Daughter of War

by S. J. A. Turney

  Arnau pursed his lips. In his experience he’d been doing quite well enough with the mace, but whether he agreed with the German or not, the man had many years more experience of combat than him, and part of the rule of the order was obedience, after all.

  His fingers danced on the head of the mace that hung from the pommel, tied to the saddle with the thin leather thong loop that in battle would go around his wrist to prevent loss.

  They rode on for some time, the feeling of being watched never leaving them, pushing the hairs on Arnau’s neck erect even beneath the habit and the mail. They had travelled less than a mile along the road when the increasing light, now beginning to throw the world into sharp contrasts of golden glow and black shadow, picked out the shape of the bridge across the Francoli. Here, a few days ago, they had found the body of Carles.

  But the light illuminated more than a bridge. Or perhaps more accurately less.

  The bridge across the River Francoli had been demolished. A single arch rose from the near bank, and a matching one at the far side, but the main span at the centre was gone, and with it any chance of an easy crossing on the road.

  As they neared, gradually slowing the horses, Arnau scanned the area. The rubble from the broken bridge lay to the west of the crossing by a few feet and had gone some way to damming the small seasonal flow. Consequently, the river to the east, upstream, had widened and deepened considerably. There would be no crossing there. On the downstream side, the water had narrowed to a mere stream, but the riverbed glistened with the telltale sign of thick mud. It would be feet deep and harbour treacherous stones that could easily make a horse lame. Additionally, the banks there were steep and could be dangerous.

  ‘What do we do?’

  Lütolf was looking this way and that in the same manner as Arnau, but the young man realised with a start that the German was not examining the river and potential crossings. He was scanning the far bank and the trees near them.

  ‘Ready yourself,’ the knight said quietly. ‘This bridge was no accident.’

  As the German unhooked his shield and lifted it into position, Arnau did the same. For a moment he was torn between the sword and the mace and, uncertain even at the last moment which he would wield, he untied the leather thong with difficulty, given his two bound fingers, and made the heavy iron club ready.

  The attack came without warning, but thanks to their growing sense of anticipation neither of the men were taken by surprise. Eight men, Arnau surmised at first glance, four on each side of the road, and each group containing one man with a loaded crossbow. His attention locked on the four men coming from the right side of the road; he completely ignored the German and left him to his own fight. Four men was going to be a struggle, for certain. He had automatically selected the mace, since he’d been fiddling with it when they emerged with a yell, and he lifted it and realised in an instant that he was a dead man. The crossbow swung to face him and began to rise, aiming for his heart. He would not fall foul of the footmen, for that bolt would pick him out of the saddle and kill him outright.

  Instinct kicking in over both thought and training, Arnau swung his arm, ignoring the throbbing finger, and let go. He’d not had time to loop the thong around his wrist to maintain his control over the weapon, and that simple fact saved him from impalement. The mace, let go at full swing, shot through the air, spinning end over end, and hit the crossbowman full in the face, ending his life in a grisly mash of pink and white and spurting blood.

  The bolt twanged from the bow under spasming fingers and dug deep into the rough surface of the road only a few feet from the agonised, dying archer.

  Arnau ripped his sword from its scabbard, grateful for Lütolf’s earlier advice as it whispered free with ease just in time to find itself in the way of a swung blade gripped by a man who more resembled a mastiff than a man, face contorted with ripples of flesh and scraggy beard with a flattened, ugly nose. Arnau silently thanked the German knight. Had he not previously loosened the blade in the scabbard, it would never have freed in time, and the mastiff’s blade would now be carving through Arnau’s mail leggings rather than grating along his own sword with a metallic rasp.

  He turned the blade with sheer effort and the ugly fellow stepped back and came in for another swing. From the corner of his eye, Arnau spotted a tall and surprisingly young, willowy fellow coming in with a sword at the other side. There was nothing he could do. He lifted the shield and thrust it in the way, praying the hardened board with its simple black and white design would take the blow and absorb it. As the tall, lithe youth landed a harmless strike on the shield and recoiled with the reverberation up his arm, Arnau concentrated on the mastiff.

  The ugly squat fellow in the dusty brown tunic came at him again, and this time Arnau readied his sword, but shifted his weight in the saddle. As the man swung, Arnau kicked out. His mailed foot caught the man at the meeting of collarbones and there was a chorus of bony cracks that was audible even over the noise of the fight. The hideous man’s eyes widened in shock and his sword went astray, failing to connect. As the man slipped to the side, for good measure Arnau twisted his foot, ripping the jagged spike of his spur across his neck and opening the flesh in a welter of blood.

  Even as the mastiff went to join the crossbowman in the Devil’s parlour, the tall, willowy one landed another blow on Arnau’s shield, though this one was considerably harder and the reverberation that shot up the young man’s arm numbed the limb. He spun in the saddle, trying to bring his sword to bear on the young fellow, but then, finally, he succumbed to the weight of numbers. The fourth man, as yet unseen in the scuffle, had managed to get close enough to slam a blade into the horse’s middle, ripping into the soft flesh of the underbelly. Agonised, the beast reared and Arnau had to cling on desperately not to fall, knees locked tight around the animal’s girth, feet still in the stirrups, reins gathered tight and short in the now-numb shield arm.

  The beast leaped and thrashed in pain, and through sheer chance a flashing hoof connected with the willowy youth, breaking an arm and sending him yelling back to the ground.

  Arnau had to get off. The beast was dying on its feet and its mad dance would soon end, at which point it would fall and probably roll, pinning Arnau beneath it and breaking his leg at best. With some difficulty as the animal leaped and bucked, he pulled his mailed boots free from the stirrups. He was just in time. The animal lurched and fell, and Arnau, arm still unfeeling, could not tell whether he’d let go of the reins or not until he passed the point of balance and leaped free.

  He hit the ground badly, some distance from the agonised horse, and lay there for precious moments, dazed and winded, unable to focus.

  Once more, Arnau almost died. Lying on his back and rocking gently this way and that, trying to regain his wits, he almost took the falling blade full in the chest. It was pure fluke that he did not; his shield arm, gradually recovering feeling, flopped over him as he rolled and happened to be covering him as the man’s sword descended. The tip of the blade – unusually pointed for a Christian weapon – hit the rawhide of the shield and ripped through it into the linden boards behind, but the thick wood robbed the blow of sufficient strength to punch right through and, instead, the sword tip carved a thick line across the surface and then slid into Arnau’s side, ripping links of mail free and scoring a painful line along his ribs before thudding into the ground.

  Dazed, winded and now in pain, with the numbness of his arm returning, Arnau stared up at his last opponent, who seemed both determined and destined to finish him off. Arnau tried to bring his own sword up, shield arm useless once more, but he simply couldn’t do it in time, especially with only three fully working fingers.

  His eyes widened in shock as the heavy-set man above him suddenly jerked and the tip of a sword emerged from his chest in a rush of blood that sprayed out, filling Arnau’s eyes and mouth, clogging his nose and almost choking him. He grunted in further pain as the man landed heavily on him and then rolled off to th
e dirt.

  There was a horrible moment when the young knight was in pain and discomfort, unable to raise sword or shield, blinded with blood and almost unable to breathe. Then suddenly he sat up and coughed out another man’s blood, choking and gagging, the line of hot pain burning across his ribs beneath the wrecked armour. He let his sword go, presuming the fight to be over, and wiped the gore from his eyes, blinking until the world finally came back into focus.

  ‘You are welcome,’ the German in front of him said in a tone that dripped with sarcasm.

  Arnau blinked in surprise.

  ‘I will not always be there to save you, Vallbona. You must improve. You must practise.’

  Arnau’s brow folded in irritation. He’d killed three men on his own. Three! The fact that Lütolf must have killed five rankled deep down, but he clung to the knowledge that he’d fought off and dispatched three assailants, and with a broken finger to boot, which was a feat to be reckoned with.

  Slowly, painfully, he gathered up his sword and tried to rise, staggering in the process and almost falling over. Still blinking, eyes slicked with blood, he looked about. Lütolf wandered casually across to the willowy lad who was rolling around on the ground crying and clutching his broken arm, and punched his sword down through the lad’s chest, transfixing the heart. As he did so, Arnau could faintly hear the German murmuring under his breath, a prayer for the boy’s soul. For a long moment, Arnau concentrated on his sword, wiping down the blade with the sleeve of his black habit until the gore was gone and the metal gleamed, then sheathing it. He then looked about him again.

  They were all down. All eight. They had done it.

  The German gestured at his own horse, which was lying not far from Arnau’s, a crossbow bolt jutting from its neck.

  ‘Twice. Two horses smacks of carelessness, does it not?’

  Arnau blinked. If he were more inclined to believe in miracles in the everyday world, he would have sworn that Brother Lütolf had just made a joke.

  ‘What now?’

  The German shrugged and hissed. He had apparently taken some injury, then.

  ‘It would appear that we are beset once more. The preceptrix will need to hear of this.’

  Arnau frowned. ‘But the way is clear now. We can go on to Barberà as ordered. I mean, we’ll need to find another place to cross, but there’s bound to be one.’

  Lütolf removed his helmet and shook his head. ‘Once we cross the river here, we are far from Temple lands and moving into an area likely under the watchful eye of your hill-dwelling noble friend. We have no horses. It would take too long to walk, and we would be at increased risk of renewed attack the further we got. No, going on would be foolish and wasteful. We return to the preceptory.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ the German said meaningfully, ‘but I am hardly equipped to weather that same storm twice.’

  As if to illustrate his point, the knight held up what was left of his shield – little more than two white pieces of linden board, held together with a scrap of rawhide and half a strap. He was right. Arnau hated to admit it, but the German was absolutely correct. The state they were in, they would never survive another attack like that, and north of this bridge they would have to travel several miles through lands that della Cadeneta and his men would likely have watched and manned. The oily nobleman was determined to acquire the Santa Coloma riches and lands.

  ‘We are assuming this was della Cadeneta, of course?’ he said.

  Lütolf cast away his broken shield and spread his hands. ‘Once more there is not a single shred of evidence against him. He is coy and wily. These men could so easily be just another gang of rogues on the road seeking to waylay unwary travellers, taking advantage of a fallen bridge to ply their ungodly trade.’

  He folded his arms. ‘But we know that is not true, do we not, Vallbona? Two crossbows among such a rabble? The crossbow is an expensive weapon and not all that common among outlaws. Two in one small group? And a bridge that happened to collapse? There has been no storm and floodwater, no shifting of the earth. No, that bridge was deliberately demolished to prevent a rider from Rourell carrying documents to Barberà. As long as the papers are not lodged with the Temple officially, the lady of Santa Colona and the fortune she represents are still fair game. A good student of the law would find a way to put them in della Cadeneta’s hands. But not when those records are lodged. Then he has lost both woman and estate to the Temple.’

  ‘This is bold, though,’ Arnau said as he took a step forward. The stretching of skin sent an agonising pain through his side and he reached down to the wound to find blood on his hands.

  ‘How does it look?’ he asked, gesturing to his side.

  The German bent and hooked a finger through the black Templar habit into the broken mail hauberk, lifting it outwards and parting it, the arming garment beneath and the tunic below them all. He peered at the wound inside.

  ‘If you were old enough to shave, you would have encountered worse wounds.’

  Arnau almost laughed. It may have been at his expense, but that was, he was sure, the second joke the German had told in as many minutes. If the man kept going like this, Arnau might even have to admit that Brother Lütolf was human.

  In response, as the German knight let go, Arnau reached in and prodded his wound. It was extremely painful, but a little exploration with gritted teeth confirmed that Lütolf had been correct in his conclusion that the wound was relatively minor. The cut was long, but thin and not deep. It had only just broken the flesh, really.

  ‘Should we search them? Just in case?’

  The German shook his head. ‘They will have nothing incriminating, you can be sure. Beyond that, it would simply be looting.’

  As Lütolf went over to the horses and said a farewell to his latest doomed beast, Arnau scoured the ground until he found his discarded mace not far from the crossbowman with the imploded face. He picked it up, hissing at the pain in his side as he did so, and cleaned the head as best he could on the dead man’s tunic. He then tied the mace to his belt with the thong and tucked it beneath so that it would not swing about. Finally, he collected up his shield, which would be repairable with a little work and, pulling a carrying strap from the saddlebags of his fallen horse, slung it over his back.

  ‘It would appear we are to be beasts of burden,’ he sighed, unfastening the saddlebags and pulling them out from the dead horse with some difficulty.

  ‘A little hard work is no penance,’ said the German knight in his usual infuriatingly holier-than-anyone manner. Arnau simply grunted and forbore to rise to the bait this time. Instead, he slung the heavy bags over his shoulder and settled them into position, grunting at the twin pains in his side and his finger.

  He strode to the edge of the fight and waited there, feeling the burden already, but with a mile or so yet to carry it.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Lütolf asked archly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You forgot something.’

  Arnau frowned, and the German pointed to the younger man’s horse as he went over to his own and began to unfasten the saddle and tack.

  ‘You jest,’ Arnau said in surprise.

  ‘The rule specifically forbids us from incurring loss to the order.’

  ‘I hardly think that this was what the great Saint Bernard of Clairvaux had in mind.’

  ‘Rules are rules, Arnau of Vallbona. If you still intend to be Brother Arnau, then you must learn humility, obedience and the simple value of labour.’

  Arnau glared at the German knight, but stepped across to his fallen horse and removed the saddle with some difficulty and a lot of small yelps of pain. Finally, he pulled it free with Lütolf’s help and the two men lifted saddlebags over one shoulder and saddle over the other and began to make their weary and painful way slowly back to Rourell.

  Arnau couldn’t help but note with irritation that because the German had lost his shield, at least he didn’t have
the weight of that added to his burden as Arnau did. Mind you, Lütolf did have the weight of several extra decades to carry with him, the younger man reminded himself. Still, the German was not visibly wounded, while Arnau’s finger still throbbed and the blood from the thin cut at his side oozed out into the tunic and mail.

  The sun was still low enough above the horizon that the shadows cast by trees left black stripes across the road. Little past sunup and already they’d killed eight men and determined that they were cut off from the mother house at Barberà. Arnau staggered along for a while grumbling in the privacy of his head, trying not to ponder on the idea that God heard everything he said even there.

  Finally, discomfited by the endless silence, he cleared his throat to ask a question that had been nagging at him for some time.

  ‘What brings a German to Iberia, Brother Lütolf?’

  The scarred knight grimaced for just a moment, which interested Arnau.

  ‘I am a brother of the Temple. I go where I am sent. Where the enemies of the righteous are to be found.’

  That was half an answer at best.

  ‘But Germany?’

  Lütolf turned an irritated face to him. ‘Why do you persist in calling me “German”? I am from the Duchy of Swabia. I am Swabian. I am no more German than you are Iberian.’

  Arnau thought he could spot a way to make the mile pass much faster looming in the indignation on the other man’s face.

  ‘I am Iberian,’ he replied with feigned confusion.

  Lütolf huffed irritably. ‘You are from the peninsula of Iberia, but the nation of your birth would be the Crown of Aragon. Or perhaps, if you are old fashioned and cling to your region’s history, Catalunya. Either way, you are only Iberian by dint of grand geography.’

  Arnau smiled to himself. This was more fun.

  ‘So you are Swabian by nationality but German by geography?’

  Brother Lütolf growled and turned to him. ‘Swabia is part of the Holy Roman Empire.’