Martyr's Fire

by Sigmund Brouwer

  “Then help me,” Katherine said, “for I fear those who now hold York will soon learn that Thomas visited you here.”

  “Impossible,” the earl said. “I would not betray Thomas.”

  Katherine pointed to a vent in the wall. “Impossible that your voices might carry to the prisoner beside you?”

  “Hardly,” the earl snorted. “My conversations with him have kept me from losing all sanity here. Yet, even if he eavesdropped, there is nothing he can do.”

  “Unless he were a spy named Waleran.” Katherine explained those days with Thomas in the dungeon beneath Magnus.

  The earl clenched his fists. “The prisoner across the wall was one of them? A Druid?”

  Katherine replied softly. “Then I need not explain the Druid circle of conspiracy?”

  The earl shook his head. “No. Nor the darkness they have placed upon my family for generations. You know of the Druids too? What madness is this?”

  Katherine nodded at his first question and shrugged at his second. She wanted to ask the questions, instead, to learn what Thomas intended, but she dared not press the earl too quickly.

  He shuddered. “Druids. We have always been at their mercy.”

  He touched a bare finger. “As I told Thomas, I shall tell you. Almost word for word. There was a ring in our family, passed from father to eldest son, the future Earl of York. With it were these instructions: acknowledge the power of those behind the symbol or suffer horrible death. Five generations ago, the Earl of York refused to listen to a messenger—one whose own ring fit into the symbol engraved upon the family ring. Within weeks, worms began to consume his still-living body. No doctor could cure him. Even a witch was summoned. To no avail. They say his deathbed screams echoed throughout the castle for a week. His son—my great-great-grandfather—then became the new Earl of York. When he outgrew his advisors, he took great care in acknowledging the ring that had been passed to him.”

  This was the family curse Hawkwood meant!

  The earl focused his eyes on the floor. “It only meant responding to a favor asked. A command given. Rarely more than one in an earl’s lifetime. Sometimes none. My great-grandfather did not receive a single request. Twenty years ago my father … my father stood aside while Magnus fell, despite allegiance and protection promised. He let the new conquerors reign.”

  He stopped suddenly and darted a sharp look at Katherine. “This is strange, your sudden appearance. You are not one of them?”

  She shook her head. “The Druids have already imprisoned you. Why would I be here if I were one of them?”

  The earl gaped in sudden comprehension. “These Priests of the Holy Grail are … are … Druids …?”

  “And Thomas, I pray, is not,” Katherine replied.

  The earl shook his head weakly. “First, Thomas with his rash promises. And now you. I feel so old.”

  “Rash promises?”

  “He offered my kingdom back,” the earl said.

  “What did Thomas ask of you in return?” Katherine asked quickly. “How will he attempt this? Where goes he next?”

  The earl stared strangely at Katherine. “It dawns upon me that you are privy to much, yet are a stranger. Why should you have more of my trust? Why should I believe the story of a spy in the cell next door? Perhaps you are here to prevent Thomas from succeeding. After all, only a Druid could know what you do.”

  The earl gained more strength as his thoughts became more certain. “Only a Druid watcher placed at the gates would have known of Thomas’s arrival so soon.”

  Time—too little time remained. Yet could Katherine betray a secret that had been kept from outsiders for centuries?

  She thought of Thomas, of the heads spiked outside this very prison. Even now as she spoke in this dank cell, did Thomas walk unknowingly to his doom? Katherine made her decision.

  “Few know of the Druids and the evil they pursue,” she whispered. “None know there are those who seek to counter them.”

  The earl’s eyes widened. “Another circle?”

  Anguish ripped through Katherine for even hinting at that. Since birth, she had been trained to keep what secrets she knew and had only been permitted to grasp the edges of the truth. It was a secret so precious that not even she knew of much more than the existence of the Immortals, only that she was one of them and had been given much of their teachings.

  The earl repeated himself, almost impatiently. “Another circle?”

  How could she bring herself to go beyond that hint and betray even more? But there was Thomas. If he were not a Druid but, as she hoped, one like her, mere observation was no longer enough. Thomas now needed help.

  Finally, Katherine forced herself to nod. “Yes. Another circle.”

  Those words hung while she waited until she could remain silent no longer. “Please, Thomas is in danger.”

  The earl seemed to read the pain in her eyes and spoke. “I gave Thomas my ring,” he said, unconsciously twisting his now-bare finger. “He was to offer it at the castle keep as a method to gain an immediate audience with the man who now holds York for the Priests of the Holy Grail. The new Earl of York. My son, Michael.”

  “That is insane!” Katherine blurted. “For what reason would he seek audience with the enemy?”

  The earl’s reply stunned her.

  “Thomas intends to escape York with a hostage to ransom.”

  The sunlight blinded Katherine after the dimness of the prison, and she almost stumbled in her rush to rejoin Hawkwood.

  For a moment, she felt panic. Her eyes had adjusted, yet she could not see him in the crowd. Then the familiar black cape appeared as he stepped from a nearby doorway.

  His face, always difficult to read, was no different as he approached. Yet Katherine knew he was troubled. Instead of waiting for her information with calmly folded arms, he was reaching out to grasp her shoulders and search her face.

  “It is not good,” Katherine answered his questioning eyes. “Thomas, it seems, seeks his own death.”

  She explained quickly.

  Later, she would tell Hawkwood what she had had to reveal to the Earl of York to get her news.

  “We have little choice but to follow, watch, and pray,” Hawkwood said. “Too much happens too soon.”

  He did not elaborate but turned to march down the street that led to the castle of York.

  Katherine remained close behind. Although she did not cast a final look backward, she could not escape the feeling that her every step was watched by the sightless eyes of the heads of the men who had dared rebel against the Priests of the Holy Grail.

  They reached the outer courtyard of the castle burdened with a sack of flour that Hawkwood had hurriedly purchased as they had passed by market stalls.

  Wolfhounds lazed in the dirt. Servants scurried determined paths through the steady flow of noblemen and ladies who paraded in and out of the entrance with the assured arrogance that money and title provide. Squires stood in conversation with knights casually alert and leaning against stone benches. Other, more humbly dressed squires held the reins of the horses of their masters.

  Of Thomas or of Waleran, there was no sign. Within seconds, however, Katherine noticed Thomas’s now-familiar stallion tethered to the trunk of a sapling growing in the shadows of the far corner of the court. Tending the horse was the same boy Thomas had hired near the town gate.

  She tugged on Hawkwood’s arm and whispered, “Thomas is already inside. Do we follow?”

  He shook his head no and kept his voice low. “If he succeeds, he must come this way. If not, we will bribe servants to tell us the story of his failure and make our plans in accordance.”

  “How can he hope to succeed?” Katherine asked.

  “That is my question also,” Hawkwood said softly. He motioned with his head for Katherine to stay at his side and then walked to the boy who tended Thomas’s horse.

  “The monk’s assistant,” Hawkwood said to the boy. “Has he promised to return soon?” />
  “ ’E made a jest,” the boy replied. “ ’E said soon, or not a’ all.”

  Katherine shivered. It seemed so futile, this direct attack of a single person. What could Thomas accomplish without an army?

  “We have business to complete,” Hawkwood continued as he pointed at the sack of flour that Katherine held. “Yet if he trusted you with his horse, he most surely will trust you with his purchase that we now deliver.”

  The boy shrugged.

  “Find an empty saddlebag,” Hawkwood instructed Katherine. “We shall leave it there as he requested.”

  Katherine complied, as puzzled now as when Hawkwood had bought the flour. When she finished, Hawkwood moved beside her to inspect.

  “Keep the boy’s attention,” he said quietly into her ear.

  Before Katherine could think of anything to say or do, Hawkwood rejoined her and they strolled to another portion of the court. Little attention fell upon them. The noblemen and ladies, Katherine noted, were much too full of themselves and their gossip to look beyond at mere townspeople.

  “All that remains is the wait,” Hawkwood said. “And the longer it takes, the less his chances.”

  Katherine closed her eyes and summoned the vision of her last meeting with Thomas. “I am sorry, m’lady,” Thomas had said before banishing her. He had lifted her hand from his arm, then took some of her hair and wiped her face of tears. “I cannot trust you. This battle—whatever it might be—I fight alone. Please depart Magnus.”

  Those were the words that echoed now: “I fight alone.”

  It was at least five minutes before Hawkwood spoke again. “He leaves the entrance now.”

  Katherine opened her eyes wide. And drew her breath in sharply.

  For at Thomas’s side was another, a person she recognized instantly.

  Slim body, long dark hair, haunting half smile of arrogance, now touched with fear. Isabelle Mewburn. The daughter of the former lord of Magnus. Isabelle Mewburn. Who had once proclaimed love for Thomas as a means to assassinate him.

  Katherine could not help but feel a stab of jealousy. She knew that Thomas had once been captivated by that royal grace and the stunning features of a fine, pale face. And now, clothed in a dress that made the ladies around her look like shabby peasants, Isabelle seemed more heart winning than ever.

  To a casual observer, it might appear that Isabelle merely accompanied the lowly monk’s assistant. Yet as Thomas descended the steps at Isabelle’s side, Katherine could see strain etched across her face and the falseness of the smiles she offered passersby. For Thomas discreetly had hold of her elbow with his left hand. His right hand was hidden beneath his cape.

  Katherine guessed he held a dagger and that he had threatened her life at the slightest attempt of escape, the slightest attempt of obstruction by any of the castle guards. Yet with her dead, Thomas would surely be killed as well.

  He was that desperate—that ready to gamble his life.

  They reached the courtyard ground.

  At the top of the stairs appeared two guards, watching closely every move that Thomas made. They followed from ten yards behind.

  Thomas guided Isabelle to his horse. The boy removed the reins from the tree and placed them across the horse’s neck.

  Isabelle balked as Thomas gestured upward, then slumped as he said something Katherine was unable to hear. A renewed threat to plunge the dagger deep?

  She swung up onto the horse.

  At that, the idle chatter in the courtyard stopped as if cut by the knife Thomas most certainly held.

  “How strange, how crude,” the whispers began, “a royal lady mounting a horse in full dress.”

  Some pointed, and all continued to stare.

  Isabelle remained slumped in defeat. Until Thomas moved to climb up behind her. At the moment his grip shifted on the unseen dagger, she kicked the horse into sudden motion.

  Thomas slipped, then clutched at the saddle.

  His dagger fell earthward.

  The next moments became a jumble. Thomas strained to pull himself onto the now galloping horse. Isabelle kicked at his face, and both nearly toppled from the horse. People threw themselves in all directions to avoid the thundering hooves.

  And the following guards noticed the dagger lying in the dust. Free now to act, the first one shouted. “Stop him! He kidnaps the lord’s daughter!”

  Knights scrambled to their horses. Screams and shouts added to the general panic.

  Thomas now had his arms around Isabelle’s waist. The horse was galloping in frenzied circles, once passing so close to Katherine that a kicked pebble struck her cheek.

  It was his only saving grace, the speed of the horse. Had its panic not been so murderous, Isabelle could have thrown herself free. Instead, she could now only cling to the horse’s neck.

  Thomas finally reached a sitting position in the saddle and roared rage as he reached for the flapping reins. His hands found one, then the other.

  “Raise the drawbridge!” the other guard shouted. “Call ahead and tell them to raise the drawbridge!”

  Thomas pulled the reins. The horse responded instantly to the bit. Thomas spun the horse in the direction of the courtyard entrance, then spurred it forward amid the shouting and confusion.

  People once again scattered, except for a solitary knight with a two-handed grip on a long broadsword. The knight braced to swing as the horse approached him.

  That iron will cleave a leg! Katherine wanted to scream.

  As the horse reached, then began to pass the knight, arrows flew. Three whizzed above Thomas and stuck into the stone wall of the courtyard. The last struck the knight’s right shoulder, and he dropped in agony. The sword clattered to the ground, useless.

  Thomas swept through the gateway and thundered toward the drawbridge.

  Katherine scrambled with all the other people in the courtyard to catch a glimpse of what might happen next.

  Thomas and the horse passed into the shadows of the gateway.

  Already, the bridge was a third of the way raised!

  Yet Thomas did not slow the horse. A clatter of hooves on stone, then on wood. Then silence as the horse leaped skyward from the rising bridge and landed safely on the other side of the moat. In the hush of disbelief that followed, that sudden silence became a sigh.

  Almost immediately, the thundering of more hooves broke the sigh of silence.

  Four knights had finally readied their horses, and the first charged through the courtyard gate toward the drawbridge.

  After seeing Thomas escape, Katherine had relaxed. Now, with a deadly group of four in pursuit, Katherine clenched her fists again and for the first time felt the pain. In her fear, she had driven two fingernails through the skin of her palm, and in the heat of action, she had not noticed.

  Katherine forced her hands to open again and ignored the tiny rivulets of blood. She could not stop the urge to draw huge lungs full of air, as if she, not Thomas, were in full flight.

  Thomas must escape. Yet we are so helpless.

  She spun sideways in shock to hear Hawkwood softly laughing.

  “Look!” He pointed from their vantage point at the front of the gathered crowd. “The drawbridge.”

  All four horses skidded and skittered to a complete stop in the archway at the drawbridge. One bucked and pawed the air in fear.

  For the huge wooden structure was still rising!

  Loud bellows of enraged knights broke the air.

  “Fools! Winch it down!”

  Hawkwood’s delighted chuckle deepened. “Such a bridge weighs far too much to be dropped. They’ll have to lower it as slowly as it was raised. With three roads to choose on the other side and open fields in all directions, Thomas will have made good his escape!”

  Five minutes later, when the drawbridge was finally in place again, they saw the obvious confusion of the knights as they pranced in hesitant circles at the crossroad beyond the moat.

  Hawkwood touched her arm.

&nbs
p; “Much has yet to be done,” he said. “But if he truly is one of us, we could not ask for more.”

  Katherine tried to smile.

  Yes, she could exult that Thomas still lived. And still lived in freedom.

  But he was not alone. And it was not she but another at his side.

  “Our friend Thomas is free,” Hawkwood said. “Yet there is much that troubles me.”

  Katherine watched his features closely. There is much that troubles me too. I cannot shake my last vision of him. The reins in his hands. The stallion in full flight. And her … far too beautiful, and Thomas behind her on that horse, holding her far too tight.

  Katherine did not voice those thoughts. Instead, she said simply, “I am sorry you are troubled.”

  They stood at the crossroads outside the town walls of York. Behind them lay the confusion and chaos of an entire population buzzing with the incredible news. The lord’s daughter has been taken hostage! Kidnapped in daylight beneath the very noses of the courtyard knights!

  Those same knights had already scattered in all directions from the crossroads where Hawkwood and Katherine and a handful of travelers now stood, each knight engaged in useless pursuit of a powerful horse long since gone on roads that would carry no tracks.

  Hawkwood, however, had his head bent even lower now as he searched the hard ground of the well-traveled roads.

  “Stay with me,” he said softly, leading the horses. “We shall talk as we follow Thomas.”

  “Follow Thomas?” Katherine echoed with equal softness. “Half an army runs in circles of useless pursuit. If he has escaped them, most surely he has also escaped us.”

  Hawkwood laughed quietly. “Hardly, my child. Do you not remember the puppy he left behind with his secret treasure of books?”

  Of course. In the excitement of his escape, Katherine had allowed herself to forget that Thomas must soon return to the cave that held those books.

  “Yes,” she said quickly. “We shall find him there. We know he’ll have to get back to his books within several days. After all, regardless of his plans, he will not let the puppy die of starvation.”