Desiree

by Roberta Gellis

  He certainly had not many men to spare. He was taking up the path into the keep about half the experienced fighters Simon had left and about half the men who had served Exceat. He and those twenty would need to defend themselves against near a hundred of Nicolaus’s men. Byford had command of all the remaining men Alex had brought, the fifty fisherfolk, the forty apprentices now at least partially trained and outfitted with swords, shields and leather hauberks, and fifteen of the remaining twenty experienced men-at-arms.

  The last four plus a dozen old armsmen who had been retired on farms were left with Godric to defend Exceat. At the gate of the outer bailey, Alex looked down into the master-at-arms’ second’s disappointed face.

  “I am sorry to leave you behind,” Alex said, “but someone who knows what he is doing must defend Exceat and Lady Desiree. As it is, all you will be able to do if you are attacked is to send word to Byford at Telscombe. He will be able to break off his action—” which likely would doom Alex and the men with him, but he did not mention that “—and come to your assistance within a day. Choose out two trusty servants who can ride and settle them in Cuckhaven. Send two more to that farm to the north—I cannot remember its name.”

  “Alfris’s farm, m’lord?”

  “Yes, that’s right. If they see that Exceat is being attacked, they must ride to Telscombe and summon Byford.”

  “Yes, m’lord,” Godric sighed, “but I do hate to miss all the excitement.”

  Alex laughed. “Turnabout is fair,” he said. “You were with me when we took Nicolaus’s traitor men-at-arms and when we were attacked leaving those men on Lewes’s land. Now it is Byford’s turn.”

  Also laughing, Godric accepted his fate and raised his hand in farewell as Alex went out onto the road with Byford following. Just behind them came two wagons, heavily laden with food and beer, extra arms, two of the mangonels from the walls, ladders, and tools for making more. Five of the experienced men-at-arms rode just behind the wagons. Then came the long line of green men, some eager and wildly excited, some fearful and angry. More experienced men-at-arms rode along the marching foot soldiers to see that none tried to run away, and ten brought up the rear of the party, ready to make sure there were no stragglers or deserters.

  Once the gates had closed behind them, Alex gestured Byford forward. “We will arrive mid to late afternoon at Portobello. You cannot get up that road in the dark and there is not much cover. However, because of the turns to climb the cliff, much of the road is not in easy arrowshot.”

  Byford shrugged. “Perhaps the men can crowd together in safe places and then make a dash for the next.”

  Alex nodded. “Near the top the slope is easier and there is an open area outside the walls. Take care. Much of the area will likely be in range if they have ballistas or mangonels on the wall. Take your time about making a camp, as if you expected to settle in for a siege. At dusk, let the men have a good meal. You can set up our own weapons, and start working on the extra ladders.”

  “Very well, m’lord.” Byford smiled grimly. “Then we begin at dark.”

  “Yes. First light the hour candle. Then begin the noise. Drag the ladders into position but do not raise them. They should go up only after you hear Hring’s horn. If I am successful it is possible that the ladders will never be used. There is a chance that my men will be able to open the gates. So for two candlemarks after dark what is important is that you must make as much noise as possible.”

  Byford scratched what he could reach of his head under his helmet. Usually an attacking force hid its actions so the defenders would have less warning about what kind of attack was planned.

  Alex smiled at him. “Have the green men set up the mangonels. In the dark they will make mistakes and there will be cause for noise. Set them to cutting wood and hammering together the ladders by torchlight. Fire random shots at the walls. Yell to each other about the firing range and the type of missiles and the best places to set up ladders. Do a lot of yelling. But first and foremost…make noise.”

  Byford laughed. “When I think of all the times Sir Simon threatened to skin us alive if we even breathed too loud because he was planning a surprise attack at night, this is strange. It will be a pleasant change.”

  “Well, I am hoping your noise will cover any that the men with me will make. I will start them up the back path as soon as it is dark. It will be very slow because the path is accursed steep and all overgrown. They are good men, but some will slip or be smacked by a bramble and yelp with surprise. We are dead if they catch us coming in the postern because the space behind the cask is narrow, and even if we try to go back, it will be near impossible to get down that track in the dark. Up is bad enough. Down is terrible.”

  The day after Nicolaus spoke, Vachel dared wait no longer. He got his horse to ride down to Portobello. The gate guard stared at him suspiciously but he was carrying nothing, and the guard let him pass.

  Vachel hoped he could glean enough out of the wrecked town to provide travel supplies. He dared not try to pack anything, but once he got into Exceat—like a serf, wearing an old patched cloak from Portobello—he would find Desiree and take her hostage. While he held a knife to her throat, everyone in Exceat would obey him.

  A long breath sighed out of Vachel. For a moment, his outer shell of self-protection warmed a little. There seemed to be a possibility that he would survive. But the inner emptiness still held only one glittering shard, his hatred of Alex. To that inner core of pure hatred it really mattered little what the outer armor of self-preservation tried to do.

  What was essential the inner core held to. He would have Desiree; either he would kill her or take her with him. In either case, Alex would suffer not only the loss of his lover but the loss of his place in Exceat too.

  He returned to alertness when his horse slowed as they came into the town. He looked right and left, chose a shop with a broken door and entered. In half a candlemark he had most of what he wanted. Last, he made for the alehouse and hammered on the door with the hilt of his sword.

  “Bring me ale,” he shouted.

  The door opened. A thickset, dark-haired man with the fingers of his right hand black-and-blue and stiff, stood in the doorway. Vachel frowned. The face was almost familiar.

  “There is no ale,” the man said, seemingly because he had planned to say those words and they came out of his mouth automatically, but the expression on his face was one of shock and alarm.

  At first Vachel thought nothing of the man’s expression. It seemed reasonable enough after Nicolaus’s attack on the town. Huddled against the back wall were three men and a sobbing woman. An odd feeling of threat touched him. The man who had let him in was very close. Vachel snarled at him to stand away, calling him “serf”; the man who was backed against the wall cried “Morly” softly. Vachel paid him no attention, and went out of the door.

  He was halfway up the road to Telscombe when he remembered where he had heard the name Morly before, why the man’s face was familiar, and why Morly had looked so shocked and horrified when he saw Vachel. Morly was from Exceat! Vachel pulled his horse to a halt and directed it under some trees, just leafing in, that shaded one of the switchbacks.

  Why had Morly answered the door when he knocked instead of the owner of the alehouse? The alehouse. Before Nicolaus had sent his men down to strip the town, the alehouse had been a popular place. The alehouse owner must have passed information that Alex did not want Nicolaus to know he had so he had set Morly to prevent him and his family from telling anyone.

  How long could Morly hold them? Not long. Which meant that Alex intended to use that information soon. Vachel looked over his shoulder at the keep. He was out of Telscombe now. Only an idiot would return. He had the patched cloak and tunic for a disguise for entering Exceat and he had the thin remains of Prince John’s money hidden under his belt for food and lodging. And if Alex attacked Telscombe, he would be out of Exceat!

  Just out of view of Telscombe Keep, Alex and his twenty f
ighters moved to the side of the road so that Byford could lead the bulk of the men ahead to the path that climbed up Telscombe cliff. Very faintly, Alex heard the warning calls floating down from the keep when the column of men was sighted; closer, Byford’s voice drifted back, urging the men to move more quickly and keep a close lookout for missiles that might be launched down at them from the keep. Later, there was a crash and the distant heartfelt cursing of a man-at-arms but no screams of pain…yet.

  Alex gestured for his men to dismount and wait. None could help listening and Alex bade two take to the brush by the side of the road and see what was happening if they could. One came back almost at once to say that the last of the mounted men was just moving onto the path. He went off again and the second man came back after about a candlemark.

  The footmen, he said, were almost all the way up the road. The wagons were having difficulty and he thought one might have been hit by a missile, but it was still moving. Most of the mounted men were still with the wagons, taking shelter on the far side of the road and watching Telscombe walls so they could warn of an oncoming missile.

  The first man returned at dusk, saying he could not see well enough to provide much more information. He thought three or four men had been hurt on the way up but no one was dead. It was good, he opined, that their force was small. The men on the walls had been getting the range by the time the wagons reached the top. If there had been more wagons or many more men, they would have suffered much more damage.

  “I suppose there is a bright side to everything,” Alex said, laughing. “But if the only way in for us was over the walls, I would have wanted double or triple the force.”

  His men settled to waiting again, but it was not much longer before it was dark enough to lead the horses into Portobello. The moon had not yet risen and was only a quarter full, which was better for them.

  Morly was waiting at the edge of the town, Donnet with him. Although Alex did not care what the rest of the folk did, Donnet could still betray them by creeping up the back track ahead of them. However, the man showed himself to be enthusiastically cooperative. He led them to an alley through which they could bring their horses into a concealed yard behind the alehouse. His sons came out and then a few more of the townsfolk to help with the horses.

  Morly and a few apprentice armsmen remained in the yard to make sure horses and horse furniture did not disappear. By now it was full dark, very dark because the night was cloudy and a sharp breeze had started up. Alex led his men out of the town and across the road to the foot of Telscombe cliff. He found the start of the track without difficulty and urged Hring into the opening, warning him again of the steepness of the path and that he should try not to tear away the vegetation with which it was overhung for the sake of the men following.

  The older man grunted and muttered, but went up the first few yards with surprising celerity, his progress marked by the movement of the vines and briars. Alex tensed, but no call of alarm came from the keep wall above. A breeze stirred the shrubs and other vegetation, disguising Hring’s passage. Alex prayed that the helpful wind would not bring rain.

  The next man-at-arms was right on Hring’s heels and each followed the one before swiftly, Alex bringing up the rear. Alex was not too surprised that no alarm had been sounded. They were not actually under any part of the wall. Above the hidden track was the formidable blank bulge of the keep itself, unassailable…except for that postern door.

  So far whoever watched on the walls to either side of the keep either had not noticed them or was too distracted by the preparations for attack on the gate to take note of waving bushes. There was less noise than Alex had expected, this not being the first cliff these men had climbed in their careers, and about halfway up, Alex began to hear the noise Byford’s men were making at the front of the keep.

  At the top, Alex found his men sensibly stretched out on either side of the door and flattened against the wall of the keep where it would be difficult to see them in the dark. All were tense, quietly loosening their weapons. They knew this was the first moment of acute danger. If someone had come into the cellar and discovered Chad, there would be an ambush waiting for them.

  Alex touched the door; it was open a slit. “Chad?”

  “Here, m’lord.”

  And to Alex’s delight a candle glow lit the area. “How did you do that?” he whispered, urging the man away from the door as the other men began to file in.

  “Under m’helmet, m’lord. Kept the door open a crack. Lit the candle when it was dark. Don’t touch t’helmet. It’s hot.” He sighed. “Tell you, m’lord, won’t do this again. Ugly, it was, all alone in the dark like that. And t’wasn’t needed. No one came near this part of the cellar.”

  “You had no company at all?” Alex murmured. “No storage in the cellar?”

  “Two, three, barrels beer.”

  Alex breathed out softly. “That’s good. No one will come here for extra arms. So we all know what we must do. Softly up the stair to the central hall. I hope Nicolaus and his captains will all be out on the walls trying to guess what Byford means to do. If so, we collect all the servants from this floor and the one above and lock them securely in any place that can be locked. Then we secure the door to the forebuilding—”

  “Why not burn it, m’lord?” Brydger asked.

  “Because if we cannot open the gate and Byford’s attack on the wall fails, I hope we will be able to retreat into the keep. Then we will burn the forebuilding and bar the door. If we can secure the keep against Nicolaus and his men, we will be able to escape out the door we entered.”

  “Better we get that gate open,” Hring muttered. “Don’t want to go down that track with arrows on our tails.”

  They had not come completely scatheless up the track. One man-at-arms had slipped and wrenched an ankle so badly he had to be helped up the track and now up the stair from the cellar. They left him at the head of the stair to keep any servants from fleeing into the cellar. Alex gestured for silence and then continued up the stair to the solar.

  He was not sure whether he hoped to find Nicolaus naked in his bed. Would he need to take the time to allow the man to arm himself? He did not think he could bring himself to kill Nicolaus when he was utterly helpless—and he did not want Nicolaus to yield. That would mean a trial, proof of his treachery. It might take months…years.

  That anxiety was soon put to rest. No one but two servants were on the floor. They were soon secured and the remainder of the indoor servants were herded up. Alex told the servants that they would not be harmed if they remained quietly in the solar but that the guard would kill them if they tried to leave.

  They left the crippled man-at-arms sitting on a stool at the foot of the stair, his drawn sword across his knees, and another man behind the barred door into the keep. He was to open only to one who cried “Exceat.” Nicolaus would not escape into his keep where he might hold out for weeks.

  Alex went quietly down the stair of the forebuilding and looked out into the bailey. Now he could clearly hear the shouts of Exceat’s men and the crack as a stone from one of the mangonels hit the wall. It would do the wall no harm; the small mangonels he had carried from Exceat, useful as they were to damage the siege equipment of attackers, were never meant to be used in offense. They were not large or powerful enough.

  There were men-at-arms in the bailey, but most of them were carrying material up to the wall. Torches blazed on the walls and here and there in the bailey, illuminating sheds with open doors. Directly across from where Alex stood were the castle gates, two leaves made of whole tree trunks planed square and fastened. About head height a timber a good handspan thick rested in steel holds. Alex drew a breath through his teeth. It would take two men to lift that, two tall men. Another thick bar was set below, easier to raise but still needing two men.

  Alex withdrew into the forebuilding and faced his men crowding around him and up the stair. “Hring,” he said, “do you have your horn?” The man lifted it from
where it was fastened to his belt so Alex and the others could see it. “As soon as we are attacked, blow the horn. That is the signal for Byford to start his assault, which I hope will keep most of Nicolaus’s men on the walls.”

  “Our goal,” he continued, “is to open the gate. Peter, you and your tall friend next to you, take the top bar. Push it up or out, whichever will be quickest and easiest. You two—” he pointed to two other men “—remove the bottom bar. Then everyone who is not actually wielding a sword on an enemy help to drag the gates open.”

  It sounded simple enough and at first no one even looked at them. They crossed almost half the bailey unnoticed, taken for more of Nicolaus’s men. All the attention of the men of Telscombe was fixed on the wall, beyond which most of the noise of useless shouting had died away. Then Alex heard the smack of a wooden scaling ladder against the wall. His head turned in that direction and he was surprised a moment later to see a gleam of metal arch up over the wall where he had heard the scaling ladder hit.

  He had no idea what it was, but a shout as much of outrage as of surprise went up. Everyone looked in that direction. Alex and his men made another few yards. Another ladder hit the wall. A few moments later there was again the glint of steel in the air. This time a man screamed, then screamed again. Alex saw him struggling wildly to reach his back, saw him jerked against a crenel opening, steel gleaming on his back in the torchlight. Someone seized him, to save him from being dragged over, pulled at the gleam of steel, generating more screaming.