Siege Perilous

by E. D. Debirmingham

  The man turned back to the door and unbolted it. Four large soldiers came in—the three who had been at the bottom of the human ladders, and the soldier who had ducked out of the window to avoid Ferenc’s knife. Without a glance around the ground-floor room, they swarmed up the steep staircase. Only the man who had let them in knew Ferenc was down here and still alive.

  He turned, and closed the door behind him. “Little shit,” he said in perfect Latin. “You killed my Gascon brothers. You die.”

  “Oh, you are from Gascony,” Ferenc said, panting more than he needed to. He raised his head a little and then, as if that hurt too much, moaned a little and lowered it gingerly. “That explains much. I thought you were French, but at least the French fight like men, not like stray cats.”

  The man’s eyes flashed in the candlelight. He threw himself toward Ferenc. Ferenc lay limp as if unable even to defend himself. When the man’s knife came whipping down, Ferenc suddenly unfurled his arm and slashed the approaching blade out of the way, then from his curled position kicked the aggressor in the kneecap as hard as he could. The man snarled and leapt back; Ferenc jumped up and attacked him as if he would climb up on top of him; the man staggered backwards, and they both fell to the floor, Ferenc on top. This time he did not hesitate; he held the man’s head to the floor, chin pushed up, and cut his throat. He jumped up and back, trying bootlessly to avoid the blood, and then, breathing so hard he was sobbing, he ran back to the foot of the steps. There was no sound of struggle from above.

  From where he stood he could see out of the door easily. There was a rough guffaw upstairs and a moment later a lanky, limp body came hurling from above, flashed past Ferenc, and fell through the winter night until it landed so far down the steep slope Ferenc could hardly hear the thud—he knew Nicholas’s corpse had landed mostly because of the cries of glee from the top of the tower. A moment later, more grunted effort from the voices above, and Pons’ heavy frame dove limp and headfirst past his vision. If Milos or Savis were still alive, they would be making noise; he had only met them this evening but both were noisemakers, he was sure.

  He was the only survivor, and the Gascons upstairs did not know that he lived—or that he had killed another of their mates. With a prayer to Saint Emeric and Nagy Asszony, he opened the door and sprinted up the slope toward the fortress.

  CHAPTER 22:

  INFINITA PECUNIA

  Ferenc had never been told the code word for entrance, and the guard at the fortress gate had never met him. The shocking news he cried out in distress was greeted by Ferrer, at the gate, with stupefied silence, but the upset brought the sleep-doped Peire-Roger and a cluster of knights. Raphael and Vera were among them. They recognized Ferenc’s voice.

  “Let him in,” Raphael ordered. “That’s my squire. Your own Ocyrhoe can vouch for him.”

  “Ocyrhoe sleeps down in the Good Ones’ village,” said the porter.

  “Open the gate,” Peire-Roger growled.

  The gate opened just enough for Ferenc, blood smeared into his hair and across his face and tunic, to push his way through. He was so out of breath from his sprint up the slope that he collapsed as he entered the safety of the compound. “The watchtower’s been taken,” he said thickly. “Everyone’s dead.”

  Amidst the shocked protests, Peire-Roger took a step closer and stood menacingly over him. “How came you to be the sole survivor?” he demanded. “Newcomer that you are, are we to believe that is mere coincidence?”

  “He is my squire,” Raphael said sternly. “Percival can tell you I am…”

  “The tower was barred from the inside. Is it not possible he somehow admitted the French?”

  “They were Gascon climbers,” Ferenc said hoarsely. “They made human ladders to get in through the upper windows. I killed two, but there are seven living.” He looked up at all of them. “As God is my judge, I did what I could.”

  “Of course you did,” Raphael said gruffly. He reached out a hand to help Ferenc up. “They don’t know I survived,” said Ferenc. “I killed the ones who saw me.”

  Raphael turned instantly to Peire-Roger. “A counterattack. Immediately. While we have the benefit of surprise.”

  Peire-Roger looked flummoxed. “We don’t know enough.“

  “We know there are seven of them, and two dead, and Ferenc can tell us how they’re armed.“

  “They may be the vanguard for an entire host!“

  “Going up the slope? In the dark?” Ferrer the porter said. “I’m amazed there were a handful of them capable of it.”

  Peire-Roger glared briefly at him.

  “If you’re too drunk to organize a sortie, I will do it,” said Raphael. It was not an offer; it was a declaration.

  “The village first,” Ferenc said. “We have to get all the Good Ones up here into the courtyard.”

  “They’re safe enough down there,” said Peire-Roger. “The French would have to take the barbican to get a bead on them.”

  “Warn them, at least,” Ferenc insisted, thinking chiefly of Ocyrhoe.

  Peire-Roger grimaced. “You’re right.” He turned to Vera. “Wake Phillipa and her women. Tell them to dress and come down with us. Men mustn’t go into the women’s village.”

  “Do you really think that matters now?” Raphael demanded.

  “Proper conduct matters more to the Good Ones than do their own lives,” Peire-Roger assured him. “Sometimes it is a nuisance.”

  “No need to wake them. I can do it myself,” said Vera. “I’m better armed than they are, anyway.”

  “Let’s go,” said Ferenc urgently to Raphael. “The three of us are enough.”

  Raphael glanced at Peire-Roger, who nodded urgently. “Thank you. I’ll spread the word in here.”

  “And gather men for an immediate sortie,” Raphael amended.

  “I think it is ill-advised to rush into such danger.”

  “It’s far more ill-advised to wait,” Raphael countered. “If you don’t send men, Vera and I will take Ferenc and Percival.” He gestured for Ferrer to open the gate.

  Vera grabbed a torch from a brazier by the gate and stared down the porter. “We’ll need two torches,” she said to Ferenc; after a blink, he grabbed the other one from the other side of the gate. Raphael followed behind them with his knife drawn. They hurried grimly out of the gate and down the path toward the north-facing stone huts. On the other side of the wall, they heard Peire-Roger’s growling voice bellowing orders to the garrison.

  “Good work, Ferenc. I am glad you’re safe,” Raphael said from the darkness behind him.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Ferenc, miserable.

  “Don’t call me sir, Ferenc,” Raphael said wearily.

  At the low, stone wall delineating the village, Vera moved straight off into the darkness to wake the Goodwomen; Ferenc gestured to Raphael with the torch, and they took the path down the steps to the village of the Goodmen. Already Vera’s voice was calling out a warning into the frigid, moonlit night.

  “Wake yourselves,” Raphael hollered. He slammed his fist on the nearest wooden door; Ferenc moved past him to the next one and hammered his fist there.

  “Awake! The watchtower is taken! Come up into the fortress, until we know the risk to you here!”

  Raphael passed by him to go to the next hut; there were sounds of doors opening, and dozens of voices began to respond to them in the darkness. None of these voices sounded either sleepy or alarmed; Ferenc supposed they had all been awake praying. He wondered if and when the Good Ones ever slept. Men were responding to the news and sharing it, but Ferenc and Raphael sounded almost panicked compared to the tone with which the Goodmen communicated this new crisis to their neighbors.

  The second door he approached opened as he pulled his hand back in preparation to knock on it. Standing in the doorway was an imposing figure dressed not as a Goodman but
as a soldier. The light from the torch shown warmly on Percival’s calm face, and Ferenc signaled with the light to get Raphael’s attention. Raphael saw who it was and ran to join them at the doorway.

  “Well then,” said Raphael. “Here we are, trapped in someone else’s story. Put on your maille. We’re taking back the watchtower.”

  Fewer than half of the Good Ones responded to the alarm, and even these seemed to file up the night slope mostly to put the self-appointed heralds at ease. The rest thanked them for their message and returned calmly to their huts. Ferenc watched from the back of the line as the Good Ones trudged up the slope with a remarkable absence of fear. Every third or fourth one carried a torch that smelled of burning olive oil. In their long, black robes they resembled a dour funeral procession. He looked for the small figure in paler tunic but could not find her in the procession.

  Inside, the fortress was modulated chaos. Children and women were alarmed, some wailing for the death of a loved one in the tower; the men-at-arms were grimly arming themselves and streaming up the stairs to line the wall-walk. The Good Ones were somber but calm, offering quiet, muffled words of comfort that were mostly ignored. Ferenc pushed through the press of people, ran up the wooden steps, and entered the donjon. Here was a smaller, warmer version of the same cacophony—most people had moved outside, but there was still grieving and grimness enough within. In a corner was a huddle of men, Peire-Roger sitting tallest among them with his back to the wall. He held a wooden cup with steaming liquid in it. Raphael stood next to him. Percival was there, as well as old Raimon de Perelha. Rixenda was the only woman in the gathering, but as he approached, Ferenc saw Vera stalking away from the group with a resigned, glowering look.

  “Aren’t we going to attack the attackers?” Ferenc asked.

  Vera rolled her eyes with a dour expression. “Peire-Roger says something else must happen first. If your hands are cold, warm them over Raphael’s ears—there is hot steam coming out of them.”

  In the shadows, Ferenc saw Ocyrhoe, hiding in plain sight, listening in on the conference with bright, concerned eyes. He took a step to head toward her, but Raphael called out for him.

  “We will need additional troops now, troops attacking the French army down on the ground,” Peire-Roger was saying as Ferenc sat beside Percival.

  “If we do not take the tower back now, while we can,” Raphael said between gritted teeth, “then no amount of additional troops will make any difference.”

  “This is my fortress,” Peire-Roger said sharply. “You have been here one day and half of two nights. We are grateful to have you, but you know nothing of our—”

  “I know the value of the watchtower and the level ground beside it,” Raphael interrupted. “I saw it from the battlements—there’s enough flat land there for them to use as a staging area, and tonight, this instant, is the only opportunity to prevent them.”

  “You are an excellent tactician, sir,” Peire-Roger said, his teeth now gritted like Raphael’s. “But I’m a strategist, and commander of this fortress, and if you argue with me once again, you will be reprimanded.”

  Ferenc watched Raphael, with tremendous effort, suppress his anger. “You were talking about additional troops,” he said, in such a low, flat, disgusted voice it sounded almost as if he were about to vomit.

  “The Count of Toulouse has promised…” old Raimon began.

  Peire-Roger spat on the floor. “That man has been promising us the same thing for six months and we’ve yet to see a single soldier. We need to hire mercenary troops.”

  “That is disgraceful,” said old Raimon. “In all of the years of the Albigensian crusade, nobody ever had to resort to hiring mercenaries!”

  “Those glorious old days, if you perversely wish to think of them that way, are over,” his son-in-law retorted. “There are very few lords left who have not caved in to the French king’s power. We are not the force we once were. Even if most of that army down there has no stomach for attacking us, neither have they the nerve to turn on their overlord and ambush his troops. They will attack because they must. We have to defend ourselves. There are those who will be sympathetic to our cause, but they will not fight for free.”

  An unhappy pause.

  “Forgive me for being uncouth,” Raphael said sourly. “But how do you intend to pay them?”

  The expressions on the faces of the local men briefly relaxed.

  “That is one thing we need not worry over,” said Peire-Roger. “The Cathar treasury is huge, and most of it is hidden in this fortress or in small caves just below the walls.”

  “But the Good Ones beshrew the material world,” said Percival. “How came they to be wealthy?”

  “We have been fugitives from the Roman Church for decades now,” said Bishop Marti. “Fugitives need gold in hand to survive. We are very grateful that our Credents understand this and make donations to us. Sometimes when we ask directly, sometimes in their wills. Also most of us, sir knight, have had professions at which we work and earn our keep.” Percival looked slightly chastised by his tone. “We keep the money for emergencies, and even we ourselves do not know where most of it is. We turn it over to Credents, who bury it somewhere secret, so that if we are caught and tortured for information we cannot betray our common body.”

  Ferenc had a few cynical thoughts about this, and was sure that if Vera were here, she would not only share them but speak them aloud. “How do you know the Credents do not run off with the money?” he asked, forcing his voice to stay uninflected with sarcasm.

  “We have faith,” said Marti simply. “Over the span of decades, we have never been betrayed. When we need money, it is provided to us. But what we will need for a mercenary army cannot be gathered quickly from around the countryside. We will need to take every coin and object of worth from Montségur and spirit it beyond the reaches of the army immediately, so that we can buy help. We have been saving it for a crisis. This is the crisis.”

  Peire-Roger gave Raphael a superior look. “That is what takes precedence,” he said. “Getting the treasure out before they think to scout for it.”

  “Some of us can fight while the rest of you collect the treasure,” Raphael said.

  Peire-Roger’s stormy, dark eyes blazed a warning. “I told you not to challenge me. If your attack fails, we risk drawing attention to those carrying the treasure away. You will not speak another word of an attack tonight or I’ll have you thrown into the cistern.” He turned his attention back to the group. “I will order all of them to bring their valuables to the center of the courtyard, and those who know where the money is in the cave, to bring it up now. The nights are long and there are hours yet before dawn. If we hurry we can send a party out before daybreak.”

  “Agreed,” said Marti and old Raimon.

  Ferenc heard a faint rustle in the darkness where Ocyrhoe had been listening in. He glanced over; she was gone.

  The gathering stood to disperse, as Peire-Roger peremptorily assigned each person a section of the courtyard or donjon to speak to. Ferenc was sent up to the southern wall-walk, with instructions to stand in for each soldier as they went to collect their own contributions.

  As he rushed through the single room of the donjon, he glanced about carefully, but Ocyrhoe, he already knew, was not in here. He pushed open the door and ran his eyes over the bustle in the torchlit yard, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  Ignoring a vague sense of unease, he pushed through the crowd and mounted the nearer set of wooden steps. He explained Peire-Roger’s order to the first soldier. He expected some kind of balking or resentment, but the fellow nodded with understanding and then sprinted down the steps as if nothing could make him more eager than to part with his modest worldly wealth. There is something to this place, Ferenc thought. He could never be a believer in such a peculiar creed, but the mutual care and respect within this community of fugitives was touching.
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  Ocryhoe practically slid down the frozen slope to the Good Ones’ village wall, her pulse loud in her head. She was ashamed of the feeling of panic but it was more potent than the feeling of shame.

  She ran into the yard and then into Rixenda’s tiny hut, throwing herself onto her own bedroll, which she had abandoned not an hour before when word had come of the tower. Her hands frantically reached under the lumpy pillow for the cup. It was warm in her hands—enough to heat them without losing its own heat. She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.

  She heard Rixenda enter.

  “I thought you might have come back down here,” the older woman said. Ocyrhoe sat up very straight, but did not look over at her. “Perhaps the time has come for you to use the cup for something useful,” Rixenda said gently. “Perhaps this is a blessing for you.”

  “I can’t,” Ocryhoe said. “Please, Rixenda, please don’t make me give it away. I can’t. I know we need the valuables, I understand that, but I need to keep it.”

  “It’s pure silver,” said Rixenda. “It would secure the services of a knight at least.”

  “I can’t let it go,” she said. “I wish I could explain why. It isn’t safe to let it out into the world.”

  “But it’s safe to keep it here?”

  “I can’t explain it, but yes, it is. It cannot come to mischief here.”

  Rixenda made a disapproving noise. It was very much unlike her, and Ocyrhoe cringed. “The material world is nothing but mischief,” the Goodwoman said. “I do not see why one cup should be more mischievous than anything else. I know you do not enjoy possession of it.”