Virgin in the Ice

Chapter Thirteen

Brother Cadfael had spent the entire day prowling through the belt of trees, from one end of the crescent to the other, and back again, studying every fold of ground between him and the stockade, in search of even the most tenuous cover by which, once darkness came, a man might hope to approach nearer. Hugh would not allow any man to show himself in the open, and had gone to great pains, while deploying his forces as widely as possible, to keep them well out of sight. Alain le Gaucher could not get out, and the sheriff’s powers could not get in, and absolute deadlock had Hugh gnawing his knuckles in frustration. Small doubt but there were lavish supplies of stolen meat and grain within, enough to keep the garrison snugly for some time. Starving them out would be a long business, and starve the unfortunate boy in the process. Le Gaucher might be willing to surrender him in return for free passage out for himself and all his men, but that would only be to place some other unhappy region under the same scourge. Not even a last resort! It was Hugh’s business to restore order and do justice in this shire, and he meant to see it done.

He had singled out from his ranks a number of men who claimed skill in climbing, and were born and bred in hill country, and drawn them back out of the ravine, to prospect round the summit in both directions, and see if they could find a level where it might be possible to climb out and penetrate the enclosure from the rear without being seen from above. The slight rise of the lip of land behind the fortress afforded cover, but from below it was seen to be cover for a sheer drop where only birds could hope to find foothold. The only remaining possibility was where they could not reconnoiter without being seen, and provoking a blade at the boy’s throat yet again. Close to the stockade there might just be ground enough to let a man inch his way round to the rear, if he had a good head for heights. But to make the assay he would have had to cross a part of that bleak expanse of open rock, making Yves’ death likely and his own certain.

But in the darkness, yes, perhaps. If the covering of snow complicated movement, yet there were places where bare rock cropped out to break the betraying pallor. But the night came all too tranquilly, lambent light from snow and stars, a clear sky, crackling with frost. This one night when fresh snow and driving winds might have made vision delusive, and covered dark garments with their own protective veil, no gale blew and no flake descended. And the stillness and silence were such that even the snapping of a buried branch underfoot might carry as far as the stockade.

Cadfael was just reflecting ruefully on this hush when it was abruptly shattered, blasted apart with a violence that made him jump almost out of his skin. Reverberating across from the summit came a loud metallic clanging like a great, ill-made bell, stroke on jarring stroke beating out a merciless peal that went on and on, piercing, demanding, a pain to the ears. Back among the trees men started to their feet, and ventured as near as they dared to the open, to stare across at the castle, and within the stockade, no less, arose shouts and bellowing and clamor that told Cadfael this music was none of theirs, had not been planned, was neither welcomed nor understood. If something had gone wrong within, then something profitable might yet be made of it without.

The din was coming from the top of the tower. Someone up there was industriously thrashing away at a shield, or a gong of some kind, however improvised. Why should any man of the garrison be sounding so furious a tocsin, when no attack had been threatened? And the noise had provoked other noises within the stockade, muffled and wordless but unmistakably angry, dismayed and vengeful. A great voice that could only belong to de Gaucher was roaring orders. Surely all attention had been diverted from the enemy without to the unexpected onslaught within.

Cadfael acted almost without thought. There was an undulation in the rock surface halfway to the stockade, a narrow black blot breaking the uniform whiteness. He broke from the shelter of the trees and ran for it, and dropped full-length along it, where his black habit could lie motionless and pass unremarked if anyone was still keeping guard. He doubted if they were. The relentless clanging continued tirelessly, though someone’s arm must be beginning to ache by this time. Cautiously he raised his head to watch the serrated crest of the tower, clear against the sky. The rhythm of the discordant bell faltered and changed, and as it halted for a moment Cadfael saw a head peep cautiously out between the merlons. There were ominous splintering, crashing sounds now, dulled by the thick timbering of the tower, as though someone was wielding an axe. The head appeared a second time. Cadfael waved an arm, black sleeve plain against the snow, and shouted: “Yves!”

Doubtful if he was heard, though the clear air carried sounds with meticulous accuracy. Certainly he was seen. The head - it barely topped the parapet - craned into view recklessly for a moment, to shriek in shrillest excitement: “Come on! Bid them come on! We hold the tower! We are two, and armed!” Then he vanished behind the merlon, and none too soon, for at least one bowman within the stockade had been watching the same serrated outline, and his arrow struck the edge of the embrasure, and stuck there quivering. Defiantly the clangor from the tower resumed its resolute beat.

Cadfael picked himself up from his niche in the rock, regardless of danger, and ran for the trees. At least one arrow followed him, but fell short, somewhat to his surprise when he heard its shuddering flight extinguished in the snow behind him. He must still have a better turn of speed than be had thought, at least when running for his own life and many others. He plunged breathless into cover, and into the arms of Hugh Beringar, and was aware by the stir and quiver all along the fringe of the trees that Hugh also had employed these few minutes to good effect, for his lines were drawn ready for action, waiting only the urgent word.

“Set on!” said Cadfael, puffing for breath. “That’s Yves sounding for us, he says he holds the tower. Someone has reached him, God known how. No danger now but from our delay.”

There was no more delay. Hugh was away on the instant, and into the saddle before the words were spent. He from the left and Josce de Dinan from the right broke from the trees and drove in upon the gates of Alain le Gaucher’s castle, with all their footmen streaming full tilt behind them, and a file of torches spluttering into life after, to fire the fringe buildings within.

Brother Cadfael, left unceremoniously thus, stood for a while to get his breath back, and then, almost resentfully, resigned himself to the recollected fact that he had long ago forsworn arms. No matter, there was nothing in his vows to prevent him from following unarmed where the armed men led. Cadfael was striding purposefully across the open expanse of snow, torn up now by many hooves and many feet, by the time the assault converged in a spear-head to hurtle against the gates, and drive them in.

For all the industrious din he himself was making, Yves heard the charge of the sheriff’s men, and felt the tower shake as they hit the gate like a sledge-hammer, and burst the holding timbers in a shower of flying splinters. The clamor of hand-to-hand battle filled the bailey, but about that he could do nothing; but here the very boards under them were heaving and groaning to a fury of axe-blows from below, and Olivier, sword drawn and long legs spread, was holding down ladder and trap against the onslaught. The ladder heaved at every blow, but while it held its place the trap could not be raised, and even if it should be breached, only a hand or a head could be first exposed, and either would be at Olivier’s mercy. And at this extreme, Olivier would have no mercy. Braced from crown to heel, he bestrode the enemy’s entry, balancing his weight, sword poised to pierce or slash the first flesh that offered.

Yves dropped his aching arm, and let the steel helmet roll away from between his feet, but then, with a better thought, scrambled after it and clapped it on his head. Why refuse any degree of protection that offered? He even remembered to stoop well below the parapet as he flexed his cramped hand, took a fresh grip on the hilt of the sword, and plunged across the roof to embrace Olivier, and plant his own feet on the rungs of the ladder that held them secure, to add his weight to the barrier. There were already splits visible in the wood of the trap, and splinters flew both above and below, but there was nowhere yet that a blade could be thrust through.

“Nor will be,” said Olivier in confident reassurance. “You hear that?” It was the roaring voice of Alain le Gaucher himself, echoing hollowly up the dark spaces of the towers. “He’s calling off his hounds, they’re needed more desperately below.”

The axe struck once more, a mighty blow that clove clean through an already splintered board, and sent a long triangle of shining blade into view beneath the ladder. But that was the last. The striker had trouble freeing his blade again, and cursed over it, but made no further assault. They heard a great scurrying down the stairs, and then all was quiet within the tower. Beneath, in the bailey, the whole enclosure was filled with the babel and struggle and clamor of arms, but up here under the starry calm of the sky the two of them stood and looked at each other in the sudden languor of relief, no longer threatened.

“Not that he would not make the same foul use of you,” said Olivier, sheathing his sword, “if he could but get his hands on you. But if he spends time on hewing you out of your lair, he will already have lost what your throat might save. He’ll seek to fight off this attack before he troubles you again.”

“He will not do it!” said Yves, glowing. “Listen! They are well within. They’ll never give back now, they have him in a noose.” He peered out from behind a merlon over the confused fighting below. All the space of the bailey seethed and swayed with struggling men, a churning, tumultuous darkness like a stormy night sea, but lit by fiery glimpses where the torches still burned. “They’ve fired the gatehouse. They’re leading out all the horses and cattle - and fetching down all the archers from the walls … Should we not go down and help them?”

“No,” said Olivier firmly. “Not unless we must, not until we must. If you fell into the wrong hands now, all this would be thrown away, all to do again. The best you can do for your friends is to stay out of reach, and deny this rogue baron the one weapon that could save him.”

It was good sense, though none too welcome to an excited boy longing for prodigies to perform. But if Olivier ordered it, Yves accepted it.

“You may be a hero some other day,” said Olivier drily, “where there’s less at stake and you can put only your own neck in peril. Your part now is to wait in patience, even if it cost you more. And since we have time now, and may be mortally short of it before long, listen to me carefully. When we are loosed from here, and all over, I shall leave you. Go back to join your sister at Bromfield, let your friends have the satisfaction of uniting you in safety. I have no doubt they would send you with a good escort to your uncle in Gloucester, as they promised, but I have a fancy to finish my work and deliver you myself, as I was sent out to do. This mission is mine, and I’ll complete it.”

“But how will you manage?” Yves wondered anxiously.

“With your help - and certain other help which I know where to find. Give me two days, and I will have horses and supplies ready for us. If all goes well, two nights from this night that’s wearing away under us, I will come to Bromfield for you. Tell your sister so. After Compline, when the brothers will be bound for their beds, and you will be thought to be in yours. Ask no more questions, but tell her I shall come. And should I be forced to have speech here with the sheriff’s men, or should you be asked about me after I vanish - tell me, Yves, who was it made his way in here to find you?”

Yves understood. He said at once: “It was Robert, the forester’s son who brought Ermina to Bromfield, and happened on this place while he was searching for me.” He added dubiously: “But they’ll wonder at such a deed in a forester, when all the sheriff’s men were already searching. Unless,” he went on, curling a disdainful lip, “they think that every man living will risk his life for Ermina, just because she is handsome. She is handsome,” he conceded generously, “but all too well she knows it and makes use of it. Don’t ever let her make a fool of you!”

Olivier was peering out over the battlefield below, where a long tongue of fire had sprung from the burning gates and reached the roof of one of the byres. His dark and private smile was hidden from the boy. “You may let them think me her besotted slave, if it convinces them,” he said. “Tell them what you please that will serve the purpose. And bear my message, and be ready when I come for you.”

“I will!” vowed Yves fervently. “I will do all as you tell me.”

They watched the fire spread along the stockade from roof to roof, while the fighting within continued as fiercely and confusedly as ever. The garrison had poured out to the defence greater numbers than anyone had suspected, and all to many of them experienced and powerful fighters. Yves and Olivier looked on from their eyrie intently, as the serpent of fire began to burn uncomfortably near to the corner of the hall itself. If it touched the tower, all that draughty, beam-braced interior would act as a chimney, and they would be isolated at the top of a ferocious blaze. Already the crackling and exploding of burning beams threatened to drown out the din of fighting.

“This grows too hot,” said Olivier, frowning. “Better brave the devil below than wait for the one that’s coming to us here.”

They hauled the ladder aside, and heaved up the mangled trap. Splinters jutted and fell, and a thin curl of smoke, hardly a breath as yet, coiled up out of the recesses of the tower. Olivier did not wait to lower the ladder, but slid through to hang by his hands, and dropped lightly to the floor below, and Yves followed him valiantly, to be caught neatly in mid-air by the waist, and set down silently. Olivier set off down the staircase, a hand extended behind him to hold the boy close. The air here was still cold, but from somewhere smoke was drifting steadily, obscuring the edges of the steps so that they were constrained to feel their way at every tread. The babble of battle grew more distant, a constant buzzing from without the thick walls. Even when they reached the rock floor of the tower, and saw by the dim remains of torches and firelight the outline of the great door to the hall, standing ajar, there was no stir of foot or sound of voices within. Every man must be out in the bailey, battling to fend off the sheriff’s forces, or else, by this time just as possibly, to break through the circle somehow and make his escape.

Olivier made for the narrow outer door by which he had entered in the first place, lifted the heavy latch and tugged, but the door did not give. He braced a foot against the wall and heaved again, but the door remained fast shut.

“The devil damn them! They’ve barred it without, after they treed us. Through the hall, and keep close behind me.”

The very act of thrusting the great door open wide enough for them to slip through, as silently as possible, for fear some cautious or wounded outlaw should still be lurking, brought into play a cross-draught, and a sudden tongue of fire leaped up in the far corner of the hall, licked its way up the beams of the roof, and spat burning splinters below to smoulder in Alain le Gaucher’s tapestried chairs, and bring to life three or four new buds of flame that opened marvelously into great crimson flowers. Those red and gold blazons were all they could see clearly through the smoke that thickened as abruptly as the fire had burst in. They groped and stumbled through a deserted wilderness of overturned benches and trampled and spilled dishes, trestle tables fallen aslant, hangings dragged down, torches burned out and adding to the pall of smoke that stung their eyes and was drawn chokingly into their throats. Before them, beyond this obscure and perilous wilderness, the pandemonium of struggle and violence blew in on a freezing draught through the half-open main door of the hall. At the top of the sliver of open air thus uncovered, a single star showed, unbelievably pure and distant. They covered their mouths and nostrils and made for it, with eyes streaming and smarting.

They were almost at the doorway when a ripple of flame flowed suddenly along the surface of a roofbeam, peeling off the unplaned surface in a flurry of sparks, and caught the coarse homespun curtain that served to shut out the cold wind when the doors were closed and the household home at night. The dry, hairy cloth went up in a gush of flame, and fell in their path, a great folded cushion of fire. Olivier kicked it furiously aside, and swung Yves before him round the billowing bonfire towards the doorway.

“Out! Get to the open, and hide!”

If Yves had obeyed him to the letter, he might well have escaped notice, but having reached clear air, with the sweep of the steps and the loud turmoil of the bailey before him, he turned to look back anxiously, for fear the fire, blaming now to a man’s height, had trapped Olivier within. The pause cost him and his friends all that they had gained together, for more than half the bailey was then in Beringar’s hands, and the remnant of the garrison driven back into a tight knot of fighting round the hall, and while Yves’ back was turned upon his enemies, and he hung hesitating whether to rush back to stretch a hand to his friend, Alain le Gaucher, hard-pressed at the foot of the steps to his own hall, cut a wide swathe before him to clear his ground, and leaped backwards up the wide timber stairway. They all but collided, back to back. Yves turned to run, too late. A great hand shot out and gripped him by the hair, and a roar of triumph and defiance rose even above the clamor of arms and the thunderous crackling of bursting beams. In a moment le Gaucher had his back against the pillar of his doorway, secure from attack from the rear, and the boy clamped to his body before him, with a naked sword, already red, braced across his throat.

“Stand, every man! Down arms and draw off!” bellowed the lion, his tawny man bristling and glaring in the flickering light of the fires. “Back! Further, I say! Let me see a clear space before me. If any man so much as draw bow, this imp dies first. I have got my warranty again! Now, king’s man, where are you? What will you pay for his life? A fresh horse, free passage out, and no pursuit, on your oath, or I slit his throat, and his blood be on your head!”

Hugh Beringar thrust through to the fore and stood, eyes levelled upon le Gaucher. “Draw back,” he said without turning his head. “Do as he says.”

The entire circle, king’s men and outlaw’s men together, drew back inch by inch and left a great space of trampled and stained snow before the steps of the hall. Hugh moved back with them, though keeping his place in front. What else could he do? The boy’s head was strained back against his captor’s body, the steel touching his stretched neck. A false move and he would be dead. A few of the garrison began to edge out of the press, backwards towards the stockade and the gate, in the hope of finding a way out while all eyes were on the pair isolated at the top of the steps. The guard on the gate would deal with them, but who would deal with this ruthless and desperate creature? Everyone retreated before him.

Not everyone! Through the press, unnoticed by any until he reached the open space, came lurching a strange and solitary figure, limping and wavering, but marching ahead out of the crowd without pause, straight towards the steps. The red light of the fires trembled over him. A tall, emaciated man in a black habit, the cowl dropped back on his shoulders. Two puckered scars crossed his tonsured head. There was blood on his sandalled feet - he left stains on the snow as he trod - and blood on his brow from a fall in the rocky ground. Great, hollow eyes in a livid face stared upon Alain le Gaucher. A pointing hand accused him. A loud, imperious voice cried out at him:

“Leave go of the boy! I have come for him, he is mine.”

Intent upon Hugh Beringar, le Gaucher had not seen the newcomer until then. His head jerked round, astonished that anyone should break the silence he had imposed, or dare to cross the neutral ground he had exacted.

The shock was brief, but shattering while it lasted, and it lasted long enough. For one moment Alain le Gaucher saw his dead man advancing on him, terrible, invulnerable and fearless, saw the wounds he himself had inflicted still bloody, and the face he had murdered corpse-pale. He forgot the hostage. His hands sank nervelessly, and the sword with them. The next instant he knew past doubt that the dead do not rise, and recovered himself with a scream of rage and scorn, but too late to recover his ascendancy. Yves had slid from between his hands like an eel, dived under his arm and darted away down the steps.

Running blindly, he collided with a welcome solidity and warmth, and clung panting and spent, his eyes closed. Brother Cadfael’s voice said in his ear: “Softly, now, you’re safe enough. Come and help me with Brother Elyas, for he’ll go nowhere without you, now he’s found you. Come, let’s get him out of this, you and I together, and do what we can for him.”

Yves opened his eyes, still panting and trembling, and turned to stare back at the doorway of the hall. “My friend is in there … my friend who helped me!”

He broke off there, drawing in breath to heave a huge, hopeful, fearful sigh. For Hugh Beringar, the instant the hostage was free, had darted forward to do battle, but another was before him. Out of the smoke and fire-shot blackness of the doorway surged Olivier, soiled and singed and sword in hand, sprang past le Gaucher to find elbow-room, and in passing struck him on the cheek with the flat of the blade, by way of notice of intent. The tawny mane flew as le Gaucher sprang round to face him. The silence that had exploded in shudderings of wonder at the apparition of Brother Elyas fell again like a stone. Everyone heard clearly the voice that trumpeted disdainfully: “Now have ado with a man!”

There would be no moving Yves now, not until this last duel was resolved. Cadfael kept hold of him thankfully, though he need not have troubled, for the boy’s small fists were clenched in his sleeve for mortal reassurance. Brother Elyas, his bearings lost, looked about him for his boy, and came limping painfully to touch, to comfort and be comforted, and Yves, without for an instant taking his worshipping eyes from Olivier, detached one hand from his hold on Cadfael to accept Elyas’ clasp just as fiercely. For him everything now depended on this man to man encounter, from head to foot he was quivering with partisan passion. Both Cadfael and Elyas felt it and were infected by it, and stared as he stared upon this tall, agile, slender person poised with spread feet at the top of the steps. For all his smoke-soiled visage and common country garments, Cadfael knew him again.

And no one meddled, not even Hugh, who might have intervened by virtue of his office. Between his men and these thieves and murderers there would be no more fighting until this fight was over. There was that about the challenge that forbade interference.

It did not appear a very even combat, le Gaucher double his opponent in age and weight and experience, if not in reach and agility. And it did not last long. Le Gaucher, once he had viewed his challenger, came on confidently in a steady, battering onslaught, bent on driving the young man from his stance and backwards down the steps. Yet after long, increasingly furious attacks the boy - a mere half-trained peasant, at that! - had scarcely shifted his balance, not given back a pace, and everywhere the hacking blade crashed in, his sword was there to turn it aside. He stood and seemed at ease, while his adversary flailed at him and wasted energy. Yves gazed with huge, praying eyes, rigid from crown to toe. Elyas clung mutely to the hand he clasped, and quivered to its tension. Brother Cadfael watched the young man Olivier, and recalled disciplines he had almost forgotten, a manner of sword-play bred from the clash of east and west, and borrowing from both.

There was no moving this swordsman, if he gave an inch one moment he regained it the next, added to it the next. It was le Gaucher who was being edged back by degrees to the rim of the steps, while he wasted his strength to no avail.

The lion lunged once more, with all his weight. His heel was too near the edge of the icy stir, his lunge too reckless, the forward pressure slid his rearward foot from under him, and he hung out of balance, struggling for recovery. Olivier sprang forward like a hunting leopard, and drove down with all his weight, clean through the disrupted guard and into the exposed breast. The sword went in halfway to the hilt, and he braced both feet and leaned back on his heel to hoist his blade clear.

The lion’s carcase dropped from the withdrawing point, arms spread, flew outwards on its back, landed three steps lower, and rolled ponderously, with an awful dignity, from stair to stair, to come to rest on its face at Hugh Beringar’s feet, and bled what was left of its life away into the defiled snow.