the Walking Drum (1984) (28 page)

"Leave it there," my father said. "If I ever hear it has been taken down, I shall come back to see you. Do you understand?"

Tournemine, his jaw stiff, struggled for the words. "I understand," he muttered.

From that day forward, each time he returned from a voyage my father inquired about the table, and each time it was reported to be in position. Tournemine, day after day, had to face that table and stare at that which remained a mute indication of his limits, his smallness. Only when my father was reported lost at sea had he taken it down; only then dared he raid to the westward.

"If we cannot enter through the postern," I said to theHansgraf, "there is another way. I have seen Johannes throw a spear. If he could throw one over the wall with a line attached to the middle of the spear, one of the lighter men could go up the wall carrying a heavier line."

"Exactly," Peter agreed. "If the falling spear did not alarm them and if it caught across an embrasure."

"It is worth a try," von Gilderstern agreed.

Slowly, shadows gathered. Darkness surrounded the trees under which we stood, and pressed in against the walls of the fortress. Fog drifted in from the sea, covering the lower valley.

How many men would be inside? Not many, for Tournemine had little to fear in this corner of Brittany. It was doubtful if he had even been threatened since my father went off to sea.

Ours was an old, old land and had known many changes, its people evading trouble when possible, prepared to fight when it was not. The Celts had come six hundred years before Christ, it was said, to mingle with people already present.

The great stone monuments, the megaliths, and dolmens were already in place and had been so for centuries. There were tombs here that were more than a thousand years old before the first pyramid was built in Egypt. When the Romans invaded they defeated the native peoples one by one, the Namnetti, the Redones, and the Veneti. Finally, in 407 B.C. the Romans left, and raiding by pirates began. In 460, the Celts, who centuries before had gone to England, returned to give the land its name of Brittany. They had returned from Great Britain to Little Britain where many of the King Arthur legends took place. Through all changes the people tilled their fields, fished the wider fields of the sea, and fought when the need arose. It was a harsh land and bred the kind of men to whom the wastes of the sea were an invitation rather than a threat.

When fear chained the mariners of Florence and Genoa to their narrow seas, the Veneti and their kindred had long sailed the dark waters of the Atlantic. The Irish monks whom the Norsemen found waiting for them on Iceland were only a few of those who ventured upon the far waters. Many of the Bretons had become corsairs, as it was a richer living than tilling thin soil or fishing.

Rain began to fall and I donned my helmet. Peter was standing beside his horse, and Johannes came to take the bridle of his.

TheHansgraf said, "Bring the prisoners to me." When they stood before him, features faintly visible in the darkness, he addressed them. "You have said the postern is easily entered? Your lives may depend on what happens in the next few minutes."

"I am sure of it!" the fat man protested. "If I could speak to the guard-but there is not always a guard."

"Lucca, take ten men. Scratch on the postern, and if there is a reply, let this man identify himself. If he does more, kill him.

"Peter, take Johannes and ten men who are agile and go over the wall. Whoever is first inside, swing wide the gates."

We moved into the darkness, muffling the sound of our going. It was a somber, frightening time as seventy armed men moved down a grassy slope and across the valley, our armor glistening from the rain. The fortress walls loomed dark and ominous. We saw no lights, hidden by the walls. How many awaited us? Ten? Thirty? A hundred?

My face felt the rain upon it. For the last time? I breathed deep of the damp, cool air, felt the firmness of my seat in the saddle, the good feeling of the sword hilt in my hand. There were no stars, only the glint of rain-wet metal.

How still the night! Where now was Aziza? Where Sharasa? And Valaba?

Did my mother lie warm in the earth? Did she know I rode to avenge her? Did she realize how often in the still hours of the night I thought of her? How I wished I might have been there to defend her, saved her perhaps, or died beside her?

Did she know I loved her still? If the dead live only in the memories of those they leave behind, then she would never die while I lived. I had not seen her die and for that I was grateful. To me she yet lived, only apart.

We rode to war. What matter if only a small war? Is the blade less sharp? The arrow less deadly? My blade this night would avenge not only my mother but my Arab teacher and all the others Tournemine had slain.

I am not a noble man. I am not really a brave man. I fight because the blade is my business and I have no other. Perhaps I fight because of the fury that comes over me when I am attacked. My motives are often less than they should be. I fear I am sometimes a trickster and a conniver, but, I told myself, tonight my blade would draw blood in a good cause.

What other choice was mine? I was a landless man, and there was nothing lower, nothing less vulnerable. One was attached to a castle, serving some great lord, or one was nothing. We merchant venturers, we were the first of a new kind of man, creating a new kind of wealth.

We drew up, shivering a little, for the night was damp and chill, and stared up at the walls, which were very high. Guido, who had gone to the main gate, returned. "Tournemine is here. They came back before us."

"So be it. The attack goes forward." We moved down, side by side, no whisper between us. I glanced at Johannes with his spear. What had seemed a simple feat suddenly grew large and dangerous, for the wall was high, the outline of the battlements difficult to make out.

Johannes stepped down, and we cleared his line for him. He held the javelin, sighting at the wall, then he took several quick, running steps and threw it hard and high into the night.

We waited, holding our breaths, but there was no sound. Johannes took up the line and pulled on it until it was taut. The spear had fallen inside and was now caught across the embrasure, a lucky stroke, as it might have come through the embrasure point first.

Peter tied the heavier line to his waist; then taking the line in his hands, he began to walk up the wall. There was still no sound from within. Were they waiting for us with drawn blades?

Peter disappeared into the darkness above, and suddenly his line slackened and the heavier line shook with his signal. Instantly, I grasped the line and went up, hand over hand. My acrobatic training proved its value, and I climbed swiftly.

Almost at the embrasure I heard a gasp, then a body fell past me.

Swinging through the embrasure, I glimpsed Peter down on his face, whether dead or wounded I could not guess, and then a half-dozen men ran along the wall walk toward me.

There was no use being quiet now. I let out a savage yell: "A Kerbouchard!" And sprang at them. My shout startled them, that unexpected but feared cry stopped them where they stood. The shock of that cry saved my life. I was closer behind Peter than expected, and that cry, so unexpected after all this time, brought Tournemine's men a shock. My blade leaped at them, and a sword came to meet it. I was in a desperate fight with the three closest men, but the walk was narrow, and all could not reach me at once.

Behind them and from the postern, which opened on the castle yard, there was a shout and a clash of blades. Again the men facing me faltered, and my thrust went by the blade of the nearest man, taking him in the throat, above his breastplate.

He went to his knees, interfering with those behind him. Again I shouted, "A Kerbouchard!" The old war cry of my father's men. It seemed to strike fear into those opposing me. I pushed forward, thrusting and slashing, and then Johannes was beside me.

He swung a great loop over the men before me and jerked it tight. One fell, another, his arm pinioned, could not lift a blade to stop mine.

Now our men were swarming over the wall, and from the yard I heard the great gates creak open. A fire sprang up, and someone tossed brush on the flames. Beyond them, firelight dancing on his scarred face, was my enemy.

Tournemine stood in the doorway of the keep, staring at the fight in the castle yard as if he could not believe what was happening. A glass was in one hand, a bottle in the other.

"A Kerbouchard!"

Down a ladder I went, and Tournemine sprang back and tried to close the door, but my shoulder struck it, and he fell back. I followed him through and faced him, at last.

"You are not he," he said; "you are not Kerbouchard."

"I am Kerbouchard, and you carry my mark on your face."

His fingers went to the scar, then dropped to his sword. "So I shall kill you at last!"

"No, Tournemine, I shall kill you. You have taken down the table."

He went white to the lips. How that insult must have rankled! How many nights he must have stared in hatred at the table he dared not move, that evidence of his submission, of his weakness.

Yet now he was confident. I was only the boy he had seen escape across the moors. He came at me, a smile of contempt on his lips, and I began with care, for he had the reputation of being a swordsman.

He turned my blade and lunged, but I parried his blow, and for an instant he was out of position. I could have killed him then, but his quick death would not satisfy me. So I struck him on the side of the face with the flat of my blade, a ringing blow that staggered him.

My taunt was deliberate, and in a burst of fury he came at me, and I was fighting for my life. Desperately, at times almost wildly, I fought off his rush. He nicked my wrist, narrowly missed my throat, and moved in steadily. Suddenly, I shifted my feet, feinting as I had been taught in Cordoba. He reacted instantly, according to pattern, and my point touched him over the eye. I felt the point touch bone, and blood showered over him. He drew back and I moved in, trying for his throat.

There was bleeding from my wrist, and I was afraid the blood would make my grasp of the hilt slippery. Outside, there were sounds of fighting, and we might yet be defeated, for the men of Tournemine must now outnumber our own small force.

How long did we fight? Who had the better blade? Up and down the room we fought, but then my constant training began to tell, the hours of training, the tumbling and acrobatics as well as my time at the oar. Also I saw that my Moorish tricks bothered Tournemine, for he knew them not. To simply kill him was not enough. He must taste defeat, savor it like bitter ashes in his mouth. I wanted it there in his teeth. I wanted him to know, this man who murdered my mother, killed our family servants, and destroyed our home. I wanted him to taste defeat.

So I pressed Tournemine harder, relying upon the Moorish style of swordplay. My point touched his throat, drawing blood; then slashing down swiftly, I nicked his thigh. His steel mail prevented me from running him through the body, narrowing my target.

Coolly, deliberately, I began to teach him what he did not know. Sweat beaded his brow, mingling with the blood that trickled into one eye and down his cheek. "You should keep to killing women, as you murdered my mother. You will die soon, Tournemine, and when you do I shall sink your body in theYoudig quagmire of theYeun Elez."

He had lived in Brittany and knew theYoudig was believed to be the entrance to Purgatory and that the bodies of traitors and evil beings were cast into its bottomless sinks.

His face paled, but his eyes flashed with hatred. He lunged at me, but I turned his blade and laid open his cheek.

The doors opened, and Johannes entered with Guido. Their blades were sheathed. So, we had won. Have done then I decided. I feinted, but Tournemine's wrist had tired, and his point came up too slow to parry. I ran him through the throat and let my mother's murderer slide off my blade to the floor.

TheHansgraf entered. "Was that the man?"

"Yes, that was the man."

Remembering, I asked, "Peter? How is Peter?"

"Sore wounded and like to die. That is why I have come for you. If there is help that will save him, do what you can."

"Johannes? I want the body of Tournemine. I want nothing else from this place. Only that body." So I turned from the dealing of death to the saving of life, anguished at the little I knew of healing.

Tournemine was dead; Peter must live.

Chapter
28

My way led westward and south to complete my vow, so I drew off from the column and watched them pass, the body of Tournemine across the saddle of my spare horse. Peter von Gilderstern lay in a litter between two horses, his wounds bandaged. He had lost blood, but I had given him salt water to drink, which was good for shock, we believed, and helped to replace lost blood.

They would return to their caravans and then proceed to the fairs. When I disposed of the body of Tournemine, I would hope to join them.

"Allow me to ride with you," Johannes suggested. "I would share your trouble."

"No, this task is my own. I ride alone." So I watched them go, driving the cattle, the sheep, and horses packed with the loot from the baron's fortress. When they were but a thread of darkness on the road, I took my way.