Swords From the West (33 page)

"Nay-" Hugh laughed-"to tell the lady."

"Dog!" The strategos thrust his chin forward. "Thou art in need of a lesson. Thou art one of the band of accursed crusaders who have plundered the Tower of the Ravens. Thou didst linger too long, and came forth upon us. Now thou thinkest to open a way of escape, by a smooth tongue."

The minstrel's brown eyes grew bleak.

"Even a dog will warn a woman of peril-but as for thee, thou art baying like a cur with a pack at thy heels."

The face of the strategos darkened and his teeth gleamed between his thin lips.

"This maid in my charge is Irene, daughter of the Comneni. I will teach thee to kneel to her."

He spoke a word to his men that Hugh did not understand. The one nearest pulled out his short sword suddenly and slashed at the minstrel's leg below the knee. The Provencal turned at the flash of steel. His hand was on his sword hilt and in a single motion he snatched the long blade clear and parried the soldier's cut.

Another man struck at his left leg and he leaped back until his shoulders met the courtyard wall. The Byzantine soldiers followed him up, and one thrust a long spear at his knee. Hugh lifted his arm and slashed down, and the steel head flew from the shaft. So they meant to bring him down on his bleeding legs!

But the shining body of the girl Irene pushed between two of the swordsmen and she stepped before the Provencal.

"Away from me, ye sons of slaves!"

The soldiers hesitated, and looked to their lord, who held out his hand to the young woman.

"Eheu, daughter of the Comneni, I wished to cut down this vagabond before thee, but if the sight of blood likes thee not, allow me to bear thee into the castle."

"The Tower of the Ravens is mine still!" Irene clenched her hands at her sides and her gray eyes blazed. "And I will give the orders, despot."

The noble raised his brows and glanced at the assemblage, and Irene became more angry at his silence.

"0, I see well that not a man of mine is here, my lord, captain of the Immortals. Nay, even my waiting woman lies sick at Nicea upon the way. These are thy men and they will obey thee, I suppose. But I am not pleased to have this wanderer mauled like a penned wolf within my wall, and so thou wilt command thy weapon men to stand aside and open a way for him."

"Whither?" The strategos smiled.

"Into the castle. I will speak with him, alone."

The strategos bowed, sweeping both hands to his helmet-but he was still smiling.

"I hear, and by the gods I would obey. Yet this-wanderer-holds a sword and, being a caged wolf-"

"Nonsense!" said Irene calmly.

The strategos started, and muttered under his breath something about a mad vixen. But he turned away, speaking to the Byzantines over his shoulder. Hugh waited until they had drawn well apart from the wall before he followed Irene across the moat bridge and into the entry hall of the castle. Nor did he sheathe his sword.

And after a moment he noticed that the stout eunuch, Mavrozomes, came with his wand to stand by the gate, while other men appeared within the shadows of the other door. Only one candle was still burning, at the rim of the fountain in the center of the hall, and here Irene seated herself. She glanced around at the mutilated walls and brushed back the hair from her temples.

"0 that I had the power to do something! Now, thou must tell me the truth. Who sacked the castle?"

Hugh met her eyes fairly, though the blood pounded through him. So straight and slim and lovely she was, to be looked upon.

"Lady Irene," he answered, "I have told what is true. Yet this will I add-I came hither to raid the tower, not knowing it was a woman's hold."

"Alone?"

ay.

Hugh bethought him swiftly of his men. The Byzantines outnumbered them three to one, and he had no mind to let the strategos learn where his Normans waited. There might be peace between the crusaders and Byzantium, but it was a wolf's truce.

"As to my men, they matter not. I found the tower as I have said."

For a moment her eyes were intent upon him, as if she could probe the soul within him.

"What is thy name?"

"Hugh of Dol."

"Then I thank thee, Messer Hugh, for the service thou were minded to do me. Meseems there is nothing now to be done. Ivan Michael and twenty and four good men, the warders of the castle, my followers, are wiped out and-" she bit her lip that trembled a little-"here am I. And I cannot even save thee thy life. John the strategos has seen to it that thou wilt leave this place only with a knife in thy back to pay thee for thy words in the courtyard."

"Then will I even stay here."

"To do what? Thy time is short."

Going down upon one knee, the Provencal took the girl's hand in his and raised it to his lips.

"To thank thee, fair and brave as thou art, to have shielded me in the courtyard. Without that, I would have been shorter by half my legs."

Withdrawing her hand, Irene gazed down at him curiously.

"'Tis a strange custom, that-to take a woman's hand. Nay, I wished only to question thee and now I have found thy words true. And so thy death will grieve me."

She spoke as simply as a child, and by that same token the Provencal knew that she expected him to fall in his blood that night. But Hugh had seen his father and mother die under the swords of raiders when the castle of Dol was burned, and he had been in straits as bad as this before. The danger did not seem past remedy to him, but the girl's plight weighed upon him, for his nature was quick to feel a woman's need. So the girl and the youth mused while the candle flared and burned lower.

"Thou art not wed to this strategos," he observed presently. "Tell me if thou art here with him of thine own accord."

"Eheu!" Irene Comnena started. "I have never gone anywhere except by my own will-and never before now save with my own attendants. The strategos was kind. He brought me safely from Byzantium over the desert. Not many would have done that."

"I will do more than that."

A veil dropped from her eyes and she smiled down at him.

"And what, pray?"

"I will bear thee from this castle with me."

For an instant she shook her head, amazed.

"The ravens could not do that. I did not think thee mad, barbarian."

"I do not relish this strategos-" Hugh followed the trend of his thought-"for his way with thee. Thou art too youthful to have him for a warder."

"Nay, I am wiser than thee." She smiled. "Always I have been old. I have lived at the court of the emperor, and every day I went in this dress to kiss his knee with the other maidens of the palaces."

"And now, where is thy guardian-a safe place of refuge?"

Irene flung out her arms at the shadows of the hall. She had come hither for refuge. No other had she. A year ago her father had been poisoned-it was said by the emperor's will. No one talked to her about it and she did not know. But the daughters of other patrician families no longer came to visit her, and her kindred avoided her. Her brother had died in the wars of Asia and they had buried him with scant honor, because of the shadow of suspicion that lay on the house of Comnenus, because her father had been an enemy of the emperor, so people said. For months she had kept herself in the great rooms of their Byzantium palace until the servants began to leave and the halls filled with dust. Only the strategos of all her suitors came to visit her, and he had suggested that she go to the summer house of the Comneni, in the hills of the Asian province ...

"So I put on this court dress and did my hair up," she said, "and ordered the horse litter made ready. But the palace slaves would not bear it away, and the strategos had to call his negroes. Now I will stay in the Tower of the Ravens."

It was a grim tale, this, of the girl in the dress of gold-preyed upon by an emperor's suspicion. Hugh did not think she had ever wept, and yet he could see no hope for her in this place. In the dim light of the candle she glittered against the spray of the fountain like a statue in an aged temple. Around her, shadows and watchful eyes. Like himself, she was solitary.

"And the strategos," he mused aloud "is he a favorite of thine emperor?"

"Aye, so, commander of the Immortals, the imperial guard."

"Then meseems he will be the master of the Tower of the Ravens."

"Nay," she whispered, and caught her breath angrily. "I see well that thou art a barbarian-"

"Like this strategos, who has thee in his power."

Her lips quivered, although her eyes were scornful.

"And thou, Messer Hugh, by token of the cross upon thy shoulder, art a very righteous pilgrim faring to Jerusalem."

"Not so," he said gravely. "I am a man who loves thee and who will lose his life if he may not gain thee. Like the strategos," he added.

"Then go, for I will not hear thy words-nay, they will set upon thee in the dark." She pressed her hands against her eyes and shivered. "Do not go."

Hugh, who had taken up his sword, returned to the fountain, and she looked up at him with quiet dignity.

"I have taken thee under my protection and-I may not send a man to the hazard of a knife."

"Mavrozomes hath left his listening post," the Provencal said under his breath, "and for no good; hark to that."

She sprang up, catching at his arm. A man's scream echoed through the corridors. Then a swift uproar of voices. Hoofs clashed on flagstone and steel rasped and clanged.

"What is it?" she cried.

A figure rushed across the hall and out the entrance. The tumult came from the courtyard, increasing every instant, and above it swelled an exultant cry.

"Allah-hai! Allah-hai!"

Drawing her with him to the entrance, Hugh stared at the courtyard in silence. Moslems were swarming into the outer gate that had been left unguarded. They were dropping from the wall, their scimitars in their teeth. And from the gloom-shrouded summit of the wall bows snapped and arrows flew.

"Ahai! Allah 11 allahu!"

Their ululation was the battle shout of Turkish warriors. Into the outer gate swept a group of horsemen crouching behind round shields, tattered cloaks swirling above the bare brown arms and the shining arcs of steel.

The Byzantines had been caught by surprise. They had been unloading the mules and taking the saddles from the horses. Already they were dropping with arrows in them. The negroes ran along the moat, groaning with terror, while the women servants shrieked. Mavrozomes turned this way and that like a bewildered cow and started running toward the bridge that led to the tower. He was fairly on the bridge when an arrow thudded into him and he stumbled. His heavy body crashed down on the boards and lay there clawing with his fat fingers at the planks. Two Byzantine soldiers who had followed him turned back uncertainly, but a fearmaddened slave, torch in hand, leaped the body of the eunuch and rushed at the gate where Hugh and Irene stood.

The Provencal stepped forward and jerked the torch from the negro's hand, thrusting him away from the girl. The man vanished into the darkness, his bare feet slapping through the corridors.

"May the Seigneur Christ aid us!" Irene cried.

The first tumult had subsided, and the men-at-arms of the strategos were fighting stubbornly. Many of them had discarded their armor, and others had not been able to get to their shields. They gathered in small groups, those with shields on the outside, their heavy swords beating down the lighter weapons of the Moslems-but the arrows from the wall thinned them. Before the uproar began again, Hugh shouted from the bridge.

"To the tower! Rally here, at the bridge!"

Some of the men heard and moved toward him. The Turks had come through the far gate and few were near the moat. The strategos heard, because he rose in his stirrups and looked directly at Irene. He had got to his horse near the courtyard wall, with a score of his men, and these few had held their own so far. The rearing horses and long swords held back the desert men, and Hugh saw that the strategos could gain the bridge.

And the young captain of the Immortals shouted to his men, putting spurs to his horse. The other riders closed in about him and, with flailing swords and upraised shields, they crashed through the Moslem horsemen and swerved suddenly, to gallop through the outer gate. Some of the mounted Turks made after them, like wolves on the flanks of stag. Then the hoofbeats dwindled down the mountainside and Irene cried out-

"He hath forsaken us."

Hugh wasted no words on that. His eyes swept the courtyard and he groaned silently. A dozen bold men could have held this bridge while others went for the Normans and secured the rear of the tower-and sent a man to Montevirbo. But only two or three had gained the bridge and the Turks were upon their heels. He and the girl would be beaten down in the rout in another moment. He dropped the torch into the moat and caught her hand.

Pulling her with him, he turned and ran through the dim hall into a corridor that led to the rear. She hung heavily upon his arm, stumbling again and again. He cried at her in the darkness-

"I' God's name, can you not run?"

"My robe is too narrow," she said calmly. "And why should we flee? 'Tis better to face them with light-"

She gasped when the Provencal whipped out his dagger and slashed open the stiff tissue of her dress from thigh to ankle.

"Hold to my belt behind," he whispered, "and do not cry out."

He felt her grip his sword sling, and he went forward with his sword and dagger crossed before him. At the turnings he ran into the wall, but no man met him, although he heard the rush of feet and shouting nearby. Groping through the darkness, he found the rear door and flung it open.

Before him lay the same narrow bridge he had crossed early in the night. He could see it clearly because three Turks were standing in the middle of it and one carried a lantern.

"Keep thou back," he said over his shoulder to the girl. "Nay, loose my belt."

He had only a few moments before the Moslems would range through the tower and come out behind him. The three on the bridge seemed to be a patrol, posted there to cut off fugitives. They waited for him expectantly, one dropping back to hold the lantern high, throwing its light in his eyes. There was scant room for the other two to stand abreast-and this gave the Provencal his one advantage, for he could move a little from side to side. But a long straight sword was no match for two sabers in that evil light.