Conqueror (42 page)

All around them, chaos reigned. Men and boys shouted to one another. Armed soldiers spread out along the walls, still adjusting helms and arraying themselves every ten feet with crossbows and long bows. Women fled across the bailey, young children tripping before them. Chickens and goats ran kicking and clucking through the mayhem. A dog barked incessantly. It was a brilliantly sunlit world, made more so by the ominous clouds piling up like ashen mountains on the horizon.

Griffyn saw Gwyn coming. Skirts hitched above her knees, black curls streaming out behind her, she flew across the crowded expanse of the bailey. She skidded to a halt beside a cluster of terrified women, gave each a hug and pointed towards the castle, then was off again, coming towards them.

He looked back at Alex.

“At your command, my lord. The west side, Pagan.” Alex shoved his helm between his arm and his chest. “’Tis still weak.”

Flicking his eyes across the riot around them, Griffyn nodded. “I know. Edmund?” He looked down at his fourteen-year-old squire. The boy’s head jerked up. His face was bleached white. “Are we ready?”

“Aye, my lord,” he stammered, getting to his feet.

Griffyn put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “We’ll be fine. We’ve seen battle before, and I haven’t let anyone take you from me yet.”

Edmund blinked. “Aye, sir. I mean,
no sir
.”

Griffyn turned to Alex. “There’s a passageway that leads underground. Behind the north side of the keep. The door is in the wall, under ivy. Light the lanterns. The way is long, but wide enough for two on foot, abreast. Take my personal guard and the left and right flanks and lead them through. It will bring you out there.”

He pointed to a hill, maybe a hundred yards distant. The forest pushed right up to its edge and stopped. A clear, sloping green hillside swathed in yellow flowers spilled out below, straight to the valley floor.

He looked at Alex. “At my command, come down and kill whoever is left.”

Alex’s jaw tightened. “That means you’re not joining us.”

“I’ll take the vanguard and ride out the front gates.”

“But, Pagan. If I take the flanks and your guard…” He looked at Marcus’s army again. There must be more than five hundred. “They’ll slaughter you.”

“We’re the diversion, Alex. You’re the force.”

“Keep your guard with you,” Alex insisted in an urgent, angry voice, his head down.

“They’re the best fighters and riders. They’ll be needed for your attack. Now go.”

Alex stared at the ground and nodded curtly. “Aye.”

“You too, Edmund.”

The boy looked at him in horror. “I can’t leave you, my lord! I won’t!”

“You will. Go.”

Edmund’s earnest face crumpled. Alex clapped him on the shoulder and they started down the stairway just as Gwyn came up, running, holding a hand to her side.

“Griffyn,” she called breathlessly. “Wait. There’s something you must know.”

“You’ve told me enough for one day.”

She stopped midway up the stairs, just below him, and placed her hand on the leather cuff encasing his forearm. “Wait. There’s a secret passageway, comes up in yonder woods—”

“I knew about that one too, Guinevere.” He looked over her head. “At my command,” he called to Alex, just as Alex peeled off to the right and began shouting to Griffyn’s personal guard, gathering the force for the hillside attack.

His commands rang out loudly, and her face blanched. She looked down at the bailey, then back at him, comprehension dawning. “Griffyn. You cannot send your guard from your side. They would die for you.” She lowered her voice. “You’ll be killed.”

“They’re the best fighters—”

“They will be facing the weakest troops. Marcus’s strongest will be waiting for
you
. Not Alex nor your guard nor Edmund—. You’ll be killed.”

He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her almost off her feet, until their faces were inches apart. “To save Everoot for you and ours, Guinevere, ’tis a thing I will do gladly. Do you not see that yet?”

“I do,” she wept, wrapping her fingers around the mail armour. The rings pierced her skin.

He pulled away and gestured to a nearby knight. “Take her to the hall.” He turned away. “She’ll be needed there.”

Gwyn felt her knees giving out. She was sliding to the ground, holding her hand against the wall for support. The knight’s hands were on her arms, pulling her up.

“My lady? Lady Gwyn, please come.”

She dragged herself up by an act of will. Her back unbent along the curve of her spine until it was as straight as the sword Griffyn had just unsheathed as he walked to the front of his men. He spoke to them as he went, passing words of encouragement and victory, an order given briefly to a soldier here and there.

He never looked back.

“Please release me, Robert,” she said with quiet dignity, turning to the knight. Time to do what was directly in front of her, no further, no more.

She started across the bailey, towards the main hall, where villagers and servants were coalescing in small, frightened bands of huddled humanity that she, simply, could not save.

Griffyn could, though.

Everoot’s small army rode under the portcullis gates. Marcus sat at the top of the hill, watching and counting. He smiled. Rumours of Sauvage’s numbers had been exaggerated. No surprise. The Sauvages had always received more than their fair share of everything: esteem, money, women.

His gaze swept over the troops again. But this was even better than he’d hoped. Even counting the men on the wall, he had him outnumbered five to one. The fitzEmpress’s vaunted captain did not appear to be so unassailable after all.

The last of Everoot’s mounted knights came through the gates. A few dozen foot soldiers marched behind, carrying battleaxes and pikes. Marcus leaned over and said to his herald, “Call for them all. We’ll hold no one back. Everyone into the valley. This is going to be a rout.”

The herald nodded and lifted the horn to his lips. He bugled different patterns. Along the front of the army, pennants of various styles shot into the air. First the horsemen rode forward in a line, the great destriers snorting and pawing, leather creaking. On their backs, the men were a row of anonymous, helmed faces. Behind clustered the foot soldiers, their armour hardly less sturdy for being made of layers of boiled leather.

Marcus wheeled his horse around. The knights were his men, cleaved to him by vows of fealty, deeds of land, and a shared partiality for warring. Most of the foot soldiers were a different sort. They may share a certain
joie de guerre
, but they had few ties to bind. It was a ragtag army of unpaid mercenaries and debtors freed from Endshire holding cells.

Marcus knew he had to keep it simple, attempt nothing which required trust or skill to execute. And, above all, he must give them something to fight for.

“This is no siege, men!” he shouted. “To the death, now. No holding back. Foot follows the horses, no retreat. Whomever you kill, everything on him is yours. No plunder in the castle, only the village. But that, you may burn to the ground. And above all,” he shoved his helm on his head and bellowed,
“Sauvage is mine.”

His horse reared up. Marcus lifted his arm and swept it down. The cavalry exploded like it was shot from a trebuchet, kicking heels and galloping hooves. The troops came running behind, thunder rolling into the valley.

They met in a violent clash of steel and flesh on the valley floor. Lances crashed into armoured chests, driving the men backwards off their saddles like sacks of bloody wheat. Their bodies hit the ground with dull thuds that rocked the earth. The cavalry made one determined, steady sweep through the ranks, then the swordplay began.

Long, polished blades swept at legs and heads, and men started screaming in pain and shouting to comrades. Horses reared up with red-rimmed noses, snorting foam. The foot soldiers rushed into the mix, slashing with pikes and swords. The sun glittered brightly on their wet, red blades.

Marcus spotted Sauvage from forty paces away. Sauvage had just clobbered one of the Endshire knights off a horse and spun his own huge, black destrier around when he caught Marcus’s eye too. He sat back hard in the saddle and lifted his hands to his chest, pulling the reins tight, his eyes never leaving Marcus. The horse swung around, snorting in fury and pawing the air.

Marcus smiled. Griffyn glanced over Marcus’s shoulder and smiled too.

Marcus jerked off his helm and spun to look over his shoulder. Bloody hell.

Hundreds of knights and horses, Sauvage pennants snapping in the wind, were hurtling down the hill towards his army. His entire army. It had been a trap.

The onrushing riders hit the wall of battle like a tidal wave, crashing up against its bloody shores with neighs and snorts and crashing steel. Marcus slammed his helm back on his head and spurred straight through the middle, towards Sauvage, who reined his stallion around in circles on a small rise of land, waiting for him.

“Well done,” Marcus said, nodding towards the fresh wave of death to the right.

“I will kill every one of you.”

“Call them off,” he said shortly. “We have to talk.”

Griffyn bent his elbow over the pommel of his saddle and leaned forward. “Every one of you.”

“I mean it, Griffyn. Stand them down. I have something. For Guinevere.”

Griffyn stared a moment, then stood in his stirrups and waved his arm in the air. His personal guard spurred towards him, Alex at their head. They moved with such triangulated force that the battle split open before them, like a sea parting. They skidded to a halt all around Griffyn. Twelve spears were lowered and aimed directly at Marcus’s head. Griffyn spoke rapidly to Alex, then turned back to Marcus.

“You first.”

Marcus cuffed his herald on the shoulder and the man bugled the retreat. Sauvage’s pages waved flags in the air, and within one minute, the fighting ceased. Each army backed halfway up different sides of the gently sloping hills and stood, panting and sweating, weapons lowered, watching the small figures at the centre of the valley floor.

“Bring Guinevere to us,” Griffyn ordered, his eyes never leaving Marcus.

Edmund spun and spurred his horse towards the castle, already hollering for Lady Gwyn.

Gwyn sat in the hall, helping to tear strips of linen into bandages. She only barely kept wrenching sobs at bay. Marcus’s army looked strong. Griffyn hated her.

A huge pile of table linens sat on the dais table. Ten or so women were sitting at the table on either side of her, cutting and tearing, speaking in hushed whispers. Children were scattered all around the hall, not speaking, not playing.

A cluster of boys hovered near the door, feinting at one another with pretend swords, looking as though they wanted to run out and join the fray. Three older knights, far past the age of combat, kept them from doing so, primarily by telling stories of older combats, legends that entranced the young boys. Lancelot. Sir Gawain. The Irish god-king Cúchulainn.

Gwyn directed food and drink to be brought out in abundance, although no one was eating. But she had no intention of rationing stores. For what? This was no siege. They would win, and there’d be no need for rationing. Or they would lose, and Gwyn didn’t plan on giving Marcus anything that was ripe or tasted good. Truth, she would poison the well herself if he rode under the gates.

A distant rattle drew her head up. It was outside, coming closer, getting louder. Soon, everyone in the great hall noticed it. People started looking around, murmuring.

Gwyn got to her feet. Her heart hammered. A loud crash reverberated through the hall. More clattering, loud, furious and fast, getting louder, coming closer. A shouted command:
“Open!”
Another crash, then a horse’s whinney that echoed to the rafters of the great hall.

“God in Heaven,” she exhaled.

A snorting, sweaty horse appeared at the top of the stairs. Astride sat Edmund, Griffyn’s squire. He’d ridden the animal straight up the outer stairwell, a suicidal act, rather than get off and waste the time to run inside.

“Oh no,” she whispered. “Please God. Not Griffyn.”

Edmund shouted, “Come, my lady! He calls for you.”

She took one look at the line of women jamming up the narrow space behind the dais table, then scrambled atop and over the table. She fell to the ground on the other side, stumbled back to her feet, and took off running.

“Go, go, go!” she screamed. “Outside!”

Edmund spun and kicked the horse, who skidded and thumped wide-eyed to the outdoors and back down the stairs, leaping off the last four entirely. Edmund reined around just as Gwyn barreled out. She flung herself down the stairs two and three at a time, just shy of a headfirst plunge down the twenty-foot staircase, until she was only a few feet above Edmund’s head. He caught her hand and yanked her off. She landed on the horse’s back and they galloped hell-bent for the gates.

The gelding skidded almost sideways to take the turn just after the gates, which would lead them down to the valley. Edmund steadied him with his hands. Gwyn lay low and close to Edmund’s back. The horse straightened and, with a kick and shout from Edmund, laid himself out flat for the final mad dash.

Dark clouds had scuttled over the sky. The storm on the horizon thundered ominously. A stab of lightning lit up the western horizon. Gwyn risked a glance over Edmund’s shoulder. Would they make it in time? How bad was it? How long did they have? Would her beloved already be—

Standing next to Marcus?

She yelled above the rushing wind into Edmund’s ear, “I thought he was dying!”

“Nay, lady,” he shouted back, “but he’s ready to kill.”

She laid her cheek down on his back again and tried to stop from crying in reckless joy. He was alive. He wasn’t dead, he wasn’t dying. She could handle anything but that.

If she’d only known.

She stood next to them, her chest still heaving. Marcus was looking at her. Griffyn was not. He stood without moving, staring at the horizon. In truth, he seemed lost in thought, as if this, none of it, mattered anymore.