The Harp and the Blade (26 page)

“Both the Old Farms are mine, but I was being chased off Chilbert’s land—Oliver’s holding.” His eyes lighted, then he squinted. “You’re right, brother.”

“What’s he right about?” Rainault demanded.

Conan drained his cup and thrust it aside. “We can’t afford a real invasion now any more than Chilbert can, but a quick harrying would be worthwhile provided there is a definite objective to pay the price of the risk. Chilbert’s own fort is too far away and too strong to consider now, but Oliver would be easier pickings. We might get near enough by night to be on him before he could crawl in his hole and pull it after him.

“He’d do for an object lesson if we bagged him.” The Abbot drew his lips back from his teeth. “He’s one of the canniest chiefs, not counting Gregory, that Chilbert has under him.”

“He is also,” Jean put in, “the next best louse, even counting Gregory. I rode up one time after he’d tied three peasants in a shack before he fired it.” He grimaced savagely.“They weren’t quite dead when I got there.”

“You may get a chance to remind him of that,” Conan said.

Rainault, who was captain of the garrison and who therefore went on expeditions only in cases of extreme emergency, looked at the rest of us with disgusted envy while we concluded our plans. “If this undertaking is satisfactory to you,” Conan said to the prelate, “I’ll contribute a third of the men I’ve got working on the fort. I can spare no more of them. The harvesting, you will understand, can’t be interfered with at all.”

“Most of us are busy at it, too,” the Abbot said, “Yes, the plan is acceptable, and I’ll match you man for man.” He considered a moment. “The Old Farms would be the best place to meet, and the southeast corner of the far clearing would be the nearest point to Oliver’s hall.”

“Right,” Conan said. “At sundown tomorrow?”

“A good time,” the Abbot stated as he rose to leave.

There was mutual confidence, but it was all too solemn and businesslike for any show of cordiality or enthusiasm. We four saw the churchman to the gates and bid him a quiet farewell. Then Conan swore feelingly. “I’ve got to tell Ann I’m riding again,” he said morosely.

“You won’t have to wait long,” Rainault remarked. “Here she comes now.”

I watched my friend put an arm around his wife and enter the hall with her, then I snapped my fingers. For once there was someone for me to talk things over with, too, and I went eagerly to find her.

I may have swaggered a little as I did so, for I was exhilarated by the knowledge of my new position. This time I was not just something caught between the anvil and the hammer but a man striving to achieve definite goals whose winning would have a permanent bearing on my way of life. Why hell! and I shook my head at the amazing rightness of it, I was going out to fight for my chosen clan, my own land and living, my own woman. The more I thought about it and all it implied the more it went to my head. For the first time in my life I was contemplating battle with something like pleasure.

On the other side of the hall I found Raymond and Marie, still seated at one of the otherwise empty lunch tables. She looked up to search my face as I stood smiling at her. “What happened?” she asked.

“Oh, Conan and the Abbot made a treaty,” I said easily. “Mutual aid, stand or fall.”

“And?” she prodded.

“And they’re going to start activities right away. Or tomorrow, rather.”

Her quick concern was gratifying. It was childish to take such delight in it, but I couldn’t remember when I’d had anybody concerned about me before. “And does ‘they’ include you?”

“Surely,” I said, a little surprised. I thought she would have taken that for granted.

She stood then, her eyes very large and serious. Raymond rose, too. “I wish I could go with you,” he said wistfully.

With an expansive smile I clapped him on the back. “Don’t worry about it. This is just a small raid. The main party won’t come off for some while. By that time you’ll have enough meat on your bones to stand the gaff.”

“Yes, but I wish I could show you and Conan what I can do,” he mumbled miserably.

“You’ll have plenty of time.” I took one of Marie’s hands. “Will you get the hell out of here?” I asked him pleasantly.

He started, then smiled slowly. “I’ll be up to see you leave tomorrow,” he promised as he sauntered off.

The girl’s mouth twitched to a smile an instant before she resumed her sober appraisal of me. “You came to tell me right away,” she remarked strangely.

“Of course.” I was so obsessed with my new point of view that I couldn’t fully appreciate why she might be struck by its suddenness.

“That’s nice,” she decided. “Is it going to be dangerous, Finnian? No, that’s nothing to ask you after what you did for Conan. You don’t think in such terms.”

I stared at her. God Jesus! If she only knew how scared I had been. I thought women knew everything about men, and sometimes I was convinced men were as strange as goblins to them. “This may not amount to anything at all,” I told her frankly. “Unless we’re lucky it’s only a gesture to give Chilbert and his hangers-on pause by letting them see that we’re acting in unison and are so far from being intimidated that we dare invasion. Of course, if we happen to stumble on something we may achieve practical gain as well.”

“You’re speaking of yourself as part of this.” Her free hand motioned to include the court, then she put it on my arm. “Are you really, or are you thinking of that man?” She shuddered. “That fourth head that the Abbot showed us, I mean. I heard you cry out, Finnian.”

She was all sweet comprehension then—everything that I could ask of a woman. “That man was dear to you, wasn’t he? What was he like?”

I tried to tell her about it. I wanted to be able to talk to her naturally as Conan talked to Ann, but I began at the wrong end. “Oh, I only saw him two or three times.”

Her face grew blank, and I knew that she had been anticipating some tale of life-long friendship. “You see,” I said earnestly, “he was killed not only because the Abbot sent him on a ticklish mission but because I was a man he’d do something for.”

“And you felt that way about him. But why, if you hardly knew each other?”

“Well, there are plenty of people you like just because they’re pleasant fellows who happen to infest the premises. Every now and then, though, you meet a man who actually knows what you’re saying and doing. Clovis was such.”

“You’re funny and always will be,” she said, but she reached up to pat my cheek. “You don’t do anything for rational motives the way anybody else might. All the others have axes to grind; but you’re going along because Chilbert murdered a man who laughed at the right time, or something.” She looked at me with affectionate amusement. “And you’ll never change.”

I almost told her that I already had changed, that I was fighting now in hopes of earning my own land and hall. I almost told her that I knew the woman I wanted in my house, but two things deterred me. One was that the instinctive feeling that it would be better to wait until I had something specific to offer. The other and more forceful was the knowledge that this moment when she was lovely with warmth intimacy was no time to waste on words.

With her pliant strength she was a fine woman to hold, and the way she answered my kiss showed she had good, hearty passion to meet a man’s need. But here in the court by daylight prolonged embraces were not in order. Reluctantly I dropped my arms and perched on the table beside her. Our talk was desultory, but its very casualness betokened the new strength of feeling between us.

W
E
started before dawn, for we intended to rest both horses and men halfway there so that neither would be too tired for night travel. Early as it was everybody was up to see us leave. Marie looked pale and fragile under the single torch that lit a corner of the hall. I said farewell to her last and made no bones about the fact that I was not giving her a mere kiss of friendship.

As I was turning from her I caught Ann’s eye upon us, a fleeting look of speculation lighting her anxiety at Conan’s going. Few women are ever too busy for matchmaking, I reflected as I followed Conan out. In this instance, I reasoned, it would be a good thing. Ann would probably brace Marie about it, with the lack of reticence concerning mating peculiar to the female. Yes, a little talking it up ought to help me along, and I had a pleasant vision of the two women discussing Conan and myself with respective possessiveness.

True to his word, Raymond was there to give me a leg up. It was a nice gesture from a man not yet any too well, and I shook his hand cordially. “Don’t let anybody walk off with the fort,” I told him.

“It’ll be here,” he promised. Then Conan gave the word, and we left.

We slept through the hottest hours of the day, as per schedule, and, after eating, rode the few remaining miles to keep tryst. It was still a little short of sundown when we arrived, but the monks were already there. While our men and the fathers fraternized, the Abbot and a priest called Father Jacques sat apart under a tree with Jean, Conan and myself.

“I’ve got a man who can lead us there in the dark,” the Abbot began briskly. “It’ll be slow going, for the horses will have to be led, of course. But as it’s only about twelve miles we can make it before first light. So if none of Oliver’s villeins get wind of us and manage to warn him, we might accomplish something worthwhile.”

“Let’s decide what we’re trying for,” Conan said. “Naturally what we see when we get there may change our plans entirely; but it’s my conclusion that we’ll have the best chance of drawing more blood than we lose by laying off in the woods and waiting for them to come out. That’s a pretty strong fort of Oliver’s and liberally garrisoned, to boot. We can’t storm it with the force we have. “

“Just what have you in mind then?” Father Jacques inquired.

“Well, it’s harvest time, so if it’s fair weather a good part of the garrison will come out to work in the fields. Maybe they’ll even be moving far enough away from the fort for us to be able to cut them off.”

“You’re right,” the Abbot declared. “Then with half the defenders driven off we might be able to break in and take Oliver. Or he might make it easy for us to snap him up by coming out to take a look at his crops.”

“There’s a pretty good chance of that,” Jean opined. “It wouldn’t be reasonable for a man to stay in his hall all day during the harvest.”

“Let’s get there,” I said as Conan looked to see whether I dissented.

That was a brutal night of endless slow motion. It’s bad enough to go for hours through a benighted forest without having the faintest concept of time or distance. But when one also has to lead a horse which takes the sensible view that it’s all a lot of foolishness, exasperating hard work is added to weariness and boredom. In the earlier stages I tried to relieve the tedium by singing, but I had to interrupt myself so often to swear at my mount that it was hardly effective entertainment. By midnight even the cursing had become routine and dispirited. We kept moving only because we knew we were going to.

There was still no sign of darkness lifting when the word was quietly passed back from our guide that we were on the edge of Oliver’s cleared land. We all fumbled around until we found a place to tie our mounts. Then we sat dully in the pre-morning chill and watched for the sky to change. It did after a while, and we roused ourselves to steal up behind trees and bushes on the forest fringe and peer out at the fort.

The earthworks looked quite high, and it was a place of some size. About half a mile away it was, and the intervening fields were only partly harvested. A road ran out from the gate, at right angles to our course but soon switching away east. By the time it was light enough for us to make out all that I could descry the watchers on the walls, and I studied the fort more closely. As Conan had stated it was not a place likely to be taken suddenly or with ease.

I looked at my friend where he lurked by a large oak, and he signaled that he’d like a word with me. We had to be careful about speech, because a voice can carry surprising distances over open fields; and we therefore retired a certain distance before holding a whispered council with the Abbot concerning the orders for the day. These were in chief an embargo on speech, a ukase against approaching the clearing unless so commanded, and an admonition to keep weapons from exposure to any trifling gleam of sunlight. If they detected us before we were ready to act our painful trip would be fruitless.

We set men to keep track of developments, then ate a cold breakfast washed down with wine. That fought off the cool dampness, and we felt more cheerful. “I bet Oliver wouldn’t enjoy his own breakfast if he knew who’d come to visit him,” Conan chuckled.

“You don’t think he likes us?” I asked, wide-eyed with hurt.

“Why, I suppose he figures we were pretty hard on him last time,” he said judiciously. “But you know how it is. You get carried away by the spirit of the thing.”

“Certainly I know how it is,” I assured him, “and I’m a trifle surprised that he isn’t big enough to look at it from that angle. I wonder if it could have been your bouncing that stone block off him that he objects to. Come to think of it, he wouldn’t speak to us after that.”

“It could be; it could be,” Conan’s lips were pursed in thought. “I wonder if he keeps any cats now?” he asked reflectively.

I snickered, then smiled inwardly as I happened to notice the others present. Jean was red-faced from effort. He wasn’t used to controlling laughter. Father Jacques was looking nonplussed, while the Abbot was regarding us with patient benevolence. He was a man I much admired, but folly was beyond him.

About an hour later the sentinel we’d posted returned to say that the men were leaving the fort for the fields. We sneaked forward with what haste was commensurate with quiet, but to our intense disappointment they turned off to work on the other side of the fortress. We debated attempting to skirt the clearing but decided against it. Not only would the odds favor the betraying of our presence if we moved by daylight, but we would lay ourselves open to the danger of being cut off and trapped.