"Yes," said Anne to herself. "It is like one other that I have heard of."
"Take my spare cloak," ordered Joris, "and sleep by the fire there until you are rested. We must not have you falling melancholy-sick two days before your assembly."
Anne obeyed silently, and Joris sat musing beside her body, as once before he sat in his cave by the Rock. Overhead sang the moor wind, reaching down an occasional gust to scatter the white smoke of the campfires; rocks and heather and bracken grew clear in the mild October afternoon.
"Rain to-morrow," said Joris, and greased his thigh boots anew while waiting for supper.
Once he noticed the woman stirring, and bent above her to watch her face. Anne made a little clucking noise deep in her throat, and her mouth twitched open and shut on a sharply murmured name.
"Ivo!"
"There is virtue up to a point," thought Joris grimly, "even in the sleuth dogs of the Prior of Dor."
* * * *
Holyrood Eve was almost sultry; at twilight a low solitary peal of distant thunder checked outlaw ribaldry and dicing; men looked up and around, as though the strangeness of their errand were only now apparent. Joris had strung them in a line beneath a heather-crested sandy bluff to southwest of the Singing Stones; a mile behind, the ponies were tethered to hawthorns by a tarn. That was the quarter of uttermost desolation, where ridge after ridge of dusking purple swelled to the grisly cloud-helmed bulk of Dondunor; and Joris saw in the fading light a certain greenness colour one or two near faces. He noted with relief that no second peal came after, and that a breath of chilly wind played in his face from the seaward and the north.
A slight shower fell; the sprawled rank took hobgoblin shapes, huddling bodies and bows beneath frieze cloaks, munching food from greasy wallets and sipping coarse wine from battered flasks. A man roared out a jest, and Gandulf strode along under the bluff to curse him into sulky silence. Only Joris and Madoc stood in sight of the Stones; they had crept amid rocks and hawthorns to avoid breasting a skyline.
Red Anne came blackly toward them from the caves – a wallet corded to her belt, her cow headdress under one arm, her cow's tail looped over the other, her brazen ritual wand gleaming in the last light. Catlike she trod, so that sturdy Madoc backed a pace when first he found her by him. Gandulf joined the group, and as the wind gusts freshened up the slope the four of them heard the first faint thrilling of the dolmen ring.
Madoc shivered in his tunic of leathern leaf armour, Gandulf's hand rasped nervously across and across the rusty steel of his corselet. Anne stood with arms folded, the beast head swinging from her shoulder, the serpent-twined rod hugged carelessly against the blackness of her clothing. Joris, glancing aside, saw her face in profile against the faint pink cloud rents to westward; for him the hour grew timeless and enchanted. Princes of earth and hell should stand in the shadow of Joris; he might not surround the Stones, lest a late-comer stumble upon his men and give an alarm, but Madoc and Gandulf would lead the horns of creeping attack, and he himself in the centre would sound the call for onset.
"I shall go now," said Anne, low-voiced.
"Why now?" asked Joris. "We have hours to wait."
"I must watch alone among the stones," she responded. "I must bid them farewell and make a kind of peace with them, for they have been my friends for twenty years."
"Go, then,' muttered Joris, "but–"
Red Anne turned upon him in the twilight, catching him firmly by the beard that still bore traces of its dark disguise as the beard of Dietrich Halbern.
"Nay, man," she breathed, "do not doubt me to-night. Here in my wallet I have betony and motherwort and vervain a bronze bell and a parchment. Certain spells I must cast to cramp the power of yaan. You may believe in them, but I must still make sure. Only keep your men in hand; if there are any overscared, it will maybe help to hear me. and when the hymn of invocation ends, I will point my wand at the prince … Kiss me, Joris."
Joris flung an arm around her and kissed the upturned mouth.
"If there be fighting," he murmured, "I would not fill your own friends with arrows. Can you not warn them or group them together for safety?"
Anne drew a deep breath and stiffened in his grasp.
"If there be fighting," she said, "you had best slay all who oppose you. But remember I cannot tell what Yaan may do; I have warned you he had deadly powders to cast into flares, and for that you must be prepared. The rest is – as it will be. Fare you well."
"Farewell until midnight," growled Joris.
Something else she seemed to say, but her voice was lost in the rising wind. She strode away downhill, and darkness and the dolmens swallowed her up.
At the end of half an hour a light flickered among the fallen uprights of the inner ring. A pungent whiff of burning herbs assailed the nostrils of the hidden watchers, and suddenly men ceased their grumbling and shuffling and scratching – hearkening one and all to the sharp tinkling of the bell and the marvellous mingled voices of earth and air.
Red Anne was singing alone amid the Singing Stones.
* * * *
Midnight was clear, with the waning moon just set. Joris let the lights flare, let the strange hymn begin, before he stood at the bluff's edge and motioned his men forward. With bows and pikes trailing in heather the long sickle of stooping crawling figures pushed forward down the rough incline; this time the chant failed to encircle the brow of Joris with iron.; instead, the hard glee of the fighting man possessed his crouched body; he marked the place of his intended entry into the inner ring, where now the blue torchlit faces was veiled for the coming of Yaan.
Rasp and slither and grunt and creak, whelmed by the ringing din below. Thick bell heather caught at his cloak, yielded to his arms, sprang up and smote his face. A man immediately behind was swearing softly in amazement; Joris paused to hiss a threat at him, and the hiss startled himself, for the sudden ritual silence cut all other sound from about it.
Yaan leaped upon the slab between the blue-white fires; Joris rose to his feet, with sword in one hand and lifted horn in the other. The howl of joyous acclamation gave him another dozen yards; Red Anne's swift stride and pointing gesture showed him two cloak-muffled figures standing a little apart beyond the kneeling throng.
"Strangers, what do you here?" belled Anne; and from near the pair a woman leaped up to confront her.
"Mistress, that is not right!" she cried. "No question to guests of the coven! My – my friends wish us no harm; let them be, and on with the Sabbath!"
"Ay, let them be!" called others. "What ails you, Mistress, to-night?"
Red Anne tilted her cow's mask up like a vizor and lifted her chin; from her strong round throat went up a yell of tormented laughter as she raised the brazen rod like a sword and dashed it into the ground.
"Faithful, protect yourselves!" she shouted – and turned, and darted between the nearest megoliths to vanish in the shadows beyond.
Sharp and fierce brayed the horn of Joris; the assembly broke into rout and clamour at the thudding rush of his me. Madoc and half a dozen more were already beyond the Stones; the prince and his companion turned and blundered full into their arms. In a second each of the pair was the core of a kicking heap; Joris had time to see as much before he wheeled in the glow of the flares and pointed his blade toward Yaan – or toward the alter slab where Yaan had been the instant before.
"By God, the Devil has bolted!" he roared at the top of his voice; then, amid stampede and screaming of witches and laughing of his swarming followers, he saw the blackness of Yaan reappear – a bounding antlered mystery that thrust what looked like an iron casket flat upon the nearer blur-white star of fire, and collapsed as though into the earth at the end of the long alter.
There came a hiss and a red sparkling along one side of the casket; the casket vanished, the lit earth and the tall stones brightened and shuddered to a rayed burst of orange flame and a stunning thunderous crash. Joris dropped like a log, and heard his sturdy ruffians bleat
ing as they broke and ran and tumbled. Stricken and dazed, but fighting-mad, with the stink of his own singed beard in his nostrils, he gathered himself together and lurched again to his feet; nothing mattered now but the black shape stealing upon him sword in hand.
Joris backed, blinking, keeping his point between him and that approaching figure of dread. Half the torches had been quenched by the explosion, and the near flare had vanished, but there was light enough to see that Yaan had doffed his stag's head piece. Above the atrocious panoply lowered a human face – the mad face of Guelf Reinager, apothecary, showman, and Grand Master of the Covens of Nordanay.
"Haro!" croaked Joris, stiffening his sword arm; and like a whirled spear came the priest god's thrust. Craft of muscle, and stoutness of link mail, served the outlaw better than conscious skill in that extremity; but the familiar jar of steel cleared fog from between his strength and his fury.
The pair had the inner ring to themselves; they stamped and foined and hewed a moment before the arrows began to streak and strike around and upon Guelf's leathern armour. Gandulf and others had not far; a devil at blows with Joris could not work further blasting magic upon the altar slab. But the long shafts stuck or rebounded; there was mail beneath the tough leather. Guelf ripped one out and dashed it at his enemy's face, tearing a wound in the cheek of Joris that presently bled inward and gave a taste of blood; and Joris pierced the leather gorget and saw the crafty mouth sag sideways with pain and effort.
But his own mail was cloven in three places; he had got the light of the remaining flare across the swords as he intended, yet Guelf knew the lie of the fallen stones, and Joris did not. And if the outlaws were rallying, the company of Yaan were not all cravens; a pair of bagpipes hurtled from the shadows and struck Joris above the knees. He lurched and overbalanced; Yaan's lightning stroke bruised his humped back, but his own desperate upward stab did more than all his craftiness.
Down on him sprawled the groaning, snarling blackness of Guelf Reinager; each grasped the other's throat, each dropped sword and fumbled for his dagger. Joris felt his breath gone and his head bursting; he loosed the wet black gorget, groped for the iron wrist that choked him, gurgled to feel his left hand nailed to the peat, and poked wickedly upward with his dagger held like a sword.
Everything loosened and gave above him; the heavy head of Guelf crashed down on his own clutching hand and upon the outlaw's battered mouth. The dagger of Guelf had found the hand of Joris, but the dagger of Joris was fast through the eye and in the crazy brain of Guelf.
"I perceive the Devil is dead," gasped Joris, writhing free and releasing his wounded limb. Then he realized that others had been fighting about him, and suddenly remembered the first aim of the night's madness.
"Are they safe?" he shouted, stumbling to his feet, and addressing the world at large with a sweep of recovered steel.
"Ay," said Gandulf beside him. "That is, the prince is bound and sat upon. Guy de Saulte is yonder, having broken loose and downed three men. Nay, Joris, you are half in pieces yourself."
Despite his lieutenant's remonstrance, Joris reeled forward to where Guy de Saulte stood with his back to a megalith, with a half ring of laughing, thrusting men to dodge and parry the furious strokes of his sword.
"Yield, monkey!" thundered Joris. "Have we not saved you from hell fire?"
"A Saulte – a Saulte!' shrilled the exhausted boy, his fair face set and ghastly. "I risk hell fire to make you certain of it, filthy churl! A Saulte!"
"Assault be it," punned Joris thickly; and he shattered the lad's sword at the hilt and split the blond head to its eyebrows.
"Any more?" he demanded, shaking his reddened blade.
"All fled, save six who stayed for arrow shot," reported Madoc, grinning with tongue outthrust like a dog's. "The prince lies quietly, since we bound and gagged him."
Joris peered this way and that in the weird light; the remaining altar flare was sputtering now with none to tend it, and the few lit torches burned smokily against the uprights of the great trilithons. The dead were sprawled or huddled here and there; and the ghostly music of the Stones hummed softly overhead.
"Where is Red Anne?" he demanded harshly, when they had shown him the fierce-eyed bundle that was captive Thorismund.
"Here, Joris," replied the woman, moving between two uprights behind him.
He turned, and saw that she had changed her ritual dress for the brown hunting gear of the previous day. Her face was set and still and tragical; she bent a steady look toward the still shape that had been Yaan's, and made with her unstrung longbow a little gesture of finality that was almost a salute.
"Now I will lead you to the ponies," she promised. "But first, your face and hand are torn. Were any of your men injured by that bursting fire box?"
"Three slain," said Gandulf blithely, and gave their names. "I dodged behind a pillar, or I had made a fourth. These rites are ruined between you, and I own I am not sorry; yet mountebank or no, yon Guelf and something of might in him."
"Madoc, blow a rally,' commanded Joris thickly. "Pest, but my ears ring yet. Gandulf, guard the prince yourself. Banday my hand first, Anne; I bleed there like a butchered sow. In faith, are all the lights going?"
"Whoa, chief," said one of his watching men, seeing the tall figure stagger. Joris felt himself caught and held; a veil of angry blackness swathed his senses. For the first time in his life he fainted.
The east was gray when they set him on a pony. Prince Thorismund was bound upon another, which Gandulf led in person. Red Anne rode by her man, and Madoc went to the head of the straggling half-mounted column.
When the Singing Stones were out of sight the sun got up in splendour. Brighter colours of earth were none than the red hair of Thorismund and the red hair of Anne; the outlaw chieftain glanced from one head to the other, and smiled to thing that such a hue was often accounted unlucky.
"Here," he said within his heart, "begins the glory of Joris of the Rock."
* * * *
Over the fading heather, down the rock-walled, thorn-stubbed hollows, past amber tarns and the bright green of whispering bogs, swept that ragged and triumphant company, with the young prince bound in their midst. The flaming mop was dishevelled and matted, the beautiful face gray and dirty and strained; when Thorismund reeled and nearly fell they took the gag from his mouth and dosed him with a thin sour wine. He blinked and coughed and grimaced, but spoke no word at first; his clear blue eyes grew calm and observant, and Joris regarded him narrowly and issued a curt command.
"Leave that gag out, but bandage my lord's eyes."
Thorismund licked his bruised lips and looked from Joris to Anne and back again.
"Faith, I have heard of you both," he said hoarsely, "but I thought not thus to make your acquaintance. Does Conrad promise good pay?"
"He may do when he hears of your plight," replied Joris, returning the royal stare with cold assurance. "Meanwhile Your Grace will excuse this rough precaution."
Thorismund's eyes vanished behind a grimy scarf; as Gandulf knotted the fabric, Thorismund's mouth twisted and grew grim.
"It was folly to kill Guy de Saulte," he remarked, and they heard his teeth snap shut.
"Your folly may be law in Hautarroy, mine here," drawled Joris, waving Gandulf forward and gathering up his own cord bridle into a swaddled hand.
Thorismund's cheeks and chin grew pink beneath the earth stains, but no further word escaped him throughout that strange morning. By noon the sun was hidden, and no one blindfolded could judge direction from the antics of gusty wind among the hills; when the outlaws halted to break their fast the captive was allowed to use his eyes and hands, and for the first time Joris felt a stress behind the long-continued silence of Red Anne.
"What ails you?" he grumbled suddenly. "Have you some new lofty grief I cannot share?"
"Maybe my coronet casts weight before its time," said Anne, spearing a gobbet of cold mutton on the point of her broad dagger.
Joris lau
ghed abruptly, and Thorismund's haggard face grew intent as he eyed her and turned on Joris.
"What is your price?" he demanded sharply.
Joris took wine skin and drinking horn and carefully poured out a measure. Over the wine he regarded the unkempt prince, and coolly replied.
"Whatever Duke Conrad offers, and a little more."
Thorismund's eyelids drooped, and he nodded as though satisfied.
"Have you pen and ink and paper?" he asked after a pause.
"Not here, but at my Rock. And both Red Anne and I can read the vulgar tongue in which Your Grace will please to write. But I see no occasion yet for writing."
"You must convince the king that I am taken."
"The Duke of Saulte will do. the tunic of the Sieur Guy should convince him."
"You – you buried Guy?"
"We left him naked for the crows," replied Joris brutally, "as you or he or any man of rank might have left me. If the duke rides to the Singing Stones he will not know one skull from another. Two of my men who fell were tow-haired as any Saulte."
Deliberately Prince Thorismund crossed himself; his lips moved as though in silent prayer.
"Speak no Latin aloud," ordered Joris, "or you are struck on the mouth and gagged again."
"May no man then talk Latin in your hearing?" queried the captive.
"No, until and unless it be the bishop who shall reverse my excommunication."
"Ho!" exclaimed Thorismund; and for the first time Joris saw amusement in his face. "Now, save for that I might make a beginning of ransom by dubbing you chevalier, although my sword and spurs…"
"I hold them," Joris assured him. "But do not Castilian kings and lords dub Moorish chevaliers who are by birth and faith and breeding excommunicate?"
"You have me there," admitted the prince. "Besides, you have wrecked a coven, which must mightily please Holy Church. I think you must let me write to my lord archbishop."
Joris of the Rock [The Neustrian Cycle, Book II] (Forgotten Fantasy Library) Page 22