SirenSong (46 page)

William clapped Diccon on the shoulder as they passed each
other, and the master-at-arms smiled grimly but did not pause. He went around
to the east to direct the men in the section William could not see. The
veterans spread themselves thinly along the wall, Arnald and Rolf remaining
near the door of the tower both to defend it from enemies and to discourage any
of the frightened recruits from trying to escape down the stairs inside.
William crossed back through the tower to his section of the wall. He was barely
in time to avert another catastrophe.

The new men might be inexperienced, but the most intelligent
that could be found with the proper physique had been chosen. They had quickly
grasped the meaning of the demolished stairs. Now all had their weapons out and
were determined not to allow an enemy on the wall, reasoning that the men on
the ladders would be unable to fight back effectively. To a limited extent this
was true, but in their fear and excitement they had forgotten that the best way
to deal with scaling ladders was to push them off the wall before they were so
weighted with men that they became too heavy to move.

“Poles,” William bellowed. “Cod-sucking lumps! Push them off
with the poles.”

This galvanized about half the men into activity, while the
others gaped, getting in the way. By the time they were organized, one ladder
was solid with attackers. William sprang toward that shouting orders to the men
with the poles to try another angle and attempt to tip the ladder sideways. He
cursed them furiously when their efforts proved futile, but knew it was not all
their fault. Bracing himself to meet the coming attack, William urged the pole
wielders toward another ladder that was rising.

Tactical considerations aside, William was not sorry to face
some living foes. For three days his feeling of frustrated helplessness had
been bottled up, generating a rage to which he could give no expression. God
knew, there was not a fault to be found with Alys or Elizabeth, and to rage at
the men would have frightened them witless and made them even more useless.

The top of a helmet appeared at the crenel. William licked
his lips as if he would taste the blood he was about to shed and drove his
sword forward just as the unprotected face showed. He had his blood. It spatted
wall and blade as the sword broke through nose and cheekbone. The man did not
even cry out, pain and shock loosening his handhold on the wall so that he
toppled backward in silence. The next man could not be taken so easily. Warned
that there was more than an inexperienced know-nothing above him, he was now
coming up under his raised shield and William could not get at him from the
side. However, there was no way to come over the wall without gripping it.
Instead of slashing at the shield, William waited until the man put his hand on
the merlon, then he cut the hand off. When the man screamed and jerked in
agony, William took his head off.

Along the wall, things were not going equally well. Some
ladders had been overturned, but some were disgorging men onto the wall while
the defenders were busy in other places. Now William realized he should never
have tried to hold the walls. This was as clever and deadly an assault plan as
he had ever seen. Either Mauger had hidden his true knowledge and experience very
well for many years, or he had gotten very expert help indeed.

Desperately William strove to keep his own section clear,
which was growing more difficult because a second ladder had been successfully
raised nearby, and to shout orders and instructions. It soon became horribly
clear that those were of little help. Unlike Raymond or Harold or Sir Peter,
these men were not listening for his voice. There was too much noise, too many
shrieks of agony, too many shouts of success, too much clashing and clanging as
blows struck shields or went awry and metal met stone. The men were fighting
better than he expected, desperation generating bravery, but it was no good. He
must try to organize them for retreat.

William surged forward, striking down one man as he climbed
over the wall and killing another by nearly decapitating him from the back. A
third whirled to face him, and William held him for a few seconds, sword
striking shield, until one of his own men came up and stabbed him from the
rear.

“Keep together,” he roared at the men. “You cannot keep them
from coming over. Keep together and fight your way toward me.”

He had temporarily relieved the pressure on the men nearest
him, and they were transmitting his orders down the length of the wall. He
could do no more for the men except keep the route of escape clear. Cursing, he
turned back and cursed again as he saw the men coming up the ladders had been
more agile than he had counted on. There was already an enemy man-at-arms
between him and the tower door with two more half over the wall. He struck the
nearest climber on the back of the neck with his shield, grunting with pain as
he felt his shoulder wound tear open.

It was the beginning of the end for him, William knew, as
the warmth of oozing blood spread with the pain. The loss of blood would add to
his weakness and fatigue until his will could drive his body no further. For
now, it did not matter. William brought his mailed foot down as hard as he
could on the face of the man he had felled, feeling a vicious satisfaction as
the bones crunched. That one would not rise to strike him in the back. That
stamp was all part of a single forward movement that brought his raised sword
in reach of the second climber.

Bent, the man struck at William with his shield. He had no
weapon in hand because one hand was necessary for holding onto the wall he was
climbing over. William leaned back a little, just enough to avoid the edge of
the shield, then snapped forward, thrusting at the man’s unprotected breast.
Instinctively he jerked back but there was no back, nothing except empty air,
and he fell, wailing. Perhaps he knew he had a minor revenge, that in trying to
save himself his shield had hit William’s violently, further jarring his sore
shoulder. If he knew, perhaps he had a moment’s satisfaction before he sank in
the waters of the moat.

The man who was nearly at the tower door turned, realizing
he could not get through in time to avoid William, who would surely thrust
through his unprotected back. They traded blows, the man-at-arms far more
anxious to defend himself than to harm William. Time was on his side. More of
his comrades were already climbing up and would soon be over the wall so that
William would be surrounded.

His caution undid him. William knew as well as his enemy that
he had only a minute or two to finish his man and put the door of the gate
tower at his back. He struck out furiously with shield and sword at his
opponent’s right side, blow after blow. Dodging and weaving, the man was driven
to the left, more to the left. He saw that William was working his way around
so that their positions would soon be reversed. Trying to avoid that, he
advanced a step and struck out harder himself, but he was still buying time and
safety, concentrating on the wall and the tower door. His attention was on
guarding his right side. He was unprepared for William’s sudden charge straight
forward, for the strong forward thrust of William’s shield. He staggered back
and back again to avoid a sword thrust that brought the point rather than the
sharpened edge to bear. He was puzzled by the gesture, which he caught easily
on his shield, puzzled until William straightened his powerful right arm,
lunged forward with the full strength of his body, and pushed him right over
the inner edge of the battlement. He understood then, in the second before the
terror of falling and the agony of ceasing to fall ended all understanding.

Before his opponent had disappeared, William whirled back to
his post, only to confront still another man who had just come over the wall.
He was still gasping with the effort of his previous furious attack, trying to
dismiss the pain in his shoulder and the growing sensation that his arms were
made of cold porridge while his sword and shield were weighted with lead.
Desperately he looked down the wall, but none of the retreating groups was near
enough to help him.

That bitter truth was a spark to relight the rage of
hopeless frustration. William charged forward, no longer much aware of pain or
weakness. It was fortunate his sudden action, after what had seemed an initial
decision to wait for an attack to be made on him, so surprised his opponent
that William’s second backhand blow disabled him. However little he felt his
disabilities, they were slowing him, making him clumsy. He caught another man
at a disadvantage and disposed of him also. Then he was momentarily free.

He released the handgrip of his shield and sought the horn
that hung around his neck. His grasp on it was awkward, the shield dragging
painfully by its elbow strap. One half second longer he delayed to glance again
down the wall and across, nothing had changed, at least not for the better. It
was bitter, bitter, bitter to be driven from his own walls. But the sun—he had
not noticed before that the sun had burned away the thin morning mist—the sun
was glistening on more and more of the metal bands that strengthened the
hardened leather of the common soldiers’ helmets. If he did not blow now, he
might never have another chance.

The horn came up. Pure and sweet William blew the
mort
.
The hunt was done. The animal was dead—only this time Marlowe was the hunted
animal.

On the same day that Mauger had finally been granted an
audience with King Henry, both William’s messengers found Richard of Cornwall
in York. He had finished his work with the Scottish monarch and nobles and was
riding south slowly, enjoying the early autumn weather and showing his young
wife her new country. Surprised by two messengers, Richard read both of
William’s letters immediately. One had been written in the morning, the other
in the evening of the same day. Apparently in those few hours, William’s whole
life had fallen apart and been remade. No, that was wrong, Richard thought,
looking from the brief, stiff note of the morning to the tumbling, passionate
words of the later letter. The stone facade of William’s private life had been
torn away, exposing the jumble underneath.

Richard had known of Elizabeth, of course. He had listened
to William hour after hour and tried to comfort him over the first unhappy
months of his marriage to Mary. Little by little the complaints had died away.
Naturally enough, Richard had assumed that William had become accustomed to
Mary and his feelings for his childhood love had grown into indifference. As
the years passed, Richard had forgotten that Elizabeth ever existed. William
had seemed perfectly normal, no more indifferent to his wife than most men.

Only now that he looked back, Richard realized there had
always been certain peculiarities in William’s behavior. Right after he had
been married, and for about five years after that, William had gone home to
Marlowe as infrequently as possible and when he was at home any excuse would
draw him away. Then, quite suddenly, that had changed. Richard looked at the
second letter and nodded. Yes, ten years. The woman had returned to Hurley ten
years ago, and just at that time William had developed a most peculiar
reluctance to come to court, to go to war, to do anything at all that would
take him away from Marlowe.

So, it had been the woman all along. Richard had assumed
that William had developed a conscience about his estate just about the time
that Richard had begun to realize his own duties and responsibilities both for
his lands and for the realm at large. The question was what to do about it. How
to avert disaster? A divorce or annulment on decent grounds must be obtained.
That should not be too difficult. With the evidence that the mistress and the
maid could give to force the husband to be compliant, he could be urged to discover
a “prior contract” or something similar, something his father had done,
perhaps, and not told him about that would permit an annulment and an
arrangement for the sons to be legitimated.

The haste of the second messenger bothered Richard. The man
had made up ten hours of time, riding for a day and a half without stopping
except to change horses when the beasts tired. Yet William said nothing of any
special need for haste and he knew how dilatory was the Church. It would not
matter whether Richard spoke to Boniface today—which was naturally
impossible—or next week. With all the prodding in the world, it would still
take the Church several months, perhaps a year, to grant the decree. And it
would be necessary to apply pressure to this—Richard looked at the letter
again—this Mauger first.

Mauger—the husband! Richard got up from his chair suddenly.
What
an idiot I am
, he thought.
William believed I was still involved in the
treaty arrangements in Scotland. He could not ask me to hurry that, but the
husband will not sit there tamely waiting to be threatened. Naturally, he will
try to protect himself. War? Not likely unless he could get help. Marlowe was
very strong, too strong to be assaulted by one knight’s forces. He would go to
the Church or the king for redress—but which
? Then he started for the door
of the chamber. A stupidity to waste time asking himself such a question. If he
went to London he would find both king and Church at once. Richard beckoned to
his chief squire and told him to pass the word that they would ride on straight
toward London tomorrow morning. It remained only to explain the matter to
Sancia.

Here Richard expected some resistance. Since he set about
Henry’s business in the spring, Sancia had seen very little of him until about
a week ago, and she did not hesitate to say that she did not like it. Of
course, Richard was flattered by his bride’s fondness for his company, but it
was she who had suggested that they come south by easy stages, stopping here
and there as it suited them for a few days. Probably she would not be pleased
at the change in plans. Richard told William’s story as persuasively as
possible, with no caustic references to “the woman” or “sirens”.