By Sylvian Hamilton (28 page)

Hugging
himself, trying to ease the misery of loss and fright, Hob huddled in
the alcove wondering what to do. He wanted to go home; his
grandfather would be glad to see him, and he'd be safe there; hungry
and cold, but safe. The devil wasn't after him. But what about the
girl? Suppose he let her out of her prison? What could she do, where
could she hide? Suppose ... suppose Hob took her with him?

There
was a new bright bolt, fitted by the lady's orders to the garderobe
door, but Hob could reach it. He touched the child's hand. She was
asleep, poor wee cold thing, and didn't move. He squeezed the small
hand and touched her gently on the cheek. Still no reaction. He saw
the bruises and welts on her thin arms and on her soft throat, and
made a little shocked pitying sound. He watched the rise and fall of
her breathing, wondering how to wake her.

Wake
up, he called desperately inside his head. Wake up! Wake up!

Gilla
opened her eyes on Hob's anxious tear-smeared face. A boy. The boy
who brought her food and peats for the fire. She didn't know his
name.

'Who
are you?'

He
touched his lips, shook his head and made his sound, a soft grunt.

'Are
you dumb?'

He
nodded vigorously and smiled.

'Have
you come to take me home?'

He
nodded again, thinking he'd sort 'home' out later. Getting her out of
here was enough to be going on with.

'Be
off with ye. Go on, get oot!' The harassed cook, furious at this
invasion of his steamy domain, laid about him with a heavy ladle,
clouting heads, shoulders and elbows indiscriminately. Damn the
beggar-brats; they were supposed to wait at the gate until the cook
sent a scullion with yesterday's trenchers and any other leftovers.
For some reason, today they had taken it into their stupid heads to
run in through the gate and across the bailey to the kitchen door,
half-terrified at their own daring.

'Ye
wee skemps, I'll skelp ye! I'll set the hounds on ye! Oot! Oot! Oot!'

Yelping,
they ran like a pack of grey and brown rats in their dirty sacking
hoods and ragged shirts towards the gate, dodging the laughing guards
who pretended to chase them. But one man, sharper of eyes and wits
than the rest, noticed that while eight had run in, ten were running
out.

'Shut
the bloody gate!'

Hob's
hideout, his secret refuge from the fears and torments of his silent
childhood, was about three miles from Skelrig amid the small
clustering braes, where rocky outcrops and deep narrow burns broke
the bare hills. He had spent much time there in his short life.

Hob
was seven years old when his father died, and his uncle, a tavern
keeper in Dalkeith, claimed him for an unpaid slave. Hob's
grandfather, his mother's father, objected strongly, but Uncle Willie
bore him down, wore him down--the old man was frightened of the
bellowing giant--and one morning Hob was put up behind his uncle on a
tall bony horse, silently weeping. His uncle was a bully who, by
noon, had earned the boy's hatred. He slapped him till his head rang
and shouted at him as if, being dumb, the boy must be deaf as well.
Mid-morning, the fat man dismounted, pissed noisily against a rock
and ate an excellent packed meal by himself, giving the child
nothing. Mid-afternoon, when he stopped again and disappeared behind
a tree, Hob took to his heels.

His
hidden place was a small cave in the rock wall above a deep-cut burn,
only gained by a desperate scramble upwards after following the
stream bed for some way. It could not be seen from above at all and
was well off any beaten track. He stayed there a full week while his
furious uncle raged and searched, and finally gave up, riding back to
his tavern alone.

Hob
had meant to bring Gilla here. They'd have been safe, at least for a
while.

He
believed in the elven-folk, but he also believed firmly in the power
of iron which they dreaded. In the past couple of days he had brought
as much small scrap iron, stolen from the smithy, as he could carry,
his chief pride and defence being a rusty length of chain which, like
Lord Robert, he laid out in a protective circle. Several horseshoes
and little heaps of nails reinforced his defences, and he had built a
small stone hearth, now crowned with an old iron pot lacking its
handle, likewise pilfered from Skelrig. He had also fetched a great
heap of bracken and grass for some warmth and comfort.

Now
he burrrowed into it alone, a small animal crying quietly as he made
his nest. He'd failed her. He'd done his best and he'd failed. The
gates had slammed shut before they could get through, and the man who
had shouted had picked Gilla up by her hair and carried her,
screaming, back into the tower. Hob and the rest had been knocked
about a bit but there were no orders to hold on to them.

This
place was safer than his grandfather's hut in the will. If the bad
people realised what he'd done, they would look for him there. Food
was the first necessity, but Hob had been catching fish by hand in
the burns since he was three years old and he was a dead shot with
sling and stones, able to knock a squirrel out of a tree and even
bring down a bird on the wing. Flint and steel he had. He would not
starve.

Hob
slept briefly, twitching and whimpering in his sleep like a puppy,
but when he woke he knew what he was going to do. His stomach twisted
with fear when he thought of returning to the tower but the bad
people were up to something and, whatever it was, it would be done
soon; no one would leave a brazier and coals lying about outside for
long. It would be very soon, perhaps even tonight.

The
lass was wee but brave. He could be no less brave. He must go back.
If he got the chance, he would slip inside. If not, he would wait and
watch until he could.

'How
far now to Skelrig?' Straccan asked.

'Eight
leagues or so,' said Blaise.

'Then
what?' Miles asked. 'We five can neither siege the place, nor storm
it.'

'I
hope it will be a simple matter of exchange,' said Straccan. 'I have
his relic. It is his, bought and paid for. He has my daughter. One
for the other.'

The
old knight's expression was bleak. 'When you have her, what then?'

'I
will kill him.'

Chapter
33

Unlike
Lord Robert, whose sleeping conscience had been inconveniently jolted
awake by murder, de Brasy didn't care who suffered, as long as it
wasn't him. While still with Soulis he must obey, and if that meant
more killing, what the hell. It would make no difference, anyway. He
didn't expect Al-Hazred's filthy ritual to have any more effect now
than before; for all the old devil swore he could draw upon the power
in the Nine Stane Rig to ensure success this time.

That
was the trouble with the Arab. He had promised success this time
both times, and had explanations for each failure. The stars were
against them, other influences opposed them, the place was wrong, the
time was not right, even the bloody wind had changed!

How
the master could still believe in the old fraud was beyond de Brasy's
understanding. They had tried his great ritual at Soulistoun--that's
where the stars were against them--and at Crawgard--that was the
wrong place--but never mind, third time lucky. They would try again,
this time in the Nine Stane Rig. Soulis had read in some old book
that power was often concentrated in ancient stone circles. He bought
old books, manuscripts, letters and documents from all over the
world. Agents in Bristol, Paris and Marseilles, Rome and Nuremberg,
Valencia, Athens, Egypt and Jerusalem, sent him antique parchments,
papyri, clay tablets and linen scrolls. He and the Arab pored over
them. Most were rejected as rubbish, but now and then some scrap of
ancient lore was discovered that promised to be useful.

Al-Hazred
found the summoning ritual in a crate of crumbling clay tablets from
Outremer, and at Soulistoun they tried, and failed of course, to
tempt a demon with new-spilled blood--the blood of hens and
lambs--for the ritual demanded blood without saying what kind. But
the blood of birds and beasts did not coax a demon into the lead and
silver cage prepared for it. And then, for the first time, the master
turned upon Al-Hazred and struck him in his rage and disappointment.
De Brasy saw the Arab's face slack with astonishment and sudden fear,
and the quickly-veiled glare of hatred in his lightless black eyes.
If looks could kill ...

De
Brasy would never have drunk anything offered by anyone who looked at
him like that, but once again the master allowed himself to be
placated, and swallowed the Arab's prescribed potion 'to restore My
Lord's spirits, to comfort My Lord in his disappointment'.

To
polish My Lord off more like, thought de Brasy, awaiting developments
with interest. But he was wrong, this time. Restored and comforted,
Soulis listened, nodding dreamily as Al-Hazred poured the soothing
oil of his plausible explanations. What they had offered, he said,
was not precious enough. The demon scorned the blood of soulless
creatures.

So
next time, at the winter solstice at Crawgard, they offered blood and
souls.

There
were a few nasty moments when, in the disorienting haze of incense
and smoke from the powders and herbs the Arab burned, de Brasy
actually thought there was something there, shadowy hints of a
dreadful ever-changing shape, trying to form. Urged on by Al-Hazred,
they tried to capture it with an orgy of slaughter, but to no avail.
It faded away, leaving them with nothing but the stink and what was
left of the bodies. But this Nine Stane Rig was a place of power, of
ancient sacrifice, where blood had been offered to the old dark gods;
and the master was all the more determined to go ahead tonight, since
the special child who was to be their offering had almost got away.

'Such
purity. An innocent soul, a fledgeling seer. The perfect offering,'
Soulis gloated.

'Even
so, it would be as well to have more than one,' Julitta said.

'There
are plenty of neyf brats in the will. Take one of them.'

'Common
stuff.'

'Their
souls are probably every bit as innocent as hers,' said Julitta
tartly. 'Send de Brasy.'

De
Brasy shivered. Tonight in the Nine Stane Rig they would try again,
and he had a nasty feeling that, in spite of all his careful
planning, his stolen gold, the ship waiting at Leith, something was
about to go wrong. In his bloody eventful life, he had learned to
trust the uncomfortable sensation of cold feet.

'We
still lack one relic,' Julitta said.

Lord
Rainard gnawed his lip and touched the necklace he wore, a heavy
silver chain from which hung a number of small reliquaries. 'True.
But I have all the others, except Thomas's finger. I don't believe
that just one missing will matter in the end. If the Arab cannot
control the demon, we still have the protection of ten great saints.
Even Peter,' he sneered, 'against whom the gates of hell cannot
prevail!'

He
passed the little reliquaries through his fingers like rosary beads,
lingering over the one which held a knuckle-bone of Saint Peter. It,
and the relics of the other disciples of Christ had been collected
over several years at enormous cost. Next to a relic of Christ
Himself, those of His disciples were the most powerful, sure and
certain protection against the being from outer darkness which the
Arab swore he could summon.

There
should be eleven relics: one of each true disciple. Even so, ten
great saints would surely suffice to keep him safe, and compel the
demon's obedience. Providing it was first fed and satiated.

'There
may be something in what you say, My Lady.' He turned to de Brasy.
'Get a child from the will. Let no one see you. After tonight,' he
added triumphantly, 'nothing will prevail against me!'

Not
for the first time de Brasy wondered what was so desirable that Lord
Rainard would be willing to traffic with hell for it. It had
something to do with letters he wrote to, and received from, France
and England. The bitch Julitta's husband, the Earl of Arlen, was in
it, and others of King John's lords--de Cressi, de Vesci, FitzWalter
and Mowbray among them--even the king of France, Philip Augustus,
whose seal de Brasy had seen on some of the letters. If he could
read, he would have known all.

Overnight,
a cold grey North Sea haar had rolled inland, settling as far west as
Selkirk and pouring over the Eildon Hills in a dense gloomy torrent.
Here to stay.

About
ten miles from Skelrig, Straccan and his companions saw it ahead and
gave a collective groan.