The Fallen One (34 page)

This went on for the entire afternoon and
into the night.
 
Saer had positioned
archers in the gatehouse and on the three turrets of Kirklinton’s walls to
shoot down the Scots.
 
The longbows kept
the Scots at bay for a while but there soon came a point that ammunition was
running low.
 
 
When that occurred, Saer called off most of the
archers save a few who were more accurate with their arrows.
 
As the sun set and the Scots showed no sight
of relenting, Saer ordered the arrows lit and soon, flaming arrows were firing
over the walls and striking the enemy below.
 
But along with Saer’s flame arrows, the Scots
were firing fire arrows of their own.
 
That was when things started to get critical.

The Scots were excellent marksmen and the
stables and outbuildings were the first to catch fire.
 
Saer ordered the horses and animals removed
to the kitchen yards were they were corralled in with the chickens and goats.
 
The stables, a long block of thatched roofs
and piles of hay, went up in a ball of flame, burning hot and bright into the
night sky.
 
Embers carried over to the
roof of the great hall, heavily thatched with sod as well as hay, and soon that
began to smolder.
  

Saer had his men post ladders against the
walls of the great hall in order to douse the smoldering spots but that soon
became prohibitive because the Scots had made a major push and now several of
them had managed to mount the wall.
 
Dunstan, in charge of the north wall, was there with his men to fight
off a horde of very angry Scots but after a length and brutal battle, he fell
victim to a big Scotsman with a bad attitude who grabbed him and threw him over
the wall. Dunstan’s life ended on the grass outside of the walls of Kirklinton
when several Scots took their axes to him.

Meanwhile, Saer was trying desperately to
keep the Scots from climbing off the walls and getting down into the bailey,
but after a struggle that took almost until dawn, he was ultimately unable to
achieve that goal.
 
His legendary axe in
hand, he had been swinging it steadily but there were simply too many Scots, a
tide of tartan and flesh that overran Kirklinton in the end.
 

Saer and Beauson and the remaining
Kirklinton soldiers retreated to the keep and bottled it up, hitting out at the
Scots from the lancet windows as a group of men in tartans tried to break down
the entry door.
 
Unlike many keeps that had
retractable stairs in case the castle was breached so the attackers could not
get to the entry door of the keep,
 
Kirklinton had a stone flight of stairs that led up to an iron and oak
door that was as solid as stone itself. Still, the Scots were intent to break
it down.
 
They were also intent to
destroy everything at Kirklinton, including the great hall.

The Scots plowed through the great hall,
stealing anything of value and destroying anything they couldn’t carry,
including the feasting table. They ripped down tapestries and stole pewter
plate. When they came to the servant’s alcove, they drank whatever wine was
there and smashed the pitchers.
 
Then,
the iron grate of the vault drew their attention and when the rattled it and
realized they couldn’t get in, they began savaging it with a vengeance.

Down inside the vault, Cathlina, her
mother, her sisters, and the servants could hear the Scots at the upper door,
howling and cursing.
 
Abechail began to
cry as Rosalund hastened to quiet her, but in truth, they were all
terrified.
 
Roxane clutched Cathlina,
burying her face in her sister’s shoulder as the Scots screamed their threats
at the top of the stairs.

Because of the angle of the room, the Scots
couldn’t see if there was anyone in the room below but they suspected that
whatever was locked up must be extremely valuable.
 
Therefore, they set about trying to break
down the iron grate any way they could manage.
 
They even tried to unhinge it but the hinges were fused and well-placed,
and they could not get to them.
 
Infuriated, they ran back into the great hall and grabbed pieces of the
destroyed feasting table, propping it up against the iron grate and lighting it
on fire.
 
If they couldn’t destroy or
unhinge the gate, then perhaps they could build a hot enough fire to soften it
to the point where they could bend it and get through.
 
It was worth a try.
 
Soon, there was a raging fire burning up
against the iron grate at the top of the stairs, sending great billows of smoke
and embers into the air.
 

The Scots thought they had been quite smart
to try to soften the great iron gate with a white-hot fire, but soon enough the
fire got out of control.
 
The heat and
embers ignited the great wooden roof support beams overhead and shortly
thereafter, ignited the roof.
 
Soon
enough, half of the hall was going up in flames and the heat and smoke forced
the Scots outside.
 
After that, they
could do nothing but stand there and watch the great hall of Kirklinton belch
great smoke and fire into the night sky.
 
The fire could be seen for miles, like a raging beacon in the night. At
that point, there was nothing more to do but wait for the hall to collapse and
see what they could scavenge.
 
Those who
raided the hall now turned their attention back to the keep, which was so far holding
fast.

They went after with a vengeance.

***

Down in the vault beneath the great hall,
Cathlina and the others smelled the smoke from the fire.
 
It was a strong smell but hardly
unbearable.
 
Cathlina, still huddled with
Roxane, disengaged her clinging sister to go and take a look.
 
Her mother stopped her.

“Nay, Cathlina,” she hissed. “Sit down.
Stay away from the door.”

Cathlina gently pulled her hand from her
mother’s grasp. “I must see what they have done,” she whispered. “Do you not
smell the smoke? They have done something terrible and I must see what it is.”

Before Rosalund could stop her, Cathlina
crept away and stayed flush against the wall that contained the second gate at
the bottom of the steps.
 
One of the
stable grooms, and older man who had been at Kirklinton for many years, joined
her and together they carefully made their way to the iron grate so they could
peer up the stairwell to see what was happening.
 
Cathlina was very cautious, falling to her
knees so she could peer from the bottom of the grate and hopefully be less
noticeable if anyone was looking down.
 
But the moment she looked up the stairwell, all she could see was a wall
of flame at the top of it.

Shocked, she looked at the old groom, who
had seen the white hot flames for himself.
 
They looked at each other as if unsure what to say or do.
 
The old man spoke first.

“We will be safe,” he whispered. “Smoke and
heat and flame travel upwards. It will not come down the stairwell. Aye, we
will be quite safe down here.”

Cathlina was truly and deeply terrified.
“Won’t the flame weaken the iron grate?”

The old man shrugged. “It would have to be
very, very hot,” he said. “Even if it is that hot, the Scots cannot get near
it, so we are still safe. The best thing they could have done was set the hall afire.
 
They will not be able to get near it now
because it is so hot.”

“And we will not be able to get out.”

“The iron will eventually cool.
 
We are still safe, my lady.”

Cathlina wasn’t so sure about the situation
but his words brought her some comfort.
 
He
was older and wiser, after all. She glanced around the room of family and
servants. “Be careful what you tell everyone, then,” she said softly. “I do not
want anyone to panic.”

The old man nodded firmly and moved
away.
 
Cathlina scurried back to her
mother and sisters.

“It seems the Scots are burning the hall
down over our heads,” she said quietly. “We are very safe because they cannot
enter a flaming building to get at us, and the smoke and heat will rise. It
will not come down the stairwell.”

Rosalund was surprisingly calm knowing that
a building was burning over her head. “I see,” she said pensively. “I do not
suppose there is anything we can do about it anyway.
 
Come and sit, Cathlina.
 
Mayhap… mayhap it is time to sleep a little
while we can. You say the Scots cannot get at us now?”

“Not while there is a fire in the hall.”

Rosalund seemed satisfied, although she was
still visibly tense. “Then come and lay down,” she said. “Sleep with Abbie.”

Obediently, Cathlina crawled over to her
little sister, who was quite weak and limp. Her breathing was slow and labored,
but Cathlina didn’t mention it to her mother. She suspected the woman already
knew.
 
Tears anew filled her eyes as she
lay next to her sister and wrapped her arms around her, holding her
tightly.
 
Abechail hardly stirred and
Cathlina thought she was somewhat comatose because when she whispered her name,
she received no response.
 

Feeling great sorrow, and great fear, Cathlina
began to whisper in Abechail’s ear, telling her of the son she would bear in
the spring and how she intended to name the child Magnus after Abechail’s
family of hawks.
 
She told Abechail of
the boy she intended to have and how he would be bold and cunning, and how much
he would enjoy playing with his Aunt Abechail.
 
But that was as far as she got before tears overcame her and she simply
held her baby sister tightly, kissing the girl’s cheek.
 
Eventually, she faded off to sleep.

Rosalund remained awake, watching her
daughters as the slept soundly.
 
She knew
that Abechail’s condition had taken a turn for the worse; she had seen her
deteriorate badly just within the past several hours and sleeping in a damp,
dank and now smoky vault wasn’t helping. Still, there was nothing she could do
about it.
 
She didn’t pray because she
and God had not been on speaking terms for quite some time, at least since the
time Abechail had been diagnosed by the physics and Rosalund had prayed for a
miracle.
 
But no miracle had occurred and
Rosalund had stopped praying. God ignored her, just as he was ignoring her now
as her castle was under siege and the zealous Scots were burning the great hall
over her head.
 
Rosalund knew it was only
a matter of time before the Scots broke through and were able to capture them,
but she was determined not to allow that to happen.
 
She would not see her daughters fall victim
to the clans.

In her heavy robes she hid a bejeweled
dirk, a wicked and sharp thing that she was prepared to use on her children if
the situation looked hopeless.
 
She would
rather see her daughters suffer a few moments of pain rather than hours or even
days of torture before they were killed. No, she wouldn’t let that happen at
all.
 
As she had brought them into the
world, she was prepared to remove them from it, too.
 
Even the daughter that was pregnant with her
only grandchild.
 
She would be doing them
both a favor rather than let them fall to the Scots.

As Rosalund sat against the cold wall of
the vault that was both her prison and her fortress, she began to notice a haze
in the chamber. Looking around, she realized that it was smoke, and she looked
to the vault entry to see a significant stream of smoke billowing into the
chamber.
 
Her heart sank; somehow,
someway, the smoke was flowing down the stairwell and into the vault. If the fire
was bad enough, and burned long enough, the smoke would fill up the entire
chamber and suck the air from it, suffocating them all.
 
It was a horrible ending, choking to death.

Fingering the dirk, she knew what she had
to do should it come down to it.
 
If she
thought praying to God for strength would help her do as she must, then she
might have uttered a prayer. As it was, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

He wouldn’t listen to her, anyway.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Kirklinton was in flames and the gates were
wide open.
 
Men in tartans were moving
about freely.
 
As Mathias and his army
crested the road leading to Kirklinton from the north, he ordered shields slung
for the knights and weapons in-hand.
 
Nearly his entire force was mounted but he did
have about seventy or eighty foot soldiers. He wasn’t even going to be
strategic about his method of attack; he was going to charge right into the sea
of tartans and begin the killing trend.
 
There
was no time to waste.

With a battle cry, he urged his men forward
and the charge was on.
 
The Scots,
hearing the cry, began to scramble as a hundreds of English soldiers descended
upon them.
 
Mathias headed right for the
open gates and ended up lopping off the head of some idiot Scotsman who tried
to challenge him.
 
His big silver
charger, so contributory in his wars with Mortimer, was again an instrument of
death as the horse anticipated nearly every move of his master.
 
Mathias was very thankful for the vicious,
intelligent beast.

Once he entered the gates of Kirklinton, he
could see the situation for what it was; the entire place was burning with the
exception of the keep, which seemed to have held out.
 
Off to his right, he could hear his brother’s
battle howl as the man plowed through several Scots with the relish of a man
devouring a fine meal.
 
There was a
strange glee to Sebastian’s manner and Mathias glance over at his brother as
the man chopped and thrust at the enemy around him.
 
Most of the Scots seemed to be on foot but
there were a few mounted knights; it was those men that Mathias went after.

One of the knights was in fine mail and
armor, astride an equally fine charger.
 
He was near the keep, giving orders to the men trying to batter down the
entry door, but he stopped when he saw Mathias charging at him.
 
Startled to see English reinforcements, he
met Mathias with equal strength as the two of them came together near the keep
in a mighty clash.

Sparks flew into the early morning air as
Mathias battled the Scots knight on horseback.
 
He was as merciless as he was skilled, going after the man’s limbs
rather than his torso or his head.
 
His
strategy was simple; a disabled man was much easier to dispatch.
 
The Scots knight, however, was quite talented
and managed to stay away from Mathias’ deadly broadsword for quite some time
until Mathias managed to nick the charger, which nearly unseated the knight
when it bolted off.
 

Mathias spurred his charger after the pair,
catching up to them and using a massively heavy thrust to amputate the knight’s
left hand.
 
When the knight howled and
folded, Mathis speared the man right in the side, straight through the
mail.
 
His broadsword went in one side
and out the other, and when he withdrew it, the knight fell to the ground,
dead.
 
Mathias didn’t hang around to view
his handiwork; he had more men to kill.

Thundering off into the heat of battle near
the keep, he ended up helping Sebastian fend off a number of foot soldiers who
were trying to pull Sebastian off his charger.
 
The redheaded knight was furious with their attempts and men with hacked
arms and heads fell back, victims of Sebastian’s mighty sword.
 
 
Once his
brother was safe from being unseated, Mathis ordered his men to secure the
keep.
 
An onslaught of English soldiers
rushed the keep and the men trying to ram down the entry door found themselves
overwhelmed.
  
Soon, the vicious fight
for the keep was in full swing and it was nasty hand to hand combat to chase
the Scots away.
  
It took a great deal of
time and it wasn’t simple in the least, but eventually, Mathias and Sebastian
and a host of English knights were able to move the fighting away from the
keep.

Meanwhile, a major portion of Mathias’ army
had swept through the stable yards and kitchen yard, engaging in heavy combat
while trying to chase the Scots from Kirklinton’s enclosure.
 
Mathias sent some of his archers up to the
gatehouse, protected by English soldiers, and the archers were cool and clean
with their accuracy as they struck down Scot after Scot.
 

As the morning deepened and the sun rose,
the remaining Scots realized that they were losing a great many men to the
English archers in the gatehouse so they finally called a retreat.
 
Mathias and Sebastian, along with several
hundred English foot soldiers, chased the last of the Scots from Kirklinton’s
keep and scattered them to the countryside.
  
Mathias ordered about a hundred mounted men to follow them to ensure that
they did not turn for Carlisle while he and several soldiers attempted to gain
entrance to Kirklinton’s keep.

Mathias dismounted his charger at the base
of the steps to the keep, taking the stairs two at a time until he reached the
door.
 
The old iron and oak panel had
held admirable and he pounded on it, shouting up to the open lancet windows on
the floors above.

“In the name of the King, you will open
this door,” he bellowed. “The enemy has fled and your walls are secured. Open
the door in the name of Edward, I say!”

There was no response for several long
moments.
 
He pounded again, and yelled
again, until he finally heard a voice overhead emitting from one of the long
lancet windows. It was too narrow for a man to stick his head out of so he
could see for himself that the English were at his door, so the person could
only stand next to the window and yell.

“You will tell me your name!” the man inside
shouted.

Mathias didn’t hesitate. “Mathias de
Reyne,” he called back. “I have been sent by the Earl of Carlisle.”

More silence.
 
Mathias was growing just the least bit
impatient; did these fools not realize that he was here to save them? He
pounded on the door again, and shouted again, when he began to hear the bolt
move on the other side.
 
The door was
fairly heavily damaged so it took those on both sides of the panel to actually
open it.
 
When it was open wide enough
for a man to slip through, Saer appeared from the interior of the keep.
 
His blood-shot eyes were wide on Mathias.

“
You!
”
he said. It sounded something between an accusation and a sigh of relief. “You
have come. I was told you were in Scotland.”

Mathias stepped back so the man could emerge.
“I was,” he said. “But we have been following the Scots south because we knew
they were intending revenge on Carlisle by attacking his properties. I am sorry
we could not be here sooner.”

Saer was exhausted, relieved.
 
It began to occur to him that the siege was
truly over and he slumped back against the keep, wiping the sweat from his
brow.

“You came when you could and for that, I am
grateful,” he said.
 
Then he took another
step out onto the landing and caught sight of the flames and smoke billowing into
the air as the great hall burned. His face went positively ashen. “Dear God;
no!”

Terror filled every inch of his manner; he
began to run down the stone steps leading to the bailey, hurling his armored
body across the death and destruction of the bailey as fast as legs would
allow. Mathias, caught up in the man’s panic, was right behind him.

“What is wrong?” Mathias demanded. “Where
are you going?”

Saer could barely speak; he gestured wildly
to the hall. “They are in there!”

Mathias grabbed the man; he seemed nearly
crazed with horror. “
Who
is in
there?”

Saer was crazed; he was nearly incoherent.
“My family,” he gasped. “My… my wife. My girls. They are all in there!”

Mathias looked at the great hall, a great
charred wreckage that was still smoldering and flaming. “Your… your wife?” he
repeated, sickened as he looked at the structure. “My lord, if they are in
there, they….”

“Cathlina is in there, you fool!” he
screamed. “Your wife is in there, too!”

Mathias nearly fell over from the shock and
grief of the harshly slung words; he stared at the hall, hardly able to
comprehend what he was being told. His exhausted mind was wracked with
disbelief and horror.

“Cathlina?” he repeated, hearing her name
spoken in his shaken voice. His knees threatened to buckle but he fought
it.
 
“
My
Cathlina?”

“Aye!”

“But… but she was at Carlisle!”

“She came to Kirklinton a few weeks ago. We
have no time to waste if we are to save them!”

That was all Mathias needed to hear.
 
His training kicked in, his innate ability to
deal calmly with any given situation. Panic would not do Cathlina any good;
only calm heads would be able to save her if, indeed, she was salvageable. Brutally,
he grabbed Saer by the arm and began yanking him towards the building.

“Where, for God’s sake?” he demanded. “Where
are they?”

Saer began to run, trying to enter the
building at the main door but being sent back because of the heat and smoke.

“They are in the storage vault, down below
the hall,” Saer said, running to the west side of the structure with Mathias on
his heels. “We must get them out!”

Mathias bellowed to the nearest soldiers,
who came on the run.
 
They all rounded
the corner to the west side of the structure, which wasn’t nearly as destroyed
as the main entry.
 
They raced inside the
smoky servant’s entrance to see that the roof had collapsed on the very doorway
they needed to get to.
 
Saer pointed at
it furiously.

“There!” he screamed.
 
“That is the door to the vaults! They are
down there!”

Mathias rushed forward, shoving aside heavy
beams and pieces of roof that were still smoldering.
 
His soldiers followed him and quickly, they
began to tear away at the debris that had fallen down against the old iron
grate. In fact, the grate itself was twisted and soft from the extreme heat
that had been burned against it.
 
As a
smithy, Mathias knew the heat factor well. It must have been intense. He
struggled and coughed as he fought to clear the debris field near the vault
entry.

“Cathlina!” Saer screamed as dozens of
Englishmen tried to remove the carnage. “Cathlina, can you hear me? The key,
daughter; we need the
key
!”

Mathias, fighting through a piece of roof
that was still burning, looked at him curiously. “What key?” he asked, coughing
as smoke billowed up in his face.

Saer pointed to the giant lock on the iron
grate. “We need the key,” he repeated breathlessly. “I gave it to Cathlina.”

Mathias could see what he was referring to;
the iron grate was heavy and old, and the key was needed for the massive lock.
 
He gave a big shove to the burning debris so
he could peer down the dark, steep stairwell into the vault.
 
At the bottom, all he could see was more
debris and darkness.

“Cathlina!” he roared.

There was no answer and his anxiety
surged.
 
Burning debris had toppled down
the stairs through the iron grate and the steps were littered with it.
 
Smoke was thick.
 
In fact, it filled the stairwell and the
blackness at the bottom.
 
He turned to
Saer.

“We must get in there now,” he said, a
panicked edge to his voice. “Do you have any smithy tools?”

Saer’s mind was nearly gone, overwhelmed
with what had happened to his castle and to his family, but he managed to nod
to Mathias’ question.

“We did,” he said, lifting his shoulders
helplessly. “I do not know what has become of it in the battle. It could be
lost.”

“Show me where it was. Mayhap there is
something left I can use.”

As the soldiers continued to frantically
remove the debris, Saer and Mathias raced out to the bailey to what was left of
the trade shacks near the stables.
 
They
had all been burned; the place where the smithy and the tanner’s sheds once
stood was now a heap of rubble.
 
Saer
began plowing through it.

“In here, somewhere,” he said as he threw
aside charred wreckage. “This is where the smithy and the tanner were. Any
tools will be under this mess.”

Mathias just kept digging through it,
tossing wreckage aside as he tried very hard not to think of Cathlina.
 
To do so would threaten his control and he
needed that very badly if he had any chance of getting in to the vault.
 
As he dug through the burnt timber and
thatch, he saw Sebastian approach, covered with gore.
 
The man was looking at him very
curiously.
 
Mathias waved him over.