SirenSong (20 page)

“There is sense in what they do,” William responded
judiciously. “Wales has fewer people and they are not as well armed as we. They
have few horses and are not trained to fighting on horseback. This mountainous
country gives them easy shelter from which they can fall upon us and retreat to
safety. Why should they risk losing all? I understand their practice worked
well in the past. Why should they change? We must hope they are grown a little
rusty. Otherwise, we will be ‘til winter chasing will-o’-the-wisps and gain
nothing.”

“Well, I certainly do not desire that,” Raymond said,
laughing, “so I had better get about preparing our surprise.”

William watched Raymond stride off purposefully and smiled.
A real fire-eater that one, but sensible with it. It was a pleasure to see a
young man enjoy a war so much. William’s smile broadened as he realized he was
feeling much better himself. Nothing could assuage the pangs of love like the
prospect of a good fight. His eyes grew thoughtful. He had a clear report on
the village and felt he knew just where to make a stand safely until Mauger
could bring up reinforcements and, if necessary, the main army could arrive.
Now all that remained to do was confirm where Mauger would lie hidden and from
what direction he would approach the village. They had discussed it already,
but a last-minute review of plans never hurt.

The truth was that the matter had not been as fully
discussed as it should have been. Ridiculous as it was, William felt
embarrassed to accept Mauger’s support when he was Mauger’s wife’s lover. Yet
he could not object when de Bohun had suggested Mauger. It was a most logical
choice that longtime neighbors and friends support each other. Moreover, de
Bohun wished to give his favorite squire’s father a chance to distinguish
himself. William gritted his teeth over his distaste and began to walk toward
Mauger’s encampment. He had stolen enough from the man. He would see that
Mauger got all possible credit for the action if it was successful.

Chapter Ten

Somewhat earlier than he had intended to start, William
watched the men he would lead form up. He was still chewing over the peculiar fact
that Mauger had already been gone when he went to discuss the disposition of
the troops with him. Mauger had not forgotten or become confused about the
action, that was sure. A man had been left in the encampment with a message for
William confirming all the plans that had been made—only the man was sick and,
William feared, not too clever either.

“I do not like it,” Raymond said, as William gave him some
last-minute instructions. “Why should he go off like that?”

“Eagerness,” William replied. “You know, Raymond, Mauger has
very little experience of war because the abbey usually pays a fine instead of
sending men. You saw that he was wild with joy when Hereford proposed this
action to him.”

It was true, and Raymond said no more as he signaled the
troop to start, but he disliked Mauger even while he realized the cause was
ridiculous. There would have been more sense in disliking Aubery, but Raymond
did not dislike Aubery, quite the contrary. In any case, he did not care
whether this trick worked on the Welsh or not. He would prefer the war to
continue. When it was over, he would have to decide about Alys, but there was
plenty of good fighting weather left.

Mauger, sitting comfortably with his back to a tree, was
contemplating the same fact with great pleasure. There was plenty of time to
accomplish his purpose even if this trap did not work. It would certainly
reduce the number of men in William’s troop, and that would increase William’s
vulnerability. If not this action, then another—but William would die.

With the end so clearly in sight, Mauger was content to
wait. He would be sweetly revenged, not only on William but on those two women.
Imagine that slut of a girl saying she did not think it proper for her to marry
Aubery because she did not love him as a woman should love a husband. And that
ugly, sexless bitch of a wife—she would be well served.

Thinking about the women always made Mauger so angry that
impatience stabbed him again. That man had too much luck, too much. Imagine a
dog getting the goose. Then Mauger sighed. It was not William’s luck that had
saved him but his own. That goose had been a stupid move. Someone would surely
have whispered “poison”, and questions would have been asked. And that
loose-tongued idiot of a son might have… Well, the question would never arise
now.

Still, William had been lucky to get out of that brawl. No,
that was not so much luck as the stupidity of the mercenaries, or of Egbert. He
had given his fool of a man a good knock for not telling them specifically that
they should not act unless William was unarmed, but they should have known that
themselves. It was the mail that had saved him. And who would expect men to be
“practicing” at arms in the middle of a war? That last escape from the arrow
was plain luck though, but the luck must be growing a little thin. The arrow
had caught him in the arm.

There was no use regretting it, Mauger told himself. It was
a good idea, but this way was really much better. This time should do it. All
that was necessary was to come too late, and he had set himself up as a sitting
duck for attack. He was pretty sure that the Welsh knew the whole plan, the
prisoner he had allowed to escape spoke French pretty well. And if William was
only wounded, it would be most natural for his friend and neighbor to carry him
off the field to safety. One more wound would never be noticed, and William
would be dead before any leech saw him.

William’s troop approached the village with care, as a
raiding party should, but the truth was that their eyes and ears were more
attuned to the woodland beyond the small fields than to the village itself.
Their personal experience and the hearsay evidence of men who had fought the
Welsh in the past was that the ambushing party would come from the woods after
having ascertained that the troop was not too large to attack safely. What was
more, the signs of recent habitation gave, to their suspicious minds, the
implication that an attempt was being made to fix their attention on the
village itself.

Inside the huts of the outermost ring the men found skins
lying on the floor as if thrown off a sleeper, stones and ashes still warm from
where a fire had died. William nodded at this information. Obviously a few men
must have been at the village watching to see if the bait would be taken.
Unfortunately the signs could also easily mean the trap had been abandoned when
news of Mauger’s movement was received. William signed for the worn and filthy
skins and a few dented and cracked drinking vessels and bowls to be collected.
It was scarcely the kind of loot worth taking, but it was all they were likely
to get.

They moved in toward the center of the village. There was
one house finer than the others and the large barn they intended to fire as
their signal that they were under attack. Near the house were storage sheds and
a few neater huts, probably the homes of upper servants. William had kept the
troop well together up to this point, sending small groups with Raymond to
investigate each hut while the others waited. Now, however, he had to allow the
men to act as if a fever for loot had seized him and them.

It made William very uneasy to relax control over the men,
but he knew it was necessary if he wanted to draw out the ambushers.
Reluctantly he gave the order to disperse. Raymond led about one-half the troop
to the main house. The others broke up and ran toward the huts. Within minutes
a cry rang from one of the nearest. William’s hand flew to his sword hilt, but
there was no sound of a fight and the man, made honest by surprise, rushed out
to display a ring he had found. It was a cheap, brass thing, but it was worth a
few mils.

It was amazing that such a thing should be left behind.

Before William could comment, two more shouts of success
rang out, one from the house and another from a hut at the far end. One thing
he had not considered was that the Welsh might be clever enough to leave a few
things of value. It did not need to be much. After the long period in which the
men had no extra reward at all for the fighting beyond their pay, any trinket
would be likely to raise a feverish hope of more valuable loot, which would
make them reluctant to stop searching and thus slow to obey orders. And the
devil was in it that he dared not call them to order now, before the trap was
sprung. Any indication of special wariness on his part might well cause those
lying in wait to melt away into the woods without attacking.

A man had run out of the house now and was speaking
excitedly to Raymond. He gave an order William could not hear and then looked
uneasily toward the barn, which was to the northeast of the house.

Another few minutes passed. William swept the perimeter of
the woods with his eyes. By rights, the trap should be sprung now. The men were
all dispersed and intent upon their search. There was another yell of joy from
the huts. William looked around as far as he could see. Still nothing, but the
barn blocked his view. He touched Lion with his heel and moved toward the barn.
His eyes flicked over it, but not with a very searching scrutiny. The doors
stood wide, as they had been left when the stock was driven out. The upper
doors, through which hay was loaded, also were open.

William’s eyes were already moving past the barn toward the
new strip of woodland border he could now see when that second set of doors
stuck in his mind.

He turned his head for another look. Open? For what? There
were no sheaves lying ready to be raised. The first haying was in ricks, the
second growth of hay was still standing uncut in the fields. He could see it.
Why should the loading doors be open when there was nothing to put in or take
out?

“Arnald!” William bellowed, turning his head toward the
huts.

Simultaneously, he lifted his shield away from his body to
draw his sword with more ease. Everything happened in that moment. There was a
thrumming. Lion screamed and reared. William screamed also, as pain lanced into
his left shoulder and his right side. He struggled to control his destrier, to
bring him down, but it was too late. More arrows flew from the treacherously open
doors. Caught in the throat, Lion plunged to his knees, blood pouring from his
pierced jugular. Instinctively William pushed his legs forward to counteract
the angle, and both stirrups broke, pitching him over the horse’s head before
the animal toppled over on its side.

The peculiar accident saved William’s life. Rather than
being pinned under Lion, he was able to roll free. Then it was possible to
crouch behind the horse’s body with his shield over him. This kept him from
being finished by another shower of arrows. William realized that he was a dead
man if he could not rid himself of the long arrow shafts. One would prevent him
from swinging his sword, the other from holding his shield close enough to
protect him.

Balancing his sword on his knees, he gripped the shaft of
the arrow in his shoulder and pulled. Tears burst from his eyes and he bit a
bloody gash in his lip. Worse than the pain was the knowledge that the effort
had been useless. He had felt his collarbone give with the pull. The arrow was
lodged. Even as his mind accepted this his hand had pulled down sharply. That
time he screamed again, but the shaft broke short.

There were other voices now. War whoops from the Welsh,
shouts of consternation and warning further away. Sobbing with pain, William
gripped his sword again, bent his head lower to keep it under the shield, let
go the handgrip, and grasped the second arrow shaft. There was no reason in
what he did. If he could have thought beyond his own agony, his mind would have
told him he was going to die anyway and it was irrational to inflict further
pain on himself.

Habit ruled, however. The long years of training had
imprinted patterns on him, patterns that taught him to ignore pain, to continue
fighting as long as he was capable of moving at all. Without much conscious
volition, William’s left hand pulled sharply on the shaft. Black swirled before
his eyes as the flesh tore, and his head dropped still lower. A yell of triumph
sounded somewhere above him. He released the loose shaft of the arrow to fumble
blindly for the handgrip of his shield. He knew it was too late to lift the
shield and ward off the blow, but he hardly regretted the coming stroke that
would sever his head from his body and sure all ills.

Bent over as he was, William did not see the Welshmen
pouring out of the barn, racing around toward the troop, which was occupied
with looting. Those in the buildings had not heard his shout, but a few who
were running from one hut to another did hear, and Raymond had heard. Thus, the
victorious yell of the man who paused to finish William turned into a shriek of
pain. Dimly William heard the nervous snort of a war-horse, the thud of hooves
as the animal was curbed down from a rear. Then a strong, young voice was
roaring, “À Marlowe! À Marlowe!”

William found his handgrip. The blackness that had been
threatening to engulf him receded as the piercing agony in his side dwindled to
an ache. William was not deceived. He could feel the blood running down under
his already-soaked shirt and tunic. He did not have much time. Then a shield
hit his. A hand grasped the mail on his shoulder ungently.

“Mount, my lord! Mount!” Raymond urged.

“No,” William gasped. “I cannot.”

He levered himself to his feet with Raymond’s help, and the
young man cried out when he saw the broken shaft still protruding from his
shoulder and the flood of blood on his right side. The arrow he had torn out of
his flesh was still caught in his mail, the shaft banging against him as he
moved. Before he could speak again, two more of the Welsh were at them. He
thrust Raymond’s shield away, grunting with pain but pleased that he could
still protect himself. One man, unwary because William had seemed half dead a
moment before, was killed with his first swing. The other fell to Raymond’s stroke
while still watching William.