Afton of Margate Castle (50 page)

After three seasons of plowing in Perceval’s fields, Josson told her she had completed her term of duty. She did not smile at the news, but put down her plow, wiped her hands on her dress, and walked stiffly to Corba’s house. She was twenty-five years old, a free woman, and never again would she willingly work for Perceval.

***

“Messengers from the King are approaching!” eleven-year-old Ambrose shouted as he burst in upon Perceval and Endeline at supper. Perceval stood so quickly he overturned his chair, but Endeline caught his hand. “Calmly now,” she said smoothly. “It is not the king, just his messengers.” She smiled at Ambrose. “Show them in, dear.”

Ambrose returned a few moments later with two knights wearing tunics richly embroidered with the king’s herald. One unfurled a parchment and proclaimed: “King Henry is dead. Long live King Stephen!”

“So he has done it,” Endeline murmured under her breath. “Henry named Stephen as his successor.”

“Can it be?” Perceval whispered back, but then he stood and lifted his cup in tribute. “Long live Stephen! I will send the appropriate tribute at his coronation.”

The messengers nodded and withdrew to speed their message to the next manor, and Perceval sank back into his chair. “Shouldn’t you have offered them lodging?” Endeline said, looking out the door after the messengers.

“I don’t think so,” Perceval answered, his chin in his hand. “I am in a precarious place, my love, torn between two thrones. The forces of Matilda are even now aligning themselves with Robert of Gloucester. Matilda will oppose Stephen, and who can tell who the victor will be?”

“No one can tell,” Endeline replied, straightening her shoulders. “And we have no blood ties to either side. Gather your tribute for Stephen, my lord, and make the same tribute for Matilda. Send them in separate convoys on the same day, and instruct your knights to say nothing ill of one side or the other.”

Perceval smiled at her, and his eyes sparkled in appreciation. “The castle will have to produce more to maintain double tributes,” he remarked off handedly.

“The villeins will produce the extra work with pleasure, my lord,” Endeline answered, “and your family will stand behind you in all that you do.”

“We will,” Ambrose echoed, from a dark corner of the room.

“Come out from there,” Endeline said, beckoning the boy with her hand. “You are a little mouse, my Ambrose, always hiding in shadows.”

“A cunning mouse,” Perceval added. “Will you drink to our new king?”

Ambrose nodded, and reached for a goblet on the table. He lifted his glass. Endeline smiled and touched the rim of her golden goblet to his. “To Sir Ambrose,” Perceval said, nodding gravely. “Who is certain to do justice to the name of Margate.”

“I will do my best, sir,” Ambrose answered, his eyes shining darkly in the torchlight.

***

Calhoun shivered in the cool wind that blew from the barred window, grateful for the partial warmth of the cast-off cloaks Zengi had allowed them to have. In the corner of their cell, Fulk turned another sag-bellied rat on a spit fashioned from a green branch. The roasting rodent was the only meat they would eat today, but the rats had kept them alive through years of captivity.

“Fulk,” Calhoun asked, crinkling his nose in appreciation of the roasting meat. “Has it been ten or eleven winters since we came here?”

“Twelve winters,” Fulk answered, wiping his silver-sprinkled beard with his right hand. “And in that time we’ve single-handedly trimmed the rodent population of Aleppo.”

“Why has Zengi not killed us?” Calhoun wondered aloud, watching the glowing coals. “There have been occasions when I know he thought about it. Just the sight of us makes him angry.”

“He keeps us as pets,” Fulk remarked dryly, lifting the impaled rodent from the coals. “We are his amusement. He could have ransomed us time and again, but we serve as a visible reminder that he is victorious over the Christian invaders. Besides, he loves to hear you talk of honor.”

“It is only honor that has kept me sane,” Calhoun said, looking at the hint of deepening evening sky through the high window. “I know that my king and my father would have ransomed me if they knew my situation. I know the cause for which I fought is right. And I am certain I have not raised my sword except in the cause of justice.”

“Your talk of ideals grows more wearisome through the years,” Fulk remarked lightly, nibbling at the rat. He meticulously ate half of the creature as a man eats a chicken leg, then handed the spit to Calhoun. “What has honor brought you? Nothing. It has stolen your youth and granted me more than a few gray hairs.”

Calhoun looked at Fulk. He spoke the truth; Fulk was very nearly gray. The years of prison had matured Calhoun, but Fulk had grown to be an old man, stooped and wrinkled.

“How old are you?” Calhoun asked gently.

Fulk scowled at the compassion in Calhoun’s voice. “Old enough to know life holds little more for me.” He held his hands to the warming coals, then added, “And old enough to wonder if my life ever had purpose.”

“You talk like a man who goes to his grave tomorrow,” Calhoun chided him, nibbling at his dinner. “Come now, surely tomorrow will find us here together, and the day after that. You will tell me again the stories of battle, and I will describe for you again the charms of my beloved Afton.”

“Your beloved Afton is no longer a maiden,” Fulk groused. “She is surely married to some minor noble and is counting the gray strands in her own hair.”

“Her golden hair will not go gray,” Calhoun laughed. “My Afton will remain as fair as the morning. If I never see her again, why, that is better, for her memory will never fade from me. In my dreams she will always be beautiful, chaste, and brave. Do you not have a handsome woman in your memory, Fulk?”

“One,” Fulk muttered. A guard barked “Quiet!” at the door of their cell, and they said silent until his footsteps had passed out of range.

“Miranda,” Fulk answered Calhoun’s unspoken question. “On the day I feel death’s grip I will tell you her story, but not before.” He grinned at his young companion. “I will thus give you something to look forward to.”

***

The next morning Calhoun awoke to unusual sounds. From the narrow peephole in his cell door he could see Zengi’s warriors rushing by in full armor. The noise and commotion of battle continued throughout the day and night.

“Are we still under attack?” Calhoun asked Fulk as the rosy pink of dawn began to appear in their small window. “What army keeps Zengi enclosed in his castle?”

“A clever one,” Fulk answered. “I believe we are seeing the beginning of a siege, and I pray I am wrong. The populations of entire cities die in a siege, young friend, and prisoners will be the first to go. If a fat rat crawls across your face tonight, do not spare him. The entire city may be feasting on rats before the siege is done.”

***

Three days later Calhoun realized Fulk was right. They were summoned from their dark prison and brought before Zengi, who glared at them from his high seat. “The Christians are besieging the city,” he stated flatly, his tone nasal and more clipped than usual. “I would like to ask advice of my two resident Christian prisoners. What tactics would you advise, gentlemen?”

“I will give no aid to you,” Calhoun declared. “I will not raise my voice or my hand against my brothers.”

Zengi scowled and turned toward Fulk. “Your friend’s misguided notions do not amuse me today,” Zengi snarled. “I need advice, old man, and you will give it.”

“You might try Grecian fire,” Fulk said quietly. “The mixture of oil and rock is a gruesome rain upon those at the base of the city walls.”

Zengi waved his hand. “We know of Grecian fire,” he said impatiently. “You have been in prison too long, Fulk.”

“Be still!” Calhoun hissed at Fulk. “Have you no honor left in you?”

“All I have within me is a smattering of life,” Fulk said. “I desire to live it in relative peace, not under siege.”

“Wisely said, old man,” Zengi answered. “What else is in your head?”

“Only this,” Fulk answered. He closed his eyes. “If the wells run dry, have your men bury themselves in the dirt to conserve the moisture in their bodies. If food and water are scarce, equip each man with a dagger, that he might eat his own flesh until sustenance arrives.”

Zengi’s eyes gleamed. “By Allah, you are beginning to think like me,” he crowed. “It shall be done.”

***

The siege wore on for three more days, and during that time the prisoners of Zengi received neither food nor water. “He didn’t give us a dagger,” Fulk grumbled in their cell. “I thought perhaps he might.”

“You are a madman,” Calhoun whispered from his corner. “Zengi does not give daggers to prisoners.”

He lay back on the cool stone and tried to collect his thoughts, but his body cried out for water. Strange visions churned in his brain, and he remembered two skeletons he once found in the sand, both bleached by the sand and sun. One skeleton wore the tunic and armor of a Christian, the other wore the clothing of a Saracen. They had killed each other bravely, but their sacrifice had gone unnoticed in the madness of warfare. What difference did their sacrifices make?

“If I get home,” Calhoun muttered, “I will find my Afton and marry her. I will lay down my sword and never pick it up again.”

“You do not know yourself,” Fulk answered from the darkness of his corner. “You are a knight, and you will die by the sword as you have lived by it.”

“No,” Calhoun murmured drunkenly. “Fighting and death accomplish nothing. Only family matters. Husband. Wife. Mother. Father. Children.”

He smiled and rolled over to look at Fulk. “If we survive this siege, I will escape or die within the week. Zengi has taken twelve years of my life, and he shall have no more.”

“Zengi did not deserve to know you for even a day,” Fulk whispered, then the old man slipped over onto the floor, unconscious.

Calhoun

1140

A
mob raged outside the strong walls of Margate Castle, but Calhoun felt himself endued with superhuman strength and agility. Lightly he leapt from tower to tower, raining arrows upon the dark-eyed assassins who screamed at him in fury, then he jumped into the thick of the fray and began to slash and hack his way through the mob. He was invincible, and even though battle cries and the clang of swords rang in his ear, he knew the day would have a victorious outcome. The sounds of battle grew louder, smoke burned his nostrils, and he thrived on the sheer gore and violence before him.

 
A Saracen warrior stood with his back to him, and Calhoun raised his sword to remove the man’s head, but the warrior whirled around. Zengi! “By the strength of my God, I’ll have your head now!” Calhoun roared, and his blade sliced cleanly through Zengi’s neck even as blood spurted into his face. Calhoun was repulsed at first, then his parched lips opened in search of more life-giving liquid.

“Up, you sons of dogs,” a voice behind him spoke. “If you would live, get up and drink.”

 
Calhoun opened his eyes. He was not in a battle at Margate, but on the floor of his cell in Zengi’s prison. An earthen pot sat by the door, and in it was a gourd--and water. “Fulk, we are saved,” Calhoun croaked, crawling toward the pot. “The siege is lifted.”

The guard behind the door laughed. “Give thanks to Allah for Nur al-din,” he said. “Zengi’s son routed those who besieged us. You owe your lives to the mercy and strength of Nur al-din, Christian knights!”

Calhoun brought the gourd to Fulk and slowly poured a slow stream into the man’s mouth. Fulk’s eyes flickered, and his swollen tongue weakly licked his lips. “Easy, there is more,” Calhoun said, crawling back for another dipper of water. “We have an entire jar of water to ourselves.”