The Orphan King (Merlin's Immortals)

by Brouwer, Sigmund

  So, bandit by bandit, Thomas had taken a pinch of powder and blown it in their faces as they were helpless on the ground, fearing the sword of William. The results had been as predictable as they were devastating, and the four of them had left the bandits retching and screaming in agony along the road, knowing it would be a good hour before they recovered.

  “The last of it?” the knight asked. “Certainly it’s an herbal powder that we can gather from a local plant.”

  Thomas grunted again.

  “Ah, so that’s not possible,” the knight said. “Where did you get it then?”

  “Someday, perhaps,” Thomas said, “I can reveal the answer to you, but for now, I’ll simply ask you to trust me.” He paused. “In the same way, William, that I’ve learned to trust you.”

  The wind, as it always did on the moors, blew strong. Above them, blue sky was patched with high clouds. William led the way along a narrow path cutting through the low clumps of heather. They traveled across the tops of the moors. The valleys below offered too much cover for bandits waiting in ambush.

  Behind the knight, Thomas and Tiny John—as they now called the always-grinning pickpocket—followed closely. Isabelle, farther back, meandered her way in pursuit, stopping often to pluck a yellow flower from the gorse or to stare at the sky.

  “Take them with you. It will guarantee you a safe journey to Magnus.” Thomas remembered the old man’s whisper each time he looked back at the girl. Was there something more about her than met the eye?

  But, distracting as the mystery in her face could be, Thomas had other matters to occupy his mind.

  “This must be the valley,” Thomas said for the fifth time in as many minutes. “I am certain the last moor was Wheeldale—for as marked on my map, Wade’s Causeway led us there.”

  “A remarkable map,” murmured William. “Few have the ancient Roman roads so clearly shown.”

  As Thomas knew from Sarah’s patient teaching, Wade’s Causeway—a road sixteen feet wide that trailed across the desolate moors from Pickering to the North Sea coast—had been laid by Roman legionnaires over twelve hundred years earlier. The speed of movement that the road allowed the Romans had made them a formidable invading force.

  A thought struck Thomas. “How is it you know about Wade’s Causeway? You profess to come from far from here.”

  Having local knowledge was not the only thing strange about the knight’s observation. Because so few could read, most barely knew past their own family history back two generations. To show awareness of the Roman invasion said something about the knight, did it not?

  “Listen carefully,” the knight said with a grin that reflected their growing friendship. “Aside from faith and honor, knowledge is the most valuable thing a man can possess, and far more useful than a sword.”

  Thomas grinned back, but could not help but notice.

  The knight had skillfully avoided answering the question.

  Silently, William cursed himself. Every second in the presence of this young wolf demanded vigilance. If Thomas was what he appeared, William could not let him suspect he was anything more than a knight, for that would lead to questions. Days earlier, he’d been very calculating about using the point of his sword to threaten Thomas, reasoning that it would reinforce the appearance he was trying to give of a knight reluctantly pressed into service.

  If Thomas was of the enemy, he would know William’s role but could not know of the suspicions outlined by Hawkwood. It meant that the knight’s every action and every word had to reflect nothing more or nothing less than a fighting man under obligation to Thomas.

  William slowly swung his head to survey Thomas. “England was only a barbarian outpost to the Romans. From where I come, there are many similar to this.”

  Thomas looked across the valley again, as if he had accepted the knight’s answer. “Where is Magnus?” Thomas spat at the endless valley. “I know it is somewhere in these moors of York. Shouldn’t we have found a road that leads to it by now?”

  William sighed and paused to wipe sweat from his forehead. “You want to do the impossible and conquer Magnus. When facing the impossible, why be in a hurry?”

  “It’s far from impossible,” Thomas said. He shifted the bundle across his shoulders.

  The knight did not disguise his snort of disbelief, for as a simple fighting man, he would be skeptical. “We are not much of an army. Only in fantasies do two people find a way to overcome an army within a castle.”

  “I have the way,” Thomas replied.

  “Thomas, where were you raised?”

  “What does that have to do with this discussion?”

  Everything, William thought. He spoke with exaggerated patience. “It must have been in a place where you were shut in a room day and night and learned nothing about reality. You must see the world as it is. Castles are designed to stop armies of a thousand. Soldiers are trained to kill. Magnus, I’m told, has one of the most forbidding castles in all of the land. It will have a small army. There are just two of us.”

  “Delivered on the wings of an angel, he shall free us from oppression,” Thomas said.

  William squinted. “Make sense!”

  “There is a legend within Magnus,” Thomas said. “ ‘Delivered on the wings of an angel, he shall free us from oppression.’ I have been told each villager repeats that promise nightly during prayers. It will take no army to win the battle.”

  William did not interrupt the rustling of the waving heather for some time. He had questions now; questions that only Hawkwood could answer. The nightly promise had not, of course, existed in Magnus when he was a knight of that kingdom. Had Hawkwood, who foresaw so much, decided this was how Magnus would be reconquered?

  But Hawkwood could not foresee Sarah’s death, and now Thomas might be a double-edged sword. How should he react to Thomas’s certainty? As one who knew little.

  “You presume much,” William finally said, in a gentle voice that did not suggest mockery. “Is there oppression within Magnus? And where do you propose to find an angel?”

  Thomas plucked a long stem of grass and nibbled the soft, yellowed end. “I know well of the oppression …” He paused. “It was told to me by someone who escaped from there. She was like a mother and a father. I believe my parents arranged to send her with me when they knew the pox had taken them.” He pulled the grass from his mouth and stared into William’s eyes. “Her name was Sarah. She was my teacher and my friend at the abbey. The monks endured her presence only because it was stipulated with the money my parents had left for my upkeep. She taught me to read and write—”

  Abbey. William was closer to the answer. Perhaps later he would push to find out which one. But to do so now would reveal an unnatural interest, especially when anyone else would have a much different question.

  William shook his head in postured amazement and asked in response what would be expected. “Latin?”

  “And French,” Thomas confirmed. “Sarah told me it was the language of the nobles and that I would need it when …”

  “When?”

  “When I took over as lord of Magnus.”

  “What right have you to take this manor and castle by force?”

  “The same right,” Thomas said, suddenly cold with anger, “that the present lord had when he took it from Sarah’s parents.”

  During the next half hour of walking, Thomas said little. The knight remained beside him, seeing no need to force conversation. Isabelle still trailed them, showing she had no desire to get nearer to Magnus. Only Tiny John showed enthusiasm, as if they were on an adventure.

  “It must be close!” John said. “Let me get on your shoulders, William! I’ll get a good see from there.”

  William groaned. “I feel like enough of a packhorse without my steed. To be arrested falsely for a chalice I didn’t steal is one thing. But to lose my horse and armor to those scoundrels …” He caught the anxiety that Thomas betrayed by chewing his lower lip. The knight sighed, a habi
t he had formed since meeting Thomas. “Tiny John, get on my shoulders, then.” William shook his forefinger hard at the imp. “Without taking a farthing from my pockets. I’ve had enough trouble with you already.”

  Tiny John only widened his eternal grin and waved a locket and chain at William, who felt his own neck to reassure himself that it was not his.

  “It’s Isabelle’s,” Thomas said. “Tiny John took it from her this morning. I didn’t have the heart to make him give it back yet. And she hasn’t noticed anything all day …”

  William kept his face straight. The only reason Thomas would have overseen the theft was because he spent so much time glancing at the girl.

  Tiny John tossed the locket to the knight. William glanced at it idly, then felt as if a hand had wrapped around his throat. The symbol!

  He knew now who had been sent to spy. The question remained, was she a partner with Thomas? Or was he ignorant of the danger?

  “A peculiar cross emblem,” William mumbled as those thoughts raced through his mind. He, too, had learned acting skills. “Nothing I’ve seen before.”

  Tiny John did not give him time to finish wondering. He darted to the knight’s back, then scrambled upward to his broad shoulders and shaded his eyes with his left hand to peer northeast into the widening valley.

  Tiny John whistled. “I’ve caught the spires! Far, far off! But we can make it by eventide.”

  “Only if I carry you, urchin,” William grunted. “And already you’re far too heavy for a knight as old as I.”

  Tiny John dropped lightly to the ground and kept pointing. “That way, Thomas! I’m sure I saw the castle that way!”

  Thomas said nothing. It was obvious by his eyes that he was mesmerized in thought.

  William glanced at the girl, still several hundred yards back. He handed Tiny John the thin chain and locket. “Return this to her. Yet do not let her know that it was on my instructions or that I have seen it. Thus …” The knight searched for an insignificant reason that would not give Tiny John cause to think any more of the incident. “It will appear to her that you have honor, you scoundrel. Then, Tiny John, keep pace! We will do our best to reach Magnus before nightfall.”

  Tiny John had been right. With the easy downhill walk, it took them less than four hours to reach the final crest that overlooked the castle of Magnus. The bells inside the walls surrounding the castle rang to celebrate the church service of none—three in the afternoon.

  They paused at the crest to comprehend Magnus as it stretched out before them.

  “All saints preserve us,” breathed William in awe. “Our mission is surely one of suicide.”

  Even Thomas faltered. “The army—I have been told—is not large.”

  William laughed a strained whisper. “Why maintain an army when you have a fortress like that?” He spread out his arms. “From afar, I wondered about the wisdom of a castle that did not take advantage of height to survey the valley. Now I understand. A force as large as one thousand might be useless in an attack against Magnus.”

  The valley around Magnus differed little from those they had been seeing for the previous three days of travel. The hills were steeper, perhaps, but the grass and woods in the valley bottom were equally rich and dotted with sheep and cattle.

  Magnus stood on an island in the center of a small lake. High, thick stone walls ringed the entire island and protected the village inside. The keep of the castle—home of the reigning lord of Magnus—rose high above the walls, but safely inside, far away from the reach of even the strongest catapults.

  At the north end, a narrow finger of land reached the island. Just before the castle walls, however, it was broken by a drawbridge no wider than a horse’s cart. Even if an army managed to reach the lowered drawbridge, soldiers would only be able to cross three or four abreast—easy targets for the archers on the walls above.

  Water, of course, was available in almost infinite amounts. Lack of food might be the castle’s only weak point, because siege was obviously the only way to attack Magnus. With the foresight to store dry foods, the reigning lord of Magnus would never suffer defeat.

  For several minutes, Thomas could only stare at his impossible task. He forced himself to remember and believe the plan given to him by Sarah.

  He hoped the doubt in his heart would not reach his words. Wind carried each one clearly to the knight. “If it is so obvious to a military man such as you that a host of armies cannot take Magnus by force from the outside,” Thomas said, “then the way it must be conquered is from the inside.”

  “That’s like saying the only way to fly is to remain in the air,” William said. “Of course it can only be conquered from the inside. That’s the only way to conquer any castle. Our first question is how to get an army. Then we can face the usual question of how to get that army inside.”

  “There is something wonderful about a castle this impossible to overcome.” Thomas smiled. “Once we have it, it will be that much easier to keep.”

  He marched forward.

  William watched as Thomas returned to a stand of trees near the north end of the lake. Thomas was still limping as a result of the bandit attack. Now he moved without the burden of the bundle he had carried during their travels; obviously he’d decided to hide it before the final approach to Magnus.

  “I think,” William said as greeting to Thomas, “it would serve us well to hide any signs of my trade.”

  “Can it be that serious?” Thomas asked.

  “More than you might imagine. Whatever your nurse taught you in that abbey could not have shown you how drastically the earls and lords of a land guard against any threats to their power.”

  “But against a single man? I would have thought rebellion in the form of a peasant army or even a gathering of knights …”

  William shook his head and lowered his voice. “Now is not the time to explain. Let it suffice to say that serfs and peasants have so little training and so little weaponry that they are considered harmless. So harmless that one man with training or weapons can rise far above an entire village in potential for danger.” William paused. “Aside from the expense of a war horse—five years’ wages—why do you think it is so difficult to reach the status of a knight? And why there are so few in the land? Those in power limit the number of knights—for their own safety, should the knights rebel.”

  Thomas considered this and drew a breath to speak.

  William waved him quiet.

  On foot without lance or horse, without full armor or following squire to tend his gear, William did not at first glance appear to be a knight. After the rescue at the gallows, the sheriff’s men had fled in terror, leaving behind only one of his swords and a leather bag—possessions, no doubt they had been hoping to keep for themselves. Sun’s disappearance or not, no sheriff would dare risk an earl’s displeasure by sending a knight with unknown allegiance forth into the land in full fighting gear.

  William smiled a tight smile of irony. As much as he regretted the absence of the rest of his equipment, this was one moment he did not mind being without. A knight who did not declare himself as such when approaching the castle of a strange earl or lord could expect immediate death if discovered.

  However, William did not feel safe from notice. The guards at the gate would be trained to search for the faintest military indications of any approaching stranger. The chain mail covering his belly, of course, was an immediate giveaway. William drew his shirt tighter and checked for any gaps that might betray the finely worked iron mesh. To be totally risk free, he should abandon the chain mail, but then he would be as vulnerable to the thrust of a sword as a piglet before slaughter.

  His short sword—of the type favored for close combat since the time of the mighty Roman legions—hung in a scabbard tightly bound to his back between his shoulder blades. Once again, it would have been much safer to leave the sword behind, but it would also be next to impossible to find a weapon inside the castle walls. William would have to risk b
eing searched.

  And he could lessen the chances of search.

  William dropped his cloak onto the ground and pressed it into the soil with his boot. He wrapped himself again without shaking it clean. He smudged dirt into his face and ran debris into his hair.

  “Show no surprise when I become a beggar,” William warned. He turned to Tiny John with a savage glare. “Stay behind and hold the girl’s hand. One word, urchin, and you’ll become crow bait.”

  Tiny John gulped and nodded.

  The four of them made a strange procession as they moved from the cover of the trees to the final approach into Magnus.

  “No castle is stronger than its weakest part,” William grumbled as they reached the finger of land that stretched from shore to the castle island. “And generally that is the gatehouse entrance. This does not bode well for your mission.”

  Tiny John remained several steps back with the girl, head craned upward to take in the spires. His constant grin was dampened by those cold shadows. As for Isabelle, she said nothing. She’d protested frequently during the journey, but by now it was obvious her protests were useless. Still, anger and fear were obvious by the expression on her face. She’d finally insisted that if they were going to drag her into the castle, they all would pretend again that she was deaf and mute. She retreated back into her silence.

  “Expert military advice?” Thomas said.

  “Not advice. Sober caution,” replied William. “Unless a man can swim”—he snorted—“which is unnatural for any but a fish, as the lake is impossibly wide.”

  “Nobody swims across,” Thomas argued. “That’s why there’s a drawbridge.”

  “Not swimming toward the castle. Away. Defenders often force attackers into the water. Those who can’t swim drown. Those who can swim, cannot fight.”

  William shuddered. “Especially weighed down with armor.” William pointed farther away from the castle. “Worse, this road is the only approach to the castle, and I’ve never seen a barbican that stretches an entire arrow’s flight from the drawbridge to the gatehouse. And nearly straight up!”