watching with a seasoned gaze. “Trust her?”
“Asking me not to put you in with her when she knew you’d find a way out.” He spat off the edge of the stair into the air.
“I’d find a way out?” William said incredulously. “You have it wrong, dear boy. Saura found the way out of your impregnable prison, not I. All I did was push the damned stone aside, and that only with her help.”
“I see you managed to leave Bronnie behind, like a used rag.”
“He’s injured,” William snapped. “You injured him.”
“But I thought any man of exalted honor would find a way to save the boy from certain death. You certainly bandaged him well. It seemed almost a shame to pull my knife and slit his—”
This time Nicholas was prepared for the swing. He parried and drove his blade at William’s heart, but William faded beneath the attack. Nicholas had the satisfaction of knowing he’d met flesh, for the tip had caught, but the vexation of realizing William fought like a wraith.
William wiped the drop of blood from his chest. “Saura’s going to be very upset at you, Nicholas. She liked that boy.”
“She’ll be more upset when I’ve killed you.”
“I wait here with no shield, no armor, no helmet.” William spread his arms wide, expanding into the space around him. “You have the advantage, you say, but you don’t attack.”
“I’ve beaten you in every battle we’ve fought.”
“Talk, talk.”
“I have!”
“Only because I didn’t know we were fighting.” William gripped the short blade, tip up, its point a dim spark of menace.
“I’ll always win these kinds of fights.” Nicholas smiled in a sneering triumph.
“Nay. You’ve forgotten the first rule of combat.”
“What’s that?”
With creeping caution, Nicholas moved closer, and William’s eyes glinted in pleasure. He smiled in invitation like an overconfident youth, but his heel seemed to slip off the step. His arms flailed madly, he danced to recover, and with a cry of triumph Nicholas lunged at him. With lightning reflexes, William’s sword streaked up and speared Nicholas between the chin and neck. Blood gushed as he jerked his sword back. Nicholas teetered there for one ghastly moment before he crumpled and rolled with increasing speed down the stairs to the cold stone floor.
Serious now, William followed him down and checked the eyes that stared with the true blindness of death. “The first rule of combat, Nicholas. Do you remember it now? Battles are fought to win.” Still staring at the lifeless body, he wiped his sword and thrust it into his belt.
Turning away, he strode to the open door of the dungeon and peered down. He could see nothing, hear no sound of life, and he sighed. Lifting a torch from the sconce on the wall, he waved it down the hole. Deep in the earth, he could see the outline of Bronnie, dark against the white chalk. The man lay still as death; William knew he was dead, but he could never go back to Saura and tell her he hadn’t tried to rouse him. He yelled, “Bronnie! Lady Saura needs you!”
Nothing. It was as silent as a tomb.
“Bronnie! Fire’s destroying the castle. We need help.”
Nothing.
“Bronnie! Lady Saura wants you to come and live with us and be her serving man.”
Reviving like a knight offered the Holy Grail, Bronnie sat straight up. “M’lady wants me…t’ wait on her?”
Startled, William dropped the torch down and it illuminated the man where he sat. Bronnie rubbed his shoulder and looked vacant with delight, but clearly it took more than a fall to rout him. “Aye, Bronnie, the lady wants you to wait on her.”
William sighed, stood, and dusted his hands, muttering “Somehow I knew it would be too easy if Nicholas had slit your throat.”
He started toward the stairs only to hear the click of claws coming down. “Bula,” he said, more glad to see the great dog than he believed possible. “Well met, my friend.”
The animal stopped at Nicholas’s side and sniffed, and then with seeming contempt leaped over him and trotted to William. William smoothed Bula’s head and found a dozen tiny cuts. Dropping to his knees, William examined the dog from ear to toe. A huge swelling over one eye almost closed it. “Did Nicholas believe this would kill you?” he marveled. Bula winced beneath William’s probing fingers, but the lump rested on the hardest part of the dog’s stout skull. “If your performance above stairs was anything to judge by, it’s clear you weren’t even seriously injured.” Dried blood matted Bula’s hair here and there where he had been nicked with a sword, but nowhere was there any great wound. “To think we believed you were a coward.” William patted him firmly. “You just
waited until you could fight for someone you loved. Bula, my boy, your beauty will return and until then, you’ll be the most pampered creature at Burke.”
Bula whined and nosed his master’s cheek, and as William rose he heard, “Are you there? William?” The shout echoed down from the great hall, and Bula responded as if he had been hailed. He bounded up the spiral stairway and the still-unseen caller scolded, “Damned dog,” as he whirled past.
William roared, “Raymond?” He stared up through the gloom and spied his comrade, halfway up the stair and peering around the corner. With lightened heart, he stepped over Nicholas and sprang up to his friend. “You’re the best sight my eyes have feasted on for the last three hours.”
Raymond laughed and grasped his outstretched hand. “You must have Saura hidden somewhere—she’s the feast you prefer.”
“You’ve divined my secret,” William admitted.
Peering over William’s shoulder, Raymond shook his head sadly. “Nicholas?” he asked, nodding at the body lying in sprawled repose at the bottom of the steps.
“Aye.” William turned to look back down to the stones where his secret enemy lay, exposed in his falsehoods and vanquished. “He died with a sword in his hand.”
He looked at Raymond and smiled grimly, and Raymond nodded in condolence and congratulation. “If anyone could ever persuade him to take up a sword, ’tis you.” Edging around to stand below William, Raymond put a hand on his friend’s back and pushed him toward the great hall, but William seemed to have grown roots where he stood.
“’Tis such a waste,” William mourned. “He could have been the greatest man in England, chancellor to the king. He was richer than you, craftier than I, and he lies dead with not a soul to mourn him.”
“He forced you to kill him. As the twig is bent, so grows the tree, and Nicholas had been bent the first time I met him. You’re not to blame yourself for his death,” Raymond admonished.
William faced him and glared. “I’m not such a fool as to lose sleep over it.” He marched ahead and they climbed the steps single file. On the landing, he paused. Without turning, he instructed, “Make sure a priest is sent down, won’t you?”
Candle in the Window: Castles #1 Page 37