“Sheriff,” said Mother Barnaba, stepping away from the young woman. “We need hot wine and a priest here.”
DeSteny winced at the request. “I’ll order both for you directly. But I need to ask you what you observed, for I am sure you saw what happened.”
She glowered at him. “I know why you make such a request, but I have to tell you that I need help for these women now.”
For a short moment, deSteny said nothing, and then he nodded. “All right. I’ll send for the maidservants at once.” He went to the gallery door that opened onto a broad corridor. Just as he had expected, a half-dozen pages were gathered there, eyes enormous, and all but shivering with excitement and dread. Before the pages could speak or fly, deSteny rapped out his orders. “Each of you, go fetch two maidservants and bring them here directly. Then one of you—you, Jotham—go to Saint Savior and bring three nuns to assist these women. Do it at once.” He clapped his hands for emphasis, and watched while the pages bolted. Only Ossian lingered long enough to ask, “How many are dead?”
“Too many,” said deSteny, and closed the door as he turned back to the women. He sighed, wishing he could find words of comfort for the ladies, but none came to mind. As he went back to Mother Barnaba, he made an effort to keep his thoughts on what he would have to do in the next few days.
“It was a dreadful thing; they’ll never get the blood off the stones, not that much blood,” Mother Barnaba said as deSteny reached her side. “We were watching the banquet, enjoying our own feast and exchanging amusing stories, not truly looking at the Great Hall while the meal was in progress.” She rubbed her hands on the front of her habit. “I don’t know what to say.”
DeSteny could see the fright in the back of her eyes, so he did not press her. “Take what time you need. Have a cup of wine, if that will ease you.”
“Perhaps it will,” she said as she poured out the last of the wine in the lipped jar. “I don’t want to muddle my thoughts, but—” She drank down the contents of the cup in two eager gulps.
“I won’t forget tonight, much as I may wish to, not until I am in my grave. And perhaps not until the Last Judgment.”
A swooning lady gasped and struggled to stand, swaying and holding onto the edge of the table. Three other women hurried to lend her support.
“Who can blame Alisoun, for how she has behaved?” Mother Barnaba asked as she watched the young woman strive to regain control of herself. “And I am striving to avoid telling you what you want to know.”
“Don’t press yourself. You’ll leave out important things if you do,” said deSteny.
Mother Barnaba steadied herself and took hold of the rosary hanging from her girdle. “May God grant that I speak the truth,” she said a little grimly and straightened herself as if to face a Bishop. “Well, we were almost finished with dining when that harper began to sing, and we stopped conversing to listen. His voice didn’t carry well, but that’s because we were above him. The stage was almost directly beneath us, so it was not a good position from which to hear.”
“Could you see the stage at all?” deSteny asked.
“Yes, if we moved our stools up to the grille and looked down. We could see the extension but not the scene behind it.” She put her hands together, more in anxiety than in prayer. “We enjoyed the parts we could see, and we noticed many things you could not see in the Great Hall, such as the wires that guided the two arrows to the target. I also saw that the player had ten arrows in his quiver, which I supposed were there to make him appear a real archer and not just a player.” She looked at deSteny. “It was a foolish mistake.”
“That all of us made. No knight in the Great Hall saw any trouble in it.”
“Most were too drunk to think about such things,” Mother Barnaba remarked. “If you have any doubts of this, you must not have paid much attention to the occurrences among the guests.” She clicked her tongue. “Men will be men.”
“Most will,” deSteny agreed.
“We were trying to follow the play when it seemed to me that there was something odd in the way the players performed the archery contest, not just the wires, but the way in which they were standing.” Mother Barnaba wiped her cheeks, smearing her unnoticed tears. “I was so inattentive that I said it was an error of the angle from which we watched.”
“And you saw the player shoot the Bishop,” said the Sheriff.
“I could not believe it. I thought it must be some dreadful jest,” said Mother Barnaba.
“From what you saw, was this planned? It wasn’t simply an impulsive act?” deSteny asked, aware that his assumption that the act was deliberate might not be in accord with what Mother Barnaba had seen from above.
“Oh, yes. I have no doubt that the whole of that scene was intended to make that killing possible.” She coughed and retched, then brought herself under control again. “Are those the same monsters as the ones who killed my kinsman—Ellenby?”
“I believe they are,” said deSteny.
“And they would have attacked everyone in the Great Hall, had they the opportunity?”
“They certainly tried,” said deSteny sardonically. “There are many dead and more than a dozen missing. I don’t like to think of what may befall them, and what I may have to do to them.”
“Yes,” said Mother Barnaba. “I saw them carry some away, including, I think, Sir Gui?”
“Yes, including Sir Gui,” said deSteny. “Someone will have to tell his father.”
“His father. Yes,” said Mother Barnaba. “I was told he has come to Nottingham.”
“Only yesterday. He said he was delayed by rain on the road, which he may well have been,” said deSteny, trying not to express his doubts about this too clearly.
“Will they make Sir Gui one of their number, or will they drain him completely, do you think?” Mother Barnaba was pale as she asked, but her eyes burned brightly.
“I suppose that will depend upon Marian deBeauchamp,” said the Sheriff.
“And Prince John?” Mother Barnaba put her hands to her mouth, shocked at her audacity in asking such a question. “Did any harm befall him?”
“He is well. You can look to see, if it would give you comfort,” said deSteny.
Mother Barnaba blessed herself three times, and took a deep, shaking breath. “Then may God be thanked. If we had to lose the Bishop, God will welcome him in Heaven as a martyr. But to kill the Regent of the King is foulest treason.”
Although deSteny saw these distinctions less sharply than Mother Barnaba did, he said, “It is just as well that the Prince was spared. Amid all this slaughter, it is good to know that someone has survived.”
“Will anyone else die tonight?” Mother Barnaba asked.
“I don’t know. I fear so. Many of the guests were set upon, and they may not live long.” He didn’t add that those who died because of the vampire attack would have to be decapitated before being buried in sacred ground, if they were not to rise and join the company of the fell undead.
“How do you suppose this will turn out?” Mother Barnaba demanded, her shock and grief suddenly turning to anger. “How are we to avenge any of them?”
“I don’t know,” said deSteny, looking toward the gallery door as three of the pages stumbled through it, all but dragging maidservants behind them.
Mother Barnaba laid her hand on deSteny’s arm. “When you know, you may count me among those to stand with you.”
“It is apt to be very dangerous,” said deSteny.
But the sturdy, middle-aged woman was undeterred. “What does that matter? I am sworn to help destroy these vampires or die a martyr in the attempt.”
“Mother Barnaba,” said deSteny with deeply felt humility, “you put me to shame.”
What Transpired before Dawn
SIR LAMBERT, Baron DeGisbourne took the new
s of his son’s abduction with stoic calm. “I should have arrived sooner, and I should not have shunned his company; a man such as he needs the protection of his kin,” he said. “I should have entered Nottingham before the last night of the Fair and I should not have kept to my quarters during the banquet. His loss, and his blood, is on my head.”
“What would your presence here have done, but provided Hood and his pack with more targets?” deSteny asked as he led the way toward the Great Hall.
“My son may not be a man to fight readily or well, but I am both those things, and I would have stopped them taking him, or given my life in trying,” said Sir Lambert deGisbourne with strong determination. “I am not so old that I cannot wield a sword.”
“Do you suppose you could have beaten down such foes as Hood and his men are? I have tried, many years ago in the Holy Land, and I learned of my folly at a terrible price.” DeSteny shook his head. “The Great Hall was full of valiant men, many of them noted for their daring and their skill at arms, and not all of them were gone in drink. They could not stop the vampires, and, if you will pardon my saying it, the addition of your sword would not have been enough to turn the tide.”
Folding his arms, deGisbourne said, “I should have thought you’d be the first to defend my son. You may not like him, but you are his vassal.”
“And I know my duty,” said deSteny. “I did all that I could to fulfill what I am sworn to do.”
“Did you?” the old man challenged, stopping just short of the main doors to the Great Hall.
“Yes,” said deSteny.
“Then what is your plan now? Surely you haven’t abandoned your oath because Sir Gui is no longer at Nottingham. He has been taken by the most evil of creatures. How soon do you intend to pursue them?” His old eyes flashed and deSteny had an uneasy sense of what this man must have been, twenty years ago, when he led men in battle.
“We must hunt by daylight. They are weakest then, and we at our strongest,” said deSteny with little color to his words. “We must travel with priests and holy water, and drive these fiends ahead of us, but not press them so hard that they give up their captive and break away into the depths of the forest, where they can hide and grow strong once again.” He motioned to the servants to open the doors. “Those they abandon—if they abandon any—must be found. Then they must have their heads struck off and be buried outside sacred ground, with hawthorn laid on their breasts, and facing away from Heaven, so that if they are awakened into that non-life of vampires, they will not rise, but burrow their way to Hell.”
“You have done this before,” said Sir Lambert.
“Long ago, as I’ve said,” deSteny admitted. “And not wisely.”
Sir Lambert shook his head. “The House of deGisbourne has suffered a dreadful blow. I have lost a son and the alliance with deBeauchamp, and have no hope of recovering either. It is a shameful disgrace. God has laid His Hand upon me most heavily.” He sighed. “And now I must hope I can find my son so that I may bury him ignobly.”
“Would it might be otherwise,” said deSteny. He surveyed the shambles of the Great Hall, the sprays and splashes of blood that karls and pages worked to scrub up. Most of the debris had been swept to the side of the room and new rushes were being strewn where the floor had been washed.
“Then you will find a way to recover my son’s body, and see to its disposal so that he might not become one of those fiends,” said Sir Lambert. “That will require swift action.”
“It would be folly to ride out without any protection,” said deSteny, unwilling to be pressed by Sir Lambert, no matter how much he sympathized with the old man. “Rather than save your son, we might provide Hood and his clan with more living blood, and what then?”
Sir Lambert glowered. “It is raining, and that is sure to slow your pursuit.”
“That’s as may be. It will certainly slow the vampires, who cannot cross running water,” deSteny said.
“Then you must make the most of this opportunity, and take after them at once, while they are compromised by the rain,” said deGisbourne, refusing to be denied.
“I will do so, if the Prince allows it,” deSteny answered carefully. “Sir Gui is vassal to the Crown and the Regent as I am vassal to him. In his absence, I must put my service to the orders of Prince John.”
“I will speak to His Grace today, after the Mass for Bishop Tilton, and he and I will make common cause in this. He knows what is due the men sworn to the Crown: he will uphold his obligations.” DeGisbourne glared at the dais where his son had sat. “His bravado has not served him well, I fear.”
“No one has done well in this time,” said deSteny. “I would like to think that we may yet salvage some portion of those who were taken away, and put a stop to the work of the vampires.”
“If the Prince permits it,” Sir Lambert interjected.
“You must have the same sense of what is to be done, or you wouldn’t be here, now, talking with me,” said deSteny.
“You have the right of it,” Baron deGisbourne said. “And for that reason I continue to urge you to take action at once.”
“I will meet with the Prince shortly,” said deSteny. “We will decide what is to be done.”
“I was told Sir Wilem survived the attack,” Sir Lambert said, taking another tack.
“He’s badly hurt, and the herb woman is attending to him,” said deSteny.
“I’d like to speak with him, if I may,” said Sir Lambert. “We are distant cousins of a sort, and I must find out what he knows.”
“We shall talk to him together,” said the Sheriff. “Later in the day.”
DeGisbourne stood still for a little while, watching the karls tend to the rushes. “If Hood is disposed of, what becomes of the rest?”
“I don’t know,” said deSteny. “They may continue as he taught them. They may come to fight amongst one another. They may leave the forest. Who can say what such creatures will do?”
“Then you must be rid of as many of them as possible,” said deGisbourne. “Hood is their head, and you must strike him off, so that they cannot rally around him. But the rest are to be destroyed, as well.”
“The men of Nottingham will help us, I am almost certain,” said deSteny. “They are not willing to surrender to the vampires, or not yet.”
“They may, in time,” said deGisbourne. “Common men are not made of steel and sinew as soldiers are. You cannot expect them to remain true to their purpose in the face of grave danger.”
“Perhaps not,” said deSteny, “but I don’t expect them to turn tail and run, either. Where is there for them to go that does not mean more hazard than fighting for their town?” He could hear the cynicism in his voice, but for once he felt a twinge of chagrin. “I believe that we have staunch defenders here, be they soldiers, smiths, or merchants.”
“May your faith be proven not to have been misplaced,” said deGisbourne, turning abruptly on his heel. He strode from the Great Hall as if determined to be shut of it.
DeSteny remained where he was, looking about him as if to fix the image of this place in his memory forever. He walked up to the dais and saw that Bishop Tilton’s blood still stained the long oaken table. “They’ll never get it out,” he muttered to himself.
Daffyn, one of three royal pages who had accompanied Prince John to Nottingham, appeared in the side doorway. There were dark circles under his young eyes, and he had the look of being ready to fall asleep. “Sheriff,” he said, remembering to bow. “His Grace Prince John asks you will wait upon him in your study. Even now.”
DeSteny nodded. “That I will,” he said a bit distantly, for his attention was still on the Great Hall.
“He is there already,” said Daffyn, more firmly than he had intended.
“With a fire kindled, I sincerely hope,” said deSteny, as he took one last look a
round the Great Hall, then left it, hastening toward the stairs that led up to his study and the Prince.
How deSteny and Prince John
decided on a Plan
“IT WAS a terrible night,” said Prince John as he motioned to the Sheriff to rise. “You did well, Father Hugh, amid the distress and confusion. You did not give way to fright. Better than many another.”
“I’d rather you not call me that, Your Grace. I don’t deserve the title any longer, nor do I seek to deserve it,” deSteny reminded him, his face expressionless. “Sheriff is what I am, not priest.”
“As you wish,” said Prince John. “I have brought some books with me, and I have been reading them in the hope they will provide some information that might aid us in the fight that must surely come.”
“And what have you found?” deSteny asked.
“Not as much as I would like,” said Prince John. “But there are some things here that may yet prove useful. And we must make a beginning at once, or the people will despair and many will flee, which will serve Hood better than any defense we may attempt, for they will all be at risk on the roads. I have hopes that if we are prompt in our response, we might yet banish all these unholy fiends from this island.” He smiled but there was no mirth about him. “To begin with, I think it would be wise to make some arrangement today with the various armorers in Nottingham, so we have some measure of readiness. We will need arrows made only of wood—hawthorn if it can be found in sufficient quantity. No metal on them anywhere, and ravens’ feathers for fletching.”
“Ah,” said the Sheriff, catching Prince John’s intent. “You intend to use the old weapons against them: wood to kill their bodies, but what will you use to keep them down? Have you thought about that?”
Prince John regarded deSteny speculatively. “I don’t suppose you would be willing to consecrate some wine for the arrows to be dipped in, as you having renounced your calling.”
Trouble in the Forest Book Two Page 16