by John Dalmas
"No, this is the room. Someone else must have fetched him. Or moved him."
"Gilbert isn't going to like this when we tell him."
"Tell him what? We'll look in the other rooms until we find the filthy heretic."
Then the door closed. I heard them take the key out, but I hadn't heard it turned first in the lock. For maybe half a minute I stood there, getting up my nerve. Then I tried the door; it was unlocked. I started easing it open for a peek along the corridor, but I'd only opened it a few inches when I heard a Norman voice, excited but not loud.
"I tell you, the chief heretic, the one who carried the strangely shaped staff, was in there earlier. Shackled."
I felt excitement surge as I pulled the door almost closed. It sounded as if Larn might be loose somewhere. A door thudded shut: the two Normans were in the hall now.
"I helped Charles drag him in there, so I know," the voice went on. "Then Charles stayed to guard him. Now they're both gone."
"All right," the other said reasonably. "Then someone sent and had him moved."
"But only Gilbert would have had him moved. And he thinks the vile dog is still in there,"
"Maybe Gilbert forgot. The state he's in tonight, he could forget his Pater Noster. Let's look in…"
They'd moved on down the hall, and I couldn't make out the rest of it. Then I couldn't hear them at all anymore, By that time Gunnlag was on his feet beside me. It seemed to me that pretty soon the knights would be back, probably with others, and they'd check this room again, plus the one to our right that they'd just come out of. I opened the door wide enough to look out; to the right a little way was a corner. They'd gone around it. To our left was a stairhead that probably led down to the dining hall.
I grabbed Gunnlag's thick arm, slipped out into the corridor, and started down it to our left. Then we heard voices from the stairway, coming up. Instantly I moved to the nearest door and turned the handle. It opened and we ducked in; I closed it quietly behind us.
But before it closed, the weak Sight from the corridor had given us a glimpse of the room. In it were the hauberks and weapons stripped from the Varangian dead!
It took me about ten seconds to find a knife in the dark and cut Gunnlag's wrists free. The hauberks had to have a lot of dry blood on them, but each of us put one on anyway and picked up a belt with weapons. I'd have given almost anything to have a stunner or pistol in place of the Varangian sword, but it was something, at least.
Then I went to the window and looked out. Off to one side a little way was a bench with an ell-shaped hedge as a screen. The window wasn't very wide, but wide enough, and it didn't have any glass in it. I'm not sure these people even had window glass. I leaned way out-the walls were thick-and dropped my gear. After I heard it hit, I waited to see if anyone came to investigate the noise. When they didn't, I got into the win-ow, let myself down to arms' length, and dropped. Nothing broke when I hit, but it jarred me pretty hard. I got up, grabbed my gear, and moved behind the hedge, where I buckled on my sword belt. Then I heard Gunnlag's gear thud onto the dirt. Half a minute later he dropped too. He must have weighed two hundred pounds, even if he was only about five-feet eight, and I'd guess he was at least forty years old, but he got right up.
We crouched together behind the hedge then. I didn't have any idea what to do next, and if Gunnlag did, he didn't tell me.
Larn:
We pulled my ex-guard's body into the passage and took off his hauberk, collet, gear, and leggings-everything but his helmet; it wasn't there. I'd have to do without it. As far as I could see by Layla's oil lamp, the stuff wasn't even bloody. When we weren't so busy, I told myself, I'd ask Moise how he killed him with a knife without getting blood all over.
After I put them on, Layla led us back along the passage, shielding her oil lamp with one hand. We stopped at the hiding place to pick up Ketil and talk. Ketil put on his helmet. Even lame, he
looked ready to fight.
My plan, I said, was to get outside the castle. Then I'd go to the gate, pretend to be a Norman knight, and ask to be let in. They'd never suspect who I was. Inside, I'd try to find out where our weapons were, get hold of some, and see what good I could do with them. Maybe take Gilbert hostage. I wasn't willing to leave without rescuing Tarel. He wasn't just my friend, he was my brother-in-law.
Moise repeated most of this to Ketil in Greek, then had a conversation with Layla. It seemed a lot more than was necessary to tell her I wanted to get out of the castle. When they were done, she nodded, and lowered herself back down through the trapdoor.
"She is going to get some olive oil," Moise said. "To see if we can get your wrist irons off over your hands."
I almost shriveled with embarrassment! I'd forgotten them. I could imagine trying to pass myself off as an envoy from Robert Guiscard wearing irons and broken chains on my wrists.
Layla was back inside of five minutes with a jar of oil, and poured it on my hands and wrists. It was Ketil who held onto the slippery irons while I made my hands as small as possible and pulled. At first I thought it wasn't going to work. Then I decided I'd just have to stand the pain, and jerked hard. In spite of the oil I lost some skin, but the irons came off.
Then we followed Layla a couple of hundred yards farther to where the tunnel ended. There she reached up and touched the overhead, saying something in Arabic. Moise started to push where she touched, to open another trapdoor.
"Just a minute," I said, and looked at Ketil, then at Moise. "I'm going alone. Tell Ketil if he was with me, they'd know at once that something was wrong with my story."
He passed it on to Ketil. I wondered if the big Varangian would get mad, but he just nodded and said something in Greek. Then he took off his Norman-looking helmet and set it on my head. It even fitted pretty well. Looking at it critically, he nodded, then spoke again in Greek.
"He wishes you the blessing of the Virgin," Moise told me.
That surprised me so I couldn't say anything for a few seconds. This was a guy I'd thought of as a savage. Then Moise came up with something.
"Larn, you should take me," he said. "I can help you."
"How?" I demanded. I wasn't in the mood for wasting time in silly arguments. "You can come out with me, but not to the castle gate. You'll have to hide outside somewhere."
"I can help you," he insisted. "I can be a Saracen, or a Levantine Jew. They dress like Saracens."
"How will that help me?"
He didn't answer for several seconds. Then, "We'll think of something," he said.
"Moise," I told him, "that's not a reason."
He surprised me. His voice was hard when he answered. "Then here is a reason. I am going with you whether you like it or not."
I suppose my eyebrows went up at that. "Huh!" I said. "Do you realize we'll probably be dead by morning?"
He nodded soberly.
"Okay," I told him, "we'll go together."
I stuck out my hand and we shook on it. Then he reached up again and pushed up the trapdoor.
Unlike the other, this one made him grunt to raise it. I shook hands with Ketil before we left, then bowed to Layla. I didn't know the Norse or Saracen rules of courtesy, but I wanted to do something to express my thanks. Especially to Layla. She'd owed us nothing and put herself at risk. And saved our lives this far, anyway.
Then I pulled myself up through the trapdoor and gave a hand to Moise.
He lowered the trapdoor back into place. We were in a small room. "Layla told me this is a holy place," he whispered.
We left through a doorway with no door in it, that led into a good-sized room lit through large windows by moonlight. I'd wondered what a holy place might be like. In this one, the only furniture was a lectern in one corner, and in the opposite corner, a low platform with a railing and what seemed to be a desk. I suppose they had some meaning, but I have no idea what.
From the outside door we could see the castle some way off.
"Larn," Moise murmured, "there are two things we must consider be
fore we go any farther. Would a knight be out without a horse? And also, you speak Norman with an accent."
He had a point. Two points. The lack of a horse I could probably lie my way around. But while my Norman French had become pretty fluent, and I could disguise my voice, I'd never pass as Norman.
"If anyone asks," I answered, "I was a boy in Provence who was adopted by a Norman knight when my father was killed."
Even by moonlight I could see that Moise wasn't entirely satisfied with that. I wasn't either, as far as that was concerned. But it was the best I could think of on the spur of the moment. And that's what it had to be-the spur of the moment.
"Let's go," I said, and we started for the castle.
THIRTY-TWO
This time the castle wall looked different to me, Bigger. Forbidding. When I'd ridden up to it before, I'd been a guest, and the gate had been open for me. Now I was on foot, an enemy trying to trick my way in.
It occurred to me that maybe no one was on gate duty this time of night.
I'd thought there might be a big knocker or a bell rope, but I ended up pounding on the gate with my sword hilt. After several minutes and some hard pounding, I tried yelling. Finally, someone spoke angrily to us through a slot in what I suppose you could call the gatehouse, a rounded section of wall to the right of the gate.
"What do you want?!"
"I want in, that's what I want!" I disguised my voice by making it higher pitched and nasal. I also made it angry and imperious, because the identity I'd decided to pretend here was an envoy of Robert Guiscard de Hauteville, Tancred's son, Duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily. Someone whom hopefully they wouldn't want mad at them, and wouldn't question too hard.
"I am Laurent de Caen," I continued, choosing Caen because I'd at least been there, even though it had been at night, in a storm, and I hadn't ventured inside the walls. I'd come close to getting killed, too. "I did not come all the way here from the duke," I continued, "and have my horse killed under me, to be kept standing outside in the night."
There was no answer, and I wondered if I'd blown it-irritated whoever it was so badly that he was going to leave me out here. Or maybe said something that had given me away as a fake. It was dangerous pretending to be something you don't know much about, I told myself, especially with people like these.
We waited about five minutes, and I was just getting ready to start pounding again when a small door opened to the left of the gate. A knight stepped out and motioned us in. The wall was about twelve feet thick, and the gate like a dark trap they could close at both ends while we were inside.
But we went in and nothing happened.
I recognized the knight who met us on the other side: Stephen, Gilbert's steward, seneschal is the Norman word. He'd been in charge of the banquet that evening, and maybe in charge of drugging the drink. That much gray hair meant a lot of experience and years of weapons practice; in a sword fight he'd take Moise and me before we could yell "mercy." And his narrow eyes didn't look very trusting.
"Caen?" he said.
"Caen. On the River Orne."
"Your speech does not sound like Normandy."
I gave him my coldest look. "I did not come here to relate the circumstances of my childhood," I said stiffly. "Where is your master?"
He didn't answer for several seconds. "He is-not well. Perhaps I can be of service to you."
That sounded fine to me. Although actually, Gilbert and I had hardly spoken to each other, he'd seen more of me than Stephen had, and there was a better chance he'd recognize me. "Perhaps you can," I said. "The duke has sent me to seek the whereabouts of a renegade vassal, Arno de Courmeron, who has trafficked with Vikings preying on Norman shipping. His profit from it will be his head separated from his body.
"Delivery of this Arno to the duke, alive, will be rewarded by a special ducal fief: precedence above all others in the showing and sale of destriers." I was getting into it now; the story was flowing. "Also, ownership of this Arno's well-known herd of brood mares," I went on, "which has been landed at Palermo and is currently in the duke's possession."
I glanced around at the three armed men who stood nearby, then back at Stephen. "Arno is known to have been shipwrecked on Sicily, and is traveling with several dangerous thaumaturgists said to be from India, as well as with a band of Vikings. The duke will also pay well for each of these other miscreants delivered live to him." I turned and gestured at Moise. "This is Isaac, a Levantine Jew employed by the duke to counter their thaumaturgy."
Stephen chewed a lip thoughtfully; he actually seemed to be buying all this. My hopes began to brighten.
"Come with me," he said after a moment. "I will find out if the baron is well enough to see visitors."
He turned and began to lead us across the grounds to the building that was Gilbert's residence. We hadn't gone more than a few steps when someone started yelling near the tower. Stephen paused, staring in that direction; then we heard swords clash. "Come!" he said, and started running toward the noise with his men. Moise and I followed. We turned the corner of a building, saw the fight, and ran toward it. Two men were backed into an angle of the castle wall; one stood in front of the other and was holding off three knights with his sword. In the angle, only one of them could get at him at a time.
It was Gunnlag, and the one behind him was another Varangian! "Hold!" I shouted. "These are two of the men I seek! The duke has first claim to them, for a long list of outrages!"
The Norman who'd been battling Gunnlag backed away. The noise was drawing a small crowd, knights and foot soldiers with blood in their eyes.
And the second "Varangian" in the corner wasn't Varangian at all; it was Tarel in Varangian gear!
"Get a bear net," I said. In Normandy, I'd seen the nets the nobles used to capture bears. "We shall take them alive."
"We have no bear nets here," Stephen said. "There are no bears on Sicily." He turned to the growing cluster of men. "Fetch pikes, staffs, rocks. We will batter them into submission."
"Isaac," I said to Moise in Norman, "speak to the criminals in Greek. Tell them they can save themselves serious injury if they throw down their swords."
Moise repeated it in Greek. Tarel, of course, had understood my Norman French, and tossed his sword out readily enough. Gunnlag could hardly bring himself to let go of his, but he did, dropping it at his feet. That's when I decided to forget about getting some energy weapons back.
I'd settle for horses, with Gunnlag and Tarel my prisoners. "Bring shackles," I said. "I'll…"
I stopped there, because everyone's attention was shifting from me to someone else. It was Gilbert arriving, drawn like the rest by the noise. His hair was wild and his eyes wilder. He stared at Gunnlag and Tarel, then demanded to know what was going on-why they were still alive.
Stephen explained, and Gilbert's eyes turned to me, "An envoy from Guiscard? From the devil, I'd say. It is the same. Let me see your paper of authorization!"
I struck my forehead-the front of my helmet actually- with the heel of my hand. "In my saddlebag!" I said. I didn't expect him to buy that, but I had to try.
He peered at me then in the pale moonlight. "Don't I know you from some…"
He never finished. A floodlight spread around us from above, freezing the action. Then, as I looked up, the action really froze. Because someone up above- Deneen, obviously-was playing a stunner over the crowd. I fell, not unconscious, but unable to move.
Overhead, an emergency hooter began to sound, probably to spook the Normans. I hadn't realized the Rebel Javelin had a hooter; only a honker, I'd thought. It kept on, sounding as if the scout was settling to the ground. I couldn't see what was happening because I'd fallen on my side, and someone's body lay almost in my face. Seconds later I heard running feet. Someone grabbed me under the arms and raised me partly off the ground. Then I saw-Bubba? Bubba looking at me.
Someone started dragging me. I wanted to yell: Deneen, don't risk the scout, don't… She was handling me as if I wer
e a little kid, dragging me.
None of this felt right, felt real. The stunner must have affected my perceptions. I hadn't known they did that.
Then she was pulling me up the ramp into the scout. And someone else was there, by the ramp, with a blast rifle. That's Deneen, I thought. Deneen, slender in jump suit. So it had to be someone else dragging me.
I was laid out in the dark cabin, able to see only upward, and my rescuer ran back out. The cabin wasn't right either. Everything was weird.
A minute later someone else was dragged into the scout, and a voice said, "That's it! I've got Tarel too. Close her up and take her up!"
It was dad!
"Wait!"
I don't know how I got it out, but I said it. Slurred and slowly I had pronounced the word. And again, "Wait!"
"Hold it," he said. "What is it, Larn?"
"Frien's. Don'… leave… frien's… Be… killed."
I wasn't sure if he could understand or not.
"Jenoor, blast a couple of bolts against a wall, to keep anyone back who might be thinking of rushing us." I heard a rifle thud out three bolts.
Jenoor! He'd said Jenoor!
"Help me, Aven," he said. "He's heavy and he feels boneless. I need him up on my back." Between the two of them, my parents got me onto his back with my head flopped over a shoulder. He had to move bent over so I wouldn't fall off.
"Larn," he said as he carried me back down the ramp, "We're going over among the bodies. Tell me when I come to the right one. Can you do that?"
"Two," I mumbled. "Two… frien's."
"Two," he said. "I got that." We went back among the bodies, pausing over one after another, seeming to take forever. Most of a minute, I suppose. We'd looked at eight or ten before we came to Gunnlag.
"Him," I said.
"Right."
The next was Moise. "Him."
"Is that all?"
"Yes."
There was growling, then an espwolf barked out "Down!" We hit the ground, arrows hissed, and the rifle thudded again, and again. Dad was back on his feet, had grabbed me under the arms, dragging me hurriedly, roughly, to the cutter and up the ramp. I hadn't known he was so strong; I'm not sure he had either. He dumped me and ran back out. I heard shouting in Norman, clashing of swords-clashing of swords?-more thuds from the blaster, and in half a minute another body was dragged in and dropped. The confusion of sounds continued outside, but for then the blaster was silent, and dad was gone again. The blaster thudded twice more, and a moment later once. Dad was back with another body, breathing hard.