Then she went back to counting the paces as she jogged through the trees. She might arrive too late. But she had to try.
* * *
• • •
Cassandra was training with Maikeru. It was the first time in days she had had the time to work on her swordsmanship, and she was enjoying the physical and mental exertion that it required. She had sent a servant to look for Dimon and to ask him to join her, but the man returned saying the guard commander was nowhere to be found in the castle.
“That’s odd,” she mused. “I wonder where he’s got to?” Then she dismissed the question. With a reduced garrison, Dimon was kept busy organizing the watch and the daily routine of the soldiers under his command. She couldn’t expect him to be available to drop everything and attend to her when it suited her.
Maikeru’s wooden practice sword tapped her painfully on the shoulder.
“Pay attention to your drills,” he rebuked her. “A wandering mind is dangerous. You must concentrate. Now begin again.”
She rubbed her shoulder and bowed in apology for her distraction. Then she assumed her fighting stance and advanced on him, striking left and right in a sequence of high, low, low, high attacks. Then, after the final high, she smoothly reversed the sword and leapt forward, stepping with her right foot and following up in a one-handed thrust.
Maikeru’s sword just managed to deflect the point of hers at the last moment. He stepped back, indicating the sequence was over, and lowered his sword. He nodded approvingly.
“That was good, my lady,” he said gravely. “You have eliminated the movement that warns you are going to thrust. I take it you have been practicing in private.”
“You still managed to parry it,” she said, slightly aggrieved.
His lips moved in a thin smile. “I have been a student of the katana for over forty years, my lady,” he said. “Your strike would have succeeded with most opponents.”
She grunted. She knew he was right, but she had a competitive personality. Just once, she wanted to best her mentor in a mock duel. Then she laughed at herself, knowing “just once” wouldn’t be enough. If she managed it once, she would want to do it again and again.
She stripped off her gloves reluctantly. She had enjoyed the workout but knew she couldn’t stay away from her desk any longer. She felt the floorboards trembling slightly beneath her feet and was aware of a low background rumble that told her the massive gears controlling the drawbridge had been disengaged and the bridge was coming down. That reinforced her decision to get back to work.
“Must be past the eighth hour,” she said. “It’s high time I was at my desk.”
Maikeru eyed her thoughtfully. “You work too hard, my lady,” he said. She looked tired, he thought, and he could see a few gray wisps in her blond hair.
She laughed. “The work doesn’t do itself.”
Maikeru took both practice swords and returned them to the rack along the wall. Then he gathered up the padded vests and gauntlets they had worn for the session. “There’s been no word from the north?”
She shook her head. “Nothing so far,” she said. “We all assumed they’d be back within a few days. Obviously, it’s taking longer than we expected.”
The door to the practice hall opened and a young page entered, looking nervous in the presence of the Princess Regent and her inscrutable instructor. The castle staff told wildly imaginative tales among themselves about the unsmiling Nihon-Jan warrior and his uncanny skill with the katana. Not all of them were inaccurate.
“What is it, Richard?” Cassandra asked, smiling to put him at ease.
“My lady,” he said, addressing her but with his eyes constantly flicking to glance at Maikeru, as if expecting him to perform some amazing feat of swordsmanship while he watched. “The sergeant says to tell you there are men approaching the castle.”
“Men?” Cassandra asked, instantly on the alert. “Are we under attack?”
Richard smiled reassuringly. “No, no, my lady. My apologies for alarming you. They’re castle garrison troops.”
Cassandra’s face lit up. She looked at Maikeru. “It’s Horace and Gilan,” she said happily. “They’re back!”
But again Richard demurred, his face thoughtful. “I don’t think so, my lady,” he said, and he was sorry to see her face fall, the glad expression extinguished. “They’re coming from the south. Captain Dimon is leading them,” he added, by way of further explanation.
“Dimon?” she said, puzzled. “Why would he take men to the south?”
Richard shrugged. He had no answer for that, and she realized that there was no reason why he would have. He was just a page delivering a message, after all.
“I’ll come and take a look myself,” she said.
He stepped aside as she swept past him, Maikeru following close behind her, his soft-shod feet making no more than a whispering noise on the flagstones. Richard, a little peeved that he couldn’t answer her question, tagged along behind.
They crossed the courtyard that stood between the keep and the outer wall, quickly mounting the stairs that led to the battlements. Cassandra ran up the stone steps to a vantage point above the drawbridge. Hearing her coming, the sergeant in charge turned to greet her, then pointed an arm to the forest south of the castle.
“There, my lady,” he said.
She moved to a gap in the battlements and peered downhill. There was a relatively large body of men marching up through the park toward the castle. They were all dressed in the distinctive Araluen livery—a red surcoat over chain mail, and a polished cone-shaped helmet with a mail aventail hanging from the back to protect the wearer’s neck.
They carried shields, painted red with a yellow X superimposed, and the morning sun glittered off the points of their long spears. A mounted officer led them, and although it was too far to distinguish his features, she thought she recognized Dimon. It was certainly his chestnut horse that the rider was mounted on, and his shield carried Dimon’s distinctive owl’s head symbol.
“They look like our men,” she said. “But where did they come from?”
She looked quickly around. She could see half a dozen troops on the battlement catwalk and another three in the courtyard below. Nine men. There would be another half dozen in the barracks, having come off duty from the night watch.
All in all, she had been left with twenty-five men to hold the castle—not a lot, but sufficient, considering the strength of the walls and the castle’s defenses. Now she could see nearly thirty men marching toward the drawbridge. Where had they come from? And why was Dimon leading them?
If it were, in fact, Dimon. Anyone could carry a shield with his symbol on it, and the horse, although it looked like his, could well be any chestnut. She hesitated, suspicion growing in her mind. She looked at the sergeant, but this sort of situation was above his level of competence. He was essentially a man who followed orders. Maikeru was a different matter. He had a cool, analytical mind, and he wasn’t a person who saw what he expected to see.
“Maikeru, what do you think?” she asked.
The old Swordmaster had been expecting the question. “We don’t have that many men,” he replied. “And that may or may not be Dimon-san leading them.”
The sergeant looked at the two of them, alarm evident on his face. He had simply assumed that the men approaching were bona fide troops belonging to the castle.
“My lady?” he said uncertainly. “What do you want me to do?”
Cassandra came to a decision. “Raise the drawbridge,” she ordered. “If we’re wrong, we can let them in later.”
But it was already too late. The rider leading the group had spurred on ahead and was nearly at the bridge. The sentries there stepped out to stop him, then hesitated as they recognized him.
The hesitation was fatal. The rider drew his sword and cut left and right, killing them where
they stood. Then he galloped across into the gatehouse—a massive, fortlike building that housed the drawbridge and portcullis mechanisms. Behind him, the marching body of men broke into a run, following him across the bridge. Any minute, they’d be pouring into the courtyard.
Cassandra turned to the sergeant. “Sound the alarm! Send word for the men in the barracks, and get all our men into the keep!” she ordered, and headed for the stairs at a run, shouting to the men in the courtyard to form up on her.
The sergeant hesitated, not sure what to do. Maikeru stepped close to him.
“Do as she says!” he ordered. “We’re under attack.”
36
Cassandra ran across the courtyard to the keep. Standing to one side of the door, she ushered her men inside the large building, casting anxious glances at the massive gatehouse. She could hear the sound of fighting there. Half a dozen of her troops had been inside to tend to the drawbridge and portcullis. Now they were fighting for their lives, desperately holding off the invaders who were swarming across the bridge and into the gatehouse.
There could be only one ending to that fight. The defenders were hopelessly outnumbered, and now they had been stripped of their greatest defense—the protection afforded by Castle Araluen’s impregnable walls.
But their desperate delaying action might buy time for Cassandra and the rest of the depleted garrison to make it to safety. The troops in the barracks, warned by the clanging of the alarm bell, were streaming across the courtyard to join them. Seeing the last of her men go through into the keep, Cassandra followed them, slamming the door shut behind her and signaling for the locking bar to be set in place.
The sergeant and another soldier heaved the massive oak bar into its brackets, securing the door. That would keep out the attackers for some minutes, until they could organize a battering ram and shatter the bar, then smash the door down. The keep was the castle’s administration and accommodation center. It wasn’t designed to be a defensive position in the event that an enemy had breached the walls. That was the south tower’s purpose.
She pointed to two of the garrison soldiers, who were looking confused and alarmed at the events that were taking place.
“You two,” she ordered, and they snapped to attention. “Get my father from his room and take him to the south tower. Right away!”
“Yes, my lady!” the two men responded. Now that they had been given a definite task to carry out, they lost their uncertain looks and ran for the stairs. Duncan was in a room on the fourth floor. From there, they would take him across the arched stone bridge to the south tower, and then up into the tower’s higher reaches.
A few of the remaining servants had joined them, standing uncertainly, wondering what was going on. Among them, Cassandra saw Ingrid, Maddie’s maidservant. She beckoned her over.
“Fetch my daughter!” she said.
But Ingrid was shaking her head, a worried look on her face. “I’ve just been to her room, my lady,” she said. “But she isn’t there. There was a bolster under her blankets to look as if she was in her bed. I think she may have been patrolling outside the castle again.”
Ingrid was one of the few who knew Maddie’s true identity as a Ranger, and she was aware that she had been leaving the castle at night, although she wasn’t sure why. Nor did she know how Maddie left the castle and reentered. As her maid, it wasn’t her place to question her mistress, and she knew that Maddie was skilled at moving from place to place without anyone seeing her do so.
Cassandra hesitated, torn with anxiety. Then she realized that if Maddie weren’t in the castle, she was relatively safe, at least for the meantime. She came to a decision.
“Join the others and head for the fourth floor. We’re withdrawing into the south tower,” she said. Ingrid nodded and hurried away, her concern for her mistress still evident on her face.
Cassandra heard men shouting and hammering on the barred door, trying to break through. But for the moment, they had only hand weapons—battleaxes and swords—and they would be next to useless against the ironbound oak planks. She knew, however, that it wouldn’t take them long to find something heavy to use as a battering ram, and then it would be a different story.
Even as she had that thought, she heard a voice shouting outside the door.
“You four men!” Dimon said. “Grab that bench and bring it here. We’re going to have to knock this door down.” Outside, against the wall, was a heavy oak bench, Cassandra recalled. It would serve quite well as an improvised ram. The clattering of axes and swords and fists against the door ceased. A few minutes later, she heard footsteps approaching the door at a slow run. Then something heavy slammed against the door, and it shuddered under the impact. Plaster and paint flew from the arch above the doorway. She heard Dimon again.
“Ready? One, two, three!”
SLAM! There was another massive impact against the door. More plaster and dirt fell from the lintel. This time, she was sure she saw one of the big iron hinges move a centimeter or two as the bench struck the door.
She felt a hand touch her sleeve. Maikeru.
“My lady, we should be going. That door won’t last long.”
She realized she had become fixated on the door as the men outside pounded on it.
Maikeru was right. It wouldn’t last much longer.
SLAM!
Another thundering impact. And again, the hinge moved. She saw cracks forming in the stonework where bolts secured the hinge to the doorjamb. It was weakening fast. There were three other hinges and so far none of them had moved. But once the first one gave way, the others wouldn’t be far behind.
She turned and took a quick count of the men who had made it into the keep with her. There were over a dozen of them, waiting for her next orders. She pointed to the stairs.
“Fourth floor!” she shouted. “Then across to the south tower!”
SLAM!
Again, the bench hit the door, the sound of the impact echoing through the vast entry hall of the keep. Waiting no longer, she led the rush toward the broad staircase leading to the next level. Here in the keep, the stairways weren’t designed for defense. They were broad and accessible and set in the center of each floor. Once they reached the south tower, they would be ascending the spiral staircase set in the southeast corner, with removable sections designed to delay pursuers.
As they went up the successive flights, the sound of the bench hitting the door faded. But they could still hear it as they reached the fourth floor. And now there was a new quality to it—a splintering sound that told her the door was giving way.
“Keep going!” she shouted to the men following her, pointing the way toward the arched bridge that led to the south tower. She made sure they were following her order, then detoured to her own apartments, where she gathered up a few pieces of clothing, cramming them into a bag, and her katana. She slid the sword, in its lacquered wood scabbard, through her belt so that the long hilt stood ready to her right hand. Her sling was on her desk, coiled neatly. She slipped it under her belt, on the side opposite her sword. There was a chamois pouch of lead shot on the desk as well, and she slung it quickly over her shoulder. She took a quick final look around her apartment. There were just too many possessions in here, and not enough time to choose between them. In the end, she left them and hurried toward the door that led to the bridge. Maikeru and the sergeant from the battlements were both waiting there for her. Maikeru was as inscrutable as ever. The sergeant was nervous—worried for her welfare, she realized. She gestured for him to lead the way across the bridge, and he turned, albeit reluctantly, and headed for the south tower.
She gave Maikeru a wan little smile. “After you, Sensei,” she said, using the Nihon-Jan word for teacher.
He shook his head. “You first, my lady. Emperor Shigeru charged me with your safety.”
She was about to reply when another voice interrupted th
em, shouting from the top of the stairs leading from the floor below.
“Cassandra! Stop there!”
She turned and looked back, and her heart sank as she saw that it was Dimon, bloodstained sword in hand and blood staining his doublet, ascending the last few stairs to the fourth-floor level. She had clung to the hope that it had been an impostor she had seen riding across the drawbridge, that her loyal retainer and captain of the guard had not betrayed her. Now she saw that hope dashed.
Maikeru moved to interpose himself between her and the traitor now. His katana slid from its scabbard with a whisper of steel and wood.
She drew her own sword and stepped to one side so she could see Dimon clearly. He stopped five meters away, wary of the old Nihon-Jan Swordmaster. He glanced behind him to where two of his men were emerging from the stairway.
“Dimon,” she said in a stricken voice, “what are you doing? Why are you doing this?”
His eyes were cold. “Because the throne is mine by right,” he said angrily. “For years your family has denied me my birthright, changing the law so that a woman could inherit the crown. I’ve been pushed aside. And since I’ve been here, I’ve been forced to bend the knee to you, to smile and pretend everything is fine. Yes, my lady. No, my lady. Is there anything I can do for you, my lady? Well, everything isn’t fine! I’m sick of bowing and scraping to you and your daughter. My legitimate claim to the throne has been ignored, pushed aside, trampled on.”
“Your legitimate claim? You have no legitimate claim. I’m the heir and Maddie will be my heir in turn.”
“I am the only male member of the royal family! And that means I’m the only legitimate heir!” he shouted at her, years of anger and frustration suddenly bursting loose. “I may be a distant relative, but I am a relative. And the only male one! Our ancient law says that I should be the one to inherit the crown.”
The Red Fox Clan Page 25