The Orphan King (15 page)

A
s they began the journey across the narrow finger of land to the drawbridge, Thomas watched as William began to drag one foot and work enough spit into his mouth so that it drooled from his chin.

A huge lattice wall of wood meshed with iron bars hung head high above the first opening past the drawbridge. Each iron bar ended in a gleaming spike.

“Not good,” William whispered. “Someone cares enough to maintain those spikes in deadly order. An indication of how serious they are about security.” He motioned his head briefly at the shadows of two men standing at the next gate at the end of the stone corridor that ran between the portals. “All those soldiers beyond need to do is release a lever, and those spikes crash down upon us like a hammer of the gods.”

Thomas held his breath. The gate remained in place as they passed beneath.

William maintained his whispered commentary as he trudged and leaned heavily on Thomas. “Look above and beside. Those slots in the stone are called ‘murder-holes.’ Designed for spear thrusts, crossbow arrows, or boiling liquids from hidden passages on the other side.”

Thomas tried not to wince.

With his dragging foot, the knight tapped a plank as wide as two men imbedded in the stone floor. “It drops to a chute, probably straight to the dungeon.”

The knight took two more slow and weary steps, then paused, as if for rest, just before earshot of the two guards. He spoke clearly and softly from the side of his mouth in the dark corridor as he wiped his face in pretend fatigue.

“Thomas, the outside defenses of this castle are as fiendish and clever as I’ve seen. It does not bode well for any man’s chances on the inside. There is only you and me. Something impossible like this.” William hesitated and lightly touched the scar that ran jaggedly down his cheek. “You may still turn back with honor. And live.”

Thomas felt very young as he stared at the broad shoulders of the first soldier at the gate.

Night after night in the darkness of the abbey, lying on a straw bed during his waking dreams of glory, it had seemed so easy. Now, in the harshness of the sunlight and the dust and the noise of the village beyond the stone-faced soldiers, it seemed impossible. Not even the solid presence of William helped.

The guards blocked a narrow entrance cut into the large gate. Dressed in brown with a wide slash of red cloth draped across their massive chests, each stood as straight and as tall as the thick spears they balanced beside them.

“Greetings to you,” William said in a hopeful, almost begging tone.

The guards barely grunted to acknowledge the arrival of the newcomers. Thomas forced himself to look away from the cold eyes of the soldiers.

Suddenly, the guard on the right whirled and tossed his spear sideways at William.

“Unnnggghh,” the knight said weakly. He brought his left hand up in an instinctive and feeble motion to block the spear that clattered across his chest. The effort knocked him back, and William sagged to his knees.

“I beg of you,” he moaned as spit dribbled from the side of his mouth. “Show mercy.”

The soldier stood over him and studied the knight’s dirty cloak as William cowered.

Thomas remembered William’s earlier advice about the advantage of an enemy who underestimates. And he remembered a passage from one of his precious hidden books, a thought written by the greatest general of a faraway land who had lived and fought more than fourteen centuries earlier.

One who wishes to appear to be weak in order to make his enemy arrogant must be extremely strong. Only then can he feign weakness.

Thomas grinned inside. He felt fractionally more confident than he had upon approaching the gate.

Finally, the soldier sneered down at William. “Mercy indeed. It’s obvious you need it. Get up, you craven excuse for a man.”

William wobbled back onto his feet. The spit on his chin showed flecks of dirt.

“Lodging for the evening,” the knight pleaded. “We are not thieves. I am but a worker seeking employment to support my family.” He gestured at Thomas and the other two, as if they were his children. Then fumbled through his leather waist pouch and pulled free two coins. “See, we have money for lodging. We ask no charity of the lord of the manor.”

The second soldier laughed with cruelty. “Make sure it is cleaning and slopping you seek. Not begging, as it appears.”

The first soldier kicked William. “Up. Get inside before we change our minds.”

William howled and held his thigh where the soldier’s foot had made a sickening thud. He hopped and dragged his way inside the gate without looking back to see if Thomas and the two children followed. Thomas pushed Tiny John and Isabelle ahead of him.

Not until they had turned past the first building inside did William stop. He waited and watched Thomas with a proud chin and guarded eyes.

Thomas did not let him speak.

“Artfully done,” Thomas said. “By using your left hand instead of the right when he threw that spear, you made it impossible for them to guess you are an expert swordsman.”

William motioned for them to continue walking. “I like this less and less,” he said in a low voice. “When I showed those coins, I expected greed would force the soldiers to demand a bribe for our entry. They did not.”

Thomas raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Corruption shows weakness, Thomas. We are now inside, and everything points to unconquerable strength.”

T
homas usually slept lightly. Years of constant awareness in the abbey had taught him to do so. Here, in strange lodgings, with a fortune of gold hidden in his leather pouch, he expected even the slightest shifting of movement would have pulled him from slumber.

He woke as first light nudged past the wooden crossbeams of the crude windows high on the dirty stone wall of the stable where they had found shelter and was surprised to discover Isabelle gone. Somehow she slipped away without his notice.

Thomas did not stop to wonder why his first waking thoughts—and his first waking glance—had turned to her.

At least a dozen times each day, Thomas realized that only the girl’s poor rags and intermittent spasms had hindered grown men from staring at her with open admiration. Her role as a deaf-and-mute girl seemed more and more like a good strategy to defend herself.

Thomas rose to his feet.

“She’s gone,” he blurted, noticing William awake beside him.

“She is indeed,” William replied. “It happens that way.”

“That’s it? You care so little about her that you make a vague philosophical statement like that?”

“Shall we start searching for her?” William asked as he stood and stretched away his sleep. “She’s gone by her own choice. If we find her, are you going to drag her back and force her to be with us like a prisoner?”

“No,” Thomas lied. “I don’t care that much.”

Thomas adjusted his clothing as a way to struggle through an ache he couldn’t explain.

Tiny John merely sat up, hunched against his knees in his corner position, and grinned at the world.

I’m in Magnus
, Thomas thought.
With a task that threatens my life, will test everything I have been taught, and demands that I use every power available to me. Yet my mind turns to sadness. How could that have happened?

Isabelle pushed open the door by walking backward through it. When she turned, the bowls of steaming porridge in her hands gave obvious reason for her method of entry.

She looked shyly at Thomas and smiled as she offered him a bowl, saying nothing.

I shall conquer the world
, Thomas finished in his mind.

“The walls of Magnus contain no mean village. There must be nearly five hundred inside,” William said. “I’m surprised it has no fame outside this county.”

And I’m more surprised
, William thought anxiously,
that there was so little traffic on the road during our approach. The enemy has so thoroughly taken Magnus that the entire countryside appears to be in its power
.

He did not voice his worry. It might not have mattered anyway, as it appeared Thomas was not listening. He was too busy staring in all directions to reply. If the boy had been raised in an abbey in the countryside as he said, William could imagine his awe. No village could compare to this.

Already the clamor in Magnus was at a near frenzy.

“Fresh duck!” a toothless shopkeeper shouted as he dangled a bird by the feet in one hand and waved at Thomas with the other. “Still dripping blood! And you’ll get the feathers at no charge!”

Thomas smiled politely and pushed ahead of the knight. Tiny John and Isabelle followed, staying close to William. Shops crowded the street so badly that in occasional places, crooked buildings actually touched roofs where they leaned into one another. Space among the bustling crowd was equally difficult to find.

William scanned the buildings for identification. There was the apothecary, marked by a colorfully painted sign displaying three gilded pills. He made a note to remember it. The potions, herbs, and medicines inside might be needed on short notice. A bush sketched in dark shades—the vintner, or wine shop. Two doors farther along, a horse’s head—the harness maker. Then a unicorn—the goldsmith. A white arm with stripes—the surgeon-barber.

There was a potter, a skinner. Shoemaker. Beer seller. Baker. A butch—butcher.

William grimaced and pulled his foot away from the puddle of sheep’s innards that had been thrown into the middle of the street. Butchers did their slaughtering on the spot for customers and left behind the waste for the swarms of flies already forming black patches on nearby filth.

“Where is it we go?” Thomas called.

“A stroll,” William said. “I have a few questions that simple observation should answer.”

At the end of the first street, they turned left, then left again to follow another crooked street. It took them away from the market crowd and past narrow and tall houses squeezed tightly together.

“Well, Thomas,” the knight said, “is it all you expected it to be?”

“As long as we are able to continue to walk freely,” Thomas said, “how much danger can there be?”