by Jason Vail
“Oh, yeah, unfortunately.” But Ben brightened. “He went hunting this afternoon with Henle. They killed two deer. There’ll be venison tonight. I might even get some.”
“I hope you do.”
“We hardly ever get good meat,” Ben grumbled.
“It’s the lot of all soldiers,” Stephen said, “unless you kill it yourself.”
“Wish I could. But when’s a man like me going to get the chance to go hunting? Don’t even own a bow, anyway.”
“I’ve got one I’ll lend you. But only for target practice, mind!”
Ben grinned. “I might take you up on that someday.”
They passed through the tunnel-like passage to the inner bailey. Stephen angled toward the round chapel, which sat in the middle of the bailey to the right, while Ben continued straight across to the hall.
“You’ll miss supper!” Ben said.
“Oh, I already ate. Besides, I feel the need of some absolution.”
Ben laughed. “What have you been up to today?”
“Nothing good,” Stephen said.
Ben waved and went into the hall.
Stephen went into the chapel.
As he expected, it was deserted.
He pulled the hood up over his head, for it was getting even colder, wrapped his cloak around himself, and sat with his back to the wall by the door to wait.
Stephen had planned to mark the passage of time in part by relying on the observation of Compline, which normally took place about an hour after sundown. But neither the chaplain nor anyone else came in for the service. Laughing, music and singing drifted across from the hall, where the usual evening entertainments were underway. They must be having an exceptionally good time and there must have been venison indeed at supper, which usually was a light meal, to keep the chaplain from his duty. Stephen glanced out the door for a glimpse of the stars so he could gauge the time that way, but the sky had clouded. He would have to guess the time, and he knew from having spent many a night on guard duty how time slowed down when it was dark, and how a quarter hour could seem like two whole ones.
After what seemed like forever, the music and voices faded in volume. He heard the footfalls of a few people retreating across the yard to the outer bailey and the subdued drone of their conversations — men and women, servants and soldiers on the way to bed. Two men paused by the chapel door and took a piss against the wall. They went away. There was a fluttering inside the chapel that startled Stephen. He thought he wasn’t alone for a moment, but he couldn’t see anyone. Then he realized it was bats flying in the upper reaches of the structure and through the door. Birds nested up there too, but they were asleep.
The foot traffic trickled out. There was a series of thuds as a warden shut and barred the gate to the outer bailey, sealing off the two parts of the castle from each other. Stephen had wondered if the watch still took this precaution. It would have made things much easier if they had grown slack. There were only two gates out of the castle, the main gate and a small sally port in the north wall, and both of them offered admittance only into the outer bailey. There was no way out of the inner bailey now.
He rose and crossed to the hall. There were lights behind the shutters signifying that a few people were still awake. In a few upper windows, some of the lights appeared to move — people with candles settling down to their beds.
He opened the right-hand door and entered. Largely empty now of people, the enormous room seemed more vast than it really was. The ceiling rose up three stories, an impossible distance. Sometimes children amused themselves when the adults weren’t watching by trying to hit the rafters with balls, but they rarely succeeded, the distance was so great. Valence and Henle had gone to bed, of course, which was Stephen’s main worry. He had no business being here after dark, and if they had seen him, it would have meant questions for which he had no good answers. One of the men-servants was putting out the last of the candles with a candle snuffer which was at the end of a long pole because the candle holders were on the sides of pillars a full eight or ten feet off the ground. The musicians were still on their stools putting away their instruments in boxes and little trunks and downing the last of their ale. Several women were bringing in straw pallets for the servants who slept in the hall. A dozen children of varying ages were running around playing tag; then a mother spoke sharply at them to quiet down, and with obvious sullenness and repressed rebellion, the children collected against a wall to wait till their beds were made.
Stephen wended through this organized confusion to the stairs which led upward to the apartments. Head down, masked in his cloak, he attracted no particular attention. These people, merely servants, would neither stop him nor call an alarm if they recognized him, which was a possibility. But he preferred not to be noticed or recognized. He was counting on the bedtime activity to conceal him.
The stairway was dark and he bumped into a woman whom he neither saw nor heard coming. “Watch it, love,” she said, “or I’ll knock you down.”
“You nearly did,” Stephen said with a forced laugh.
“Oh, sorry, sir,” she said, realizing from his accent he was gentry. “I didn’t see you.”
“Nor I you,” Stephen said. “No harm done.” He went round her and continued his climb.
He made his way in the pitch dark to the very top of the stairs. He had to navigate by feel, but he was pleased to find that he remembered the way very well. He had been a page and squire here under Henle’s predecessor in the days before his father had decided he needed a profession and sent him to London to be Valence’s clerk. The room he was headed to had been his own; like the boys who inhabited it now, he had been thrown out to look for other accommodations when guests arrived.
At the top of the stairs, he went right exactly five steps, running his hand along the wall until it encountered the door. Despite his attempts at stealth, the wooden floors creaked and protested as they always had, a familiar sound that roused sad nostalgia. He had been happy here; not at first, of course, for the initial separation from his mother had been hard and the discipline had been strict. But he had grown to love it.
The door was closed and no light showed; nor had he expected it. He rapped the door three times and called through it, “Gunnora!” He had to repeat this several times, but finally was rewarded by rustling and thumping behind the door and it opened a crack.
“Who is it?” a woman asked.
Stephen could tell by her voice it was Gunnora, and he was relieved he had the right room. “It’s me, Stephen.”
“What are you doing here?” Gunnora asked, plainly surprised.
This was where he had to get rough, and he took no pleasure in it. But he wasn’t sure whether she would resist and how much, whether she would call an alarm or remain silent. He had no claim on her loyalty or cooperation and he could not afford to take any chances. Stephen pushed open the door and grasped folds of Gunnora’s nightgown. “If you say another word, I’ll wring your neck,” he snarled.
She stiffened in fright, but did not resist as he pushed her into the room and shut the door. With clouds covering the half-moon and the shutters closed, it was so dark in the room that he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. He had to find the bed by feel, but it was a small room and a large bed — big enough for four or five boys at once — and he collided with it only two steps inside the room. He forced Gunnora, who was rigid with fright, onto the bed.
“Turn over,” he said.
She complied, trembling. She must think he intended to rape her.
He bound her hands and feet, firmly but not so tightly as to be uncomfortable. Then he rolled her over onto her back.
“I’m sorry, Gunnora,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you. I’m going to have to gag you now.” He removed a linen strip from his belt pouch.
“Just not too tightly, please.”
“Of course.”
He put the strip across her mouth and tied it behind her head, being as careful as h
e could not bind it in her long hair. Then he pulled her up so her head was on the pillow and threw the covers over her so she would not get cold.
Stephen located Christopher by his soft breathing. The boy was too big for a cradle now and lay on a small pallet on the floor beside the bed because he still wet himself at night.
“Cristofo!” Stephen whispered, picking up the little body. “Es tu papa.”
“Papa! Que es?” Christopher asked in his high-pitched child’s voice.
“You must be quiet,” Stephen continued in Spanish. “It’s very important. You understand? We’re going on a journey. Sit still.” He put the boy on the edge of the bed and fumbled around for his clothes and shoes. He regretted now having gagged Gunnora, for she could have directed him, but there was only one trunk after all, and it held all the things he needed. It took only a few minutes to get the boy properly dressed against the rigors of the night.
“Tengo sed,” Christopher said.
“Yo se, pero necessita esperar un poco.”
“Tengo sed,” Christopher repeated. “Quiero tomar.”
“Bueno. Pero esperate.”
“Quiero tomar,” Christopher said matter of factly. Then he started babbling in a mixture of Spanish and English. Stephen shushed him, but the boy kept on until Stephen shoved his thumb in his mouth so he could suck it.
The boy on his hip, Stephen said to Gunnora, “We’re going now. Give me an hour before you try to get free.”
She couldn’t answer, of course, so he couldn’t tell if she agreed to give him the time.
He went out and closed the door softly.
On this floor there was a door that opened onto the northern wall walk. Stephen eased his head out and looked left and right. It was so dark he could barely see anything. Here, the walk was like a narrow alley, the walls of the hall pressing in from one side and the crenelations of the castle wall on the other. Drainage was bad at this spot and because it was one of those places in the castle not open to public view and was little visited by the steward, it was not well kept up. Puddles collected that seemed to last forever and spawned nasty unmentionable things; moss and lichen grew on stones and timbers which never saw the sun; and the whiff of decay hung in the still air. Stephen held his breath and listened. He heard no sound of breathing, no scrape of boot leather. No one was about. That was good.
He slipped out the door, stepping carefully and trying not to make any noise. Noise, especially noise made by men, always seemed to carry in the dark. He didn’t know how much time he had before the watch made its rounds on this part of the walls. Sometimes, because of the treacherous footing on these stones, the watch didn’t come here; or it hadn’t when he was a boy and had to take his turns standing night guard. But he couldn’t be sure that things hadn’t changed under the castle’s present master. You never knew.
Stephen put Christopher down. The boy tried to wander off and Stephen caught his arm and hissed for him to stand still. Then he unwound the rope from about his waist. He rubbed the irritated band it had left on his skin.
He wrapped one end of the rope around Christopher to form a harness. He had practiced this last night on Gilbert’s young son, a boy of seven also named Gilbert though everyone called him Gillie, at the Broken Shield. But there had been light then, and now he had to do it in the dark and he was petrified that he had not got either the weave or the knot right. A mistake would mean the boy’s death. He tested the harness by lifting the child up and letting him dangle and swing. Christopher thought this was a game and he cried out. Stephen put him down immediately and shushed him.
“Don’t talk, don’t say anything, don’t make a noise,” Stephen said.
Christopher laughed and grabbed him about the neck, still convinced they were playing a game.
Stephen realized that nothing he could say would make the boy be silent. The sound of a child’s laughter and babble should be audible throughout the inner bailey and were unusual enough at this hour that someone might come to investigate soon.
Panic began to surge like a tide, carrying the thought, like flotsam, that he had to gag Christopher. It seemed like a cruel thing to do. But he didn’t think he had any choice. He had nothing to use for a gag. With his dagger, he cut a strip from the hem of his shirt.
Christopher didn’t take well to the gag. Gagging was not part of any game he knew and he struggled while Stephen put it in place.
Christopher began to cry.
The gag didn’t do much to muffle the sound.
Stephen had to hurry.
He climbed between two crenelations and lifted Christopher like he was a sack of grain being unloaded from a ship.
Then he swung him over the dark abyss outside the walls.
Christopher began to struggle.
To his horror, Stephen saw the boy was trying to get free — and succeeding. In moments he would squirm his way out of the harness. It was a good thirty feet to the ground and if he fell, he would die.
Stephen let the rope run fast through his hands. It burned and he wished he had thought to bring gloves.
Then, finally, the rope went slack and Gilbert called from below, “I’ve got him!” Then he said more faintly, “Hush, boy. That’s a good boy.”
Stephen dropped the rope into the outer dark.
It was done.
Christopher was safe. Valence wouldn’t be able to touch him now.
He felt enormous relief.
The door to the big square tower only a few feet to the right opened and a warden stepped out.
“What the devil do you think you’re doing?” the warden demanded.
“Taking a piss,” Stephen said.
“That’s the stupidest place to pee I ever saw, you idiot. Don’t you know there’s a latrine just inside the tower?”
“No.” Stephen hopped down onto the wall walk.
The warden grunted. He leaned close and sniffed Stephen’s breath to see how much he’d been drinking. “Well, you’re not the first fool to make water that way. Had a fellow fall doing it last year. Landed on his head, he did. Drove it right into the ground like a nail.”
“Ow,” Stephen said with a grimace.
“I doubt he felt a thing, drunken bastard. What was all that racket?”
“Some woman walking a baby. She said he couldn’t sleep. Fussy brat.”
“They all are. Well, good night.”
“G’night.”
The warden stepped back into the tower and shut the door.
Chapter 14
Stephen descended to the hall and commandeered the lord’s high-backed chair with its thick pillow cushion, which he set before the dying embers of the fire to await developments. He thought he might at least be warm and comfortable before all hell broke loose.
There was always something soothing about halls at night and this one was no exception — the fire burning low, shedding a fading orange glow, and gentle noises in the dark. Most everyone in the hall was asleep by now, except for a few coupling couples who made rhythmic noises in the dark. There was the occasional cough, a sneeze or two, a mother shushing a troubled child, a muttered rebuke at someone claiming more than his share of the blanket. All was easy and peaceful.
At long last there was commotion upstairs, voices raised, and the distant rumble of running feet. Gunnora, it seemed, was a fair judge of time, for it felt as though far more than an hour had passed, which meant that probably half of one had gone by.
Eventually, the thunder of feet reached the stairs and clamored down to the hall. Figures shouting and bearing candles fanned out and roused those who had been sleeping. One tall figure, stork-like despite his billowing nightshirt and woolen cloak, stalked to the hearth. He regarded the embers, hand on his hip. Then he turned to see who sat in his chair.
Valence’s mouth opened in what seemed intended to be a snarl to frighten away the interloper, but then snapped shut. He bent to see if Stephen was really Stephen. So close their noses almost touched, Valence asked, “What ha
ve you done with him?”
Stephen flipped his hand dismissively, although the gesture cost him. He was frightened of Valence, of the power and influence the man wielded and the retribution he could call down like lightning. Stephen was no fool: he had learned long ago that it was wise for the powerless to fear the powerful. Although the law was supposed to afford protection, in practice many powerful men just ignored it and did what they pleased simply because there was no one who could make them answer for what they did. Sometimes, though, one’s best protection was boldness. He said: “That is none of your business, your honor.”
Valence straightened up. He was breathing hard. A cheek muscle twitched — familiar signs of a tantrum over the horizon. But the eruption did not come. Valence controlled himself. “I had only offered him my protection. I was only concerned with his welfare.”
They both knew this was untrue, but Stephen gained nothing by making that understanding public and increasing Valence’s embarrassment, which was already substantial. He said, “It seemed, in my judgment, that a change of situation was needed.”
“You had only to ask,” Valence said. He was recovering quickly.
Stephen almost laughed at the absurdity of the claim. He said smoothly, “I am afraid I am rather rash at times. My apologies if this inconvenienced you.” He stood up. “I see I’ve taken your chair, your honor. My apologies again for my presumptuousness.”
Valence sat down. He called over his shoulder, “Clement, you can stop looking! The brat isn’t here!” He returned his attention to Stephen. “Why aren’t you gone too?”
Stephen shrugged. “I gave my word I’d find your list. I don’t need a knife at my throat to force me to do it.”
“A knife at your throat, my boy, whatever gave you the impression I was trying to coerce you?”
“I was speaking figuratively, your honor.”
“Ah, indeed.” Valence steepled his hands. He was surprised but pleased with this development. “Have you made any progress?”