Valour and Victory (17 page)

Charles Dubois
ran off and Mark made his way to the kitchens, passing some of the
kitchen staff. They were standing in a tight knot beside the
fireplace.

“Help me,”
Charles commanded, tugging at the trapdoor but they just watched
him. It was one of the scullery-slaves who understood what he was
trying to do and ran over.

“Bring food and
water,” Charles told the boy as he wrestled with the bolt. It came
free at last.

“Is tha’ a safe
place,” the boy asked as he ran to do his bidding.

“As long as
they are quiet as a covet scrabbling for crumbs.”

Mark Cocteau
arrived back, bringing with him the pregnant Tamsin, the two
children Charles and Tamsin (it was the custom in the Kingdom of
Murdoch to name children after their parents), the widow of his
older brother Henri and her daughter-in-law Jennifer.

“None of the
others would come,” he said grimly. “Anne says Pierre has commanded
them to the tower and there they were going to stay. They think
that the Larg cannot climb the stairs.” He shook his head. “Foolish
woman.”

Charles nodded.
“Get some blankets,” he ordered the scullery-slave and the boy ran
up the length of the kitchen to where the linen room was located.
Charles began to throw bags of bread, cheese and fruit down the
trap-stairs. The scullery-slave returned with the blankets which he
gave to the women before, without being asked, went to fetch
pitchers of water.

“Down the
stairs,” commanded Charles and watched as first his wife (he
caressed her cheek gently as she passed) and children then Marcia
and Jennifer climbed down. “Take this water and make it last.”

A white-faced
Jennifer nodded as she took the first pitcher, placing it down on
the floor before reaching for the next.

“You,” he
addressed the scullery-slave, “what’s your name?”

“Han,” she boy
answered.

“Right Han,
down you go. Help the ladies all you can. You got a knife?”

“Yessir.” Han
brought out a veritable monster of a knife, grinned at Charles and
scurried down the trap-stairs after the women and children.

Charles Dubois
beckoned his wife Tamsin over to the bottom of the stairs. She
looked up at him as if trying to stamp his face on her memory.

“Now remember,
keep them quiet and whatever you hear outside, don’t come out. You
know what to do. Boy here has got a knife.”

“I’ve got one
as well.”

“Good, now if
they find you use it. Move back against the wall.”

“I’ll see to it
Charles. They won’t take us alive.”

“It won’t come
to that I promise,” he said, lying through his teeth. Tamsin backed
away, her scared face riveted on that of her husbands. He blew her
a kiss and was rewarded by a tremulous smile.

The two men
slammed the trapdoor shut and rammed home the bolt. They then
dragged over some nearby barrels and placed them on top. Charles
broke some bottles of port over the top before draping some
sackcloth over the resultant mess. The smell of spilled wine
permeated the air and for good measure Mark added a flagon of
fragrant nut-oil.

“Good enough,”
he said in a grim voice. “The Larg have been sighted. They’re only
half a candle-mark away.”

“Do we have
any
chance?” asked Charles.

“There are too
many,” answered the Count. “My brother is gathering all the men
together in the courtyard. We’d best be off.” With a last glance at
the untidy (and smelly) heap on top of the trapdoor, he led Charles
out and into the sunshine, beckoning the kitchen workers to
follow.

The Cocteau
men, their retainers, the nearby farmers and the male servants and
slaves (those not already manning the walls) stood in the
courtyard. Some of the women and children were sheltering in the
stone tower (those there was room for), not on the top étagère;
that was reserved for the Ducal family, but the two floors
underneath.

This was a
manor house, not a castle. The outer walls were built of stone but
they would not be high enough to present much of a challenge for
the Larg.

Charles Dubois
looked up, he could see the scared white faces of some of the women
as they looked out from the narrow windows. The ‘tower’ was not a
‘tower’ in the real sense of the word. He could hear hacking sounds
of splintering wood and Charles realised that the Duke had set some
men to demolishing the wooden stairs in an attempt to stop the Larg
from reaching the upper floors.

He turned to
the armed man standing next to him with surprise. “James,” he
exclaimed, “what are you doing here? I thought you were up
north!”

“I returned,”
replied James. “I got back not more than a double candle-mark
ago.”

“Your timing is
awful,” said Charles.

“Isn’t it
just?” James answered, wishing that he had sent his father’s
messenger away with a flea in his ear and had remained in Duchesne
with Elliot. He had spent only a half candle-mark with his Katia
before the warning had come. She had been so overjoyed to see him.
Now he would never feel her soft lips on his again.

I am going
to die here
, thought James.

Charles Dubois
and the other men in the courtyard were thinking the same.

The Larg didn’t
stop to assess the situation before they attacked. They kept on
running until they reached the walls when they jumped, up and over
like an endless wave of angry monsters.

Their
blood-howls were chilling in their intensity and told anyone within
earshot that their bloodlust was in the ascendant.

Duke Pierre had
realised that there was no point in trying to man the walls but had
formed his miniature army up in the courtyard in front of the
entrance to the tower.

James pulled
his sword out of its scabbard with a determination to die bravely.
There were around four hundred of them and from what he could see
over three times that number of Larg.

“Get ready,”
ordered Duke Pierre, “they’ll try to rush us all at once.”

A woman, a
slave by her dress, exited one of the outhouses. She had a bloody
knife in her hand and blood on her kirtle. She was crying, her face
ugly and blotchy. She ran up to a man standing to the left of James
and Charles where she squeezed in beside him.

James knew what
she had done. The woman and her children had been hiding in one of
the outhouses. She had taken a knife to her children’s throats and
gone to die with her man. He saw her grip the man’s free hand.

The act had an
effect on them all. They stood determined to take as many Larg with
them as they could.

James wondered
if the women in the top étagère of the tower would be brave enough
to mercy kill the children before the Larg reached them. He hoped
so.

* * * * *

Duchess Anne
watched from the window as the first Larg jumped over the wall. She
turned to her daughter. The younger Anne was sitting on a settee in
a corner, her arms round her youngest son, Mark, aged three. The
two older children were sitting beside her.

Anne raised
terrified eyes. “Mother, what is happening? I knew we should have
gone to the cellar with Jennifer and Aunt Marcia.”

“It’s too late
for that now,” answered the Duchess.

“Are the Larg
in the courtyard?”

“Yes,” her
mother answered as she closed the casement window.

There was tense
silence in the room. They could hear shouts and cries as the men
fought. She looked out and watched, bile in her throat as a Larg
dragged a screaming child out of one of the outhouses and began to
gnaw at him. Another Larg joined in the fun and a tug of war ensued
as they played with the little one. Anne prayed that the child was
dead.

“It will be our
turn soon,” she said. They knew then that there was no hope.

“Perhaps
they’ll not manage to climb up to here,” suggested Isobel from her
corner.

“They didn’t
manage to demolish all of the stairwell,” answered her aunt, “there
wasn’t time.”

She came to a
decision. She looked at her daughter and at the others. The younger
Anne divined her mother’s thoughts and her face blanched.

“No,” she
whimpered, tightening her hold on young Mark. Worn out with all the
excitement, he had fallen asleep in her arms.

“We cannot let
the Larg get to them alive.”

“Perhaps we can
hide them.”

The Duchess
shook her head and walked towards the wall-cabinet. She took the
keys from her belt and unlocked it.

The bottle she
took from the self was dark brown in colour and about half full.
With a steady hand, Duchess Anne picked up a spoon and turned to
face the others.

Herself, her
daughter, her three grand-children, Katia, Estelle and Isobel.
Eight of them, plus the servants. Thirteen in total. There would
not be enough in the bottle to go round. She looked over to the
servants, two were very young, not more than twelve. Anne decided
that they with little Pierre, Anne and Mark must be given a
spoonful of the ungba syrup. There might also be enough for Isobel
and Katia.

“We must do it
now,” she said, “it takes a while for it to take effect. There is
enough in the bottle for seven, perhaps eight if I am careful.”

She spooned out
the first doze and approached her grandson Pierre.

“What is it?”
he asked suspiciously as his grandmother offered him the spoon.

“Something to
make you sleep,” said his mother. “When you wake up the Larg will
be gone.”

“Promise?”

“I
promise.”

Pierre appeared
satisfied with this and took the dose, grimacing at its bitter
taste. His sister followed suit and his mother dribbled the syrup
into baby Marks’ mouth.

Duchess Anne
dosed the two little serving maids next.

* * * * *

James slashed
at a Larg with his sword. It was a large ugly brute with great
yellow teeth that snarled and snapped at him.

“Not yet you
bastard,” yelled James. His parry missed, but only just, the Larg
sprang back and gathered himself for another leap. James hadn’t
realised until now just how big and nasty the Larg were.

“Retreat,”
shouted James to the desperate souls fighting beside him. “Back to
the tower.” He looked up at the outside walls of the manor, more
and more Larg were jumping over and running towards where the small
knot of manor inhabitants were still resisting.

There were less
than thirty of them left, all trained in sword-work and wearing
armour.

The Duke was
down, as were most of his war-guard. As James and the few who could
retreated to the tower he saw Charles Dubois fall, his neck ripped
apart by one of the giant blood-soaked paws.

Four made it to
the tower.

Their blood
lust is up. None of us will leave here alive. It’s not supposed to
be like this.
He felt a searing pain in his shoulder and fell
to the ground.

A Larg surged
over James, he felt the heavy weight as it used his body as a
springboard to leap up on to the ragged rim of the partly
demolished stairwell.

Shit. The
women.

Then his
stomach exploded into an agony so intense he wished he could die,
now, before he was forced to watch his entrails being pulled out of
his body.

Katia!
Katia!

He
screamed.

* * * * *

Isobel was
sitting next to Estelle and Katia. She watched her aunt give the
syrup to the children.

I’m next. I’m
the next youngest.

As her aunt
approached, Isobel raised a protesting hand.

“I thank you
Aunt, but no. I have no intention of quietly falling asleep.” She
produced a knife from under her skirts. “I intend to die, if that
is the Lord’s will, fighting.”

“Me too,”
announced Katia, producing a knife of her own.

“Give it to the
other maids,” said Isobel and her aunt nodded.

The Duchess
walked over to the window and watched the last stand of the
remaining Cocteau men.

Duke Pierre, as
he lay dying on the blood-smeared flagstones, looked up and his
last sight was that of his wife’s face, smiling at him and
nodding.

Satisfied, she
had done what was expected, he let go of his life.

Isobel could
hear the snarls and howls as the Larg fought over the bodies
outside.

“I do have a
little ratroot,” offered her aunt and the four remaining women
stared at her askance. Ratroot was a poison but death was not
painless.

“I’d, I’d like
some,” said the younger Anne who was sitting cuddling her
unconscious youngest child.

“Me too,” said
Estelle with a shudder. “Anything must be better than being ripped
apart alive. What’s that?”

“The Larg have
reached the first étagère,” answered Isobel. “You have just enough
time if you take it now.”

* * * * *

Isobel looked
at Katia. They were the only two who hadn’t partaken of the
soporific ungba or the ratroot.

“We need to
open up the inflow vent that Uncle Pierre had installed for the
heater,” Isobel said, “it’s run on oil.”

“Why?” asked
the terrified Katia, wishing now that she had taken up Duchess
Anne’s offer of the poison.

“So that oil
will begin to flow in. I don’t know about you but I don’t intend
just to wait passively for the Larg to reach us. They’ll get up
here eventually.”

“I think
they’ve reached the floor below,” squeaked Katia.

“Try not to
listen to the screaming,” advised Isobel, turning the screw.
“Right, that’s the oil starting to flow. Now where’s the
tinderbox?”

“Over there on
the mantelpiece.”

“Get it for
me.”