Knight Triumphant

by Heather Graham

  There was motion on the parapets high above them, and a reply.

  “My lady, where is your guard? You must be away from this place; you must not reenter here!”

  “Open the gates; lower the bridge.”

  “Sir Robert has said that you must not return—”

  “I am lady here; open the gates.”

  “You ride with madmen; you come with rebels—”

  “The guard will die if you do not open the gates.”

  “Oh, my lady! For your own dear life—”

  “I am commanding you. Open the gates. Let down the bridge.”

  For a moment Eric feared that the woman might not have the authority she should wield; despite his desperation, he had not come here ill prepared, without knowledge regarding the situation at Langley. The lady here was a woman of greater importance than the lord. Though her husband had been a Scottish peer in his own right—one who had maintained a loyalty to Edward of England—this woman, wife of the perished lord, was the daughter of an English earl, a man who had gained his title some years back through an ancestor born on the wrong side of the English royal blanket.

  The sound of gears and pulleys creaked against the stillness of the day. The gates began to lower to span the moat. Here, near the sea, it was an oddly clean body of water, for the moat joined a stream that cut a blue ribbon across the green plain toward the rocky coastline where the land joined the sea. Moments later the gate was down, and entry to the castle was but yards away. He spurred his horse and entered into the courtyard.

  A pathetic show of troops came mustering from the tower keep as his band of men came clattering over the bridge. Though clad in mail and the colors of their late lord, the group that greeted them did not draw weapons, but formed a semicircle around their horses, waiting. They seemed to be leaderless, strangely adrift.

  “Set me down!” Igrainia said, “if you would manage this without bloodshed.”

  He didn’t like her tone, it was as rasping as her mere existence. But her words made sense toward his one driving goal, that of reaching Margot, his daughter, Aileen, and the others. It was all he could do to keep from throwing the woman down from his horse. She was anathema to him, hair pitch black when he sought a woman with a head of hair as golden and glowing as the sun, eyes a curious dark shade of violet when his world had come to rise and set in a gaze as soft and blue as the most beautiful spring morning.

  Alive and well and walking while Margot lay dying . . .

  He lifted the Englishwoman with a forced control and set her to the ground before dismounting behind her.

  “Where is Sir Robert Neville?” she asked.

  One of the guardsmen stepped forward.

  “My lady, he is . . . he is abed.”

  “Does anyone tend to him?” she asked anxiously.

  Eric lost his patience, stepping around her. “I am Eric Graham, emissary of the rightful king of this holding, Robert the Bruce of Scotland. Lay down your arms, and your lives will be spared. The castle is now in the hands of the Scots who honor and acknowledge Robert Bruce as king.”

  He glanced back at Peter MacDonald, who had ridden at his heels, giving a quick nod that he should now take over as the authority. Ignoring all else, he then started across the courtyard to the door to the keep, knowing exactly where the prisoners, even though near death, were held. It might have been a foolish move; a guard with a death wish of his own might have brought a battle sword piercing through his back. Behind him, he could hear the fall of arms as his men dismounted from their horses and collected the weapons. Peter MacDonald, a man who had been his right hand since the coronation of the king, began shouting the orders. Eric had complete confidence in Peter: the Scottish nationalists with whom he rode had survived thus far by covering one another’s back. They had become so tightly knit in their numbers, they nearly thought alike.

  He was prepared for some sign of resistance when he entered into the great hall, but there was no one there, other than an old man hunched in a chair by the fire. The old man tried to stir at the sight of Eric, but the effort seemed too great. He fell back into the chair, watching Eric as Eric watched him.

  “You’ve the disease, man?” Eric asked, his voice seeming to bellow across the stone expanse.

  “Aye. But survived, I believe,” the fellow replied, watching Eric. “You’ve come to take the castle, sir? You’ve taken hell, sir, that’s what you’ve done. Slay me, if you will. I would serve you, if I could.”

  Eric waved a hand. “Save your strength. Tell me, where are the rest of those who serve the castle?”

  “Dead, many dead. Sir Robert Neville fell, and the Lady Igrainia’s maid tends him in his room. The guards . . . not yet afflicted, keep to the courtyard and the armory. The Lord of Langley was laid hastily into the crypt, walled into his grave, lest his sickness travel; his wife could not bear that he should be burned, as the rest of the victims.”

  “And what of the prisoners and their guards?”

  “Fallen together below in the dungeons.”

  “And who tends them?”

  “Those who still stand on two feet among their own number. Before . . . ah, well, the lady of the castle tended to the dying, until she was sent from here that her life might be spared.”

  “Rest, old man. When you’ve strength, you might yet be called upon to serve.”

  Eric strode through the hall, finding the passage that led from the hall to the winding stone stairs that led below. Hell. . . the man had said. Hell had been planned long before any disease for those incarcerated here. The damp stairs to the bowels of the castle seemed endless; the prisons here were sure to bring about disease all on their own, fetid, molded, wretched. Those brought here to the belly of the fortification were among the dead, long hallways with crypts where past lords and ladies, knights, nobility, and those who had served them well lay in perpetual silence and rot, some in no more than misty shrouds that barely hid the remnants of finery and bone, while some were walled with stone and remembered with fine chiseled monuments. The passages of dead came before the cells with their iron bars, chains and filthy rushes. The dead of the household were far more honored here than the prisoners brought in with little hope for life.

  Eric passed through the crypts and knew he neared the cells again as he heard the sound of moaning. Ducking beneath an archway he came to a large, thick wooden door with a huge bolt; the bolt was not slid into place and the great door gaped. Pushing through, he saw the cells, and those who lay within them.

  There were no soft beds or pallets here. The stench was so overwhelming that he wavered as he stood, but for no more than a matter of seconds. On either side of the hall, the sick and dying lay like piles of cast-off clothing. He entered to the right, where he had been kept with Margot and his daughter. He rolled a body over, saw where the boils on the man had swollen and burst. He did not recognize the dead man, who had surely been one of his own. He looked at a death more heinous than any horrible torture devised by his enemies.

  The dead should have been taken away, their sad remains burned to keep the pestilence from spreading. Here . . .

  “Margot!” he whispered his wife’s name, because the scene would allow for no more than a whisper, and he moved through the bodies around him on the rushes. He could not find Margot, but even in his desperation, as he searched, a burst of fury and fear gave him a force of energy that was near madness; he made some sense of the room, finding those who breathed, with signs of life, and lifted and carried them, separating the living from the dead.

  “She is not here.”

  He started at the sound of the woman’s voice.

  Igrainia of Langley stood at the entrance to the cell, watching him, holding a large ewer.

  “Where is she?”

  “Several of the women were brought to the solar above,” she told him. As if she had known what he had been about, she approached those who still showed signs of life. She seemed heedless of the scent of rot and the horror that surrou
nded her. Despite her elegant apparel, she came down to the rushes among the living, her touch careful as she lifted heads to bring water to parched lips.

  He strode to her, catching a handful of her hair to draw her face to his, his intent at the moment not cruel but born of greater desperation. “Where is the solar?”

  “Above. Take the stairs from the great hall, to the tower. There is sun there. Father MacKinley believes the sun may have the power of healing.”

  He still had a handful of ebony hair in his hands. His fingers tightened.

  “Come with me.”

  “If you care nothing for these, your friends—”

  “They are my life’s blood. But my men will be along. They will see that the dead are burned, and that the others are brought from this deadly morass as well.”

  Even as he spoke, he heard footsteps along the stone flooring that led to the cells. James of Menteith and Jarrett Miller had come. The Lady of Langley stood gracefully, yet gritted her teeth. “My hair, sir. I will accompany you with greater facility if you will be so good as to release me.”

  He did so, unaware that he had maintained his death grip upon the black tresses.

  She handed the ewer to James and pointed out where she had brought water, and what survivors remained. She stepped carefully around the prone Scots upon the floor and left the bars, her footsteps silent upon the stone where the men’s heavier tread had created a clatter. Eric nodded to James, who inclined his head in return, then followed after the Lady of Langley.

  Once returned to the hall, he found that they traveled up a staircase amazing in its breadth for such a fortified castle. Though this stronghold had been built to repel an enemy, some resident had taken pains to turn the place into more of a manor. The stairway he followed was not stone, but intricately carved wood. It led to a second landing with a long hallway and doors where the lady did not pause, but continued on to a smaller staircase. There, arrow slits lined the stone and she passed them all, coming to a large room filled with daylight. Makeshift beds littered the space, and light from a break in the ceiling seemed to cast a ray of hope over those who lay there. A priest moved among the beds, a young slender man in the black garment of his calling. He seemed surprised to see his lady at the doorway, and called to her with a frown. “Igrainia, you were to be away from all this!” he chastised.

  She stepped inside. “This is Sir Eric, Father MacKinley,” she said, and walked into the room, approaching a bed. Eric nodded to the priest and followed Igrainia.

  He fell to his knees by the pallet; he had found Margot at last. She seemed to be sleeping. No boils or poxes appeared to mar the beauty of her face. Yet as he touched her face, it was as if he touched flame. He saw where the boils had grown upon a collarbone and on her neck, and he was tempted to weep.

  He stared up at Igrainia of Langley. “Save her,” he commanded.

  She found water and brought it to Margot’s side and began to bathe her forehead.

  “Where is my daughter?” he asked.

  “Your daughter?” said the priest.

  “My child. Aileen. Young, blond hair, pale, soft as silk.”

  There was a silence from the priest.

  “My daughter, man! There were not so many young children among our number!”

  The priest nodded. “The little angel,” he murmured. “Sir, God has taken her.”

  He rose from his wife’s side, pain a blinding arrow through his heart. He approached the priest like a madman, tempted to take him by the throat and crush flesh and bone. Some sense delayed him from his purpose, and he paused before the man, who had not flinched. Eric stood before him, fists clenching and unclenching, muscles taut and straining.

  “Where is her body?”

  “Yonder room,” the priest said quietly. “We meant to do her honor in death.”

  “You knew I would come and kill you,” Eric said in a bitter breath.

  “She was a child, and beloved by all. What fear have we of violent death, of murder, when we work here?” the priest replied, and even in his madness, Eric knew it was true.

  “You,” he said, pointing to the priest, “you will bring me to my child. And you,” he said, pointing at Igrainia, “you will bring Margot to a room alone, and you will spend your every moment seeing that she breathes. If she ceases to do so . . .”

  He let his voice trail.

  “What of the others?” the lady asked.

  “We are here now. And we will drop down in death ourselves before we let our kindred lie in rot and die without our care. Ready a chamber for my lady wife. Nay, the master’s chamber. See that she is surrounded by the greatest possible comfort. Priest, now you will take me to my daughter.”

  The priest led him quickly from the solar, opening the door to a small room in the hall just beyond. There, on a long wooden storage cabinet, lay the body of his daughter.

  For a moment he couldn’t move.

  He felt the priest at his back.

  “There is comfort in knowing that she rests with our Lord God in Heaven—” the man began.

  “Leave me!” Eric said sharply.

  The door closed behind him instantly.

  He walked forward, forcing his feet to move. He looked down upon Aileen’s face, and his knees sagged beneath him and tears sprang to his eyes. He swallowed and reached out for her. Her poor little body was cold. He cradled her against him as if he could warm her, smoothing his long, calloused fingers through the infinitely fine tendrils of her hair. Aileen, with her laughter and her smile and her innocence of the cruelty of the world around her. Aileen, with her little arms outstretched to him, calling him, each time he had been away, her little footsteps bringing her to him. And he would bend down and scoop her into his arms, and she would cup his face in her hands and kiss his cheek and say his name again with such sweet trust that he knew that the world itself was worth saving, that freedom was worth fighting for . . .

  Innocence, trust beauty . . . dead. The sun had gone out of the world.

  This time, when his knees failed him, he fell to the floor, cradling her lifeless form in his arms.

  Alone among the sick in the solar, Igrainia looked about with dismay. Among the Scots seized and still living, there was an older woman with long, graying hair. She would survive, Igrainia thought. Her boils had broken, and she was breathing still. The pestilence here was as strange as death itself; this woman had lived many years; she appeared frail and weak. Yet she would survive.

  Another younger woman seemed to slip away as Igrainia bathed her forehead. The two others in the room were young as well, both still holding on. Igrainia lowered her head to the chest of one, and heard that the rattle had left her breathing; she, too, would survive. And the other . . .

  “Water!” came a desperate and pathetic whisper.

  “Carefully, carefully,” Igrainia warned, holding the woman’s head. She was, perhaps, twenty, almost as light as Margot. Igrainia forced her to drink slowly, then nearly dropped her head back to the pallet as a cry suddenly seemed to rip through the stone walls. It was more than a cry, more like a howl of fury, despair and anguish. It was like the sound of a wolf, lifting its head, giving a shattering curse upon heaven itself, and she knew that the Scotsman had seen his daughter.

  She looked up at a sound in the doorway and saw her maid, Jennie, a frightened and startled look upon her face as they both listened to the echoes of the cry.

  “My God. We are haunted now by monsters!” Jennie whispered. “My lady . . .”

  She ran across the room and greeted Igrainia with a fierce and trembling hug. “You did not make it away; the Scotsmen came. They are here, now, among us. They won’t understand that we have done all we can. Mary was working in the dungeons, until she fell there, she lies among them still. Father MacKinley and I are all who walk now, even Garth fell ill, you know, yet survived, the boils did not come to him, he thinks he might have suffered a similar illness as a child. Berlinda in the kitchen fell ill in the scant time you were
away. Sir Robert Neville stood upon the parapets watching you go . . . then took instantly to his bed. Oh, lord, this man will kill us, won’t he, we might as well have all fallen to the plague! So few of us are left . . .”

  Jennie was still in Igrainia’s arms, shaking. Igrainia pulled away from her. Sir Eric’s agony over his child would last some time, but then he would be back.

  “Jennie, we must be strong. Tell me, first, who tends Sir Robert Neville?”

  “I keep watch over him. Molly, Merry, John . . . Tom, the kitchen lad.”

  “Where is Sir Neville?”

  “In his chambers. We are doing all we can.”

  “Why were the remaining prisoners ignored in the dungeons?”

  Jennie stared at her, wide eyed. “How could we tend to more? We are all dying. And the smiths and merchants in residence in the courtyard . . . they all fight for their own lives. But what difference does it make now? We are all doomed.”

  “This rebel doesn’t know that the Earl of Pembroke ordered Sir Niles Mason to find what Bruce forces he could and bring them here for their fates to be decided. Nor does he realize that Sir Niles took his troops and left at the first sign of the disease!” Igrainia said bitterly. “He thinks that Afton was responsible.”

  “And he knows he would have been executed,” Jennie said, her voice rising with fear. “Tied to a horse’s heels, dragged over rocks and debris, hanged until half dead, cut to ribbons, castrated, and not beheaded until it was certain he could feel no pain!”

  “Perhaps that wouldn’t have been his fate.”

  “It’s the order Sir Niles said he had been given! I heard him, my lady, I heard him telling your husband what must be done. Afton argued that no executions should take place here, but Sir Niles was determined. He said that the rebel, Eric Graham, had fought far too long and too often against King Edward—first with William Wallace, and now, for Robert Bruce. He is a known outlaw, lady. He was to be an example. His wife was to be given to the troops. And as to his daughter . . . oh, Lord!” She crossed herself quickly. “Sir Niles thought it so amusing. The child was too young for much entertainment, but she was the spawn of a rebel and would grow to be a traitor, and if she was murdered, it would be best.”