The Sword of Aradel (6 page)

Her voice faded, and he was all at once aware of the dismal tolling of the chapel bell. It reminded him that a tyrant was dead, and that thousands of lives would depend upon the finding of Cerid's formula.

He started to draw her to the stairway, but suddenly she seized his arm and pointed.

“Look! Look!” she whispered tensely. “Coming into the courtyard!”

He peered over her head and across another tower at the great arched and battlemented entrance in the outer wall. The drawbridge had been lowered over the moat, and moving slowly into view on weary horses were a dozen men-at-arms and their attendants. In their midst was a motionless figure on a stretcher.

“That can't be Albericus returning,” he muttered. “He couldn't possibly get here before dark. But I'm sure those are some of the men he had with him at the abbey this morning.”

“And who is that wounded one they are escorting, Sir Brian?”

“How should I know? Anyhow, I can't make out his face from here.”

The hint of a giggle came from her. “Do you really have to, Sir Brian?”

“Huh? You—you don't mean that's Rupert! Why, I didn't—”

“But you did, noble sir. You really clouted the wretch. I talked with Uncle Benedict earlier, and he said you'd given the upstart such a blow that his head is broken, which will probably keep him addled for life. And a good thing, I say. Now let us to Cerid's room.”

He followed her down the narrow stairway to the first landing. In front of the small, blackened door she hesitated, lip caught between her teeth, then gave it a trial push. The door swung inward at an angle, held by a single hinge.

With the sudden movement a large flock of nesting birds flew up, making a great racket, and streamed out of the window from which a shutter had burned. The room was a blackened mess. Everything in it that was burnable had been piled together on the stone floor and set afire. Bird nests, feathers, and bits of straw covered most of the wreckage.

For a moment Merra stood stricken, then with a little cry she darted to the burned pile and began pawing through it frantically. She stopped abruptly and drew forth a tooled and gilded corner of burned leather that had once been the cover of a fine book.

“Oh, no!” she gasped.

“What is it?” Brian asked.

“Cerid's Bible. It—it was specially done for her by Brother Meritus, who used to be the scribe at St. Martin's. It took him five years to copy it and make the illuminations. Oh, it was such a beautiful book! And—and she more than treasured it because it was a gift from Alain and Andrea, her best friends.”

“Who were Alain and Andrea?”

She turned and looked at him strangely a moment, tears streaming down her face. “Alain was Gratian's son. He—he was the prince of Aradel. Andrea was his princess.” Then in a broken whisper she added, “And Albericus killed them—and my father, too!”

All at once she jumped up, her face contorted, and screamed, “That rotten beast! That animal! I'll claw his eyes out! I'll bind him to that post by the bridge and burn him and burn him and burn him!”

He did not know what post she meant till he raised his eyes and looked out of the window. It gave him a view of part of the drawbridge across the moat, and of a great iron post set in the ground just beyond it. All about the post were the heaped bones of the gaunt monk's victims. His hands clenched, and a terrible rage mounted in him.

“I'll settle with Albericus,” he ground out. “Sword or no sword, I'll settle with him.”

A sudden flutter of wings and a bird's quick cry made him turn. Only now did he become aware that a frantic Tancred must have been trying to gain their attention, and had been forced to fly all the way up from below.

“Oh, Tancred,” Merra whispered. “I—I've been so upset I didn't hear you. What—”

Brian silenced her with a warning finger, and swung to the doorway. He could make out the soft scrape of stealthy footsteps mounting the stairs.

5

A Spell Is Cast

I
T WAS TOO LATE TO RUN AND ATTEMPT TO
reach the upper part of the tower without being seen. Nor was it possible to fasten and secure the fire-wrecked door. Their only chance, Brian reasoned, was to put up a big pretense and act as if they had every right to be here.

He stepped boldly out on the landing, hands on hips, and looked arrogantly down at the man on the stairway. After his years at St. Martin's, the ways of the high and mighty were not hard to imitate.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing up here?”

The fellow halted and looked up at him with little cold, beady eyes. He was redheaded and thin-lipped, and something about him reminded Brian of the righteous and utterly unfeeling prior back at the abbey. With his plain sword and short hauberk of chain mail he might have been a squire or one of the castle guards.

The beady eyes narrowed and chilled. “I'll ask the questions,” the man said harshly. “Just what are
you
doing here?”

“That is no concern of yours!” Brian snapped, trying hard to hide his growing uneasiness. “Nor is this any time to be annoying visitors to Rondelaine. Back to your post—or you'll be reported!”

“Then you would have to report to me,” came the cold retort. “I am captain of the guard.”

Merra, who had come out on the landing, suddenly stamped her foot and cried, “Fie on you, you unmannered wretch! That is no way to talk to the son of a nobleman! Be gone with you! Be gone!”

The man's face hardened. “I don't like the looks of you two. You are not what you seem. You are evil.” He paused, then said gratingly, “If you are not evil, how did you get up there? Answer me that!” He shook a long, crooked finger at them accusingly. “Only days ago the lord Albericus, praise God, discovered that this part of Rondelaine was still contaminated. It reeked with the rot of those sinful books we found up there! They belonged to that foul brood we destroyed. So we burned them—and locked the tower door. We wanted no foot in the place till it could be properly cleansed in the eyes of God.”

The guard paused. His thin lips turned down, and again he shook his accusing finger. “So, how did you get up here? Did you fly, like the birds you frightened off? Don't deny it. I know what you are. I can spot evil a league away. Evil is for burning. The stake cries for it!”

The accusing finger made the sign of the cross, and abruptly the hand it was attached to drew the heavy sword buckled about the hauberk. Grimly the guard started on up the stairway. “You will submit and come with me peacefully,” he said, “or I will cut you down. The choice is yours. Either way you will be burned.”

Only mounting fury prevented Brian from retreating. The guard, obviously an experienced fighter, had the great advantage of strength and weight, as well as the protection of a coat of mail. But as Brian's hand closed over the hilt of his own sword, causing it to fairly leap from the scabbard, he was determined to draw blood—as much of it as possible.

“Run!” he said urgently to Merra. “Get back to Nysa. I'll hold this murdering wretch!”

Merra vanished behind him. He did not chance taking his eyes from the guard to watch her, for the fellow was only a short distance away, coming up swiftly. He had a momentary urge to step backward and give himself more room, but realized just in time that it would be a mistake. Instead he took a quick step forward to stand braced at the top of the stairway, dominating it and placing the oncoming fighter at a disadvantage. The sword, which had felt so heavy early in the day, now seemed light as a feather from the power it had drawn from the scabbard. He was able to whirl it in front of him with a speed and ease that the strongest of men would have found impossible to equal.

Brian saw the little glittering eyes of the man widen at the sight of the flying blade, and he anticipated a sudden frenzied attack to cut through his guard. When it came he was ready. A deft turn of his wrist deflected the other's weapon. Another quick turn slashed open and wrecked the man's arm and hand, and sent the sword the hand would never hold again clattering down the stairs. An instant later a double handful of soot and ashes was flung into the staring and incredulous eyes. With it went the unleashed fury of Merra's tongue. The fellow howled, lost his balance, and went tumbling after the sword.

Brian turned and saw Merra, her small hands soiled with the ashes of the burned books. “I told you to get back to Nysa!” he said accusingly. “Why didn't you? If he'd cut me down, he would have caught you!”

“Oh, fiddle! You ought to know I wouldn't desert you in trouble! Besides, I knew very well you'd give the wretch a treatment as sound as you gave that stupid Rupert. I merely thought I'd hasten it with the ashes—but your sword is faster than I thought. Why, I could hardly believe it!”

“I could hardly believe it myself,” he admitted. “But of course it has drawn its power from the scabbard. Which makes me wonder: If the scabbard can do this to an ordinary blade, what would it do to the true sword?”

Her green eyes flashed up at him curiously. “Sir Brian, you forget one thing—your own ability.”

“I—I don't understand. All I know is what your uncle taught me.”

“Oh, don't be so blind! Don't you realize by now that you were born with a special power of your own? Young as you are, if you had the true sword, no one could stop you. Why, my uncle told me—”

She paused suddenly, listening. From somewhere below Brian could make out, for the first time, the hoarse, agonized voice of the wounded guard, crying for help. And help must be coming, for he could faintly hear the answering calls of hurrying men.

“We'd better leave!” he muttered.

Catching Merra by the arm, he drew her swiftly up the stairs to the top of the tower. Quickly he sheathed his sword, and they stood back to back in one of the faint circles drawn on the floor, her small hands clasped tightly in his. Tancred fluttered down and perched on her shoulder.

“Ready?”

“Ready!”

As she began her curious chant he could hear voices growing louder below, then the clink and clatter of arms as men started upward. Finally came Merra's rhyme:

“By right of blood and all my power,

Take us from this blackened tower;

Take us fast as fast can be!

Take us home to Nysa's tree!”

Just in time he remembered to close his eyes. On the instant came the sudden giddiness, the feeling of whirling and flying apart, and the abrupt landing on his heels.

When he opened his eyes—which he was careful not to do too soon—they were back in the cavelike area they had started from earlier. He knew they had been away only a matter of minutes, though it seemed they had been gone for hours.

As they stepped from the landing circle, he was startled to hear the voice of the invisible Nysa just ahead of him.

“Heaven be praised!” she said thankfully. “As soon as you were gone I had a terrible feeling about Rondelaine. You had trouble?”

“Yes,” said Merra. “But Sir Brian's sword took care of it.”

“I prayed that it would. And the formula—you could not find it?”

Merra's lip trembled. “It—it was burned. Everything in the room was burned.” Suddenly her soiled hands became little fists beating at the air. “They even burned Cerid's Bible! The rotten wretches! Oh, I'll make them pay! I'll burn
them!
I'll burn them all! If it's the last thing I do—”

“Now, Merra.”

Nysa's voice, softly reproving, brought sudden silence. “I know how you feel, my dear,” she went on, shimmering so that all at once she became visible to Brian. “But vengeance is not the way of the Dryads. Of course, Albericus and many others must die—it cannot be avoided. Only remember: We fight not for vengeance, but to save Aradel.”

“Oh, fie!” Merra burst out. “You are right—but how can I help hating? It's awful to be so—so helpless!”

Nysa gave a sad little sigh. “Then keep your hate. Maybe you will need it for what lies ahead. It will take more than courage to find the true sword.”

She paused, then said, “Now, you had an idea of your own about the formula. Is it the same thought I have—to get Benedict's help?”

“Yes. But you'll have to go and get him, because I haven't the power to bring him. He's too big.”

“Very well. I'll go for him. I know Benedict will do his best, but I can see certain difficulties. It may not even work.”

Merra swallowed. “It's
got
to work. It's our only chance.”

“We'll see. Call to him and tell him I'm on my way.”

While Merra closed her eyes in concentration, Brian watched the slender Nysa move quickly to one of the departure circles and begin a rapid chant. So soft was her voice that he could not distinguish the words, and it surprised him when she abruptly vanished without the preliminary shimmering he had expected.

It was long minutes before Merra opened her eyes. Afterward she stood frowning and biting her lip, obviously upset about something.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“Everything! Uncle Benedict is not at the abbey, and on top of it the peasants—” She shook her head and looked ruefully at her soiled hands. “Let's clean up and find something to eat, and I'll tell you about it. It—it's sort of complicated.”

After they had washed outside by the crystal pool, Merra made tea at the fireplace just as Nysa had, and set out black bread and cheese from the cupboard. It startled Brian to see her start the fire for the tea, for she merely waved her small hands once over the coals, snapped her fingers, and the bright flame rose as quickly as it had for her aunt.

“How do you manage to get a fire going the way you and Nysa do it?” he asked, after they had begun to eat.

“Oh, it's simple enough,” she said with a little shrug. “Mother was even better at it than we are. She could make anything burn. You just have to think a certain way, and sparks fly when you snap your fingers. I only wish it was as easy to become invisible, like the rest of the Dryads. I know how, but the best I can do is to fade out for just a few seconds. Then it takes all the strength I have. It makes me so mad!”