De Vallen’s kinsman murmured, ‘I’m glad to see things run well for you, my Lord Ranulf. But you’ll understand if I say, I myself paid out good money to hire the Hawksbill. And devoted a year to the snaring of your brother.’
‘Oh, and what’s this? Sit at my table? Doubt my word? Hold Tremellion’s promise up to question?’
‘I didn’t say—’
‘And better for you if you don’t! Good Christ, but I’ve told you what’s going on! I’ll be wed to the bitch in a matter of weeks. Then coins in the sack! Recompense for us all!’ His spatulate finger close to Grevel’s face, he asked if the knight would accept what he’d been told – or not?
Brimming with doubt and suspicion, the man who’d squandered a year of his life on behalf of the arrogant bully said yes, no question of it, yes and yes redoubled. What else could he say but yes?
* * *
It was part of Falkan’s plan to stay unshaved. His lean face weathered by the time he’d spent in the Holy Land; by his four-month crossing of Europe; he was now, without even the benefit of disguise, unrecognizable as the callow young man who’d left England aboard Gregorius Simeon Bigorre’s ill-named tub, the Gossamer.
Yet disguise was important.
A square yard of unbleached cotton. A circlet of plaited cord.
A flat-topped casque he’d purchased from a Frankish knight in Tyre, the helmet far too large for his head.
A loose long-sleeved garment that draped his body, the material embroidered with Arabic signs of prayer.
A shield he’d bought in Plymouth, then taken to a sign-painter, telling the man the design he wanted brushed on the thin iron plate. Eight or twelve gyrons, it doesn’t much matter, so long as the alternate colours show bright. ‘The important thing – I would have it seen from a distance.’
Drawing aside from the track that led to Launceston – and close, I believe to where my father died – Baynard rehearsed the Saxon in the part he’d have to play. It went badly, the men growling in disagreement, Guthric maintaining the role was beyond him, Baynard saying, ‘Just do it, damn you! Now repeat it again, after me…’
Their anger exhausted, they slept that night in the forest, their dreams of tomorrow made ragged by the knowledge that their first mistake would most assuredly be their last.
* * *
They decided to catch Ranulf early.
In the bright July dawn, the guards on the southern wall and in the gatehouse above the zigzag ascent to the castle saw an ill-matched pair of riders approach the gully. A knight in a flat-topped barrel helm, his shield bright with its widening segments of colour. Beside him rode a man some of the guards recognized as an Arab, a bearded creature whose head was swathed with a kaffiyeh, the covering held in place by its hoop of cord. The knight sat upright in the saddle, the foreigner conforming to the guards’ impression of the sly and sinister Moslem, his shoulders hunched, a wary glance cast now and again at the castle.
The riders halted at the foot of the gully.
The sound of his voice made dull and resonant by the all-enclosing helmet, the knight demanded to know if this was the place called Tremellion.
Peering down from the gatehouse, the guard commander allowed that it was – ‘Though we’ve no expectation of callers.’
Speaking slowly, careful of his words, Guthric announced himself as a knight of the county – ‘Edwin Cerdas, and a damned sight off my route to favour your master. I’ve better things to do than trot up here, but this foxy creature approached me in Plymouth. Said he had news for Randolph of Tremellion.’
‘It’s Ranulf.’
‘I’m not much concerned by what it is. But the Arab implored me to guide him. He’s got some story about the death of your master’s brother. Money that now accrues to Ranulf. God knows what else; his accent taxes the ear.’
Good, my old Guthric, you’re playing it well. Now get us both inside!
‘Wait where you are. Lord Ranulf might still be abed. I’ll send to see if he’s—’
‘Try it, mon ami, and I’ll be gone. I said it before; I’m far off my route as a favour to Tremellion. You either admit us now, or a curse on your blasted ingratitude!’ With an irritable gesture – no bad actor after all, the Saxon pretender – he jerked at his mount, as if to nudge the Arab aside.
The guard commander shouted the length of the gully. ‘Admit the callers! Lord Ranulf will be pleased to thank you in person, Sir Edwin! See you fed and on your way!’
Guthric grunted inside his prison of riveted iron. Then turned to Baynard Falkan, the eyes within the helmet gleaming in triumph at the eyes that were shadowed by the unbleached tent of cotton.
* * *
Forced to make their way upward through the maze of walls, they climbed toward the house they knew so well. Sure of Guthrie’s disguise – his head in a pot, who could ever guess he was not who he claimed to be? – Falkan was equally certain of his own. The guards stared hard at him as he passed, a number of them recognized by the Arab, but no one clutched at his embroidered robe or reached to snatch the kaffiyeh from his head. He remained stooped over, the way they’d rehearsed it in the forest, and was ready to sigh with relief as they passed through the gatehouse.
Where the Saxon unwittingly jeopardized the scheme.
* * *
Accepted and befriended by Sir Geoffrey, the Constable of Tremellion reverted to the role he knew best. He turned beyond the archway of the gatehouse, striding toward the gap in the curtain wall that would lead him through to the inner bailey and the lake and the bridge, then across it to the ramp and the keep that had for so long been his home.
But Edwin Cerdas would not have known these things!
Stumbling forward, the Arab barged violently at the knight. Grabbed at the man for balance, their heads close together as Baynard hissed, ‘We are strangers here! We have never before—’
Quicker than he’d expected, the Saxon pushed him away, growled that if the fox would for Christ’s sake stop trampling his heels – ‘And now where? Or is all of it part of your maze?’
One of the men-at-arms went forward to guide them, the sun still sweeping clouds from the threshold of the day as the simulator from the East followed the so-called knight of the county of Cornwall into the presence of their enemy…
* * *
‘What the hell did you do, Cerdas, drag him along through the night?’ His powerful hands rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Ranulf blinked at his visitors, then yelled for a flagon of ale.
He hasn’t much changed, Baynard thought. An inch or two more round the belly, perhaps? A pudginess to his features? But still the bullying brother he ever was. And even more the man I intend to kill.
Remembering now that his question had gone unanswered, Ranulf moved closer to the knight. ‘You hear what I said? A favour’s all very well, but tell me the truth. You didn’t haul Islam halfway across the moors as a pleasure to me. It’s your intention to profit as well, eh, Cerdas? After all, what are you to the Arab? Or to me?’
‘Nothing,’ the man agreed. ‘Not to you.’ Then he struggled with the helmet, turning aside to lift it from his shoulders, turning back as he raised it from his head.
Drawn by the lodestone of dawning recognition, Ranulf Falkan leaned forward to stare at the scarred and impassive Saxon.
Then was called to attention by the second visitor, the hunched-over body uncoiling, the kaffiyeh discarded, the Moslem gown shrugged aside to settle on the straw.
‘You’re only half right, my Lord Ranulf. True what you say… Guthric is nothing to you. But as for me; oh, yes, my dear brother; as for me I’m all that’s left to you. All you’ll ever have to deal with from now on.’
* * *
Staggering from the shock, the elder Tremellion regained his balance. Howled at the dozen guards who lined the hall. Raised his howl to a shriek as he waved them toward him – then glared in disbelief as but three of them moved to his side.
The others remained as statues around the wall, the on
ly sign of life the glint of the early morning light in their eyes. One side of their faces shadowed by the nasal bar of their helmets, they made their own silent assessment of their future.
‘You are wearing a sword,’ Baynard said. ‘Use it in your defence.’
‘Four against two? You really think—?’
‘My quarrel is not with these men. If they move to protect you, I shall kill them.’
‘Enough of these threats, brother! We’ve things to talk over, you and me. So let’s have less of—’
But Baynard was moving now, his own sword slipped from its sheath, the blade glowing dull in the shadows, bright where the sunlight lanced through the windows. ‘You are a wicked and murderous blotch on the name of Tremellion! Talk as fast as you will, my Lord Ranulf, for you’ve damned little time left to speak!’
A master of deception, Ranulf Falkan said their differences could be settled, edged his way past his three loyal guards, told his brother the killing of Christiane was all a mistake, the archers already hanged for it; and listen, he was sure there were prettier girls available here in England—
By which time he’d reached the entranceway to the spiral stairs that ascended to the south-west corner of the keep. And left the sound of his voice to echo around the long, vaulted hall as he fled the incandescence of Baynard’s glare.
* * *
Guthric addressed the men-at-arms who’d moved to side with their master.
‘It ain’t too late to change. Get back to your posts against the wall, an’ I shan’t ever mark the difference. You’ve done what you supposed was right, an’ that’s the only choice a soldier can make. But do it quick, else I’ll smack you up to the tower to join Lord Ranulf!’ Then he looked away, honouring his word, as the trio rejoined their companions.
* * *
There was not much further to go, at least not in height or distance, and Falkan knew it. His brother would by now have reached the crenellated tower – the man still armed – and Baynard himself must now climb those spiral steps.
He spoke quietly to the constable, ‘If by chance I’m cut down—’
‘After Spain? The escape from Losara? The fight we had in the garden of that brothel?’
‘Yes. But it could happen.’
‘After all the patrols in the East? The brigands we rapped aside on our way back home? You dare tell me it could happen, my Lord Falkan, and I’ll tell you it’d better bloody not!’
Then he raised a hard, leathery hand, brushed it affectionately against the beard of Baynard’s disguise and nodded the young Tremellion through to the stairs, shutting the door behind him.
After that – if anyone wished to learn what was happening – they’d have no choice but to cut their way past Guthric.
* * *
Thank God the stairs opened to the sky. The lower steps were gloomy, though better lit as he made his cautious way around the spiral. Even so – the chance for Ranulf to attack, his booted feet kicking, sword probing downward, split-logs from the stack that fuelled the beacon, hurled at Baynard’s head.
But nothing impeded his ascent.
Mistrusting his brother – Who on God’s earth would ever trust my brother; see what it did for Sir Geoffrey! – the bearded knight held his weapon above him, its blade seeking the sky.
And then, as he emerged on the battlements, he was greeted – yes, even greeted – by a man who’d rested his sword against a merlon of the wall.
‘We’ve things to talk about, young Baynard. It’s why I brought you up here.’
‘Why you—’
‘Aspects of Tremellion to arrange. Think on it, why don’t you? It’s not as if—’
‘Pick up your sword.’
‘Oh really, brother, you tire me. We’ve surely no need—’
‘Pick up your sword. Use it against me, or I’ll kill you where you stand.’
‘And all this on account of the aged Sir Geoffrey?’
‘No, you excrescence, though that alone would be enough. There’s Quillon as well.’
‘Who? Never heard of him.’
‘But above all else the woman I loved and married; the fine and beautiful woman your bowmen murdered, with Quillon dying alongside her, in my place. You were ever both clumsy and a coward, Ranulf Tremellion, the greater tragedy being that your hirelings were as inept as their skulking master.’
‘And if they hadn’t been? If they’d brought you down instead?’
‘Oh, my God! Don’t you think I wish they had!’
Concerned before, but now truly frightened, Ranulf changed his tack. Reaching for his sword he said, ‘Just look at you. What are you but a skeleton that limps? You’d do well to settle for talk, my hirsute Baynard, or you risk being cut to a chittering pile of bones.’ Then he gestured with his weapon, weight and power on his side.
* * *
Baynard drew back, his own blade tipped from the level of his waist. Remembering all he knew of his elder brother, he responded in toneless measure to the words. ‘A skeleton that limps? Well, let’s see. Let’s both of us be sure what we are, you and I.
‘You, who arranged the killing of our father. You, who abandoned your friends in the mill-house of Tresset. You, who sent your companions to trap me in Spain, in Cyprus, in the Holy Land itself. You, who crouch here like a spider, safe at the edge of its web. And you, most of all, who bear the guilt of Christiane’s murder. If all the other sullied things you’ve done could be forgotten, I would anyway kill you for the killing of my wife.
‘You doubt that this skeleton can deal with the likes of you? A man who’s lost all he loved in the world, thanks to you? Well, I tell you what, my Lord Ranulf. Why don’t we put it to the test…
Ranulf flung his sword in Baynard’s face.
Then he ran to the northern rim of the crenellated tower, squeezed his bulk through one of the embrasures, pushed himself free and dropped to the wall-walk that encircled the ramparts of the castle.
It was a distance of some twelve or fourteen feet; not too far for a man who’d measured his leap. But the bulky Ranulf had sprung in panic, eager to escape from the uppermost level; intent on evading the slash of Baynard’s blade.
Even as he fell he turned to look upward, his arms milling in the air. His right leg crooked, his left was rigid, the impact shattering the limb. The weight of his body drove down hard on the splinters, his hands flailing, his mouth but a keening trumpet in his face as he toppled from the well-hewn defences, outward and downward to the rocks at the base of the wall, then outward and downward again in a shapeless sprawl of agony, all the sixty granite feet to the Hexel River…
* * *
Baynard watched the body float away. It occurred to him to call to the men who stood silent in the bailey, directing them to search for his brother’s corpse. But it seemed more important to pick up Ranulf’s sword, then hurl it from the tower, the blade spinning over and over as it arched toward the river.
After that – well, after that was the young man’s future.
About the Author
Graham Shelby was lauded as one of the great historical writers of his time. The Crusader Knights Cycle, originally published between 1969 and 1986, is a tour de force of high drama, gruesome battles, chivalry, and glory.
First published in the United Kingdom in 1986 by New English Library
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
57 Shepherds Lane
Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © Graham Shelby, 1986
The moral right of Graham Shelby to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publ
isher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788632928
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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