The Orphan King (Merlin's Immortals)

by Brouwer, Sigmund

  Waleran did not reply.

  “Answer enough.” William held his sword steady and gazed thoughtfully at Waleran. “The foul taste as I woke. The dreamless nights. How I did not suspect …”

  “It took me some time too,” Thomas said. He glanced at the ceiling as if thanking the drips of water that had confirmed his suspicion after reading the note from Katherine. “Do your arms tire, William?”

  “Of holding a sword to this scum’s throat? I think not.”

  “Please. Let me sit,” Waleran suggested nervously. His Adam’s apple bobbed against the sword point. “If the sword slips …”

  William nodded. “Sit then. But so much as draw a deep breath to shout for help and you shall be dead.”

  Waleran burrowed into the straw.

  William did not remove his eyes from Waleran’s face. “Thomas, Tiny John said we would escape tonight. Yet nearly a week ago …”

  “I announced it would happen tomorrow. For the same reason I wanted him to see that you had a sword. If the guards searched for it, that would tell us he was a spy, and he wouldn’t allow that, so I knew that secret would be safe. I wanted him to think we trusted him completely so we could plan in safety for escape at a different time.”

  “Does the lord of Magnus believe we escape tomorrow?” William asked with deceptive calm. His eyes had not wavered from Waleran’s face.

  “You expect me to reply?”

  William pushed slightly harder on the sword blade and Waleran gasped. “These are your choices,” William said. “You answer me and merely risk punishment from him. Or you refuse to answer me at the certainty of immediate death. After all, I stand to lose nothing by slaying you.”

  “Yes,” came the quick reply. “At night while you sleep, I tell the guards what I know about you.” He dropped his head. “Except for the sword. As Thomas said, if they took it from you, then you’d know I was the one who told.”

  “Where,” Thomas asked, “will we find Richard Mewburn, the lord of Magnus, tonight?”

  Waleran smiled. “If I tell you that, I am no longer merely risking punishment. Should you actually escape and reach him, he will know you could only have discovered that knowledge from one source. And if you don’t escape—much more likely—then you don’t need the knowledge anyway.”

  “Why were you placed here as a spy?” William asked. “Why would Richard Mewburn think Thomas and I were important enough to need watching in this cell? I came in as a beggar and Thomas as—”

  “And why were you placed here ahead of our arrest?” Thomas asked.

  The answer came as Thomas feared.

  “Your arrival—and mission—was expected.”

  The old man at the gallows! There was no other possible way for anyone in Magnus to know! Thomas almost swayed as he fought the rush of adrenaline that swept him.

  “Tell me who foretold our arrival!” he said in a voice coarsened by urgency. “And where he is now!”

  Waleran shrugged and continued his eerie smile. “I am simply a spy. I only know there are many dark secrets in Magnus.”

  William glowered. “Explain yourself.”

  “That is all I will reveal. Death itself is a more attractive alternative.”

  Thomas felt chilled. Again, the dark secrets of Magnus. Then he clamped his jaw. The only magic in any kingdom was the power held by the lords. And if the moor winds continued to blow, morning would find him holding that power.

  “Ignore his blathering,” Thomas said as he focused on the task ahead. “William, there is much I need to tell you before we leave this cell tonight.”

  Waleran giggled. “You persist in believing you might leave?”

  Thomas nodded at Tiny John, who grinned brightly from a dirt-smudged face and pulled from his coat a large key.

  “Pickpockets do have their uses,” Thomas said.

  William frowned. “Any moment the guard will discover it missing and return.”

  “Not likely,” Thomas said. “Just as Katherine instructed, Tiny John lifted it three days ago when the guard strolled through the marketplace. Katherine waited at the candle shop, then made a wax impression of it so that Tiny John could return the key within minutes. What you now see is a duplicate.”

  William began to grin as widely as Tiny John, then stopped abruptly. “How do you propose we silence this spy? We have no rope. No gag. As soon as I drop this sword, he’ll call for help.”

  Thomas smiled. “He should sleep soon. I switched cups during supper. Waleran drank the drugged water intended for me.”

  “Not good enough,” William said. “I can’t keep my sword at his throat until then. And all it’s going to take is one good shout. Especially now that he knows our intentions.”

  “No,” Waleran croaked. “I promise; I want to live.”

  “Then you’ll thank me for this,” William said. He smashed the side of Waleran’s head with his right elbow, and the man collapsed.

  The beginning of their escape was as simple as letting Tiny John reach between the bars of the door with his slender arm and use the key on the lock.

  “Wait,” William said. He stepped back to Waleran and pinched one of the man’s eyelids. Waleran didn’t so much as flinch.

  “We’ve got time then before he shouts for help,” William said. “Let’s move.”

  They began to creep down the hallway, guided by light from the candles on the walls. They encountered the first guard within ten heartbeats of easing themselves from the dungeon cell. Startled, the guard stepped backward and placed a hand on the hilt of his sword.

  William was faster. Much faster.

  Before the guard could flinch, William’s sword point pinned his chest against the wall. The guard dropped his hand and waited.

  “Run him through!” Tiny John urged.

  “Spare his life,” Thomas said in voice that allowed no argument.

  “Thomas, I’m not fond of killing people. Believe me. Yet this man has been trained to do the same to us. At the very least, he will sound the alarm.”

  Even in the yellow light cast by the candles, the man’s fear was obvious in the sweat that rolled down his face.

  “You have children?” Thomas asked.

  The guard nodded.

  “Spare him,” Thomas repeated. “I would wish a fatherless life on no one.”

  William shrugged. Then in a swift motion, he crashed his free fist into the guard’s jaw. The guard groaned once, then sagged.

  “We’ll drag him back into our cell,” Thomas instructed. Then he spoke to Tiny John through a smile that robbed his words of rebuke. “This isn’t a game, you scamp. Would you care to have a sword through your chest?”

  Tiny John squinted in thought. “Perhaps not.”

  Within moments, they left the guard as motionless as a sack of apples beside the snoring Waleran. Ten minutes later, they reached, undetected, the cool night air and the low murmur of a village settling at the end of an evening.

  Thomas smiled at the wind that tugged at his hair.

  In the early evening darkness outside the castle walls, Thomas forced away his fear. Planning in the idle hours, he told himself, was much too easy. In grand thoughts and wonderful schemes, you never considered the terror of avoiding guards on the battlements and dropping down by rope into a lake filled with black water. He shivered in his dampness.

  Katherine must be here. Or all is lost.

  William must rally the village people. Or all is lost.

  The winds must hold. Or all is lost.

  “Cast not your thoughts toward the fears,” Sarah’s patient voice echoed in his memory, “but focus on your wishes.”

  Thomas grinned at the moonlight. Focus on your wishes.

  “I want to fly like an angel,” he whispered. “Wind, carry me high and far.”

  As if reading his mind, the wind grew. But with it, so did the coldness of his wet clothing.

  Five more minutes, he told himself. If Katherine doesn’t appear within five minutes, then
I’ll call out.

  He counted to mark time as he walked. “The winds blow from the north,” she had said. “Once you reach the open moors, mark the highest point of the hills against the horizon and move toward it. I shall appear.”

  With no warning, she did.

  “You have retrieved your bundle?” she whispered.

  “Yes. Undisturbed.”

  “Then wrap this around you.”

  Thomas slipped into a rough wool blanket.

  “I’ve also brought you dry clothing,” she said.

  Without thinking, Thomas drew her into the blanket, hugged her, and lightly kissed the bandage at her forehead. It surprised him as much as her, and she pulled back awkwardly.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that—”

  “Please, dress quickly. Time is short.”

  Thomas removed his shirt and trousers with numbed fingers. The wind cut his bare skin, but within moments he was fully dressed. Immediately, his skin began to glow with renewed warmth.

  “When I am lord,” he promised, “you shall have your heart’s desire.”

  “You do not know my heart’s desire,” she whispered softly.

  Thomas did not reply. He was searching the bundle, quickly pulling out sheets and wooden rods. The moonlight aided him.

  “I did this as a young child to pass time after my nurse died,” Thomas spoke as he worked. This far from the castle walls—several hundred yards—there was no danger in being overheard by night watchmen. “But I confess it was on a smaller scale.” He tied two rods together at one end, then propped and tied a cross member halfway down, so that the large frame formed an A. “However, I have no fear of this failing.” He did, of course. “In a strange land, far, far away, it is a custom for men to build one of these to test the gods for omens before setting sail on a voyage.”

  “How is it you know these things?” Katherine stood beside him, handing him string and knives and wax as requested.

  I will not mention the books, only what I learned as a child.

  “You must vow to tell no person.” Thomas waited until she nodded. “What I am building comes from the land known as Cathay.”

  “Cathay! That is at the end of the world!”

  Thomas nodded. His hands remained in constant motion. He tested the frame. Satisfied, he moved it to a sheet of cloth spread flat across the grass.

  “It is a land with many marvels,” he said as if he had not paused. “The people there know much of science and medicine. I expect they would be called wizards here.”

  “ ’Tis wondrous strange,” Katherine breathed.

  Thomas nodded, thinking of his greatest possessions, the books hidden at the abbey. “Their secrets enabled me to win the services of a knight. And now, through the legend of Magnus, a kingdom.” He knelt beside the frame. “Needle and thread.”

  Instantly, she placed it in his hands. He began to sew the sheet to the frame. For the next hour, he concentrated on his task and did not speak.

  In equal silence, Katherine placed more thread in his hands as required. The moonlight, bright enough to cast shadows across their work, hastened their task.

  Finally, Thomas stood and arched his back to relieve the strain. He took the structure and set it upright. The wind nearly snatched it from his hands, and he dropped it again. Satisfied, he surveyed it where it lay on the ground. As wide as a cart and as high as a doorway.

  There still remained the sewing of bonds that would attach him to the structure. And after that, the flight.

  Katherine interrupted his thoughts. Her voice quavered. “You are certain the men of Cathay used such a thing?”

  Thomas was glad to speak of what he knew from the books. It took his thoughts from his fears.

  “There is a man from Italy named Marco Polo,” he began. “He spent nearly twenty years living among the people of Cathay.” Thomas remembered how he had savored every word of the books, how each page helped ease the pain of daily living at the abbey. “This Marco Polo recorded many things. Among them, the custom of sending a man aloft in the winds before a ship sailed from shore. If the man flew, the voyage would be safe. If the man did not, the voyage was delayed.”

  Katherine spoke quickly. “There were times it did not stay in the air?”

  “Tonight will not be one of them,” Thomas vowed. “Too much has happened to bring me this far.”

  “Then it is God’s will that you triumph,” Katherine replied.

  For the first time since Sarah’s death, Thomas permitted a crack in his determined wall of disbelief.

  “If that is indeed truth, begin a prayer,” he said. “Begin it from both of us.”

  The winds held steady.

  Thomas ignored the cold as he raced to final readiness. He tied leather shoulder straps to the cross members of the structure and another wide leather band that would secure his legs.

  Do not think of failure.

  He drove a peg into the ground with the hammer Katherine had smuggled out earlier.

  My death here would be of no matter. Should I fail, life will not be important to me. I will never have a chance like this again.

  To the peg, he attached one end of a roll of twine, the last object from his bundle.

  Do not think of failure.

  The other end of twine he tied to a belt of leather around his waist. Between both ends, the remaining twine was rolled neatly on a large spool. Small knots every three feet thickened the twine.

  Will the knight be inside waiting with the new army?

  Thomas looped the handles of a small, heavy bag around his neck. The cords of the bag bit fiercely into his skin and brought water to his eyes.

  Do not think of failure.

  Finally, he slipped his hands into crudely sewn gloves of heavy leather.

  Will the winds be strong enough? Katherine, pray hard for me.

  “I will lie down on this,” he said. “Attach the straps around my shoulders. That will leave me movement with my arms. When I am ready, please help me to my feet. Then stand aside. The wind should do the rest.”

  Moving onto his back relieved some of the pressure of the cords around his neck. Katherine helped him fasten the straps securely, and Thomas took a deep breath.

  You have dreamed long enough of this moment. Wait no longer.

  “I am ready.”

  Katherine reached for his outstretched hand. She braced herself, then heaved backward. Thomas lurched to his feet with the huge structure on his back.

  “Wings of an angel,” Katherine breathed in awe.

  The wind snatched at Thomas. He grabbed the twine where it was secured to the peg. It took all his strength to hold to the ground.

  “Thomas!” Katherine pointed behind him at the castle. “Soldiers! At the gate!”

  He glanced over. Four of them, running hard toward them. But he was helpless to do anything. He was bound to a kite that was at the mercy of the wind, about to drive him toward a brutally high castle wall, two hundred carefully paced steps away. Would that distance give him time to gain the height to soar over it?

  The wind screamed at the sail on his back.

  Soldiers.

  “Run, Katherine!” he shouted. “Away from the castle. Rejoin me tomorrow!”

  “Go! God be with you!” She pushed him, and a gust of wind pulled the twine through his hands.

  Airborne!

  In the next frenzied seconds, Thomas could not afford to worry about the approaching soldiers. The kite picked up momentum so quickly that twine sang through his fingers. Even through heavy leather gloves, Thomas felt the heat.

  The moon cast his shadow on the ground, and from his height, it appeared like a huge darting bat. The soldiers below him shouted and pointed upward.

  Thomas dismissed any joy in this flight. He forced the soldiers from his mind. Instead, he concentrated sharply on counting each knot. His mind became a blur of numbers. He reached one hundred once, then began over. At eighty again, he clutched hard and the kite
swooped upward even more sharply. His fingers froze.

  Katherine!

  The same moon that cut such clear black shadows also showed too clearly that the soldiers had reached her.

  Why hasn’t she fled?

  Thomas understood immediately. She protected the peg! Once the soldiers reached it, a single slash of a sword would sever Thomas from the ground. She knew it.

  “Run!” he screamed again. But his words were lost to the wind.

  The knight had been watching from the nearest trees.

  As the soldiers rushed toward Katherine, he stepped out and closed the distance. His blood surged with the familiar adrenaline of battle. This is what he’d been born to do. Not to play the games of deceit that had been so necessary until now.

  He was a fighter, a man of action.

  He roared with savage joy, and the sound was enough to distract the approaching soldiers but not enough to slow them down.

  William took a stand in front of Katherine.

  “Watch Thomas,” he said to her. “These are mine.”

  The four soldiers should have separated more quickly, but they were overconfident. Instead of allowing them to take the battle to him as they probably expected, William attacked, his sword clanging hard against the first soldier’s sword, snapping it in half.

  With a startled cry, the man dropped the hilt and fled.

  Down to three.

  It would be tricky, and William had no illusions. Three against one were easy odds if it was a knight against three peasants, but these men were equally armed and well trained. Without doubt, they wore chain mail as protection. William did not. It would give him an advantage of sorts, for the weight of the chain mail would make them slower and tire them faster.

  One of the soldiers advanced, showing a degree of swordsmanship in his stance. The other two spread apart to begin to form a triangle.

  Without Katherine to protect, the battle would have been easier, for William could have slashed his way out of the triangle.

  Already he was breathing heavily. He expected this and hoped the time in the jail cell had not robbed him of too much of his strength.

  A movement came from the side. William whirled and parried, able to get his sword up in time, but the blow was still jarring. These men were equal to him in fighting ability.