Siren Song

by Roberta Gellis

  To his surprise, the door swung open. The men charged forward bellowing with rage, but it was too late. Outside, Raymond did not run. He swung round next to the wall of the place and brought his sword down from an overhead sweep as hard as he could. A blood-chilling scream rang out as the sword connected with the shoulder of the man most closely on his heels. Raymond wrenched his weapon back up fiercely. It came away more easily than he expected having broken right through the collarbone and there being nothing but soft tissue above that. The wild backswing nearly decapitated the next man out, and he fell back into the inn, blood pulsing briefly from his throat before his brain died and his heart stopped pumping.

  The others stopped where they were. Egbert, who had most to lose if Raymond escaped and had thus been the first out behind him, continued to scream but more weakly. The sword had opened a four-inch-deep slash where the neck joined the body, and he was losing blood fast. As his voice weakened, the men still inside the inn looked at each other. Was it worth pursuing the intended victim? When Egbert was dead, they could strip him of whatever he had. Obviously they could not hope to obtain the bonus he had promised them even if they succeeded in killing this cursed “easy prey”. Equally obviously he had lied to them. This was no merchant’s clerk, even if he did check cargoes on a ship.

  They consulted rapidly in whispers, arguing whether it was more dangerous to let Raymond live, in which case he could complain against them, or to try to kill him. Two men were hurt already, one was dead and another nearly so. It was not possible to take a chance on the front door, where that deadly sword might be waiting. They left the worst hurt man in the main room of the inn, talking softly to himself to make Raymond believe they were all still there, and carefully went through the back door to sneak up on him from behind.

  The effort was all wasted. Raymond had not run, as they expected, because he was not in a panic. Although not as experienced in war as an older man, he had fought often enough and faced enough danger to keep a cool head. Nor had he remained by the door to take vengeance. He had only wished to discourage pursuit. Thus, when the man he had killed fell back into the inn and no one had leapt out over the body, he had waited no more than five seconds before running as silently as he could across the narrow lane into the shadow of another hut.

  Here he had paused again, just long enough to look over his shoulder. Aside from the weakening screams of Egbert, now little more than moans, all was quiet. Raymond could only suppose that those who lived in the area were too callous or too frightened to bestir themselves over blatant evidence of violence. As far as he was concerned, this was all to the good, and he simply made haste to get as far away as possible. When he had passed down several winding alleys, Raymond stopped again. There was no sound of pursuit nor was there a person or an open door or window in sight. None of this was surprising, as the rain had begun in good earnest.

  Raymond leaned against a blank wall, wiped his sword on his cloak, and sheathed it. Then he used his knife to tear strips from his tunic to bind his left arm, hoping that would stanch the bleeding. He glanced around, but this alley looked exactly like any other. There were no stars, no moon, and the drumming of the rain was so loud that he could not hear the soft gurgle and chuckle of the river. Shakily he began to laugh. He was lost.

  The paralysis of fear that had frozen the three women broke at Mauger’s second thunderous demand to be admitted. Shaking with terror, Emma started forward. Just in time, Elizabeth’s arm closed around her neck.

  “He will break your nose and knock out your teeth,” Elizabeth hissed.

  “Even the dog boys and pig men will not want you,” Alys added softly and viciously, “but if you help us, my papa will find you a rich lover who will value you and be kind to you.”

  “But what can we do?” Emma whimpered.

  “Take me back to the chair,” Elizabeth said. “I can stand with that support. Emma, call out that you are coming. Say you are on the pot, quick!”

  Once she was given a lead, Emma was able to obey. The trembling of her voice did not convey innocence, but that did no harm because Mauger already knew Alys was inside and expected her to sound guilty. He thought Alys was trying to hide and pounded on the door again. Elizabeth, leaning on the chair, turned to face the sound.

  “Take off the bar,” she urged, “and, as you open, stand behind the door. He will see me first and rush to subdue me.”

  Had Elizabeth not offered that hope of concealment and respite, Emma would have fainted. As it was, she was so frightened she could barely walk. She tottered toward the door, quite unaware that Alys had picked up a heavy bronze candlestick and had flattened herself against the wall on the other side. Mauger was shouting again, and Emma sobbed with terror, struggling to lift the bar with fear-loosened muscles.

  As she had planned, the first thing Mauger saw was Elizabeth. “Where is she?” he roared, his eyes sweeping the room.

  “Who?” Elizabeth asked calmly, as if there were nothing unusual in the situation.

  Mauger took two steps forward, looking toward the bed, which was the most logical place for Alys to hide. He hesitated, unwilling to move far from the door lest Elizabeth dart past him while he tried to seize Alys, or vice versa. The pause was exactly what Alys needed. She leapt forward and swung the candlestick at his head with all the strength she had. Alys was no weakling, but she was a small girl. Although she hit Mauger, it was with less force than she desired because he was considerably taller than she. He staggered forward, roaring with pain and surprise, dazed but not incapacitated. Startled out of the few wits she had, Emma pushed the door closed and stood frozen with horror. Alys followed Mauger, raising the candlestick to strike again, but he turned with surprising swiftness and seized her arm. Elizabeth cried out and flung herself forward, but her weakened legs would not hold her and she fell.

  Alys had brought her left hand into play, scratching at Mauger’s eyes. It was a futile attempt. He seized that hand also. “You will wish you had not done that,” he snarled. “When I have done with that idiot who disobeyed me, I—”

  His voice cut off in a high shriek as Alys brought her knee up and caught him in the groin. Unfortunately the force of this blow was reduced by her long, clinging skirt. Mauger’s yell was as much owing to shock and indignation as to pain, and he did not let go of her. However, she had hurt him enough so that he bent forward and stood quite still, gasping.

  Something about the assault on Mauger’s sexual organs woke in Emma the burning resentment that fear had suppressed. She had been schooled to docility to men. She had never, for a moment, considered resistance possible. Alys’s first attack on Mauger shocked her. This second, when Emma had believed the other girl helpless, broke her paralysis. Before the sound of Mauger’s shriek had died, while he was still bent over trying to catch his breath, Emma scuttled forward and brought the heavy bar of the door, which she had been too frightened to release, down on his back.

  This second attack was so unexpected that Mauger let go of Alys to save himself as he fell forward. Alys had had a split second’s warning, since she had been facing Emma and had seen her move. She skittered back out of the way of Mauger’s falling body and hit him again with the candlestick. This time his head was lower than her hand and the impact was enough to knock him senseless.

  He lay snorting on the floor while all three women stared, wide eyed, hardly believing in their success. Elizabeth, who had got herself back on her knees, was the first to recover. “Tie him. Alys, use the things you loosened from me or something else and tie him quickly before he regains his senses.”

  For a long moment Alys did not move, standing with the candlestick poised. Her common sense told her that she should not stop, that she should beat Mauger’s head to a bloody pulp, spatter his brains so that he could do no more evil. She managed to raise the weapon higher, but she could not bring it down. It was murder. To strike and strike at a helpless body, that was murder. She could not bring herself to do it, even though she knew she
was breeding grief for them all.

  Alys dropped the candlestick, with a soft exclamation of regret for her weakness, and began to tie Mauger hand and foot. Meanwhile, Emma had let go of the bar and fled to Elizabeth, who praised her and comforted her while being lifted to her feet again. Alys added her thanks also, promising Emma, this time ungrudgingly, whatever reward she desired for Alys was aware that the single blow the girl had struck had saved her father’s and her future husband’s lives as well as Elizabeth’s and eventually her own. The sincerity of the praise lavished on her penetrated Emma’s doubt. She grew quite cheerful and gleefully helped Alys drag Mauger to Elizabeth’s bed and, heaving mightily, got him into it.

  Emma’s cheerfulness was not shared by Alys or Elizabeth. They had no idea whether Mauger had instructed his men-at-arms to prevent his wife and Alys from leaving. They feared that Egbert, who was usually in his master’s confidence, might see them and give warning to hold them even if Mauger had not. If the women had heard Mauger’s shouts, would they have run down to the hall cackling like frightened geese?

  The last had not happened, although the maids were tense, not working, watching Elizabeth’s door. There was a murmur when she emerged, walking waveringly, and Maud rushed over with a cry of joy mingled with consternation.

  “Hush,” Elizabeth said. “Mauger is furious because I must go back to Marlowe.”

  “Oh, my lady, are you strong enough?” Maud whispered, glancing nervously at the door.

  “I was not really ill,” Elizabeth said quite truthfully, “and would have been out of my bed yesterday by my own will. I do still find myself a little feeble, however, so you are to come with us. Fetch cloaks quickly.”

  Maud was silly, but she sensed something wrong. Obviously the reconciliation she had hoped for between her master and her mistress had not taken place. Possibly her lady was trying to be out of the way while the master worked off his bad temper. Emma’s presence was a complete puzzle, unless Elizabeth’s price for restoration of her favors was to be rid of Emma. Maud did not dare argue with her mistress and was relieved that she would not be left behind to face Mauger’s wrath if he had not agreed to Emma’s removal.

  They crept down the stairs, supporting Elizabeth as well as they could, and bade Maud see if Egbert was in the hall. When she reported he was not, Alys called her men who were waiting there. They made their way down the outer stair, through the inner bailey, and around toward the small one-man gate in the rear of the outer wall. Although this was a kind of weakness, because the gate could be forced far more easily than the great front portcullis, it mattered little. The passage through the walls was so narrow that only one person could enter at a time. Thus, the postern could be easily defended or even stuffed with rubbish in time of war. As long as its placement was “secret,” it provided a way for messengers to sneak out. In time of peace, of course, it was simply a shorter route to the rear of the keep.

  By the time they reached the postern gate, they were all soaked and Maud was growing more and more frightened. She began to protest, crying that it was cruel and sinful that Alys should drag Elizabeth, weak and sick as she was, out into a downpour. It no longer seemed possible to her that Elizabeth’s purpose could be to rid herself of Emma. There must be some emergency at Marlowe, but it did not seem to Maud that any emergency could merit such cruelty to her enfeebled mistress.

  “Be still,” Elizabeth hissed, slapping Maud. The blow itself was ineffectual. The fact that Elizabeth had dealt it stunned Maud into silence. “I am weak because Mauger was starving me to death and had me bound hand and foot for two days. Now come quietly and quickly before we are caught and killed.”

  Fear and tension had supported Elizabeth until they were out of the keep, but once free her strength failed rapidly. One of the men had to carry her as they proceeded along the wall back toward the road. For a little while, Elizabeth merely drew breath; after that she began to review what had happened and she gasped in horror at the mistakes they had made.

  “Alys,” she called, “we did not gag Mauger or shut the door!”

  “What— Oh merciful Mary! When he regains his senses he will begin to yell for help and the women will have to release him.” Alys held her breath and listened, but even as she did it she realized it was useless. The sounds of a full-scale battle might come over the walls, but nothing so insignificant as twenty or thirty men arming and mounting to catch a group of fugitives afoot.

  Chapter Twenty

  As Alys stood trying to decide in an instant whether it would be safer to go wide around the gate of the keep so that the guards would not see them or save time by taking the most direct route, Mauger was slowly becoming aware of the pains in his head and back. These were sharp and stabbing and drew attention first, but there was also a chorus, a duller, nagging pain in his arms and shoulders. He could not imagine how he had come to fall asleep in so weird a position and he lay considering that dully for some time.

  Finally Mauger opened his eyes unwillingly. It was not morning! The bed curtains were not drawn, but the room itself was quite dark. The bed curtains—they were not his bed curtains. Frantically now Mauger pulled and twisted, realizing at last that he was bound. He let out a bellow of rage even before he remembered the attack and then, as that memory returned, began to scream for help in earnest.

  At Mauger’s first shout the women in the outer room looked at each other questioningly. The women were not puzzled by the shout but by the need to decide who should answer it. None wanted to face Mauger in a bad temper. They looked doubtfully at the stairwell down which those who usually attended Mauger had disappeared. None of them had heard what Elizabeth said to Maud, but they had seen Maud fetch cloaks. It was odd that neither Elizabeth nor Maud had told one or more of them to attend Mauger if they expected to be gone long.

  The second shout, followed in rapid succession by an increasing volume of sound, galvanized the women into action. Two middle-aged maids rose together and hurried into Elizabeth’s chamber, excuses for their tardiness bubbling on their lips. What they saw when they entered the room, struck them dumb. They clung together, half minded to flee.

  Angry as he was, Mauger was no fool. He realized that if he expressed the rage he felt he would frighten these maidservants so much they might run away without untying him. “Your lady is mad with fever,” he said, moderating his tone with an enormous effort, “and that silly little girl from Marlowe believed what she said. Untie me quickly. If she goes out in the rain, she will surely die.”

  Both women sprang to do his bidding, greatly relieved by his moderate behavior. His explanation of what they had heard dimly through the door was convincing. While they worked at the knots, they bewailed the fate of their mistress, spilling the information that she had gone down more than a quarter of an hour before he called to them.

  Mauger almost burst, but he did not waste time in venting his bottled-up rage on the women after they had served his purpose. He raced down through the hall and down again to cross the inner bailey. Mauger had intended to ask the outdoor servants which way the women had gone, but, of course, there were none in sight. The drenching rain had driven everyone to shelter.

  As he ran across the outer bailey, Mauger said what he thought about his wife, his servants, the weather, the inhabitants of Marlowe, and his fate in general. Unfortunately, this did not really relieve his feelings much, so that when the guard at the gate swore the women had not passed that way, Mauger howled that he was lying and struck him. He might have gone further, but from the wall above two men added their confirmation. By then, the master-at-arms had come running from the shed in which he had been waiting out the rain. Mauger at once ordered that the outdoor servants be questioned and a general search of the grounds and keep be made.

  One keen-eyed man-at-arms noticed that the bars were off the postern gate, but the man wasted time searching the outside for the fugitives. Since they were already hurrying through the village, this little delay could really have had little
effect on the outcome of the search, but the man was fortunate he did not mention more than that the postern was open. Mauger was not certain this was not a ruse, but he took no chance and sent a dozen men out in pursuit while encouraging the search within the keep to continue.

  Soon, however, Mauger realized that Alys, at least, would be clever enough to understand it would be impossible to hide in the keep or grounds for long. From that moment he knew in his heart that Alys and Elizabeth had slipped out of his grasp. His rage and frustration were so intense that they could not even find expression in violence of word or deed. For quite a long time Mauger stood staring into the fire. Then it occurred to him that Egbert had never come back with the news of Raymond’s death.

  Everything had gone wrong—everything. Fear swallowed anger so that when the men he had sent out returned to report the boat gone from the dock, Mauger only nodded. He had already known. His first impulse was to run but there was nowhere to run to. Mauger was wise enough to know that the great men he had cosseted would be indifferent to him in his troubles. If he could grab estates and power, they would be willing to confirm his acts to win the gratitude of a rising man. None of them, however, would trouble to protect him when he was falling. He had no friends. Mauger did not bother with his equals or those less rich and powerful than himself unless he could use them.

  Having reached the nadir of despair, Mauger began to add up what could be charged against him. Suddenly the picture looked less black. Obviously Elizabeth would cry out that he had confessed to her he had arranged the murder of her brothers and the attempts on William’s life, but who would believe a wife who fled to a lover from her husband’s home? Quickly Mauger ran over what he had said and done since Elizabeth had “fallen ill”. No one knew anything except Emma, and she had gone with Elizabeth. Even when he had sent the men hunting them, he had ordered that they be taken unhurt and to the women he had said he feared for Elizabeth’s health.