by Mairi Norris
In due course, she overcame her reluctance and learned the staircase circled to a long-unused exterior door. This one opened alongside the back garden fence. Concealed by its resemblance to the stone around it and hidden from the sentries by the tight confluence of the fence and the tower’s curve, the stair had been her secret ever since. It had amused her to use it to foil the dark knight’s watchers. Those fools had never known that all the time they believed her busy at some chore in the tower, she had disguised herself in a ceorl’s headrail and syrce and made use of her freedom to accomplish her part in the plots of her true love.
Now, she wasted no time. At the head of the stairwell, she kept a long wooden box. From it, she withdrew a langseax, two fighting hadseaxes and a leather satchel. Within the satchel, swathed in the protective ceorl garb, were the games pieces and folded board of the priceless Hnefatafl set, a bag of coins, two small objects of high value no one had ever missed, her message materials and the set of burh keys she had long ago stolen from the hoarding room and secreted away.
She changed into the ceorl’s clothing, re-wrapped the Hnefatafl set and other treasures in her ragged cyrtel and returned them to the satchel. Keeping the keys in her hand, she bundled the weapons and the satchel inside a linen towel and fastened it securely around her waist. She donned a black cloak and made her way down the stairs, one palm sliding along the cold wall, the treads creaking beneath her weight. Her caution was great, for she had no torch. She let herself out into the wet night. At least, ’twas no longer raining. She paused and tried to sight the sentries in their oilskin cloaks who would be pacing the south wall, but the darkness was too deep.
If only she could have stolen the keys to the garden gates! ’Twould have been so much easier to pass through that dark yard to the orchard. But as had Renouf, the dark knight kept the only keys in his possession. She would have to go the long way around, stopping first to free Cynric, and then work her way past the northeast tower and through the shadows in the courtyard. Hugging the tower wall, she pulled tight her dark cloak and crept on wary feet around the base to the pits.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Fallard stood within the north guard tower above the gates. He held a cresset high inside the embrasure overlooking the clearing and slowly swung it back and forth. He covered the light and turned to cross to the opposite embrasure that opened onto the courtyard. Using his body to shield his action from those to whom he had just signaled, he briefly let shine the flame. The burh troops, scattered about below, would note the warning and know their waiting was at an end.
He raced down to the gatehouse and with the help of one of his knights, cranked open the inner portal. The distinctive metallic clank was loud. Even over the sporadic gusts of rain, the sound would clearly reach Ruald’s men where they waited beyond the clearing in the tree line.
The expected questioning shout was raised from one of the sentries above, but as planned, he left it unanswered. Another shout was heard, more demanding this time, and then another, more urgent still. From high above, the alert trumpet sounded. Sentries raced along the wall and down the stairs.
More shouts, and what sounded like a clash of swords began only to quickly die away. The warning trumpet’s clarion call was suddenly silenced.
The outer gate lifted. Fallard stood poised in the tunnel entrance. Once again, he swung the cresset. To those waiting, he would be visible only as the tall, cloaked figure they expected to see. This time, his effort gained a detectable response. From among the trees along the edge of the clearing poured the horde of Ruald’s men, perceivable only as gyrating shadows as they rushed the gate. They were no more than halfway across the clearing, their leader approaching the bridge, when from behind them a semi-circle of equally shadowy and silent men slipped out from beneath the same trees and raced behind them.
Torches flared to life all around the courtyard, sputtering and smoking.
Fallard retreated to the hall stairs, dropped the cresset, threw aside his cloak and grabbed his waiting shield. As the rebels pounded through the tunnel into the courtyard, he drew his sword. Seemingly from nowhere rose the warriors of the burh.
“Dex Aie!” Fallard’s voice roared the terrifying war scream as he leapt from the steps to meet the foe. Dozens of voices echoed the cry from within and without.
Caught in the vise between the armed warriors confronting them unexpectedly from the front and the crush of more falling in behind, the insurgents floundered. The more experienced among them overcame the first rude shock. They fought like madmen, rallying the rest. The chaos of battle spilled over the bridge and into the clearing. Furious shouts, and the screams of wounded and dying men, rose above the resounding clash of weaponry. Thunder rumbled and reverberated overhead, as if the gods approved the conflict.
***
Cynric Wulfsingas lay on a straw pallet in the interrogation pit. Yet, he could find little cause for complaint, for his captors had offered him his fill of water to drink and allowed him to relieve himself ere he was bound. They covered him with a woolen blanket, and left a torch burning in a holder on the wall. He wondered at treatment that seemed much too gracious for his situation, but he was grateful, for his clothing was damp and an unpleasant chill seeped from the walls. The warmth of the blanket and the light from the torch that chased away the blackness were very welcome.
Despite Ysane’s conviction her husband would grant him leniency, his heart thudded in bitter recognition of his fate. He held no illusions about the dark knight’s intentions. He had always known the consequences should he be captured, and long since counted the cost and accepted the risk. But he could banish not the shafts of terror that scorched his soul as he thought of the king’s many methods of punishment for traitors. His father’s fate was possible, but unlikely for one who had aided Ruald the Rebel. The death he would face would be not easy.
He was trying not to dwell on the frightening future that loomed all too close when he heard the faint scrape of a key in the lock. His heart slammed, then doubled its pounding rhythm. Who came for him?
Inexplicably, the scraping sound continued for quite some time. Suddenly, the door above him burst open and someone came halfway down the steps. The cloaked figure stopped.
“Cynric?”
He stiffened in shock, then forced his body upright. Blighted hope soared at the possibility of escape. How or why he could guess not, but the voice belonged to Leda. He groaned an unintelligible mumble from behind the gag.
She was at his side in a moment. While he gaped in disbelief, she fumbled with a bundle dangling from her waist to pull out two knives. With one, she severed his bonds. The other she gave to him.
“What do you here, Leda? How did you get free?”
“If you want out of this place, follow me,” she said, “and be quiet!”
She bounded up the steps. Cynric followed as she turned left and crept round the base of the northeast tower. She stopped and pulled the hood of her cloak closer about her face. From the torchlit courtyard came the unmistakable clamor of all-out battle.
Leda turned to him. “There is fighting! Ruald did not expect this.”
Almost, Cynric laughed. He knew well the conflict’s cause. The rest of the dark knight’s trap had been sprung.
“You should come with me, Leda.” He tried to take her arm and pull her back to the relative safety behind them, but she jerked away.
“Leda!” Cursing, Cynric followed her for now she made no effort to hide. Though she hugged the wall, she moved perilously close to the combat.
Unwilling to join a sword fight with naught but a hadseax, Cynric halted at the hall steps. But his companion, intent on some unknown objective of her own, arced a circle around the base, dodging warring men as she went. She fled toward the orchard. Abruptly, Cynric realized where she was headed. The crypts! She was going to release Ruald.
Before he could move, a cry was raised and two men, one massive and the other tall and wearing a black hauberk, chased after her. Cynr
ic recognized the tall warrior as Fallard. He leapt across the hall steps to pursue them, but found his progress impeded by a group of fighters. He was forced to crouch out of the way and wait for a breach through which he might pass. He saw his chance, and ran. Lightning seared the night and far ahead in its lurid glare, he saw the two knights reach the crypts. Instead of following, he raced instead for the chapel.
***
The impact as his blade pierced the heart of a rebel soldier jarred Fallard to his shoulders. In the pallid light cast by a nearby torch, the man’s vivid green eyes blazed with shock, then rapidly glazed as Fallard wrenched his sword from his chest.
He paused for a few moments, panting as he stared at his fallen foe. The older warrior had been a powerful and deadly swordsman, probably a knight in former service to some Saxon lord, now dead or disinherited. It had taken all his considerable skill and experience to best him.
This man’s resemblance to Cynric is uncanny. I give thanks he is not my wife’s brother.
He whirled to parry the next powerful blow he sensed slashing toward him, his feet slipping on wet pavement. ’Twas no longer raining, but faith, he hated fighting in wet weather, and hated it worse at night. His blade clashed with the other, striking blue sparks. As the two blades slid against each other in a teeth-clenching screech of steel, he gave a powerful twist of his wrist, forcing the other blade down. He disengaged, and in that split moment when the other’s guard was off, he plunged. The blow struck home. The man cried out and went down.
In the lessening chaos of the melee, he glanced around, seeking his next opponent. His keen eyes found Domnall, Jehan and Trifine still on their feet. His troops appeared to be steadily winning the fray.
A sudden, furtive movement in his peripheral vision exposed a form in a dark cloak. Too small to be a man, it darted through the pools of torchlight around the base of the northwest tower and sprinted for the orchard.
Leda!
He dashed water from his eyes and shouted. Someone crashed into him from behind. He staggered and spun to face the threat.
Varin’s grinning face loomed over him as the knight’s massive fist caught and steadied him. “Sorry, Captain,” he yelled.
Fallard wasted no time with battlefield pleasantries. The big knight was exactly who he needed for his next task. “Varin, come with me!”
They dodged their way through battling warriors, parrying a blow to the side or stopping briefly to stand back-to-back to defend themselves with thrust or cut, but soon they were clear and following the figure already swallowed by the night.
***
Ysane was terrified. ’Twas frightening to be alone in the forest at night, but that fear was an ordinary unease she could bear. The real dread came from within, for she had awakened earlier from a restless after-the-nooning nap in which she dreamed of her husband’s death. When she woke, she recalled the nightmare in all its stark clarity and feared it a portent.
In the dream, she stood unseen in the secret corridor. Fallard moved into her sight, only to be brutally cut down by a tall figure rushing upon him from behind.
She had awakened, sweating and gasping Fallard’s name, unshakably certain ’twas a true vision. But the horror that nigh paralyzed her during the following hours was also for Cynric, for she recognized the shadowy murderer of her husband, and ’twas her brother.
She struggled to think rationally, to convince herself ’twas but a fiction devised by her own anxious imaginings, but as the day waned her apprehension grew until she could ignore it no longer.
The need to leap up and run to her husband was profound. At first, she fought it, for such a path put at risk the life of her unborn babe. But as the hours passed, the increasing urgency left her with no choice.
Other children might be conceived if this one is lost, but not without my husband. There is only one Fallard, only one man I love more than life. What hope has this child without him? I fear King William to my marrow, but should Fallard die, I dread his next choice of a husband for me even more. I would put it not beyond his cruelty to take my babe from me to give to another. I know not how, but no longer is there doubt that only I may prevent the horror awaiting Fallard and Cynric in the corridor. I will take great care, aye, and do all in my power to protect my babe, but I must act now.
Her inner arguments finished, she waited till her companions slept. Drawing on the woodman’s skills Cynric had taught her long ago, she used the darkness to avoid the guards and make her way home through the black forest, praying she would lose not her way.
She crouched at the edge of the river, waiting for the sporadic lightning to illumine the opposite verge. A distinctively twisted hawthorn would be visible on the other bank if she was at the right spot. The flash she waited for outlined what she sought. She lifted the hems of her cyrtel and cloak and tucked them into her girdle, freeing her lower limbs of their encumbrance. With the end of the long stick she carried, she tapped around in the water until she found the first of the stepping-stones.
’Twas Cynric’s belief the stones had been placed there very long ago, in a time when the riverbed was deeper than it was now and the water level lower. The flat stones were firmly embedded in the river bottom and too precisely laid for their placement to be of natural occurrence. He believed when first the stones were laid, their surfaces would have been well above the level of the water so one could easily pass over without getting wet. Why else would anyone bury them there? He could think of no good reason why one would put stepping-stones under the water.
These days, one could normally use the stones without wetting more than one’s ankles. Not that wet feet mattered this night, for in order to follow Fallard, she would have to ford the river twice to reach the southwest side of the island where the postern gate was located. Then she must climb the bow-shaped abutment of solid rock to reach the gate. On a night in her youth, Cynric had shown her a way up the abutment, pointing out small ledges in the rock where her feet could find purchase. She had climbed it at night for no other reason than to prove she could, but it had not been wet then and Cynric had been behind her to catch her should she fall. This night, the rock face would be slippery.
She made it over the stepping-stones to the south bank without mishap, quickly moved into the shelter of the woods, and huddled, shivering, beneath the dubious protection of a heavily canopied tree. The most difficult part of her journey lay ahead. Buttressing her courage with her love for her husband and brother, she rose to follow the riverbank, feeling her way along the edge of the tree line.
Approaching the river’s fork at the west end of the island, she stopped, clutching her mantle. She closed her mind to the fear that battered like the wings of a frantic bird, and reached out with her senses to hear what could not be seen through the darkness. Only when she was certain no one else was nigh did she move, bending low to race across the flat, grassy space until she reached the river’s verge. She came to a halt when lightning slashed the scene, then slithered down the muddy bank and plunged into the water. She pushed her way through the current, surprised to find the surge stronger and the water level higher than when she crossed earlier. It flowed around her thighs, pulling hard, instead of at her knees, as expected.
Still, it hindered her only briefly, and soon she was scaling the opposite bank and seeking the first of the ledges that would provide purchase for her hands and feet. She climbed, all her thoughts focused on finding the next ledge or toehold, until her searching fingertips found the rough, horizontal stone that comprised the low threshold of the gate.
She threw back her head and laughed in defiance of her fear, a peel of thunder drowning the sound, and leaned, panting and trembling with effort against the solid panel of the gate. Her questing fingers found the latch without difficulty.
A sudden freak gust of wind from beyond the wall brought a faint sound to her ears and she tensed. She knew that sound and it froze her heart.
Mercy! The battle has already begun. My time runs short. I mu
st hurry!
Refusing to consider the possibility she might be too late, she slid inside and pulled the door to. Silence met her. Faint light from beyond the access tunnel proved the others had gone this way before her.
Where is Fallard? He should be here.
With palms grazing the chill stone on either side, she made her way through to the empty corridor where torches still burned in sconces along the walls. But she knew her path, and needed no light to guide her way. She turned to the right and sped toward the crypts. She reached to unlock the secret door, only to realize ’twas already open. She pushed through and it swung closed. She hurried as fast as she dared into the darkness of the wide hall between the vaults.
Too late, she realized she was not alone. She collided with a hard male body and cried out in shock as powerful hands locked around her arms.
“Fallard?”
“Well, now, who have we here?” Ruald’s hateful voice sounded above her, and he held her fast. His hand moved over her in a lewd caress.
“Let me go!” Cringing, she tried to break free of his grip.
“Ah, ’tis my sweet little sister-by-law.” He laughed. “What a fortunate coincidence, say you not, Leda? Take the flint from my sash, will you, my love, and light the torch we found.”
The whispery movement of fabric as Leda knelt to the floor was followed by light, blinding in the darkness of the crypts, as the tallow of the torch ignited. Leda glared at Ysane through squinted lids, clearly unhappy her rival had appeared. She sputtered obscenities beneath her breath.