The Red Fox Clan

by John Flanagan

  Then, holding the lantern high, she set out down the sloping, uneven path that led under the moat. Knowing what to expect this time, she was unfazed by the dripping water that ran down the tunnel walls as she passed beneath the moat.

  As before, she felt the tunnel angling upward as she passed beneath the moat and out onto dry ground once more. There were still bundles of roots hanging through the ceiling of the tunnel, and she used her saxe to clear them away. She’d almost certainly be passing through here again on subsequent nights, and she didn’t enjoy the sensation of having them suddenly loom out of the darkness and clutch at her face and hair.

  This time, with only dim starlight outside, she didn’t see the circle of light shining as she approached the end of the tunnel, and it came as something of a shock to reach the tangle of bushes at the exit. Realizing that her lantern would shine like a beacon in the dark, she quickly extinguished it before exiting the tunnel. She pushed the bushes back into place across the entrance, concealing it from outside view, then set off down the hill to the spot where she’d left Bumper.

  Conscious that there were lookouts posted on all the castle walls, she moved carefully, in a half crouch, making use of all available cover. She also kept her camouflaged cloak wrapped around herself and her cowl up.

  In the dim light—the moon was yet to rise—it was highly unlikely that anyone would notice the indistinct figure moving slowly and silently through the knee-high grass of the park. Still, she breathed a sigh of relief when she reached the tree line and disappeared into the concealing shadows there. She stood upright and made her way to the hidden glade where Bumper was waiting for her, his ears pricked. He had obviously heard her coming, but, as he had been trained to do, remained silent until she spoke first.

  “Pleased to see me?” she asked, rubbing his silky nose and handing him the carrot he knew she would be carrying. He nickered softly, then crunched the carrot contentedly. She glanced around the small clearing. Everything here seemed to be in order. His feed bag hung from a branch, and when she checked it, she saw it was still half full. The water bucket was nearly empty. She’d fill it when they returned. He could always make his own way to the small stream nearby, of course. But she preferred to leave water handy for him.

  Quickly, she saddled him and swung up into the saddle. Her bow was in its bow case, strapped to the saddle. She took it out to check that it was undamaged and the string was still firm, with no sign of dampness or unraveling. Satisfied that all was well, she slid it back into the bow case. Then, touching her heels lightly to Bumper’s sides, she set out down the twisting game trail for the abbey.

  She dismounted when they were twenty meters from the clearing where the abbey stood, and left Bumper behind as she crept silently forward through the trees.

  There was no sign of anyone in the clearing, and she turned her head this way and that, listening carefully for any sound, any hint that there were people inside the abbey.

  Nothing.

  She walked back to Bumper and held her finger to her lips, then pointed to the ground at his feet. The message was clear: Be silent and stay here. He tossed his head in acknowledgment, and she turned to creep back to the abbey.

  There was open ground for fifteen meters between the edge of the forest and the building. She felt an almost overwhelming temptation to cross it slowly and furtively, but that wouldn’t serve any purpose. Slow movement wouldn’t conceal her from any potential observer.

  Taking care to make no noise, she stepped lightly across the clear ground until she was beside the door. She noted that it was now closed, yet she remembered leaving it slightly open last time she had been here.

  Could have been the wind, she thought, but she doubted it. It was more likely that someone had closed the door behind them. And that meant that Warwick’s informant had been right. There had been people here recently.

  Question was, were any of them still here?

  Only one way to find out, she thought. Leaning forward, she pushed against the door with her left hand, her right hand touching the hilt of her saxe.

  The door gave easily. Someone had obviously oiled it. And that indicated that they planned to use the abbey again in the future. She let it swing open, hanging back and waiting to see if there was any reaction from inside.

  Again, nothing.

  Drawing her saxe, she stepped quickly through the door opening and moved to one side, out of the doorway. There was no sound from the abbey. No challenging voice. No urgent scuffling of feet as someone moved to take cover. She waited until her eyes were accustomed to the gloom and peered around, searching the interior in sections.

  There was no sign of anyone.

  Aware that she had been holding her breath, she let it out in a long sigh and re-sheathed her saxe.

  The old farmer who had reported seeing people here had said he had seen them around midnight, and Warwick’s previous observations agreed with that timing. That meant she had at least an hour to wait to see if anyone turned up. She moved down the body of the church and climbed the rickety stairs to the choir gallery. From there, she’d have a good view of the entire building and still be able to remain concealed.

  She settled down on the floor beside the front bench in the gallery, behind the solid timber balustrade, made herself as comfortable as possible, and settled in to wait. The moon had risen now and was shining at an oblique angle through the window set beside the gallery.

  * * *

  • • •

  She woke with a start, realizing that she must have dozed off. She looked at the window. There was no sign of the moon, yet she knew it had risen. She had been awake when that had happened, watching the pale silver light flood through the window across the interior of the old church. Cautiously, she raised her head, making sure the abbey was still deserted.

  “Fine Ranger you are,” she said, thinking of the scathing rebuke she would have received from Will for falling asleep on watch. On the wall opposite the gallery window was a high slit in the stonework—no more than an arrow slit, really. She looked at that now and could see the moon’s light sending a narrow, high-angled shaft across the building. The moon had risen, passed across the church and was now descending on the far side. She estimated that she had been asleep for at least two hours.

  At least she could be confident that there had been no sign of the Red Fox Clan while she had been asleep.

  “I’m not so dopey that I could sleep through the noise made by a whole bunch of people gathering there below me,” she said. But it was scant comfort. The unavoidable fact was, she had fallen asleep while she was supposed to be on watch.

  She rose now, stretching her cramped limbs. She had slept with her head at an angle, without any proper support, and her neck ached. She rolled her head and shoulders, trying to ease the stiffness, but without much success.

  She climbed down the ladder stairs to the floor of the abbey and headed for the door. She made one last inspection to make sure that the building had remained unoccupied and there was no sign that anyone else had been in here in the past few hours. Nothing seemed to have changed, and the rough sketch of the fox mask was still in place. She checked around the doorway, but there was no sign of the dust and dirt there having been disturbed, no sign of footprints anywhere.

  “Just as well for you,” she muttered. Even though she was sure there was nobody else around, she checked carefully before she left the abbey, then moved quickly across the open ground to the shelter of the trees, where Bumper waited patiently for her.

  Fell asleep, did you? he asked, and she wondered how he knew.

  “Just resting my eyes,” she said. “Just for a few minutes.”

  Ha! She knew she could never fool her horse, so she said nothing, resigned to letting him have the moral victory—yet again. She swung up into the saddle and turned his head for home. There was no point in waiting here any longer. All repor
ted sightings of activity at the abbey had taken place before midnight, and she judged it was well after that now.

  “We’ll just have to come back again tomorrow. And the night after that if necessary,” she told Bumper.

  So long as you get a good night’s sleep, he replied.

  She chose to ignore him.

  30

  For the next two nights, Maddie kept watch in the abbey, but with no result. There was no sign of the Red Fox Clan, no sign of any movement in the forest around the old abbey. No sign of anything.

  She wondered briefly if she should tell Cassandra of her suspicions, but decided against it. Not yet, anyway.

  She wasn’t completely sure why she didn’t want to tell Cassandra. Possibly, she realized, her mother would quiz her about how she was leaving the castle at night without being seen or challenged by the sentries. And that would lead to her revealing the existence of the tunnel under the moat, which her mother would want to examine and, being a mother, would probably put off-limits. Besides, once Cassandra knew about the tunnel and explored it, it was inevitable that others would learn of its existence, and Maddie wasn’t ready for that to happen yet.

  Additionally, she had in mind an incident that had taken place eighteen months previously. She had been convinced that she had stumbled upon a robber’s lair in the forest close to Redmont. But when she had sounded the alarm and led a patrol of the castle guard to the spot, the robbers had turned out to be innocent tinkers. She didn’t want to risk the same embarrassment this time. She was determined to make sure of her facts before she involved other people.

  It would be better to have something definite to report.

  On the fourth night, Maddie waited in her room until the castle had settled for the night. It took a little longer than usual. For a start, Cassandra had wanted to talk when they were having their usual after-dinner coffee together. Then, for some reason, there was a lot of movement in the castle, with a lot of people on the stairs and in the public rooms. Once things had calmed down, she crept quietly into the cellar and made her way through the tunnel again.

  * * *

  • • •

  You’re late. Bumper’s tone was mildly accusatory as she made her way into the little clearing where he waited for her.

  “I dozed off,” she explained. “It’s fine for you—you can sleep all day if you want to.”

  Sleep is overrated, Bumper told her. It occurred to her that he found quite a few things overrated.

  “Only for those who can sleep all day,” she replied. She saddled him quickly and mounted, moving off through the trees at a brisk trot to make up lost time. They were familiar with the track now and could move more freely. They reached the abbey and she dismounted, leaving Bumper in the trees. There was no need to instruct him to wait now. He knew the routine.

  Take care. He sensed that she was becoming accustomed to having nothing happen at the abbey. That could lead to inattention.

  “I will,” she replied, and ghosted through the trees to the edge of the clearing where the old stone church stood. As before, she stopped and listened before gliding silently across to the entrance. The previous night, she had placed a leaf in the doorjamb as she closed it. It was still in place, telling her that nobody had entered the abbey in her absence. She opened the door and slipped inside.

  She didn’t need to pause to let her eyes accustom themselves to the dimness now. The interior of the building was familiar to her, and she made her way quickly to the stairs up to the gallery.

  As she had done on the previous three nights, she sank to the floor in front of the first pew, concealed from the body of the church by the solid oak balustrade at the front of the gallery. Previously, she had pierced a hole in the paneling with the point of her saxe. This gave her a way of viewing what was going on in the church without revealing herself.

  She settled herself, finding an uncomfortable position where the arm of the pew dug into her back. She had discovered that this kept her awake as she sat, unmoving, for several hours each night. She checked the moon position. It was considerably higher tonight than it had been originally, shining down through the gallery window at a steep angle. It wouldn’t be long before it passed over the building and shone down through the—

  Below her, she heard the door ease open. Someone was here.

  31

  Instinctively, even though she knew she was concealed from anyone in the body of the church, Maddie shrank down even lower behind the wooden balustrade. She could make out a number of voices, talking in low, conversational tones. And she could hear the shuffle of multiple feet on the floor of the abbey below.

  Cautiously, she placed her eye to the small hole she had drilled in the wooden board that formed the front of the balustrade. She had to move her head to find the optimum viewing position, but once she did that, she could see that the church was beginning to fill with people.

  They shuffled in—fifteen to twenty of them, she estimated—and took their places in the front four rows of pews, before the old wooden pulpit where the abbot would have read their sacred lessons to them when the abbey was a functioning church. The last three rows of pews were left empty, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She had experienced a sudden jolt of panic as she wondered if this mysterious congregation might decide to occupy the gallery as well as the main church itself. That, she thought, would have been awkward in the extreme.

  The mumble of conversation continued, although she couldn’t distinguish any individual remarks. Chances were, it was mere inconsequential chatter. Occasionally, she heard suppressed laughter, which seemed to bear out the theory that the speakers were merely catching up on events with each other.

  Her eye, glued to the spyhole, was beginning to water as she strained to see beyond its limitations and get a better sight of the people below her. She leaned back, rubbing it with the back of her hand, and blinking several times to clear it. Then she leaned into the spyhole once more, choosing a different angle so she could see more.

  She started as a sudden flare flashed below her. Switching her angle, she looked to where one of the people had struck a flint on steel, sending sparks into a small pile of tinder. As she watched, he blew, and a tiny tongue of yellow flame blossomed. It grew larger as more of the fuel was lit. Eventually, the small flame was held to the oil-soaked body of a torch. There were a few seconds where nothing seemed to happen, and then the flames took hold on the torch, feeding on the oil. A yellow light filled the abbey, and there was a murmur of satisfaction from those around the torchbearer.

  Several other men, all holding torches, crowded close and lit them from the first flaming brand. The light inside the abbey grew stronger, and shadows leapt grotesquely across the walls. Now she could get a clearer view of the people who had entered.

  They were all male—or at least, all the ones she could see were. They were dressed in everyday clothing—breeches, jerkins and cloaks. And they were all armed, with a variety of swords, long knives, axes and spears.

  On their heads, they wore strange caps, and it took her a few minutes to realize that they were made from fox fur—more correctly, from the masks of foxes.

  The eyeholes were dark and empty, but the ears and snouts were still in place, sitting on top of the wearers’ heads. From above, they appeared like a small troop of foxes bobbing around below her. The overall effect was a little grotesque, and she shivered.

  She was now in no doubt that she had infiltrated a meeting of the mysterious Red Fox Clan.

  The door, which the last person to enter had closed to seal out the cold wind, was suddenly pushed open and the subdued chatter of voices died away, leaving an expectant silence. She heard the firm strike of heels on the hard flagstones as someone entered. She shifted her head this way and that, trying to get a clear view of the doorway and the new arrival. But her limited field of vision through the spyhole didn’t allow it.

 
Finally, deciding to take the risk, and reasoning that the upper level of the abbey was in relative darkness compared with the torchlight below, she raised her head above the level of the balustrade for a brief glance.

  A tall figure, clad in a full-length, fur-lined red cloak, was striding to the lectern in front of the assembled group. His face was concealed in the shadow cast by his cowl so she couldn’t make out his features. But there was something vaguely familiar about him—about the way he moved and stood. Will had taught her to pay attention to body language and the way a person held himself.

  It’s the hardest thing to disguise, he had told her. You can change your features and your clothing. But the way you move will all too often give you away. To this end, he had instructed her in small subterfuges, like putting a pebble in one shoe, or building up the heel of one boot to alter her gait when she moved. Or of intentionally holding her shoulders and head at an angle different from the norm.

  You have to be particularly aware of this, he had told her. You have that slight stiffness in your hip that defines the way you move or stand.

  So she watched the newcomer carefully. There was definitely something familiar about him, she thought. He moved with an easy, athletic grace. He was obviously a warrior—she could see the long sword in a scabbard at his left side. The hilt was visible, projecting forward from beneath the cloak. And the tail of the cloak was held up at one point, where it draped over the end of the scabbard.

  She lowered herself slowly back behind the balustrade—any sudden movement might draw his attention. He was almost directly in front of her now, and she could see him easily through the spyhole. He stood behind the lectern. Slight movements of the cowl showed that he was scanning the assembled audience from side to side. After a minute or so, he made a discreet hand gesture toward someone in the church, obviously signaling them to open proceedings.