Guy of Gisburne- The Omnibus

by Toby Venables

  He stared at the distant horizon. “We must think in a different way. Relate those paltry scraps one to the other until a pattern begins to emerge. Bring order from the chaos.” He smiled. “It’s just like building one of those cathedrals you love so much.”

  “Easier said than done,” muttered Galfrid. “Those cathedrals don’t build themselves.”

  “Have you ever been to Monreale, Galfrid? In Sicily? And seen the cathedral there? The mosaics cover almost every part of its interior. Thousands of pieces of coloured glass, placed one after another, like bean seeds in a field – except that these are in acres of gold, and grow into wonders,” Gisburne shook his head, marvelling at the memory. “On its own, each fragment means nothing. But put it with others, and together they begin to form a picture. More than that – they bring the past back to life.”

  “And this is what we are to do?” Galfrid blew out his cheeks. “At least they knew what the picture was.”

  “Even the artisans of Monreale began with a blank wall.”

  The squire nodded slowly. “So, how long did this task take them?”

  Gisburne shrugged. “Ten years.”

  Galfrid raised his eyebrows, and nodded again, staring straight ahead. “Better get started, then.”

  Gisburne knew his analogy was flawed. If this were a mosaic, it was not one they were making from scratch – it was one that had been dismantled, and which they were attempting to recreate having never seen the original. It seemed a hopeless task. Yet at Llewellyn’s workshop, he had begun to understand how it must go.

  It had been an epiphany, of sorts, sparked by the workshop’s strange devices, its parts of mechanisms yet to be realised. Llewellyn worked with the unknown every day. With things never before seen. There was no certainty that what he was creating would work. Sometimes, it never did. But more often, after many attempts, he would achieve his goal, by doggedly testing one part against another, working with what knowledge he did posses – the known principles by which all things functioned. And slowly but surely the parts were put into their proper relationship, and the mechanism came to life. Only then was its purpose made manifest.

  This was the method Gisburne knew he must employ, building piece by piece, testing as he went. But not with a device. With a man. Perhaps he should have used that analogy on Galfrid. But he knew the squire liked cathedrals better.

  “So,” began Gisburne. “What do we know?”

  Galfrid sighed. “He kills. He hates Prince John. He’s Irish...”

  Gisburne raised a finger. “Only what we know, Galfrid. Only what we know...”

  “All right, all right... Probably Irish?”

  “The symbol of the Red Hand was a device originally belonging to the clan of the O’Neills,” said Gisburne. “But it has since spread further. It’s come to be a symbol around which all the Irish might rally – a symbol of resistance.” He glanced at Galfrid. “I’ve been asking around.”

  “Very well, then,” said Galfrid. “He, she or it employs a symbol widely used amongst the Irish. But then there is the writing, and the fact that the victims both participated in John’s Irish campaign.”

  “Two could be coincidence,” said Gisburne.

  “We know the Red Hand seeks revenge for something. His letter makes that clear.”

  “But if it is revenge for something that occurred in Ireland, why wait eight years before striking with such heat?”

  Galfrid rubbed his forehead. He could fathom no answer.

  “If there is a third death,” continued Gisburne, “and they too were with John on the Irish expedition, well...”

  “So that is what we must do?” asked Galfrid. “Wait for another death?”

  The thought did not please Gisburne. “We must do what we can – and hope a face will begin to appear out of the fog.”

  Galfrid sighed. “You spoke with Wendenal’s guard?” he said.

  “All echo John’s account,” said Gisburne. “These are seasoned soldiers, I trust their judgement of what they saw – or what they believe they saw.”

  “A scaly giant, with the head of a dragon, impervious to the crossbow and breathing out fire...”

  “Not breathing fire,” said Gisburne. “Several said the flames came not from its mouth, but its fingertips.

  “So, not a monster,” said Galfrid. “Merely a sorcerer.”

  “We know how to turn fire to such a purpose – how to use it as a weapon. I have done so, with Llewellyn’s help. In the East I witnessed the Byzantines using siphons to spray Greek Fire from their ships. I have heard that there is such a device that could be carried by a man.”

  “And the crossbow bolts?”

  Gisburne recalled how he had stood before Castel Mercheval, a slab of oak slung beneath his surcoat, the bolts from the battlements thudding into him. “They can be stopped – if the armour is thick enough. One witness described the attacker as ‘a giant made of iron.’ Several reported the clank of metal accompanying his movements.”

  Galfrid shook his head. “I still don’t understand how the Red Hand managed to get away. One man, against more than twenty knights and serjeants...”

  “All were startled and confused by what they saw. Their weapons had no effect. By the time they had gathered its wits he was gone with his prey, back into the forest.”

  “But he was on foot. Why not simply ride him down?”

  “He’d chosen the spot with care. The trees and bushes there were thick – impossible for horses. Several rode ahead and searched for a forester’s path. Others dismounted and plunged in. But if I were the Red Hand, I would have prepared the route. I would have made sure Wendenal was immediately silenced. Planted traps to trip and confuse them, to obscure my destination and send them in other directions.” De Gaillon had hammered that advice into him as a young squire: Control the battlefield. “Wendenal’s men hadn’t a hope. They were in a tangle of brambles, in the dark, with nothing to follow, the sounds of their movements obscuring all others.” He shrugged. “It would not have been hard to achieve.”

  “You talk as if it was you doing it,” said Galfrid.

  Gisburne thought for a moment. “It’s what I did in Boulogne,” he said.

  On that occasion, Gisburne had been hiding out in the Forêt de Boulogne – exhausted, burned and beaten, sleeping rough in a bear cave. Tancred had sent ten knights and six serjeants in after him. Only one had come out alive.

  “Well then, he thinks like you,” said Galfrid. “That’s got to be some help.”

  Gisburne frowned. It had not occurred to him before now. He thought of the way the Red Hand used fire, how he used armour, and also how he had managed to break into John’s private chamber in one of the most secure places in England. All these were things Gisburne himself had done. De Gaillon’s words came back to him again: To know your enemy you must become your enemy.

  Galfrid peered at him “You not him, are you?”

  Gisburne scowled at Galfrid, not appreciating the joke. “Last time I checked, I had no plans to kill Prince John.”

  Galfrid snorted. Then, his laugh faded, and for a moment he stared into the distance. “There is one thing that we have not yet mentioned,” he said. “A red hand is coming...”

  To his own surprise, Gisburne shuddered at hearing those words again.

  “Can that be a coincidence?” said Galfrid.

  “I don’t know,” said Gisburne, gravely. He had tried to dismiss it – to tell himself that the knight was merely taunting him, and that by some fluke he plucked from his mind an image that connected with the fate of Wendenal. But he could not convince himself – could not banish from his head the leering look of satisfaction on the dying man’s face.

  “He knew,” said Galfrid. “About all this. How is that possible?”

  He was certain this was not some scheme of Tancred’s. Nothing he had seen fitted with the rebel Templar’s methods. But, if anything, the alternative was worse. It meant the possibility of collusion between the Knights of
the Apocalypse and other groups dedicated to spreading terror in the kingdom.

  That was Gisburne’s worst nightmare.

  AS THEY APPROACHED the rickety wooden gatehouse of the stockade about Bardulf’s castle, they saw the gates were already open. One was off its hinges, and looked as if it had not moved all winter. The bridge leading to it, spanning the outer ditch, creaked and clunked as they rode across. The dirty water within the ditch – choked with weed and all manner of tumbled rubbish – was topped with green scum and stank like a cesspit.

  No one challenged their entry. They rode on through the bailey to the castle motte, a mere diversion for the handful of bedraggled peasants who stopped whatever they were doing and watched them pass in gloomy silence. Some seemed to be doing nothing at all, and simply stood about, looking lost. Several of the buildings within the bailey lay empty and abandoned, their thatch fallen in, rain pooling on their mud floors. From others, grey-faced serfs and skinny, ragged children stared with empty eyes as the passers-by made their steady progress towards the site of the murder.

  The crime itself had been committed in what should have been the most secure part of Bardulf’s domain. This much they learned from a gangling youth with a crooked nose upon which wobbled a permanent drip, and who appeared to be butchering a dead hound upon a stump. He seemed so terrified by Gisburne’s question that all he could do was point.

  Still unchallenged, the pair passed through a second unguarded gatehouse heavy with the smell of damp timber, tethered their horses to a rotting rail, and began the slow climb up the precipitous steps to the keep. Gisburne wondered at the stamina of the attacker as they plodded upward, scaling these steps at speed in his thick metal scales. The gates to the upper ward surrounding Bardulf’s mouldering ruin of a tower also yawned open – but this time, upon their approach, a guard in ill-fitting livery called out from the rampart, and a slender figure of a man darted forward to intercept them.

  He was significantly better dressed than most – better dressed, in fact, than either Gisburne or his squire. Upon his face was an indignant scowl, but as soon as he had proper sight of the visitors and realised Gisburne must be a knight – if a rather unorthodox one – it transformed into the most oleaginous smile Gisburne had ever seen.

  “Sires!” He spread his long-fingered hands wide, then bowed low. “Welcome to our castle... Most humbly I greet you.” He did not rise, but remained bent almost double, his hands clasped together in a gesture of humility. “Welcome! Welcome!” Still in that position, he ushered Gisburne and Galfrid through the gate. Three pasty guards looked down from the ramparts in mute incomprehension. From the sheltered doorway of the gatehouse, a gaunt serving woman – perhaps only twenty, but looking ten years older – watched them pass, her thin hands grasping the shoulders of a spindly little girl of no more than six years.

  Gisburne stopped in the muddy castle ward, and looked around. “I am Guy of Gisburne, here on the authority of Prince John.”

  “Sir Guy of Gisburne!” The man’s eyes widened. “Can it really be? Why, your name precedes you, sire! We have heard of your deeds. Even out here...” He gestured about him, his nose involuntarily wrinkling with distaste as he did so. “I have heard what occurred at Clippestone, and may I say...”

  “Yes, yes – enough...” said Gisburne, both hands raised. He was never comfortable even with sincere praise; flattery was like sand on a raw nerve.

  “Anyway... It is my pleasure to serve you, sire,” said the man, and bowed again – so low this time that Gisburne was afraid the man’s face was going to hit the floor. “I am Gryffin, sire, humble steward of this castle. What is it you desire? Pray, name it.”

  It was clear to Gisburne – from the steward’s manner, from his dress, from the very air that swirled about him – that Gryffin felt himself too good for this God-forsaken place, that he believed he belonged at court and had styled himself accordingly. Perhaps he even saw in his two visitors an opportunity to further that ambition. But if his efforts were meant to impress, they fell upon stony ground. In fact, they made Gisburne want to kill him on the spot. His smiling obsequiousness felt obscenely at odds with these grim surroundings – not to mention the fact that his lord had recently met a hideous end.

  Gisburne gestured for him to get up. “We have heard that your lord, Sir Walter, is dead – and under the most terrible of circumstances,” he said.

  The steward paled. He looked from face to face, his own distorting into an expression of such tragedy and horror it was worthy of one of the grotesques carved into the capitals of Vézelay. “Gentle lord, it is true...” Gisburne believed he saw the steward force a tear into his eye.

  “That is what brings us.”

  There was another great bow. “We are honoured that you give this matter your personal attention...”

  “We wish to discover what we can to help catch his killer.”

  “Oh, sire,” whimpered Gryffin, his eyes widening, his shoulders hunching even more, “would that this were a mere killer. Would that you could have seen –”

  “Mere killer?” interrupted Gisburne. “I doubt your master would see it that way, since he was the one killed.”

  “I meant no disrespect,” Gryffin reddened and bowed low again. “I meant only –”

  “You asked what we desired,” snapped Gisburne. “We desire to go about our business. And to have a guide about the keep.”

  “I myself can –”

  “Someone else,” insisted Gisburne. He pointed to the silent woman with the child. “You.”

  The steward, his lips pressed together so hard his mouth almost disappeared, gestured impatiently to the woman. She released the child and scuttled forward, head bowed, as Gryffin passed in the opposite direction, bowing low and backing away.

  Gisburne turned and strode off towards the keep, Galfrid at his side, the woman at their heels.

  “Shouldn’t we question him?” whispered Galfrid. “Find out what he saw?”

  “Of course we should,” said Gisburne, barely able to keep the resentment out of his voice. “But let’s use our own eyes first...”

  Any minute spent out of Gryffin’s company seemed a minute well-spent.

  FOR SOME TIME, Gisburne stood and stared at the thick wooden door of the keep. It was still closed and locked – the key lost since that terrible day, the woman said – and had evidently frustrated the assailant. Not that it mattered much. Next to it, a fresh, ragged hole had been smashed through the wattle and daub wall, as if by a charging bull. This was how the Red Hand had finally gained entry.

  There had been other attempts first. The door itself, and much of the plaster around it, were burnt black. The steps below were untouched, as if whatever flames had licked at the door had come straight at it, out of the air. Beneath the charred surface, they could see that the wood had been battered and scored, as if some great thing had smashed at it.

  Galfrid raised his eyebrows. “A dragon...” he said.

  At the edges of the crow-black, crackled surface, some thin, tarry substance – sticky to the touch – still adhered. Gisburne sniffed the residue on his fingertips. It summoned vivid images: a lake of fire in the sewers of Jerusalem; a burning ship upon the part-frozen Thames; the interior of Llewellyn’s workshop. Greek Fire – or something similar.

  Gisburne turned to the woman. “Show us where it happened,” he said.

  She had stood by silently as they carried out their observations. Gisburne wondered what must have been going though her mind – how their strange, uncertain fumblings must look to her. Now, he supposed, she was without purpose, her future uncertain.

  Without a word, she led them through the jagged opening and across crunching plaster to a stairway, the air heavy with the smell of mildew and damp plaster. So dark was it, once inside, that both Gisburne and Galfrid stumbled as they ascended the creaking stair.

  It led to a cramped upper chamber in the square tower, where Bardulf had evidently attempted to take refuge. A weak light sh
one through the small window. Despite the boards having recently been scrubbed, a grim ghost of spilt blood still stained half the floor. It stretched before them, describing a weird, semi-human shape – like some lingering spectre of Sir Walter.

  “Was there a scrap of fabric anywhere on the body?” demanded Gisburne. “Or somewhere nearby, perhaps, with letters upon it? Marks of some kind?” The servant just stared at him and shrugged, vacantly.

  “There was marks on the wall,” said a small, reedy voice, “but they was cleaned off.” Gisburne turned and saw the little girl framed in the doorway. The woman swiped the child with the flat of her palm, then grabbed her bony arm as if to drag her away.

  “Wait!” Gisburne raised his hand. “What marks, girl? Can you remember what they were?” The child looked wide-eyed at Gisburne, then stared up at the servant woman.

  “She knows no letters,” muttered Galfrid.

  Gisburne tried again. “Where were they? These marks? Show us...” She tore free of the grip of the servant and trotted over to a paler section of the stained, mould-flecked plaster wall, near the head end of the blood-ghost.

  She extended a skinny arm. “There.”

  Gisburne and Galfrid examined the wall. Faint, smudged marks were still visible.

  “L... I... X...” read Galfrid. “Licks?”

  Gisburne slapped the side of his own head. “Idiot! I’m an idiot... L.I.X... L.I.V...They’re not words, they’re numbers. Fifty-nine... fifty-four...”

  “Numbers...” repeated Galfrid. “Numbers of what?”

  “I don’t know,” said Gisburne, placing his fingertips on the place where the marks had been made. “But it seems this Red Hand is trying to tell us something.”

  “Or make us look like idiots,” said Galfrid. “What could he possibly want to tell us? And why?”

  Gisburne ignored the question, and instead turned to the little girl, kneeling down and taking her by her shoulders. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much.” And he pressed a silver penny into her hand. Her face lit up – making her, for that moment, the one bright thing in the whole of Sir Walter’s bleak domain.