Swords From the West (32 page)

Hugh, the minstrel of Dol, turned in his saddle and looked at his men. They were climbing the mountain path in single file. Bellame, the sergeantat-arms, rode behind Hugh, and the glow of sunset flamed on the man's broad, sweating face and red beard. The Norman horsemen-long-limbed, powerful fellows, well clad in mail-made little noise. This was not their first raid and they knew that the ridge of the mountain was near.

"Faith," laughed Hugh, 'Ais well named."

Through the thick growth of cypress and lofty pine he had a glimpse of the tower's summit. It was round and gray, dark against the ruddy clouds, and black crows rose from it with a clamor and flew off. Bellame glanced up appraisingly.

"The lord of the mesnie is not there. They have no banner displayed."

The minstrel looked down at the tilled land below the forest-deserted orange groves and vineyards. The long handle of a well sweep stuck up into the air. It was good land, and fine pasture for cattle, but he had seen no slaves at work, and not so much as a sheep grazing.

"This is not a good road," he said over his shoulder. "There must be another."

"Aye," nodded the gray-haired sergeant, "on the far side of the ridge, for I have seen it. This, I ween, is the cattle path."

Hugh noticed that many horses had been that way not long since. The dry clay was hard, and the light bad under the trees, and he could not make out more than that. A stone, loosened by a horse's hoof, clattered down into the brush and the minstrel thought he heard voices above him in the twilight.

But no one appeared on the path, and it was almost dark when they crossed a fallow field and plunged into gloom again. Hugh reined in suddenly, and Bellame came to his side. Within a spear's length of them a stone wall was visible. The gates stood open between the gate towers, so that the raiders had almost passed the wall without seeing it.

Hearing only the snuffling and clamping of the horses behind him, Hugh rode forward after a moment. He expected to find huts and stables within the wall; instead he made out lines of poplars and dim shrubbery that seemed to be a garden. Under the starlight, water glinted in a pool, and he sniffed the fragrance of acacias.

Clear against the afterglow of sunset, the round tower loomed with a cluster of flat roofed buildings at its base. Light shone from several embrasures of the tower, but the houses beneath were dark.

"Look'ee, Messer Hugh! " Bellame's breath, heavy with ale, struck against his ear.

The sergeant pointed to the right, where a white figure stood motionless upon a square stone. Hugh peered at it and smiled. It was a slender warrior leaning on his spear, a strange round helmet covering his head.

"A statue," the minstrel explained, but Bellame went over to examine it.

"'Tis a stone pikeman," he admitted, "with a king's casque on his skull, and not even a shirt to his body. God send that I never need to stand watch unbreeched like that." He stooped to listen and shook his head. "Not a dog to bark at us. 'Tis no proper watch they keep, wi' the gates swung wide and yonder tower lighted like a beacon."

"A true word!" A hoarse whisper came from the cluster of Normans. "The powers of evil have been here afore us."

"Still thy gabble, Giles o' the Sheds!" growled Bellame.

"Nay, 'tis a true thing," spoke up another voice, "and where are the horses that climbed the path ahead of us, by token of the fresh dung that lay there?"

"By the body of Lazarus, I'll clip the tongue of him that speaks next!"

It was Hugh of Dol who spoke then in his deep voice.

"Dismount," he said, "and wait for me here. I will go forward and look at the tower. If I shout, come after me. If you hear weapon play, do as you will."

He knew that the Normans were uneasy, not because of possible danger but because the garden and the castle were silent-apparently deserted and yet occupied. Bellame offered to go with him, and he told the sergeant to remain and keep the men in charge. Then he gave the rein of his horse to the sergeant, swung down from the stirrup and paused to wrap his cloak around his left arm. He carried no shield.

He took his time going forward, keeping near the hedges and the lines of statues. The light from the stars and a quarter moon was enough for him to make out a long line of outbuildings beyond the garden that he took to be the stables. He went around a wellhead and climbed to a tiled terrace cluttered with bales and carts. Here he stopped to listen by the black square of an open door.

Although he heard nothing, he took for granted that the guards of the castle were above in the tower. He was used to making his way about the forest in the dark, and this was not his first night ride. The wars of that age had taken toll of him, for the household of Dol had been stormed and sacked and left to the flames when he was a child, and in the years since then he had fared alone, gaining a living in the hospitable halls of the nobles of Provence.

He knew well that Renald of Montevirbo had sent him on a pawn's errand to this place, but he was free to act as he chose, and he saw no reason yet to draw back. This was a pagan household and he had need of gold. The minstrel drew his sword and strode into the door-a narrow postern-probing the darkness with the point of his weapon.

The chamber proved to be small and led to a passage that brought him out into the open air again. Now he saw the plan of the castle. The outer building was shaped like a rough circle. He had passed through it and had come forth upon a balcony that overlooked the inner court. But this hollow was a moat-the water gleamed dark many feet below him. In the center rose the mass of the tower, sheer from the water. The tower was the keep of the castle, and it could be defended even if the outbuilding was carried. After a long scrutiny Hugh saw that a narrow wooden bridge crossed the moat to the tower. And from his balcony steps ran down to the end of this bridge.

"Faith," he thought. "They've left the draw down and lighted the keep as if for guests."

The place was unreasonably quiet. Either its warders had set a clumsy kind of trap for him, or the tower was deserted. Hugh could see into one of the lighted embrasures, although only a bit of the room within was visible through the slot in the stone. He could make out the corner of a disordered bed and a bench lying on its side. It looked empty enough, this round tower in the water within the castle.

The minstrel felt his way down the damp steps and crossed the wooden bridge. The ironbound door was not latched, and he thrust it open with his foot. It swung back slowly and clanked against the stone wall within. A lighted lantern hung from a bracket in the hall, and after a moment's scrutiny the minstrel entered without hesitation and took down the lantern.

Swiftly he went through the hall and up the steps. A few moments later he seated himself on the edge of a bed and laughed. The Tower of the Ravens had been pillaged-looted from hall to roof.

"Plucked like a capon," he thought.

Even the bed had been pulled apart, the silk sheets tossed on the tile floor. The chests had been shaken out, leaving piles of woman's gear all about him. A scent of rose water and incense hung in the air. Something had been wrenched out of the wall above the bed; broken plaster littered the lace pillows. Only the gilt crowns remained upon the bed posts. Whoever had owned this room was a nobleman, or noblewoman.

The looters must have been well rewarded. This tower was really a palace, built in the days of old Rome-the marble columns in the corners gleamed with the polish of ages. All the lamps and candleholders had vanished, and the guttering candles were stuck haphazardly upon ebony tables. Hugh eyed them thoughtfully.

The raiders had lighted those candles. So they had been in the tower when he and his men climbed the path in the rear. The light up here on the summit had been good enough to see by, until then. Had the raiders left by the main road, on the other side of the ridge? Laden men travel slowly in the dark. Their torches might be visible from the tower. He rose to investigate and stopped abruptly.

In the outer darkness a dog howled, as if it had come upon the carcass of a man. And Hugh, straining his ears, heard a faint stamping of hoofs.

Running from the bed chamber, he turned into a corridor that led to the front of the tower, and thrust his lantern under his cloak when he came to the first embrasure. It looked out over the moat and a heavy wooden bridge to the main courtyard. And this was full of men.

They were still coming in through the front gate, carrying smoking torches. The red light gleamed on their gilt armor and the silver trappings of their horses. Negroes on foot, covered with dust, helped them to dismount. Barefoot slaves tugged at the halters of mules-white mules, heavily laden. A stout man in a robe of checkered black and purple leaned panting on a long gilt staff and yelled shrilly at the confusion. He had a face round as a moon and a hat like a sugar loaf with tassels over his ears.

"Faith, the fairies have come in." Hugh smiled. "Nay, yonder's the god of war i' the flesh."

A helmeted rider had come into the courtyard-a man as young as himself, magnificent in purple leggings and a crimson cloak of embroidered velvet. His open helmet was plated with gold and his fine face was as colorless and emotionless as a statue. Behind him several women appeared in traveling robes, and then a litter slung by ivory poles between four horses. Slaves lowered the litter to the ground and opened the lattice shutters. The horsemen dismounted, the slaves and negroes prostrated themselves, and the women bowed.

"So," Hugh thought, "the lord of the Tower of the Ravens hath come home."

It was time he went back to his Normans, for there were sixty or seventy of the newcomers, and whether he decided to attack them or to draw off, he must warn his men. But he stood rooted at the window.

The girl who slid out of the litter and stood up, yawning, was more elf than human, it seemed to him. And a tired and drowsy elf-woman. From chin to the toes of her sandals her slim body was encased in stiff gold tissue, sadly mussed. One cheek was flushed dark, as if she had slept upon it. But she held her small head straight under its coronet of silver peacocks with arching plumes.

"That boar of a Renald sent me to strike at a woman!" the minstrel said under his breath.

Above the clatter of tongues in the courtyard, he heard her speak for the first time. The clear voice was distinct and angry, and she spoke in Latin-so like his own tongue of the south that he understood well. And he knew that this girl of the purple girdle came from Byzantium-by her dress he fancied that she was the daughter of a princely house. A Norman would have left the tower while the way was still open, but the Provencal wanted to speak with this lady of Byzantium and give her a word of warning. He ran down the stair to the main entry and so appeared, lantern in hand, upon the bridge over the moat.

Some of the slaves saw him and shouted, and silence fell in the courtyard. Hugh took his helmet upon his arm and bowed to the girl by the litter.

"Well come art thou to the Tower of the Ravens!"

In utter astonishment the men from Byzantium stared at this long and lean stranger in the worn cloak and weathered mail, until the youth of the gold helmet strode forward, hand upon sword hilt.

"0 barbarian," he demanded, "what is this? And where are the servants of the tower?"

"Only God knows," Hugh responded, his eyes on the silent girl-he could see now that her eyes were gray, and her hair the color of ripe straw-"and surely I do not."

A murmur went up at this, and the stout wearer of the sugar loaf waddled forward, making signs with his wand that Hugh should kneel to the young noble, and shouting excitedly. Hugh caught the words strategos and "province of Asia" and guessed that the youth held high command in the empire. But he kept his feet, though the strategos frowned.

"What is thy name?" the Byzantine asked sternly. "And whom servest thou?"

"I am Hugh of Dol, and no overlord have I, save the Seigneur Christ."

"Eheu! If thou wilt jest-"

"In a merry hour I will match jests with thee, but not now. The tower is sacked and there is a smell of evil i' the air, and of that am I here to warn ye."

The young warrior's frown deepened. He was short and swarthy and proud as the Roman senators who had been his ancestors. At a word from him several swordsmen ranged themselves around Hugh, who surveyed them quizzically while the sugar loaf and his slaves ran into the tower. Presently they reappeared, throwing up their arms and lamenting. Then they fell silent as the girl of the peacocks came forward.

"0 stranger," she asked of him, "how did this happen?"

Hugh bethought him there was no need to mention his errand, or the men that came with him. He explained that he had been riding up the other side of the ridge in the rear of the castle, when he passed through the open gate of a wall and saw the tower lighted. Finding no one within, he had wandered through it until he heard them enter the courtyard.

While he spoke the girl's eyes never left him, and it seemed to him that they glowed green in the flickering torchlight, as if she were something untamed-or a fair and slender statue with clear opals set within it for eyes, gleaming in the candlelight of a church.

"That is not all the truth," she said softly. "What befell the castellan, aye, and the men-at-arms who had this place in charge?"

"I have come upon no sign of them."

"We have heard enough of lies, barbarian," exclaimed the young noble. "By thy tale, thou wert upon the path while we climbed the road. Thou hast seen naught of the dogs who ravaged the castle, and surely we have not. But there is no other road to this summit and the thieves were here at the hour of candle lighting."

Hugh smiled at both of them.

"And so, I warn ye, there is peril in this tower. If the raiders did not leave, they are still here-"

"Not so. Mavrozomes-" the fat wand bearer waddled toward them at the word-"and his fellows looked into the vaults, and the outcastle around the moat. By all the gods, will you say that the looters took wing i' the air, leaving the candles burning, and that thou hast lingered to tell me of it?"