“Where are the Foxes?” Horace asked.
Since early that morning, following a tip-off from a village they had passed through, they had been shadowing a small group of members of the Red Fox Clan. There were half a dozen of them, and they had been moving at a brisk pace through the wooded country, consistently heading north.
“Must be going somewhere,” Gilan had noted.
Horace had grunted assent. Obviously, the Foxes were going somewhere, he’d thought. But he realized that Gilan had meant they had a definite destination in mind. In spite of the vagaries of the tracks through the forest they had been following, they had maintained a base course that traveled consistently north. Now the broad, deep waters of the Wezel prohibited any further progress in that direction. The Foxes must have turned either east or west, and presumably the two scouts had waited to apprise Horace and Gilan of their quarries’ new course.
The senior of the two scouts, who wore corporal’s rank insignia on the chest of his jerkin, saluted briskly. Horace nodded acknowledgment and briefly touched his forehead with his forefinger. He wasn’t much for parade ground drill, Gilan noted with a private smile.
“Sir,” said the corporal briskly, “we followed them here, to the river’s edge. Then they turned east, following the bank.” He indicated the direction they had taken with a pointing arm.
“Do they know you were following them?” Horace asked.
The corporal hesitated. “Hard to tell, sir,” he said. “They didn’t seem to know we were behind them. We stayed well back. Of course,” he added, “it was easier to stay concealed when we were in the trees. They could have spotted us when we reached this open ground.”
Horace considered the man’s answer for a few seconds. Short of having the six Fox members spur off at full gallop, there was no way of ascertaining whether they had spotted their followers.
“Hmm,” he said. “How long since they reached this point?”
The two scouts exchanged a glance, and then the corporal replied. “Half an hour, sir. Twenty minutes at least.” He looked back at his companion again. “Would you say so, Ned?”
The second trooper nodded. “Twenty minutes, at least, sir.”
Horace glanced to the east, in the direction the small party had gone, and came to a decision. “Very well, get back on their tail,” he said. “Stay well back.” He indicated the tree line several hundred meters away. “You can stay back in the trees.”
“Yes, sir,” the corporal replied.
Horace continued with his orders. “We’ll take a ten-minute break here and follow on after you. If there’s anything to report, or if they change direction again, one of you ride back to tell us.”
“Yes, sir!” the troopers chorused.
Horace waved them away. “Right. Get moving. But be careful. Odds are they’re heading for some meeting point or rendezvous, and we don’t want to frighten them off.”
The two troopers cantered slowly away, their horses’ hooves thudding dully on the soft grass. Horace turned in his saddle, whistled, and then waved for the rest of the party to join them. Gilan unhooked his canteen from the saddlebow in front of him and took a long drink.
“Might as well stretch our legs,” Horace told him. Then, as the troop arrived, with the archers straggling loosely behind, he addressed the lieutenant. “Ten minutes, Burton,” he told him. “Let the men dismount and loosen saddle girths. Check the horses for any signs of lameness or galling.”
The lieutenant nodded, then turned and issued his orders to the troop. The cavalrymen swung down from their saddles and began to check their mounts. It was standard procedure to make sure the horses were in good shape before they attended to their own needs. Each man was leading a spare horse and they were checked as well—although without being burdened by a saddle or a rider, there was little chance that they would need any form of treatment.
As before, the archers simply sprawled on the grass where they stood. There were, after all, some advantages to traveling on foot.
Horace grinned at them. “Undisciplined lot they are,” he said.
Gilan followed his gaze and replied seriously. “Maybe. But they’re good men in a battle.”
“Let’s hope so,” the tall knight replied. “We might need them before long.”
* * *
• • •
After the ten-minute break was over—measured by the troop sergeant with a small sandglass—the men tightened their saddle girth straps and remounted. Grumbling, the archers came to their feet and stood ready in a loose formation. Horace raised his right hand to shoulder height, then lowered it in the direction he wanted them to travel.
“Move them out, Lieutenant,” he said, and once again the little force was on the move.
They traveled for another hour, walking the horses so that the archers could keep up. There were no complaints from the bowmen. They were used to going on foot. Their feet and leg muscles were hardened to the task, and they managed a brisk pace that kept them level with the horsemen.
They paralleled the riverbank. As Gilan and Horace had predicted back at Castle Araluen, it formed an effective barrier, keeping the party ahead of them from crossing.
Gilan held up a hand and the column stopped.
“What is it?” said Horace. Then he saw for himself as his eyes followed Gilan’s outstretched arm. The two scouts were reined in on the bank of the river, waiting for them. They were about three hundred meters ahead.
“You’ve got sharp eyes,” he told the Ranger Commandant.
“Something’s happened. Wonder why one of them didn’t ride back to warn us,” said Gilan. The reason soon became apparent as they spurred their horses to join the scouts.
“They got away, sir,” the corporal said apologetically.
Horace’s brows drew together in annoyance. “Got away? How? I told you to stay back out of sight, didn’t I?”
“And we did, sir. But I think they’ve been on to us the whole time, only they never let on. There was a boat waiting for them here.” He indicated a shallow sandy beach at the river’s edge. “Took them on board and rowed them across the river. We couldn’t do anything about it, sir. We were staying back and they’d got on board before we knew what was happening.”
Horace let his breath out in an exasperated sigh. “Can’t be helped, Corporal,” he said. “Not your fault. As you say, it seems they’ve been on to us the whole time.”
He twisted in his saddle. “Lieutenant!” he called, beckoning for the officer to join them. As the man rode up, Horace indicated the cavalrymen.
“Any of your men raised in these parts?” he asked. “I’d like to know if there’s a ford anywhere close by.”
The lieutenant looked doubtful. “Not sure, sir. Most of them came from the south originally. But I’ll ask around.”
“No need,” Gilan said. “One of the archers grew up here. Used to be a poacher before he signed up with the archers. He should know the area.” He raised his voice. “Archer Ellis! Come here, please!”
Ellis, a nuggety man in his mid-thirties, heaved himself to his feet. Like the others, he had taken the opportunity to sprawl on the grass by the riverbank. He hurried forward now. Gilan noted approvingly that he brought his longbow with him. No archer worth his salt would ever leave it behind when on campaign.
Ellis saluted, touching the knuckles of his right hand to his forehead.
“Yes, Ranger!” he said smartly. Gilan commanded the respect of the archers. As a Ranger, Gilan’s skill with the bow was far superior to their own, and they recognized the fact.
“You were raised around here, weren’t you? Used to be a poacher, I’m told?” Gilan said.
Instantly, Ellis assumed a look of shocked innocence. “Me, sir? A poacher, sir? Nay, I never touched one of the King’s animals. It’s a wicked lie folks tell about me, it is.”
Gilan said nothing, simply stared down at the man with a look of utter disbelief on his face.
Ellis shifted his feet uncomfortably, then eventually admitted, “Well, maybe once . . . twice even. I might have accidentally shot a rabbit or a hare. Accidentally, I say. And once it was shot, weren’t no sense to leaving it lying around, were there?”
“Oh, get over yourself, Ellis. I don’t care if you shot half a hundred deer while you were at it. The question is, how well do you know this area?”
Ellis glanced around, as if seeing the river, the grassy plain and the forest for the first time. “Why, like the back of my hand, sir,” he said, relieved that the question of his former illegal activities was not Gilan’s main interest.
“So are there any fords close by?” Gilan asked.
Ellis pursed his lips, considering. “Not particularly close, sir. Nearest is a good two kilometers from here. And it’s a difficult crossing, sir.”
“How’s that?” Horace interposed.
Ellis turned his gaze to the tall warrior. “It’s fast running, sir—like the rest of the river—and it’s quite deep. Maybe chest high.” He indicated with his right hand a point just below the collar of his jerkin. “Man can get swept off his feet easy as blinking,” he added.
“But if you could hold on to one of the horses while you crossed, would that be easier?” Horace said.
Ellis considered his answer for a few seconds, then grinned. “Yes. Be easy as pie then, I’d say.” If the horse were upstream, it would break the force of the current. And it would provide a stable handhold for a man crossing beside it.
“Good,” said Horace. He nodded his thanks to Ellis. “Well, I suggest you lead the way to this ford of yours. We need to get across the river and pick up the trail of those Foxes again.” He looked at Gilan. “I trust you’ll be able to manage that?”
Gilan shrugged. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”
Behind them, the cavalry lieutenant coughed discreetly. “Sir Horace?”
They turned to look at him. He was pointing to the tree line, several hundred meters distant. Armed men were emerging from the trees and forming up in three ranks. A lot of armed men.
“I think we’re in trouble,” Horace said.
15
For a few seconds, Maddie was tempted to throw off her bedclothes and hurry to the lower cellar. Then she reconsidered.
It was cold. It would be colder still below ground level. And it would be dark and difficult to see anything. Furthermore, if she went exploring down there now, she was liable to disturb the night watch and cause an alarm. Questions would be asked about what she was doing, and she preferred not to have to answer them. She pulled the blankets back round her chin.
“It’ll still be there tomorrow,” she said, yawning, and settled back under the blankets.
She ate breakfast hurriedly the next morning. There were only a few others in the buttery, members of the castle staff who were either coming on or going off duty. She was grateful there was nobody there with whom she needed to talk. Her head was too full of the possibilities in the lower cellar, and she would have been a poor conversationalist. Her mother was a habitual early riser, she knew, but she was probably having her breakfast in her room or in her office.
Maddie didn’t quite understand why she was so intent on not discussing the possible existence of a secret tunnel or a concealed stairway with anyone. Maybe it was because she felt that the tunnels and stairways, if they were there, had been kept secret for a reason. Even Uldred’s attitude seemed to indicate that he didn’t really believe they existed—that they were more the subject of myth.
Or perhaps it was her training as a Ranger that made her reluctant to discuss the matter. Rangers were notoriously secretive and closemouthed. They liked to possess knowledge that others didn’t, to be aware of matters that others weren’t. You never knew, after all, when such knowledge might give you an advantage.
From habit born at the little cabin in Redmont Fief, she took her dishes to the kitchen, rinsed them in the big sink and stacked them to be washed. The scullery maid looked at her in surprise. She wasn’t used to members of the nobility doing menial work.
“Thank you, my lady,” she said, but Maddie barely heard her, her mind intent on what she was about to do.
She found a lantern in a store cupboard, ascertained that the reservoir was full of oil and headed for the stairs down to the cellar. She checked that she had her saxe in a scabbard and her sling rolled up and tucked beneath her belt. A pouch of shot for the sling weighed heavily on her left hip. She didn’t think she’d need weapons, but you never knew.
Once again, there was nobody in the upper cellar, and she was glad to see it. The housekeeping staff had renewed the torches and lanterns and gone on to their next task. The same held true for the lower cellar. She walked up to one of the torches set in a bracket on the wall. She had noticed the previous day that a supply of waxed tapers was kept close to hand, presumably for lighting the central lamps. She raised the glass in her own lantern now, wound the wick up a centimeter or so, and lit a taper from the torch, carrying the tiny flame to the wick.
Soaked with oil from the reservoir, it flared up immediately in a bright yellow flame, tinged with black smoke at the top. She lowered the wick so that it was burning more cleanly, and the black smoke disappeared. Then she closed the glass front of the lantern. The light, reflected from the polished metal disk behind the wick, shone out strongly, throwing a pool of light ahead of her. She took the lantern and moved to the end wall, crouching to look at the words scratched into the stone there.
Sinister. Sinister. Sinister.
“Left, left, left,” she muttered to herself. “Or three left. Or left three.” She tried variations to see if they made more sense. “Left three,” she decided, after a moment’s thought. She placed her hand on the inscribed stone, then counted three stones to the left, touching each with her forefinger.
There was absolutely nothing remarkable about the stone she was now touching. It was identical in every way with its neighbors. She pushed it experimentally, placing the flat of her hand in the middle of its rough surface.
Nothing.
She tried pushing on the edge of the stone, searching for any slight movement there. In keeping with the instructions so far, she pressed the left-hand side first. Then the right.
Again, nothing.
She tried pushing the top and bottom, with no result. Then she wedged her fingers in the shallow gap between the stone and the next in line and tried pulling the top. Then the bottom.
Nothing budged.
She sat back on her haunches, thinking. As she often did in such a situation, she spoke her thoughts aloud.
“Left, left, left,” she said softly. “What else can it mean?”
Of course, she realized, it could mean any stone in the row that was third from the corner. She let her gaze run up the row, seeking any sign of a crack or a fault in the mortar. But there was nothing. She’d try the others in that row in a minute. But for now, there was another possible interpretation.
“Maybe it means three left from the first stone, not the corner itself,” she said. That would make it the fourth stone in the row. She moved her attention one more stone to the left, bringing the lantern close to study the seams, the mortar and the stone itself.
She pushed on the middle of the stone. Nothing happened.
“Solid as a rock,” she murmured.
She was going through the motions now, dispirited and more than half convinced that she had misinterpreted the meaning of the three words gouged into the rock. She pressed halfheartedly against the left-hand side of the stone.
There was a resounding metallic CLACK! from inside the wall and a section three stones wide, with the keystone in the center, swung smoothly out from the wall, traveling a distance of half a meter before stopping. She inserted her finge
rs in the wide gap at the left-hand edge and heaved. The door, one and a half meters high by a meter wide, swung easily, pivoting on a central hinge and revealing a dark cavity behind it.
She rose to a crouch and, holding out the lantern so it began to illuminate the dark space behind the door, peered in round the edge that now stood out from the wall.
She could see stone walls inside—in a space about three meters by three meters. Gingerly, she turned sideways and squeezed through the opening, holding the lantern up to let its light fill the space and dispel the shadows.
The walls were rough-hewn stone, not dressed and trimmed like the outside. The ceiling was more roughly worked rock, and there was barely room for her to stand erect under it. The small room was littered with cobwebs.
The floor was dirt—dry clay, she thought, studying it more closely. It was rough and uneven underfoot as she moved a few paces into the cavity.
The wall behind her, through which she’d just passed, was to the north. In each of the three walls that faced her, she could see the dark outline of an entrance—or an exit. One east. One west. One south. She went to the western exit and held the lamp inside at arm’s length.
There was a narrow tunnel there, barely a meter wide, leading off in a straight line and descending gradually downhill. She frowned, orienting herself. The moat lay in that direction, she realized. The moat and the outer walls. She felt a surge of excitement, and her breath came faster as her heart rate accelerated.
Duncan said that his ancestor had used a tunnel to pass in and out of the castle without anyone seeing him. Could this be that tunnel?
Holding the lantern high, she took a step into the tunnel. Tiny feet skittered and pattered somewhere in the darkness. Rats, she thought. Their presence didn’t bother her unduly. She had a saxe and a lantern, and chances were they’d stay away from the light.
She took another pace, then hesitated, realizing she’d left the concealed door wide-open behind her. If anyone came down to the cellar, they’d see it, and the secret would be out. She retraced her steps hurriedly and pushed against the inner edge of the door, so that it pivoted shut with that same loud CLACK.
The Red Fox Clan Page 11