SirenSong (50 page)

All attention was fixed on the race between William’s
bloody, weary group and the attackers who bounded after them, still hoping to
catch the master of the keep who would then be used to force those inside to
yield. They had no doubt who was their quarry. William was the only man in
mail, and the device on his shield identified him even more surely. There were
fresh men in the bailey also, let down on ropes from the walls when they found
the tower doors barred to them.

The efforts were vain. The last of the defenders leapt up
the stairs with the inhuman energy of finality, toppling into the hall to be
dragged aside out of the way by those waiting. William fell forward, aware of
little beyond the bursting pain in his chest, and Diccon, one step behind
him—the last of all—was in little better case. Fortunately the women of Marlowe
keep were in no need of instructions from anyone.

“Now!” Alys shrieked, grabbing a torch from a wall holder.

Men and women ran forward, shoved hard on the two barrels of
oil so that they toppled forward, spilling their contents down the steps and
rolling down themselves, splashing the walls as they bounded and emptied
completely. As the barrels went over, Alys cast her torch down to the bottom of
the steps, seized another from Elizabeth just behind her, and threw that after
it, and then still another. The stairwell burst into a roaring inferno. One
last torch Alys dropped right on the landing just in front of her feet and
leapt backward barely before her dress caught fire.

As she came in, the heavy door was slammed shut behind her
and its massive bars were set into the broad iron slots to hold it closed.
Still, shrieks of agony could be heard from the stair and forebuilding. Alys
closed her eyes and prayed the cries came from unwary enemies, who had been
close on her father’s heels, and not from their own wounded, who had been too
weak to climb the stairs. The sound died, swallowed by the hungry roar of the
fire. Alys sighed. It was too late to worry, too late to do more than pray for
them, whoever they were.

Martin had gained the safety he sought. He burrowed far back
into a bin of musty last-year grain, heaping it up in front of him as well as
he could. Then he lay still. For a time he heard excited shouts and calls, then
the groans and clanks as the portcullis went up and the drawbridge came down.
After that, the sounds were harder to interpret. He had never been in a similar
situation, but he had heard Sir William talk and guessed that the invaders were
searching for concealed enemies and examining the animals and stores in the
bailey. He ground his few remaining teeth in futile rage, knowing himself
helpless to prevent the despoiling.

Mauger was almost as angry as Martin, although not at the
despoiling of the cattle and other stored foodstuffs of Marlowe. He was furious
because the men had failed to penetrate the keep. A few harsh words were
exchanged with the captains under his orders, particularly because they had not
been quick enough to quench the flames that were now avidly destroying the
forebuilding as well as the stairs, which was the only way into Marlowe keep.

“It does not please me any better than it pleases you,” one
captain pointed out with a marked note of contempt in his voice for Mauger’s
stupidity. “Do you think we do not desire what is within? I tell you the men
did their best. The defense was desperate and well designed. This Sir William
knows much of war.” The captain’s eyes said,
Much more than you
, but all
his mouth gave out was, “I hope he does not have any more surprises for us.”

“He cannot have,” Sir Mauger said sourly, aware that he was
being blamed for underrating William’s ability to the captains. He took a grip
on his temper. “You saw how few men he had. He can do no more.”

The reasoning calmed Mauger if it did not convince the
captain. Really all Mauger cared about was killing William and getting Alys,
and there should be time enough, in spite of Marlowe’s strength, to break it
open. William’s own mangonels and trenchbuts could be turned against him and
those from Hurley added. Mauger thought about ordering the men to begin taking
the devices apart so that they could be moved to new positions, but he curbed
that impulse also.

Tomorrow would be soon enough for that and to begin to build
the platform, which could be rolled against the door to bring a ram to bear on
it. He had promised the men they could loot the keep completely. Let them have
a taste of his willingness to permit them to enjoy the fruits of their victory.
Let them slaughter William’s cattle and have a feast. Let them get drunk on the
beer in the vats in the brewhouse. It would whet their appetites for the
dainties within—the women whom, all except Alys, they could use as they
pleased; he was reserving Alys for himself—the wine in the cool lowest level of
the keep, the fine embroidered cloth—and whatever else they desired.

Having made this announcement without consulting the
captains, with whom he was annoyed and to whom he wanted to display his power of
command, Mauger made a brief tour of the bailey. He nodded indulgently at the
men who were already slaughtering cattle and pigs and chickens and dragging
what vegetables they best liked from the sheds. He ordered his own servants to
set up his tent, choosing the angle made by the stone shed and the wall as its
site because that was safest from any arrows that might be shot from the keep.

There had been a cursory search for hidden enemies, but it
was soon clear that no large force was concealed. The invaders did not care if
one or two servants or wounded men-at-arms were crouched in corners. They could
do no harm and would eventually die of themselves or creep out for food and
water and be discovered. Thus no one did more than stick a lighted torch inside
the door of Martin’s hideaway and peer around.

Not very long after that, the feasting began. Martin heard
the shouts and laughter, which completely drowned the groans of the wounded and
dying. Still he waited. When the light coming in at the open door began to dim,
he dared creep forward, clinging to the deep shadows along the walls. Crouched
in the comer nearest the door, he listened.

He heard nothing of interest for a very long time. The
snatches of talk he did hear horrified him—Martin had no cause to mingle with
William’s men-at-arms, and he had been raised in an abbey. Often enough, the
talk became argument and a captain would shout for peace. Dark came. The
drawbridge was lifted and the portcullis let down. A few men were called from
their revelry and ordered to the walls as guards. Torches and fires blazed in
the bailey.

As the beer in the vats diminished and the marked bones
rolled in torchlight or firelight, there were more and more acrimonious
differences of opinion as to what the marks showing were. One quarrel, quite
near where Martin hid, became violent, and the cripple drew back a little. A
captain shouted, but the argument had gone too far. A blow was struck, and then
another.

“Damn you all to hell!” Mauger roared, stepping out of his
tent. “Have you not had enough fighting this day? Peace, I say.”

He strode into the firelight, past the door of the stone
shed, to apply the flat of his sword to the combatants until their slightly
more sober comrades could get hold of them and quiet them.

“That is enough,” he said to the captain, who had also come
over. “I do not want them killing each other over the treasures they have not
yet won. Put an end to this freedom.”

Since the captains had long since thought it was enough,
they did their best, cursing Mauger’s desire to indulge the men. It took some
time before the torches were doused, the fires allowed to burn away to embers.
All the time it took to restore order, Martin knelt in prayer, thanking God for
placing Mauger so close and letting him reveal himself and begging for the
strength to do what he must do.

Inside Marlowe keep, surprisingly enough, there was little
despair. When the door had closed on the blazing stairs and forebuilding,
Elizabeth and Alys had run to William. They found him on his feet, not far
behind them, breathing hard still but smiling grimly.

“That was well done,” he remarked. “Perhaps I should have
had you two on the walls to give orders to the men.”

“You are covered with blood, William,” Elizabeth said.

“Yes, but most of it is other men’s. I have opened my
shoulder and may have some nicks and scratches I do not yet feel, but I am not
hurt.” He turned and looked at the mass of men and women behind him, huddled
together, too silent, and he smiled. “The first thing is to put some heart into
these ninnies. Come.”

Because people want to believe in safety, William had no
difficulty convincing everyone. Marlowe had never been broken, he pointed out,
and help was on its way. He then gave orders about the care of the wounded and
the disposal of those who died, and ended, “As soon as the wounded be tended
and the dead laid away in decency, we will eat. There will be wine for all, for
all of you have served me well this day.”

That brought a short burst of cheers, and William stepped
down heavily from the bench he had been standing upon, remarking quietly to
Elizabeth, “Yes, and because I have ordered it, they will forget for a while
that they drink wine because there
is
no beer.” He paused and sighed. “I
am tired. My love, once I said I could protect you, but…”

“I am content,” she replied, “and more than content. Must I
remind you, William, that if I had not run to you in my fear and my need, this
would never have happened?”

“Do not flatter yourself,” William said, smiling at her
tenderly. “If what you have said about Mauger is true, you have doubtless saved
my life rather than brought trouble upon me. I own, I never liked him—but you
can guess the cause of that—and I blamed myself for it, and
would
not
think ill of him. Thus, as soon as I denied him Alys, he would have taken me
unaware and slain me. Or if I escaped him, he would have found some reason to
attack Marlowe even if you were meek, mild, and loving as a lamb.”

Elizabeth did not answer that directly, but she was greatly
relieved. Aside from the first moment when she cried out against what she saw
coming, she had felt no guilt, because she knew what William had just said was
true. All that had troubled her was that, perhaps, it was out of love that he
did not blame her for his loss and his trouble. That would not have pleased
Elizabeth. Love, even as great a love as William’s, could be strained by such a
burden. Now she was sure reason as well as love judged her innocent, and she
was truly content.

“Come,” she said softly, “let me unarm you and tend your
hurts, beloved. Then you can rest while I help Alys with the other wounded.”

Lying still, drifting into sleep, William found his despair
was gone. Now that he was recovered from the shock of losing his hold on the
walls, William began to think their chances were not so very bad. Even if
Raymond could not get a writ from the king or Mauger would not obey it, Raymond
was not the type to sit wringing his hands and weeping. He would seek Richard,
and Richard would come. On that pleasant thought he slept to be awakened about
an hour later by Alys.

“Papa,” she said when his eyes opened. “I cannot find
Martin.”

“What do you mean, you cannot find Martin?” William asked
irritably, too aware of his aching body. “Look in the darkest corner of the
chapel. He is always there if he is not in his chamber or the hall.”

“Papa, I have searched that chapel well enough to find every
mouse hole—and I have even looked in those. He is not in the keep.”

“Drat the man,” William groaned, not wanting to believe her,
“he must be below seeing to the stores. Doubtless he thinks every man must now
do double duty. He will do himself a hurt. I will—”

“He is not there!” Alys exclaimed, her voice rising. “I have
searched myself,
everywhere
. I tell you he is not in the keep at all, unless—”

“Not in the keep? Surely he was not on the wall!”

“No. He was here during the battle, praying. I remember
because I thought that if anything could bring us God’s help it must surely be
Martin’s prayers. God must listen to so pure a soul, so cleansed by suffering.
After that, I did not think of him at all until I went to ask him for the keys
to the wine store. Papa, they were in his chamber, on the little table under
his crucifix with a candle lit beside them so that I could not fail to see
them—all his keys were there.” Her voice caught on a sob.

All William could think was that Martin might have left the
keep so that there would be one less “useless” mouth to feed during the siege.
He did not say that to Alys. He did not need to say it. The fear of it was
already in her eyes. Instead he said some meaningless words of comfort.

More practical, Alys asked, “Are there no secret places? No
passages you would not show to me for fear I might be trapped?”

William shook his head. “Only the one you know of. The
tunnel to the river.”

“I have looked there. The outer and inner doors are locked
and barred.”

“He must have gone out during the fighting,” William
guessed, “near the end, when he knew we could not hold the walls. Fool that he
is to add to our grief more than his small stomach could ever keep from our
mouths, but love makes fools of men. Do not despair, Alys. He is very small. He
could hide where a man could not. Perhaps when we come out of here, we will
find him safe.”

And safety was, indeed, in Martin’s mind as he watched the
fires die and heard the voices of the invaders drift away into silence. There
were sounds, however, the wounded and dying moaned and wept. The drunk and
exhausted snored. Occasionally a clink of metal on stone came from the walls where
the guards passed. There was enough sound to cover any small noise he would
make, Martin knew, and he was not concerned that any guard would notice his
movement. They watched only outward.