By Sylvian Hamilton (23 page)

'No
children?'

'No.'

'You
sure?'

'Told
you, I feed them. Twenty mouths.'

'Who's
the lady?'

'The
old lord's wife. Puir thing, she's away with the fairies.' He made a
gesture universally understood, twirling a finger beside his ear.

'What's
this infidel, then?'

The
scullion looked uneasy. 'Ach, he's an auld body, belongs to the lord.
Ah've niwer seen him. He keeps his room.'

Bane
found a barrel of wizened but still-sweet apples, pocketed half a
dozen and helped himself to a chunk of cheese. He made his way across
the yard and up the outside stair to the door of the hall. Standing
in the doorway, he looked into the cavernous smoky room. Rows of
straw pallets lay alongside the walls, several of them occupied by
sleepers. A roaring fire burned at one end of the hall and beside it
lay two huge boar hounds, one asleep, the other scratching with
mindless persistence. A few stools and a bench were grouped at a
comfortable distance from the fire around a board resting on trestles
and half a dozen unshaven unbuttoned men were playing without
enthusiasm a game involving dice and small stones.

The
stair continued in a spiral inside, its uneven steps curling out of
sight.

Bane
walked over to the table watched by six pairs of unfriendly eyes.

As
Straccan--- a stranger and therefore dangerous—rode up from the
river, the watchman atop the donjon had a crossbow bolt aimed at him
and the two guards at the gate held their pikes ready to rip his guts
out if required. He reined in at a suitable distance. 'Sir Richard
Straccan, to see Lord de Soulis.'

The
guards stared at him and glanced at one another. One shook his head.
'The lord's away,' he said.

'Where?'

Before
the man could reply, a voice from above drawled, 'Well, God-a-mercy!
Someone from civilisation has found this godforsaken place!'

Straccan
looked up at the small window above the gate. A pale but cheerful
face peered down at him. 'A knight, are ye? And seeking Lord
Rainard?'

'I
have something to deliver to him,' Straccan said. 'Who are you?'

'Turlo
FitzCarne of Dun Carne. Oh, let him in. Let him come up,' he cried to
the guards who still stood at the ready, looking uncertain. 'He's
alone; are you afraid of one man? They probably are, you know,' he
added to Straccan. 'Couldn't fight their way out of a haystack!'

The
pikemen let him pass. His heart hammered hard and fast beneath his
ribs. Somewhere in this place he might find Gilla. If she was here,
he'd find her, and God help anyone who tried to stop him.

'Up
here!' The voice from above again. A wooden stair led up to the door
of the room over the gate and, in the doorway, leaning on rough
crutches, was Sir Turlo FitzCarne.

'FitzCarne,'
said Straccan, as he mounted the stair. 'Haven't I heard of you?'

'Lord,
I should hope so,' said Sir Turlo, crutching rapidly over to a
fleece-heaped chair by the window.

'Tourneys,'
said Straccan. 'That's what you do. The circuit! You were champion at
Chester and Windsor. What on earth are you doing here?'

'You
may well ask,' said the champion morosely, pouring wine into two horn
cups. 'Sit down and have a drink. I'm here because of this blasted
broken leg. What brings you to the back of beyond?'

Not
that he listened. He was an addict deprived of his drug talk --and
once started, it seemed nothing could stop his flow. He had broken
his leg in a fall three months before at an unimportant little
tourney in Carlisle. Not his sort of thing at all –a piddling
little local affair, not even licensed---but seeing he was there and
it was going on, well, he entered, just to keep his hand in. His
girth broke and down he went just after unhorsing and vanquishing
Bertran de Soulis, son of Lord Rainard. Sir Bertran had chivalrously
insisted Sir Turlo be his guest until he was fit again, when he could
collect his ransom and rejoin the tourney circuit at his pleasure.

'It's
taken much longer than I expected,' said the champion. 'But I think
it's really on the mend now. Another two or three weeks, and with the
blessing, I'll be on my way at last.' He had missed the great tourney
at Edinburgh, alas, which was just a few days ago. That was where Sir
Bertran had gone, leaving him bored and kicking his heels. 'Well, not
actually kicking them, do you see, in the circumstances, but I can't
sit a horse yet, and there's nothing to do here, and no one to talk
to.'

In
a corner, Sir Bertran's hawk, loaned to his guest, glowered on its
perch and loosed a dropping which splattered on the floor. ‘Let
her hobble about a bit outside and fly her at ducks and pigeons, but
it's clumsy like this, and she resents me, the creature!' He had
moved to the gatehouse when his friend departed. 'It's quieter. The
men make more row day and night than pigs at trough! And there's that
creepy little fellow upstairs. I'd rather be as far as I can get from
him.'

'Who's
that?'

'Some
old madman Lord Rainard looks after. An Arab, for God's sake! A
scholar, they tell me. Bertran wouldn't go anywhere near him, and
I've never even clapped eyes on him. He lives in the top chamber in
the tower. I couldn't get up all those steps even if I wanted to,
which I don't, and anyway, he's an infidel, so he is.'

'They
told me below that Soulis is not here.'

'Lord
Rainard's with the king.'

'In
Edinburgh?'

'Wherever
the king is--Edinburgh, Dunfermline, Roxburgh, Stirling---and he has
his demesne, Soulistoun, but I've no idea where he is right now.'’

'Then
I must go on,' said Straccan, putting his cup down.

'Unless
you can put me up for the night?'

'Ah,
sure, you'll not be leaving now, not with night coming and the
fairies about! Stay the night and go on in the morning,' cried the
hospitable invalid. 'There's been no human being to talk to since
Bertran left.' He crutched to the door where an iron triangle hung
and rattled at it with a short iron bar. The clanging resulted in the
emergence from the main hall on to the outside stair opposite, of the
garrison captain, a burly sloven holding aloft a torch.

'What
d'ye lack?' he bellowed.

'Sir
Richard will stay the night,' FitzCarne bawled back across the yard.
'Bring another mattress over, and blankets. And supper for two.'

'Thank
you,' said Straccan. Now he would have time to search.

'Is
there no one here but yourself then, and the garrison, and the old
heathen?'

'Well,
there's the lady; she never leaves her room either. There's a fat
slut that serves her, serves the garrison too, all corners. But
they're all scared spitless of the old man! It's my belief he's a
sorcerer, I sign myself to the Trinity every time he comes to my
mind.' Suiting action to word, he crossed himself and devoutly kissed
the crucifix he wore on a silver chain. 'God and Mary and Patrick
protect us from all evil,' he said.

'Amen,'
said Straccan. It was almost dark now and he wondered where Miles and
Larktwist were waiting. At least Bane was here, ready if needed.

Bane
was settled comfortably in the hall, throwing dice. He had brought
his own--or, rather, a pair borrowed from Larktwist guaranteed to
give him an edge. He'd lost a sum sufficient to endear him to his
companions and was now teaching them 'the latest game from France',
at which he intended to lose yet more, before eventually winning a
respectable amount; not so much as to arouse undue suspicion, but
enough to show a profit. The others crowded round the flat stone slab
on which Bane had chalked the game's ground, a square divided into
smaller squares decorated with serpents, dragons and siege-ladders. A
little pile of ragged half- and quarter-pennies went back and forth
among them. The carter was in the stable with his doxy, and Bane had
supped on scorched mutton wondering who got the ducks. (The cook, his
sister and Magnus.)

'What
this game needs,' said Bane, casually, 'is a drink to wash the dust
off my luck.'

'Mine
too. Will, run down and tell Sandy we need another jug of ale!'

'Ale?'
said Bane, with a slight sneer. 'I was thinking of this.' He produced
the carter's reserve bottle, stolen and hidden in his capacious
pocket. 'Whisky.'

Good
fellowship and a hefty swig from Bane's bottle compelled the captain
to produce a similar bottle of his own, and the new game proceeded,
noisily enough for Straccan to hear it in the gatehouse where
FitzCarne was at last snoring on his pallet. From the window, which
looked out for miles over the dale, not a light could be seen.
Crawgard felt like the only human habitation left in all the world.

Out
there, according to his sleeping host, the Queen of Faerie and her
Court would be riding even now, passing like a mist of stars threaded
with music, unseen by Christians, bent on their cold, malicious
sport. Elf-archers would shoot the farm dogs that gave warning of
their coming. Nimble elf-maids would steal sleeping babies, as yet
unbaptised, leaving in their place in the cradles bundles of rags,
roots and dead leaves, casting their callous glamour on the
substitutes so that for days after, poor bereaved mothers would nurse
and rock and sing to the things, while husbands, families and
neighbours feared them mad. Elves it was who called up the
marshlights to lead night travellers to swampy death, and blighted
the barley as it grew, and charmed axe-blades to turn on woodcutters.
They soured and clotted the milk in cows' udders in the byre, and
laid tanglefoot spells on the paths and trackways, so that horses
stumbled, and people afoot fell in the mud. Their hatred of humankind
was very great, and only the cross of Christ could baffle their
tricks. Fitz-Carne, a mine of faerie lore and an unstoppable
story-teller, had kept going until, in desperation, Straccan feigned
sleep, fearing he would otherwise talk all night.

As
silently as possible, boots in hand, Straccan tiptoed to the door and
down the steps, praying they wouldn't creak. At the foot of the stair
he sat and put his boots on. He crossed the yard, pausing by the open
stable door when he heard a woman laugh inside. A man's voice mumbled
something in reply, and Straccan could hear hay rustling. Moonlight
through the door silvered limbs in a flurry of amorous activity. He
glided past and climbed the donjon stair.

Just
before he reached the main door, there came a sound from above. He
couldn't make out any words, but after a deep-voiced cry there was a
pause and then a strange droning chant accompanied by piping---an
extraordinarily disquieting sound that stopped him in his tracks. It
came from a narrow window on the top floor.

There
was nothing to see. Nothing moved in the moonlit night. There seemed
no reason for the hairs to prickle and lift at the back of his neck
and the sweat to run cold down his sides. For a moment, impossibly,
he thought he smelled snow coming, and sensed air shifting, not
behind or before him, but above. It was cold, so cold that the breath
crackled in his nostrils as if it was midwinter.

Then,
as suddenly as it began, it was gone. The chanting and piping
stopped. The June night was warm but Straccan was shivering. He
crossed himself. Damn that garrulous idiot, Fitz-Carne, with his
spooks, he thought angrily. What in the name of hell just happened?
His heart was thudding, and it was some minutes before he could move
on up the steps and peer in through the half-open door of the hall.

There
was a small group of men, Bane among them, clustered round the table
over some sort of game. The stair continued, spiralling inside the
wall now, to the chambers above. If Gilla was here, that's where he
would find her. Ghost-like, he faded in through the door on to the
inner stair, swiftly up, round the curve, out of sight of the hall.

At
the first door he paused. No sound. He eased it open and was greeted
by the smells of stale sweat, urine and sickness. He was in a large
bedchamber, stone-chill and fireless, its windows shuttered but with
enough moonlight filtering through cracks and round edges of the
shutters to show the towering mass of the curtained bed.

A
woman's voice from the bed said, 'Marget?'

'No,
Madame.'

The
voice, now shrill with terror, began babbling prayers in a mixture of
bad Latin and Norman French. Straccan shut the door and moved to the
bedside, his eyes searching the darkness for the shape within the
curtains.