by Wayne Grant
Roland did not waste the opportunity. He turned and bolted for the door. Behind him, Sir John de Courcy, his face a mask of rage, picked up his own carving knife and gave chase. As Roland passed the merchant, still snoring in his seat, he grabbed the top of the man’s chair and tipped it backwards. The fat man landed with a crash, then struggled noisily to his feet, momentarily blocking de Courcy’s path. In the next instant, Roland was through the door.
He found himself on a small landing. To his right, spiral stairs twisted up to the third floor of the keep and then on to the roof. There would be no escape in that direction. To the left more stairs wound down to the first floor and the exit from the keep. He started in that direction, but could hear shouts and laughter rising up from below. The first floor held the guardroom of the keep. There would be upwards of a dozen men at the bottom of the stairs.
From behind, he heard de Courcy screaming at the fat merchant to get out of his way and ordering his men-at-arms to make haste. He took a step toward the stairs that led down to the guardroom. There was little hope he could fight his way to the keep’s exit, but he resolved to try. He would not be taken alive to be tortured by John de Courcy. A sound from behind made him whirl around. A man stepped out of a narrow passage he had not seen in the dim light. He was hitching up his pants and looked up in time to be clubbed unconscious.
Roland stepped over him and stuck his head in the narrow opening. It smelled foul and he realized that it must be the keep’s privy. He grabbed the unconscious man by the wrists and dragged him into the small alcove. Looking up, he saw a few steps leading up to a stone bench with a hole carved in the seat. Behind him he heard men burst through the door from the hall and onto the landing. He turned and made ready to kill whoever came through the small opening.
On the landing, he heard de Courcy order one guard up the stairs to the right and the other down the stairs to the guardroom. From the sound of the footsteps on the stairs, the Prince had followed the man he’d sent up towards the third floor. As the clamour faded, Roland leaned against the stone wall and tried to think. The chase had passed him by for the moment, but it wouldn’t be long before a thorough search of the keep was launched and this privy would not be overlooked.
There were hours yet until midnight and if he could reach the west wall, there would still be time to jump. But reaching that wall seemed impossible. There was no access to it directly from the keep and the only way out of the keep was on the first floor.
“I will not die in a privy,” he said grimly and stood up. He resolved once more to go down the stairs and hope for the best. Perhaps he would surprise whoever was in the guardroom long enough to make it to the door.
Unlikely, he thought, but steeled himself for the attempt.
Then he heard a sound, one he had not noticed before. It was a soft roar, followed by a quieter hiss. It was the sound of waves striking rocks. It was the sound of the sea. He turned and looked down through the hole in the privy bench and saw nothing but yawning blackness, but there was a light breeze rising up through the hole into the small alcove. The breeze carried the expected unpleasant odours expected from a privy, but there was also the smell of salt and seaweed.
From above he heard steps on the stairs, returning from the third floor. There was no more time for thought, no time to weigh risks. He set aside his carving knife and crawled back onto the stone bench, dropping his legs through the hole. Leaning forward, he supported his weight on his elbows and slid his rear off the stone bench and into the void below. He bent his knees, planting his feet against the stone of the keep wall and lowered himself slowly, until only his head and arms remained above the hole. He could hear urgent voices on the landing.
Roland took a deep breath, gripped the smooth edge of the privy seat with both hands and squeezed his shoulders through the opening. It was a tight fit and he had to dip one shoulder then the other to finally slide through. For a moment, he hung there in space, his feet having slipped from the stone wall of the keep to dangle beneath him. The drop from here was twice that from the west wall, but it no longer mattered. He gritted his teeth and edged his hands back along either side of the privy hole until he could once more touch the outer wall of the keep with his feet. He bent his knees, took a deep breath and lunged out into the blackness.
The fall seemed to last an eternity as he plunged through the dark, expecting at any moment to smash into the rocks below. Then he struck the water hard and plummeted straight to the bottom. The tide had done its work and instead of slamming into rock, his feet sank, ankle deep, into the muck of the harbour bottom. Though the fall had not killed him, the impact with the water left him stunned and disoriented.
But the muck at his feet told him which way was down and which way up. He bent his knees and lunged upwards. For a moment the bottom sucked at his feet but they slipped free and he burst to the surface, sucking in huge lungfuls of air. He was no great swimmer, but the shore was only twenty feet away and he managed to splash his way over to the narrow fringe of rock at the base of the great keep that still stood above the tide.
He looked up at the dark mass of stone rising above him and had the strange urge to laugh. But there was no time to enjoy his own relief. Carrickfergus would soon be like a disturbed ant bed and no place for him to linger. He rose, a little unsteadily, and picked his way along the narrow ledge of rock until he reached the arc of sand and mud that formed the landward side of the small harbour. Two wooden piers stretched out into the water and three of the sailing cogs that had delivered the mercenaries were still tied up there.
As he stepped onto the sand, he prayed that Finn had kept his part of the bargain and was somewhere waiting in the dark with The Grey. If the boy failed him, he planned to strike out on foot for the range of mountains he’d seen to the north in hopes of eluding capture. He was not familiar with the land hereabouts, but liked his chance better in high country where mounted pursuit would be limited. He guessed it would take him half a day to reach the hills, staying clear of any roads.
Roland moved quickly until he reached the ravine that cut across the neck of land occupied by the castle. He saw no one and the only sounds he heard were shouts coming from within the inner ward of the castle—no doubt the guard being turned out. Staying low, he ran in a crouch across the mouth of the ravine, then stopped once more to listen. Still nothing. Then he heard a familiar whinny.
It was The Grey.
In the dim light, he saw Finn creeping carefully along the base of the wooden palisade that enclosed the town, leading the big gelding and a small Irish pony. Roland was relieved to see his longbow, quiver and kit all lashed to his saddle. The boy was stopping every few yards to look about and listen. Roland stood up.
“Finn,” he hissed. The boy jumped as Roland stepped out of the shadows.
“Bless me,” he managed, trying to catch his breath, “ye gave me a fright!”
Roland could not help himself. He grabbed the Irish boy and hugged him.
“You are a fine sight, Master Finn, a very fine sight.”
Finn pulled away, wrinkling his nose.
“Why do you smell like a privy?” he asked.
Pursuit
John de Courcy was first to find the unconscious man in the privy and the abandoned carving knife on the bench. It took him a moment more to comprehend that the spy he’d unmasked had used the castle’s garderobe to make an escape.
“Damn!” he said in amazement, peering down through the hole in the bench. Below, he saw nothing but darkness. The fall was forty feet or more, so most likely this Sir Roland was lying bloody and broken on the rocks at the base of the keep, but the tide was in and if the man had somehow cleared the rocks… He would not leave such a thing to chance.
Within minutes, the glow of torches lit up the inner ward of Carrickfergus Castle as the guard was turned out. The light quickly spread to the port town as de Courcy led a score of his men over the drawbridge and down toward the harbour. For long minutes, men clambered a
long the narrow fringe of rock that stood along the base of the keep looking for a body, but found none.
A boat put out into the harbour to look for the fugitive and the three cogs were searched from deck to keel, all to no avail. Then a sharp-eyed local discovered hoof prints in the fringe of hard-packed sand that rimmed the harbour. The prints might be innocent, left by a townsman or one of the newly-arrived English mercenaries, but de Courcy thought not. The Prince turned the search of the local area over to the Captain of his guard and hurried to the stables in the town with ten of his men.
The spy’s body might lay at the bottom of the harbour and not float up to the surface for a day or two, but John de Courcy’s instinct told him Inness was not dead. He’d somehow survived the fall and managed to steal a horse. But there had been two sets of tracks in the sand. Had this spy had an accomplice?
As de Courcy’s men hurriedly saddled the best mounts in the stable, the Prince considered where the fugitive might head. With nothing but water to the south and east Inness had to have gone north or west. To the north there were few roads or places of refuge. A man on foot might choose that direction, but not a man with a horse. Surely Inness had gone west. There was a decent road that ran along the bay in that direction and the man’s fellow spies had ridden out that way a week ago. He spurred his horse up to the westward road with ten men in his wake.
The road that ran along the shore of the bay was good by Irish standards, but rough—even in broad daylight. In the pitch dark of a moonless night, it was treacherous. With de Courcy himself in the lead, the riders moved cautiously but relentlessly through the dark. The going was painfully slow, but it would be the same for the man they pursued. Their quarry was a good hour ahead of them, but his men were mounted on the best horses in Ireland. If Ranulf’s spy was on this road, they would catch him. When they did, he would see that the head of Roland Inness joined that of Hugh O’Neill’s spy on a spike above his castle gate!
***
In the pitch blackness, Roland placed his trust in his big, sure-footed gelding and The Grey did not let him down, picking its way carefully along the rutted and rocky road that ran beside the bay. Where the track looked to be most dangerous, he dismounted and led the horse on foot with Finn following behind. The boy’s native Irish pony seemed untroubled by the uneven ground or the dark.
As they moved through the night, Roland tried to consider what to do. The simple fact was he did not know where to find Declan. He knew Down lay somewhere south of the bay and Tyrone was further west. God willing, this road would lead them to one or the other and, hopefully, to his friend—if they could stay ahead of the pursuit. Each time he’d dismounted, he let the horses settle and listened for any sounds on his backtrail. If de Courcy discovered he’d survived the plunge from the privy, the Norman would surely guess that they had fled down the westward road.
He figured they had perhaps an hour’s start on the Prince and his men, but his lack of familiarity with this road was a hinderance. Twice they had strayed off the main track in the dark only to find the path they’d taken petering out in jumbles of gorse or turning off towards the mountains north of the bay. They’d had to retrace their steps in the gloom, losing valuable time with each misstep.
Near dawn, he heard a horse whinny in the distance behind them. For the sound to reach them, the pursuers had to be close. In the half-light he clucked to The Grey and the horse picked up the pace. Roland looked behind him and saw that Finn was gamely trying to keep up on his pony, but while these small horses could trot all day, they were no match for the speed of the long-legged English horses. He eased in on his reins to let the boy catch up.
By sunup they had reached the head of the bay. Topping a small rise, Roland saw the land sloping down to the southwest following the shoreline. Such bays usually were fed by rivers. He turned to Finn who had just ridden up behind him.
“Is there a river yonder?”
Finn raised himself up and looked down toward the head of the bay.
“Aye, sir. There is a river there. It’s called the Lagan. My home was upstream on the far side, a half day’s ride from here I’d reckon.”
“Then we will follow it to your home and return you to your people.”
“No!” the boy blurted out with a mixture of fear and anger. “I’ll not go there! They left my father to die and gave not a thought to me. They are still under de Courcy’s rule and would turn me over to him.”
“Then where are you to go?” Roland asked, exasperated.
“With you! We had an agreement.” the boy said indignantly.
“I agreed to take you away from Carrickfergus, lad, not to adopt you! What am I to do with you?”
“That is for you to decide, lord. But we have an agreement. I go with you.”
Roland shook his head. There was no time to haggle with this boy with riders not far behind. He pointed down toward the river.
“Is there a ford?”
“Oh, aye, sir, down near the river’s mouth,” Finn said, brightening. “There’s a big sandbar there that’s firm enough to cross when the water’s low.”
Roland cast an eye toward the shoreline and saw a wide strip of mud exposed along the edge of the bay. He had made the leap into the harbour at Carrickfergus before midnight when the tide was nearing its highest. Judging by the mud, it was now near low tide, but it would take another hour to reach the river. It wouldn’t be high tide, but the water would be rising.
Regardless, they would have to cross. He looked back to the east as the disc of the sun broke above the bay. Back along the road, he saw a flash of sunlight reflect off burnished metal
They’re getting close, he thought.
***
John de Courcy reined in his black palfrey on the small rise and looked toward the head of the bay as the sun rose behind him. The clouds that had made the night so dark had blown away in the dawn leaving a clear blue sky. A mile to his front, he saw two riders heading west. The sight gave him grim satisfaction.
When no body had been found on the rocks below the keep, he’d sensed that Inness had somehow survived the drop from the privy. And when his men found fresh hoofprints from two horses in the sand, that had settled the issue with him. An accomplice must have been waiting outside the castle with horses when Ranulf’s spy made his escape. And for men on horseback, only one direction might lead to safety—west.
All through the long night, he had relied on that logic and his own instincts to push his men westward along this road. Now his quarry was in sight.
But who was the second rider? he wondered.
Perhaps it was the other man who had been in the traveling party with the priest—or perhaps Inness was not the only man Ranulf had sent to spy on him! The thought troubled him, but no matter. He knew he had the better horses and would ride these two down in time. And when he did, they would tell him if there were other traitors in his midst. He turned to his men.
“There they are, lads,” he said with a wolfish grin. “A gold coin for the man who takes Inness alive. A silver if you have to kill him.”
He jerked his reins around and spurred his palfrey into a trot.
***
Roland had not told Finn that he’d seen de Courcy’s men on their trail, but as they neared the ford on the Lagan, the boy looked back over his shoulders and cried out in alarm. Even at a quarter mile away, the tall figure leading the chase could not be mistaken.
“Sir Roland!” Finn shouted, pointing back toward the riders. “It’s the Prince!”
Roland had been holding The Grey in check on the level ground to allow Finn’s pony to keep pace, but now he reined in. As Finn pulled up beside him, Roland offered the boy his hand.
“They’ll not catch us on The Grey,” he said.
Finn took another look at the approaching riders and grabbed Roland’s hand in a death grip. Roland pulled the Irish boy up behind him on the big gelding and gave the horse the spurs.
The Grey leapt forward, churning up s
and as he galloped. The horse slowed his gait only a bit as it plunged into the water. With the incoming tide fighting the outflow of the river, treacherous currents swirled around The Grey’s chest, but the horse never lost headway and scrambled up on the opposite bar. A dozen long strides more and it reached the river bank.
Roland reined in and slid out of the saddle.
***
De Courcy saw the rider pull what appeared to be a young boy up behind him and splash into the ford. They had steadily gained on the pair since sunrise and now the chase was nearing an end. His riders knew it too. Three of his younger men, their blood up, spurred their mounts into a gallop as they reached the sand bar. De Courcy let them go. It was good to encourage such eagerness.
He lifted his gaze to the opposite bank and was surprised to see the big grey horse standing there, unmoving, with naught but the boy on his back. As he watched, the man he sought stepped out from behind the horse. Even at this distance he recognized Inness. The sight stirred him into action. He touched his spurs to the palfrey’s flanks and set out after the riders ahead of him.
But then he saw the longbow and knew why the rider had stopped on the far bank. He reined in sharply and watched as Inness drew, aimed and released his arrow in a low arc toward his men in the river. The third man into the ford was whipping his horse to catch the other two when he pitched backwards into the water. He floundered in the swirling current for a moment, clutching at the shaft in his chest than sank beneath the brown water. The two riders in the lead did not see the man fall and did not seem to realize their danger.
De Courcy started to shout out a warning to the them, but knew they would not hear. Then one of the two took an arrow in his eye and was dead before he hit the water. The lone rider in the river saw his comrade go down and reined in sharply, sliding out of his saddle and shielding himself behind his horse. De Courcy watched it all with a mixture of shock and anger. As the remainder of his men gathered around him, he waited for the surviving rider to stumble back out of the river. On the far bank, Inness stood there watching them.