Fortress of Mist (10 page)

Thomas could not contain himself longer. “Magnus!” he said. “You spoke of Magnus.”

Her hand clutched his knee one final time, then relaxed. From her came a soft laugh. “Bring me a feast tomorrow. Rich meat. Cheese. Buttered bread. And much wine. That is my price for the telling of ancient tales.”

After a cackle of glee, she dropped her head to her chest and soon began to snore.

Then, without warning, the snoring ceased and she lifted her head.

“There is one other who knows more than I. She is the herbalist who visits Magnus weekly. Perhaps when you return to the castle, you can ask her.”

Then the woman began to snore again, obviously unaware that Thomas had ordered the herbalist to march with his army.

T
he northward march began again. Memory of the slaughter of two white bulls faded quickly, it seemed, and all tongues spoke only of the archery contest.

Thomas and his men had little time to enjoy their sudden fame, however. Barely an hour later, the column of people slowed, then stopped.

Low grumbling rose. Some strained to see ahead, hoping to find reason for the delay. Others—older and wiser—flopped themselves into the shade beneath trees and sought sleep.

Thomas, on horseback near his men, saw the runner approaching from a long distance ahead. As he neared, Thomas saw the man’s eyes rolling white with exhaustion.

“Sire!” he stumbled and panted. “The Earl of York wishes you to join him at the front!”

“Do you need to reach more commanders down the line?” Thomas asked.

The man heaved for breath, and could only nod.

Thomas nodded at a boy beside him. “Take this man’s message,” he instructed. “Please relay it to the others and give him rest.”

With that, Thomas wheeled his horse forward, and cantered alongside the column. Small spurts of dust kicked from the horse’s hooves; the sheer number of people, horses, and mules passing through the moors had already packed and worn the grass to its roots.

Thomas spotted the Earl of York’s banners at the front of the army column quickly enough. About half of the other earls were gathered around. Their horses stood nearby, heads bent to graze on the grass yet untrampled by the army.

Thomas swung down from the horse and strode to join them.

For the second time that day, a chill prickled his scalp.

Three men stood in front the Earl of York and the others. They wore only torn and filthy pants. No shoes, no shirt or cloak. Each of the three was gray-white with fear and unable to stand without help.

The chill that shook Thomas, however, did not result from their obvious fear or weakness. Instead, he could not take his eyes from the circular welts centered on the flesh of their chests.

“They’ve been branded!” Thomas blurted.

“Aye, Thomas. Our scouts found them bound to these trees.” The Earl of York nodded in the direction of nearby oaks.

Thomas stared with horror at the three men. The brand marks nearly spanned the width of each chest. The burned flesh stood raised with pus, a long way from the healing that would eventually leave ugly white scars.

Thomas sucked in a breath.

Each brand showed the strange symbol.

“Who … who …”

“Who did this?” the Earl of York finished for Thomas.

Thomas nodded. He fought the urge to glance at the earl’s hand to confirm what he didn’t want to believe. The symbol that matched the earl’s ring. A symbol that had been burned into the grass between two white bulls’ heads, adding to the mysteriousness of bulls’ hooves arranged in a circle. The symbol of conspiracy.

“It is impossible to tell who did this to these men,” the Earl of York
answered his own question. “Impossible to understand why they have been left for us to find.”

“Impossible?” Thomas could barely concentrate.
“Already the forces of darkness gather …”

“Yes. Impossible. Their tongues have been removed.” The earl shook his head sadly. “Poor men. And of course they cannot write. We shall feed them, rest them, and let them return to their homes.”

Could the Earl of York be this fine an actor to stand in front of these tortured men and pretend he had no part of the symbol? Or was his ring simply a bizarre coincidence?

The earl wiped his face clean of sweat.

His ring. Gone.

A tiny band of white marked where the earl had worn it.

Thomas shook off the feeling of being utterly alone.

S
urprisingly, Frederick—Frederick the Fat, as Thomas silently called him—proved to be a gracious loser.

“This snot-nose has the teeth of a dragon,” he toasted at the council of war that evening.

“Hear, hear,” the others responded.

Again, the light of countless campfires spread like flashing diamonds through the valley. Still four days away from the lowland plains and any chance of battle, the army had not dug in behind palisades, and tents were still pitched far enough apart so that neighbors did not have to stumble over neighbors as they searched for firewood or water.

Thomas accepted the compliment with equal graciousness. “As you rightly guessed,” he said to Frederick, “the power lies within the bows, not the archers.”

“Still,” Frederick countered, “the Earl of York has again proven his wisdom. I erred to judge you on age or experience.”

Thomas shrugged. Not necessarily from modesty, but rather because the idea for the ingenious modification of the bows had simply been taken straight from his hidden library.

As described within one of his ancient books, running the length of the inside of each bow, Thomas had added a strip of wide, thin bronze, giving more strength than the firmest wood. His biggest
difficulty had been finding a drawstring that would not snap under the strain of such a powerful bow.

“But such archery will prove little in this battle.” An earl sitting beside Frederick interrupted Thomas in his thoughts. “You have only twenty bows with such a capacity for distance.”

Thomas laughed. “Do the Scots know that? They will only understand arrows suddenly reaching them from an unheard-of distance long beyond their own range. Even if they knew our shortage of these bows, each man on the opposing line still realizes it only takes one arrow to pierce his heart. Surely there is benefit in that.”

“Yes.” Another earl sipped his broth, then continued in support of Thomas. “The man we have dubbed Sir Snot-Nose …”

General laughter. Thomas knew immediately it was a name of affection and honor. He smiled in return.

“Sir Snot-Nose earlier spoke of battle tactics that interest me keenly. I see clearly that even a few of these bows can affect warfare.”

The Earl of York strode to the campfire as that statement ended.

All rose in respect.

“You do well, Sir Steven, to make mention of the tactics of war,” the Earl of York said grimly in response. “I have just received word from our scouts. It isn’t enough to be plagued by the evils of slain white bulls and tongueless men. The Scots’ army numbers over four thousand strong.”

Silence deepened as each man realized the implications of that news. They numbered barely three thousand. Man against man. Beast against beast. And outnumbered by a thousand. They would be fortunate to survive.

The Earl of York, as was his due, spoke first to break the silence. “Perhaps our warrior, Thomas of Magnus, has a suggestion.”

The implied honor nearly staggered Thomas. To receive a request
for council among these men … yet still he wondered if the Earl of York was friend or foe. And if a foe, why would he give any honor to Thomas?

“Thank you,” Thomas replied, more to gain time and calmness than from gratitude. To throw away this chance…

Thomas thought hard.
These men understand force and force alone. This much I have learned
.

Another thought flashed through his mind, a story of war told him by Sarah, a story from one of the books of ancient knowledge.

He hid a grin in the darkness. Each man at the campfire waited in silence, each pair of eyes studied him.

Finally, Thomas spoke.

“We can defeat the Scots,” he said. “First, we must convince them we are cowards.”

K
atherine’s place of encampment was set apart from the others, for many feared the knowledge that an herbalist had about plants and animals. Indeed, any herbalist had to be careful that rumors about witchcraft did not begin.

She was alone, then, when a shadow crossed over her as she crouched to stir the coals of an almost-dead fire with a sharpened branch, green and cut recently from a sapling.

She had known Thomas was approaching, but also knew that an old woman would not have the keen hearing and sharp vision she possessed, so she acted ignorant of his presence, even as he stood above her.

“I have questions for you,” he said.

She pretended she could not hear him. Not only was that in character for an old woman, but it gave her time to compose herself for when she would finally rise and look upon his face.

Although she knew that her filthy face and the unruly long and gray hair of the wig gave her the appearance of a hag, with Thomas she wasn’t as confident of her disguise as she was when mingling with the peasants and soldiers of the camp.

Thomas was intelligent, an observer, and a man of questions. That made it dangerous enough to be near him. She was also forced to admit to herself that she could not fight her own emotional reaction to him, but could only hope to conceal it.

“I said,” Thomas repeated, but louder, “I have questions for you.”

“Eh?” Katherine made an awkward turn of her head, careful to keep the gray hair across her face.

“M’lord!” she croaked. She pretended to almost fall as she rose, making it look as though her joints ached and all movement was painful.

She began to bow in respect.

“Please,” he said, “find a place to sit.”

She moved to a fallen tree and eased herself onto a place between branches that had been removed to feed fires.

“M’lord,” she repeated. She fought the temptation to look directly into his face, knowing that it would only lead to thoughts of what it might be like to caress it with her fingers. The night before, when she had been sent as a messenger to get him from the tent for the old man, she had wanted to hold him close and feel his strong arms around her shoulders.

“Something about the way you move,” he said, “the cadence of your voice …”

Had he guessed so soon who she was beneath this disguise?

“I am the herbalist you ordered to join your army on this march,” she said in the quietest voice possible. “If you have a request of me, I will do my best to oblige. But please don’t confuse me with riddles.”

He stared for a few moments, then shook his head, more at himself than at her.

“I’m told that, of anyone,” he said, “you might have answers for me about the sacrifice of the white bulls.”

Katherine squeaked with pretended fright, as any peasant would when confronted with an evil superstition.

“None, m’lord. None!”

She made a movement to push away from him and rise again, but he placed a hand on her shoulders. It would be terrifying if he saw through her disguise. And yet she hoped he would.