By Sylvian Hamilton

by Max Gilbert

  'Never mind that. Why are you after him?'

  'Oh, I've had enough of this,' said Miles, smashing his elbow into the mountebank's windpipe, catching the dagger as it dropped and raising one knee to propel the collapsing body back inside the privy. Before the man could recover his breath, Miles had him suspended by the ankles, head down inside the noisome hole, wheezing, squeaking and trying to pray.

  'My turn to ask questions,' said Miles. 'What's your business with Sir Richard Straccan?'

  'Let me up, oh, God, let me up! Christ...' Miles shifted his grip and leaned comfortably against the wall. 'Let me up!'

  'When you've sung,' said Miles. 'Meanwhile, let's hope no one else comes out here, because he'll just have to piss all over you. Or whatever else he needs to do.'

  Sir Miles kept a firm grip on the mountebank's arm when they re-entered the hall, steering him to the corner where he'd prepared his pallet, and hooking his feet from under him when they got to it so that he fell on to the bed. Miles sat beside him.

  'It's an odd story,' he said. ‘I’m not saying I believe it, but it could be true, I suppose. It doesn't seem the sort of tale a chap would invent, even if tales and suchlike were his business. How do you report back?'

  'What?'

  'You're paid to follow and spy. So who do you tell and how, if you don't know who's paying you?'

  'Someone turns up,' said the merry man sullenly. 'It's never the same person. There's a password. When someone comes up to me and says the password, I go where I'm told and tell all I know to whoever's waiting for me.'

  'Clever,' said Miles. It was dark in the hall now, and the light from the fire had died down. All around them straw mattresses rustled as folk shifted and settled to sleep. There was some murmuring and a stifled giggle or two, and a volley of coughing. Miles rolled his captive over and used the man's belt to tie his hands behind him. 'You're not the bedmate I'd choose,' he said, 'but we'll share this place tonight. I'll decide about you in the morning. Don't think of scuttling off. I'm a light sleeper.' He was, too, for the mountebank had two goes at taking his leave and each time was jerked back painfully, the second time nearly dislocating his shoulder. After that he lay quiet, fuming, until morning.

  'There seem to me three ways to handle this,' said Miles, after their dole-breakfast of porridge, bread and ale. 'But before we go into that, you can help me get my beasts ready. Get my saddle and gear.' He noticed with approval that the man was quick and neat in his movements and handled the animals with confidence. The mule eyed him balefully and he scowled back at it.

  'You got a right one here,' he said.

  'Get it loaded,' said Miles, and watched as his prisoner cinched the brute's bellyband, waiting a moment before punching it hard in the gut and cinching it tighter while the mule was gasping. When it nuzzled his shoulder and bared its great yellow teeth he jabbed two fingers up its nostrils, and when it lashed out with the left hind foot he chopped it so hard on the nose with the edge of his hand that its eyes watered. Miles grinned.

  'The first way,' Miles said, 'is I can kill you. I don't really know what to make of you, and that way I'd be rid of the nuisance. But you've done me no harm apart from annoying me in the privy. I doubt you are in a state of grace, and I am unwilling to send a man's soul to hell for no great matter.'

  'The second?' asked the man hopefully.

  'The second is, I can let you go, you can take to your heels and I'll go my way. But this doesn't do anyone any good, as you will still have your job to do, as I have mine. We must both find Straccan. So the third way may be more profitable for us both.'

  'Go on.'

  'You come with me. I need a man; mine was injured and left behind, and you can be useful. I will even pay a wage, which is not to be sneezed at. If you cheat me or try to hinder me in any way, I can always kill you after all. What do you say?'

  The merry man looked along the road, and back at the horse and mule tied to the rail by the hall door. The brute showed the whites of its eyes in a promising manner. 'All right,' he said.

  'Good,' said Miles. 'What's your name?'

  'Larktwist. Starling Larktwist.'

  Miles grinned. 'We all have some cross to bear,' he said.

  Miles privately thanked his favourite saint –without reproaching him over the loss of his purse –for the turn of fortune which had brought him Starling Larktwist. And Larktwist, having twice in one week been compelled to tell his story in circumstances he preferred to forget, thanked his talisman (a grubby cloth bag round his neck, containing, so the witch who'd sold it to him said, a charm to ensure that come what may he would come up smelling of roses) for the lucky chance that had brought him Sir Miles, a young man not only in need of a manservant but heading in absolutely the right direction.

  Heavensent, thought Larktwist, as they made their way to Alnwick, where Miles obtained more funds and a cheap but sturdy border nag for his new companion.

  Heavensent, thought Sir Miles, as the unusually docile brute trotted quietly behind them. 'You've got its measure," he said encouragingly.

  'Up to a point. But it's watching for any chance to get back at me. It'll learn though ... Whoa!' The brute surged suddenly forward and tried to scrape its packs against Miles's knee. Larktwist took off his muffler and bound it over the animal's eyes. It reared and squealed, but presently trotted along in a docile fashion. 'It'll learn,' said Larktwist.

  Chapter 22

  Julitta placed a shallow black pottery dish, glossy with glaze, on the table. For a moment she contemplated her own fair face in the mirror-like water, then dropped a few fresh rose petals on to the surface and stirred the liquid with her finger, setting them circling. 'Look, sweeting,' she said huskily. 'Look at the water. Watch the petals go round.'

  'No.' Gilla tipped her head back as far as she could, staring at the ceiling, the beams and the crumbling painted plaster.

  'Look, honey,' said the soft persuasive voice. 'Look!'

  Gilla's head rolled on the slender neck. She stared at the window, the walls, the hangings, anywhere but at the woman or the water which dragged at her will.

  'Look at the water, Gilla.'

  The child resisted. And resisted. Until eventually her dulled gaze slid past Julitta and settled on the black bowl. The petals circled slowly, and then were still.

  "What do you see?'

  'Nothing.'

  'Look again. See my brother. Where is he?'

  The child's lips moved stiffly. 'Sleeping. Above us. The candles are nearly burned away.'

  'Good, that's very good, sweetheart. Look again. See our master. Where is he?'

  'I see nothing. Only--'

  'Say!'

  'Sky, clouds, the tops of trees. Hills.'

  'Look again. See him!'

  Gilla's face convulsed and tears ran from her eyes. 'I don't want to!'

  'Look!'

  'Please ...' But the woman's will was too strong and soon the child leaned over the bowl, staring.

  'He is coming,' she whispered. 'He is on the road.'

  'When will he be here?'

  The child sobbed. 'Soon.'

  'Who rides with him?'

  The child bit her lower lip so sharply that blood came. 'Two men. They are wearing white veils,' she whispered. 'Archers. I see their bows.'

  'There,' said Julitta. 'That is well done, little one. It will be easier in time; you'll get used to it. What else do you see?'

  Gilla bent over the dish, her breath ruffling the surface. Tears fell into the water. The picture she saw, the unnaturally bright small moving picture, faded, and another took its place: a cream-coloured kitten, sitting on a stool delicately washing itself. At Gilla's sudden smile Julitta frowned. In the water a woman's hands picked the kitten up, lifting it high until her face came into view. Oval, smooth, tanned, full-lipped, with hair in two plaits twined with green wool; reddish hair gilded by sunlight at her back. Brown eyes looked straight into hers.

  'Gilla? Gilla!' The words were in her head; all she co
uld see now were the woman's eyes. 'Gilla, don't do this! Oh Lord, protect her! Sign the cross, Gilla! Move your hand, I'll help you.' As if someone else had taken hold of it, Gilla's hand jerked from her lap and moved up, down, left, right, over the water.

  And now there was just a black dish with dull scummy-looking water and floating dead brown petals.

  'What did you see?' Julitta, furious, grabbed the small offending hand, twisting it cruelly. 'Why did you do that?'

  'She told me to, the lady told me to,' said Gilla, in a clear angry voice. 'You're hurting me! Let go! I hate you!'

  Julitta sat back and stared at her. 'Who did you see? Who told you to do that?'

  'I don't know! I don't Leave me alone! I want my father!'

  'Oh, him,' said Julitta with a thin smile. 'He is most likely dead by now.'

  When the quietly weeping child had been taken back to her small bare chamber and bolted in, Julitta stood by the window biting her lip. She could not understand what had happened. The child had been docile, that was to be expected with drugs in her food and drink, and the results were most promising.

  When that foul creature Pluvis and his startlingly beautiful but equally unpleasant companion Hugh de Brasy had turned up at Arlen Castle with the little girl, Julitta thought her just another serf brat, of no importance except to keep Pluvis quiet. He had a taste for small children. Best not to dwell on what he did with them in his hot little turret-top room. Once, passing the door, she heard a child singing, before its voice broke into tears and pleading, shouted down by his laughter. The servants were told to stay away from the tower. Pluvis's own man carried food and emptied slops, kept the fire going and took away the ashes. Carried up the tower stair wrapped in a cloak, the child had seemed asleep, as they usually were, but suddenly a fold of the cloak fell away and the bright soft hair fell loosely over Pluvis's arm. Julitta saw before he could cover it again. Clean hair.

  'What have you got there?' she demanded.

  He stared at her, an insulting mind-your-own-business stare that infuriated her. He was always an insolent creature, and his loathing of women showed in the contemptuous way he looked at them. She knew what he was, but he was the master's creature and she had never interfered. He did as he pleased, and they were only beggar brats.

  Not this one. This one was clean.

  He was furious when she made him give the girl up. But there she stood, Lady of Arlen, in her own castle with her men-at-arms within call. He dared not defy her.

  'Not this one,' she told him. 'Find another if you must, but remember the master's waiting for that relic.'

  Robbed of his toy, sulking, Pluvis rode away from Arlen, heading north, with the finger of Saint Thomas.

  She put the child, deeply drugged, in her own bed. The drug made its victims docile even after they woke--dreamy-eyed, slow of movement, above all obedient. If not renewed, the effects wore off in a few days. She questioned the girl and learned who she was: of all people, Straccan's daughter! That stupid relic-peddling fellow who had brought the icon and who'd sat staring at her like a landed fish, goggling with idiot admiration. It had amused her to bespell him; she'd disliked him on sight, and anyway, it was as well to be rid of anyone who knew about her brother and the icon. The spell was slow but sure. It would destroy him in time. She had a feeling about this child. The power in Julitta sensed it in others. She gave Gilla a quartz crystal, smoky yellow at one end but otherwise clear. 'Look, sweetheart,' she said. 'Look in the stone.'

  'What for?'

  'It's a game. Some people see pictures in there. Can you?'

  Gilla could.

  Julitta sent de Brasy to Scotland, to tell the Master of her prize. At the gate of the monastery at Shipwood, Straccan asked for the travellers' dole for himself and Bane. At each town and will, abbey, priory, hospice and inn, he asked the same question.

  'Have you seen a man, fair-haired and very fair of face, who rides a fine black horse? Has such a one stopped here? Stayed here? He might have had a small girl with him.'

  'No, my son, I haven't seen him.' said the gatekeeper, passing bread and cheese and ale through the wicket into their hands. 'But if you wait, I will enquire of guest master if such a man has been here. What is his name?'

  'I wish to God I knew,' said Straccan.

  Chapter 23

  Hugh de Brasy was his name, and one of his women once said of him that he was fair as an angel of God. That had amused him at the time, and even now, some years and many women later, he would smile when the thought recurred. All things considered, it was an excellent jest, though it must be said of de Brasy that he served Satan with no more ardour or enthusiasm that many a man served Christ.

  Fair he was, with features like the Archangel Michael in a church window: straight nose, full lips, firm chin, large blue eyes and silver-gilt hair. His hands were well kept, clean and manicured. He bathed often and smelled of perfumes. He could play both lute and dulcimer, and sing in a pure tenor; and with sword and dagger he was more talented than most.

  He rode a splendid blue-black Andalusian stallion, his saddle and gear ornamented with silver, and anyone could be pardoned who mistook him for a prince, or at the least, one of great worth and noble blood.

  In truth, he was the son of an unnamed drab and an unknown sire, ditch-born and ditch-abandoned, found near death by a kindly miller on his way to market and deposited at the abbey he passed on his road for the monks to save or lose. They saved him. And he grew to an abiding hatred of them, because of their coldness, the merciless Rule, poor food and many beatings; because of the rape of his body when he was eight years old by the fat kitchener, who thereafter shared him with his cronies. His savage hatred encompassed all of them, the God they prayed to and the Church they served.

  When he was twelve he stabbed the kitchener to the heart with the knife used for scraping wax from the candlesticks, and fled, lucky beyond belief to tag on as servant to a cavalcade of crusaders setting out for Palestine. There he passed the years until his eighteenth birthday, though he knew not the day itself, only that he had been found, birthwet and bloody, early in May.

  He learned many ways to please and serve the knights in those six instructive years. And he learned several of the languages of the East, for he had a quick ear and was gifted that way. He learned to steal cunningly, to kill noiselessly and the art of poisons. Purged by his experiences of either hope or faith in God, he was perfectly willing to give Satan a try, only to find the king of hell equally unresponsive. By the time he was eighteen, he believed only in himself and his luck.

  His luck held, and he came to the notice of Rainard, Lord Soulis.

  This Soulis rewarded loyalty with a liberal hand, and in his service a man could rise very high, no matter his birth, providing he was obedient, not squeamish, and truly wished to please his master.

  He had served Soulis unquestioningly for more than fifteen years, ever since the master came out of the desert with his sacks of gold coins and the madman, Al-Hazred. All that time he had been Soulis's man, body and soul, but recently Hugh de Brasy had begun to form other plans.

  For at thirty-three a man is nearer the end of his life than at eighteen, and whereas in the prime of young vigour, old age and death, heaven and hell, are too remote to matter, once past thirty those inevitabilities seem nearer.

  On this fair day it was good to be away from Crawgard, from the tower where the Arab laired among his spells and stinking drugs. Good to be under blue sky in green hills, riding a fine horse and listening to the pure song of a thrush high above him; very good, even if one's purpose was murder.