Catherine Coulter (3 page)

“You are but fifteen years old,” Garron said, and buffeted his squire’s shoulder, nearly sending him to the ground to land on his own spit. “I am an old hound to you, and Aleric yon is a veritable graybeard.”

“No graybeard there,” said Gilpin, his voice cocky, his hands on his narrow hips, “since Aleric is bald as a river rock and his chin as smooth as a pebble.”

Aleric waved a fist at the boy. “Well, puppy? Think you I’m an old hound? With my bald river rock head?”

Gilpin gave Aleric a singularly sweet smile. “Oh, nay. My lord is nearly my own age and you, Aleric, you are a wise and generous protector, of no particular age at all. Your head is a beacon to all those who seek justice and hope.”

Aleric shouted with laughter.

Garron shook his head at the two of them. “I shall surely puke.”

Gilpin said, “Nay, my lord, do not since I should have to clean your boots. Methinks the boy is afraid to come out because he saw Pali’s red leaky eyes and believed him the Devil.”

Pali, those long legs of his making him even taller than Garron, gave Gilpin a terrifying smile. “If the boy saw me, Little Nothing, he’d fall on his knees before me.”

“What?” Gilpin said. “You are God, not the Devil?”

Garron said, “Were I you, Gilpin, I’d shut my mouth. It might save you a hiding.”

“Or Pali would wrap one leg around me and squeeze the life right out of my heart.”

“Half a leg,” said Pali, and scrubbed his fists over his eyes. “I can do nothing about my eyes, they turn red with the coming of spring.”

Garron said, “Stop rubbing them, Pali, it just makes it worse. Pour water on your eyes. Now, enough. Let’s leave this place.” His voice deepened. “Let’s go home.”

Gilpin looked around, and said, “I hope the boy will be all right. He had guts. Did you see him kick that hulking brute and bloody his nose?” And he threw back his head and shouted, “Boy! Come here, we’ll take care of you! I’m a boy too, like you, come out.”

A horse whinnied, making Garron smile. “Hobbs, get the villains’ horses. We’ve just increased our stables.” Horses loved Hobbs; he had only to speak in his low musical voice and they came trotting eagerly to him, legs high, heads tossing. In just minutes, three horses were blowing into Hobbs’s big hands.

An hour later, Garron pulled Damocles to a halt. He raised his hand to stop his men behind him and looked toward his home. Wareham Castle, just shy of two hundred years of age, sat like a great fist of gray granite in front of them, a massive sentinel atop the end of a desolate promontory that stuck out into the North Sea. From the sea, Wareham was impregnable; black basalt rocks surrounded the promontory, spearing up twenty feet into the air, and the tide would do the rest, ripping boats apart.

Garron felt an odd surge of satisfaction as he looked at the stark fortress that now belonged to him. It would be his line to call Wareham home, not his brother’s. This was the first time he’d been back in eight long, gritty years.

It was a beautiful spring evening, not yet dark, an early, nearly full moon beginning to climb into the sky beyond the castle walls. Stars would stud the sky tonight, another hour, no more. An evening breeze was warm and soft against his flesh. It was completely unlike that night eight years before when a storm from the sea had raged hard, hurling heavy rain, frigid winds, and a thick curtain of cold fog on anyone unlucky enough to be outside. He’d been sixteen the night he and his best friend, Bari, the armorer’s son, had ridden into the storm, not waiting for morning, only two days after they’d buried Garron’s father, his brother’s words sounding stark in his ears, “There is nothing for you here, Garron. You are strong and you have a brain. ’Tis time you made your own way.” He’d never forget the moment he’d turned in his saddle for a final look at Wareham. The black clouds had suddenly parted, the swirling fog had lifted, and he’d seen the castle outlined by a hit of lightning, stark against the black sky, an eternal beacon, and he’d wondered bleakly if he’d ever see his home again in his life.

Well, he was here now, but Bari wasn’t with him, hadn’t been since he’d choked to death, coughing up wads of blood so many years before. Wareham Castle and all its surrounding towns and farms were his, his legacy, his future, his responsibility.

I
have surely vomited up my guts on the ground.” Merry moaned the words into the soft, soundless air, so weak and shaky she didn’t yet try to move. At least the fighting was over, her captors dead, except for their leader, Sir Halric, Jason of Brennan’s man. She lay not twenty feet away from her saviors, tucked beneath leaves in the hollow opening of an oak tree, listening to them talk, praying they wouldn’t come after her. In truth, she might have answered when their leader had called out to her, but she was vomiting from the clout on the head that huge man with his smelly beard had dealt her. It hadn’t killed her, praise St. Cuthbert’s padded belly.

She managed to crawl away from her own sickness to lie on the floor of the forest, breathing lightly, waiting for her innards to settle and her head to stop pounding. She remembered their laughter. Surely they couldn’t be bad if they laughed so much. But how could she know? To jump from a boiling pot into the flames, it would be just her luck. And so she’d kept her mouth shut, too afraid to do anything.

The large man dressed all in black—he was a young man, strong and hard, and he had saved her. She’d watched his knife plunge through the man’s neck, and she wished in that moment she’d had the knife and done the throwing. She didn’t know if she’d be as accurate as he’d been, but she’d have liked to give it a try. Aye, he’d been very sure of himself, and he’d not doubted his own skill. She liked the looks of him but she knew all too well he could be as rotten as Sir Halric. With men, she’d learned in her young life, one simply couldn’t be sure. As for women, she shuddered, her mother’s beautiful witch face, surely too young, clear in her mind.

It was a pity Sir Halric had escaped, but she’d learned too that evil usually managed to slither safely away, never to die, always to return and wreak havoc.

Such rotten luck. She’d crept out of the great hall, stolen a stable lad’s clothes, pausing beside an outbuilding when she’d heard the soft breathing so close by.

And then the shock of pain in her head and she’d heard nothing else. She’d awoken soon thereafter to find herself a prisoner, thrown over the legs of a huge, smelly lout whose hand lay on the small of her back, holding her steady.

When he’d seen she was awake, Sir Halric called a halt. He told her who he was and said he was going to give her a rare surprise, and then he laughed. “A different destination for you, lass, and a surprise for all. What luck, and all because of me and my quick brain.”

“Your quick brain had nothing to do with aught,” she’d whispered, and thought he’d clout her, but he didn’t. Surely he was going to give her over to Jason of Brennan. What did he mean about a different destination? With her spate of bad luck, whatever his plan for her, she knew it wouldn’t be good.

Life was not fair.

But now everything had changed.

Three men were dead, but Sir Halric had escaped, curse the fates. What would he do? He was running for his life away from the young warrior, this Garron, she’d heard his men call him, so Sir Halric probably believed she was with him, believed she was now safe. He’d lost, he’d lost. She fancied she would turn those lines into a fine song.

She came up on her hands and knees, her head down, breathing slowly, waiting for her belly to settle. She slowly raised her head, waited for the dizziness to pass, and looked around. She could ignore the headache pounding over her left ear. It would be dark soon. She wasn’t more than ten miles from Valcourt—not that it mattered, because that was the last place she could go.

Valcourt was no longer her home, not since her mother had come back, not since she’d brought Jason of Brennan. She wondered what the king would do now that there was no male heir, that there would be no male heir after what had happened. He’d find her a husband, that’s what he’d do, mayhap a man as rotten as Jason of Brennan.

Once the king’s man arrived at Valcourt, what would her mother say about her daughter’s disappearance? She’d lie, of course.

Merry felt tears burn her eyes and blinked them away. After all, she was not at this moment being forced to wed Jason of Brennan. She was alive and free, all but one of her captors dead. Surely that bespoke a benign God. Surely that meant her luck had changed.

Now all she had to do was survive. And she would. She wasn’t a helpless girl, she was a boy. What’s more, she could read and write and make lists, and she would survive.

Her father was dead. She felt again how his hand, squeezing hers so tightly, had suddenly become limp. She’d known the exact moment he’d died. She swallowed tears. She would grieve later.

She’d never forget the young warrior’s name—Garron—he’d saved her life. All right, he’d saved a boy’s life, but he need never know the difference. She’d heard of Wareham Castle, who hadn’t? It wasn’t as large as Valcourt, but still, it was of great strategic importance, she’d heard her father say once. Why not go there? She could hide herself easily within those massive walls, mayhap she could assist the steward. Maybe she could become the steward. She dragged herself to her feet, gritted her teeth against the pain in her head, and trotted after the five men.

 

 

 

G
arron couldn’t believe the pleasure it gave him to ride across the drawbridge, horses’ hooves loud on the wood and iron. He looked up at the four large square corner towers, the high stone walls. Wareham Castle, now his.

But wait, where was everyone? Why were there no soldiers lining the ramparts calling down at him? And why was the drawbridge down? With night coming quickly, that wasn’t wise. He threw back his head and yelled, “I am Lord Garron, Earl of Wareham! Raise the portcullis!”

There was only silence.

Aleric yelled, “Raise the portcullis! Your master is here!”

Still silence.

He felt sudden fear, cold and heavy. Something was wrong, very wrong. Then he heard a shaky old voice call out, “Are you really the new Earl of Wareham? Are you really young Garron?”

“Aye, I am Garron of Kersey. Who are you?”

“I am Tupper, my lord.”

By all the saints’ hoary elbows, old Tupper, Wareham’s porter since long before Garron was born, he was still alive? “Have men winch up the portcullis, Tupper.”

“There’s no one save me here, my lord, but I can do it!” Garron heard the sudden grit in that old voice.

Hobbs said, “Is that old varmint as ancient as he sounds, Garron?”

“Older.” Tupper had been stooped with years and worry and very few teeth in his mouth when Garron had seen him last eight years before.

No one was by the portcullis, save Tupper? But that made no sense. What was going on here? His fear grew. He and his men watched, amazed, as the old iron portcullis slowly rose, the sound of the chain loud in the still air. Somehow, Tupper had found the strength to turn that huge winch. Tupper managed to winch the portcullis high enough for Gilpin to crawl under. After a moment, the portcullis winched up smoothly, the huge chain flying upward. When Garron rode into the outer bailey, he saw Tupper, scrawny as a dead chicken, staring hard at him. Then he shouted, a lovely full-bodied yell that reached the North Sea. “Young Lord Garron! Aye, ’tis you, my boy, ye’re home at last! Oh aye, ’tis a wonder! Bless all the saints’ burned bones!”

“Aye, ’tis I, Tupper.” As he spoke, Garron was searching the outer bailey for danger, but he saw only what should be there—the barren strip of land twenty feet wide with rusted sharp spikes stuck up three feet into the air, ready to shred an enemy if he managed to get over the outer castle walls. If the enemy managed to get across those twenty feet, he was faced with another high stone wall and another iron portcullis.

Tupper cupped his mouth and yelled at the top of his aged lungs, “Eller, winch up the portcullis! ’Tis Lord Garron home again! Aye, I know it’s him! We’re saved!”

Saved?
It was nearly full dark now, dark clouds thick overhead, hiding the stars. Garron saw nothing but shadows. His fear fair to choked him now.

Damocles felt his tension, snorted and reared. Garron leaned forward to pat his neck. “We’re home, lad. Go easy, we’ll find out what’s happened quickly now.” They waited for Eller, the armorer, Garron remembered, to winch up the smaller portcullis, then rode single file into the vast inner bailey, ringed with soldiers barracks set into the walls, an apple and pear orchard fenced in to the side, a large space for the kitchen garden, pens and byres for the animals, stables for the horses, all dominated by the huge stone keep that rose forty feet into the evening air. His keep.

But there were no people in the inner bailey, an area that should be mad with activity any time of day. There were no lights pouring from the keep, no voices, no screaming children, no flocks of chickens squawking and flying about, no dogs barking their heads off, no cattle lowing in their sheds, no pigs rutting and snorting about in their byre.

He didn’t see a single soldier. He didn’t see any sign of life at all.

Garron dismounted slowly, handing Damocles’ reins to Gilpin. There wasn’t a single lit rush torch anywhere he could see, only dark shadows, grim and thick. It was utterly quiet, as if everyone within this vast keep was dead, and he and his men and Tupper and Eller were the only ones alive, and their hours were numbered. He heard Gilpin draw in his breath, knew his men were becoming more alarmed.

Suddenly he saw several shadows move in the darkness.

He called out, “I am Lord Garron. I am home now. I mean none of you any harm. Whoever is here, come out now. Tupper! Eller, come to me!”