Part 8 (1/2)
”But shall we forget all that, gentlemen, and go back downstairs? I could do with a cup of wine; and I imagine the two of you could too.”
They followed him away from the bright sunlight down into the shadowy interior of the castle and back to the same table at which Jim had met him, sitting with Brian when Jim arrived. They took benches, and mazers of wine were put before them. Jim noticed with interest that his original mazer, from which very little of the wine had been drunk, had been taken away-the wine almost certainly drunk by one or more of the servants back down in the kitchen.
”But,” said Brian to Sir Mortimor, once they were seated, ”if the brown dog was indeed a Djinni, then maybe he could get in here without being seen, or without coming by the normal route through the doorways. They use magic, don't they?”
”Oh, yes, yes,” said Sir Mortimor. ”But it was no Djinni, of course. What would a Djinni want here-”
He was interrupted by possibly the one thing about the castle as penetrating in sound as his own voice. It was a sudden outburst from the gong being beaten on top of the tower. There was a scurry of footsteps running down the stairs toward them, and one of the lookouts burst in, even while the clamor continued overhead.
”My Lord! My Lord!” he shouted. ”They are here. They are almost on us. They rode around the two headlands, one galley around each just now. Within minutes they will be beaching their craft before the village!”
”By the Wounds!” exploded Sir Mortimor, leaping to his feet and oversetting his own br.i.m.m.i.n.g mazer of wine on the table. ”Can't a Christian gentleman have a moment of peace in his own house?”
He glared at the messenger, who was standing white-faced before him, reached absently for his own mazer, discovered it had spilled and picked up Jim's instead, tossing it off in what seemed to be a single swallow. Rather a good trick, Jim thought, considering the mazer must have held close to a full pint of wine.
The gong was still going mad overhead, and Jim's ears were beginning to ring. He saw Sir Brian's lips move, but did not hear what the other had said Sir Mortimor's voice, however, rose through the din without any difficulty.
”Front doors opened for villagers!” he snapped. ”Slingers and bowmen to the top of the tower. Run!”
The messenger scuttled down the stairs toward the lower levels of the tower.
”Could that gong be silenced now. Sir Mortimor?” Brian shouted through the din. ”Surely everyone in the castle has heard it by this time!”
”The villagers must hear too. Come with me, gentlemen!”
He stepped to the stairs, almost knocking into eternity a bowman who was hurrying up them at the moment; and went on up, two steps at a time, leaving Jim and Brian far behind as they began to follow, Brian behind Jim simply because Jim had been closer to the stairs to start off with.
”I am naked except for my poignard,” puffed Brian in Jim's ear. ”It is well you have half armor and your own sword on, James!”
It was true. Jim had been wearing the sword, simply because, as a knight traveling, it was unthinkable that he should go without it. His half armor, which consisted of a chain mail s.h.i.+rt and a steel cap, he had worn as a natural traveler's protection. The men who had met him as he stepped out of his boat after getting here had not taken the sword from him-possibly because it was unreasonable that he could have overpowered the dozen or so of them even with it. In fact, Jim suddenly realized, he was getting so used to the weight of the sword and the armor that he himself had forgotten it when he was introduced to Sir Mortimor.
”You better go down and arm and armor yourself then, Brian,” he said over his shoulder. ”I'll tell Sir Mortimor-”
”No, no,” said Brian. ”It would not be polite. Our host should have told us if there was need for us to dress for any trouble.”
”He may just have forgotten,” said Jim dryly. His opinion of Sir Mortimor so far was still something of a question mark. ”If it turns out that swords are needed, Brian, I'll pa.s.s you mine. You can make better use of it than I could.”
Brian made some kind of noise that sounded like a protest, but both he and Jim were too out of breath trying to catch up with Sir Mortimor to talk much further. Also, just about then they emerged onto the roof.
Already there were some three or four other men who had rushed up the stairs from below at the first note of the gong. One of these was the bowman who had almost been brushed into the air shaft by Sir Mortimor. Jim had come up expecting to go immediately to the edge of the battlements and look down at the invaders; and that Brian would do the same thing. Instead, both of them had halted where they were, their attention riveted on a man who was coming down a long rope, like a spider descending on his own thread from a ceiling; only in this case the rope came down from an outcropping of rock on the overhanging cliff behind the castle, the top of which looked as if it could be reached only by birds or angels. Sir Mortimor was standing wide-legged, looking balefully at the approaching man.
”Why didn't you see them?” snarled the knight, as the man's feet touched the top of the tower.
”Crave pardon, m'lord,” said the man. ”They must have hugged the sh.o.r.e in their galleys-at least enough so that the headlands blocked my view for several miles. They may even have slipped in to sh.o.r.e under darkness last night and been waiting until now to come close.”
”Hah!” said Sir Mortimor. ”Well, in any case we have them here now.”
Even while this brief conversation had been going, men had been pouring up the staircase onto the roof.
Jim counted only three bowmen. But there were a number of others; thin, dark-faced men, slim-bodied and not too tall for the most part. They seemed unarmed, unless the large, bulging pouches at their belt contained some kind of weapon.
In addition, there were other men coming up who were plainly unarmed, but had their arms full of rocks, which varied from the size of a baseball to the size of a small cantaloupe. These they were piling close to the battlements on that side of the tower that faced the beach and the village below.
Brian had already gone over to those same battlements to look down at the invaders. He was standing beside Sir Mortimor, who had also turned his attention in that direction. Jim joined them. Below them the zigzag road up to the stairs leading to the castle's now-opened door was crowded with people carrying various things, ranging from an ax to sacks holding unknown contents.
The two galleys that had been mentioned were just now turning in, prow-first toward the beach. It was clearly their intention to come in as close to the land as possible. Indeed, they checked themselves and anch.o.r.ed not more than ten or fifteen feet from sh.o.r.e; and now men were jumping overboard at the prow, landing in water varying from waist deep to shoulder deep, and wading ash.o.r.e. They varied remarkably in both armor and the weapons they carried; but most had a round, obviously wooden s.h.i.+eld, and a curved sword-the latter carried naked in their hand as they reached the sh.o.r.e.
No sooner was one out of the waves than he charged up the beach, shouting as he went, toward the village and those still trying to escape up the road to the castle.
There was no order to the way the attackers came, but very soon a good share of them were on the land and already in among the villages. Jim had expected to see the buildings there go up in flames almost immediately; but they did not. Instead the attackers merely rushed through the structures in pursuit of those trying to escape.
”Slingers!” said Sir Mortimor.
There were still only about half a dozen bowmen on top of the tower, but possibly as many as three dozen of the other men. These lined the battlements facing the beach, reached into their pouches, and drew forth a length of doubled leather thong with a flat leather pad in the middle of it, which had been poked or molded into a pocket. Digging again into their pouches, they came up with dull slugs of some sort of metal. Each at his own rate of speed fitted a slug into the pocket of his thong arrangement, took both ends of the thong and began one-handedly whirling the whole arrangement lightly in a vertical circle, as they gazed down at the beach, the weight of the slug in the pocket stretching the thong arrangement-which was evidently and clearly a sling-to its fullest limits, so that it rotated like a solid wand in the hand of each as he twirled it.
”Never mind any that haven't reached at least to the bottom of the road,” said Sir Mortimor. ”Pick off those close to the villagers. Wait for my order.”
The row of men stood apparently idly whirling their slings. It was not until the first of the attackers were within a few steps of overtaking an old woman who was lagging behind the rest of those frantically trying to reach safety, before he gave the word; and by that time the section of the road that had been left empty behind the villagers was now full of the Moroccan pirates.
”Now!” said Sir Mortimor and all together, as if it had been rehea.r.s.ed, one end of each sling was let go, the slingers leaning forward all together as they released their missiles-and, immediately, each slinger had another slug out of his pouch, fitted it into the socket of his sling and was whirling it again, slinging now as each one was ready.
Down below, the results were remarkable. From this height, of course, the impact of the slugs was soundless and, unlike the strike of arrows, there was nothing to be seen in the way of a shaft with feathers sticking out of the person hit.
”Balearic slingers!” cried Brian with delight. ”They are Balearics, are they not, Sir Mortimor?”
”For the most part,” grunted Sir Mortimor, his eyes still on the situation below. ”They have to be trained from boyhood, like those who use the longbow. But some of these are cheaper, raised closer to hand, and from the standpoint of a castle like mine, it is much easier to stock great amounts of the slugs they throw, than the carefully made arrows a bowman must use, and which usually cannot be recovered when a castle is being attacked and possibly besieged. Also, they have not the range of the longbow, but at short distances like this they are wonderfully effective.”
”Effective indeed!” said Brian.
And so they were.
To Jim, looking down from the tower, it was as if half of the closest pursuers had suddenly collapsed on the ground; and those still on their feet had turned and were in panicky flight back down the road. The rearmost of these also fell; but by the time they reached the bottom of the road, most of the slingers had stopped whirling their slings and were looking to Sir Mortimor for further orders.
Sir Mortimor shook his head.
He had evidently signaled for wine, and someone had brought it to him. He stood with a mazer in his hand, nearly full with the red liquid, but was not drinking from it. There was silence on the tower top.
Down below, however, the invaders were making enough noise for both sides. Looking down from the battlements, Jim could see that most of them had crowded into the little s.p.a.ce between the houses of the village and the beginning of the zigzag road up the slope. They howled and shook their weapons, looking upward at the battlements. A few of them evidently had bows, for arrows flew from among them, none getting any higher than three-quarters of the way up the tower before hitting the stone sides and dropping back.
”Not surprising, that,” said Brian, watching beside Jim. ”Hard to judge the distance to your mark looking so sharply up hill as this.”
Sir Mortimor sipped at his mazer.
A few more arrows lofted into the air high enough to fall harmlessly onto the tower top. Minutes went by, and gradually the noise below dwindled and dwindled until there was silence there as well. Then a strong voice shouted alone.
”English knight!” it called. ”Sir Mortimor, I know you are there. I am Abd'ul Hasan, and these are all my men. You cannot hope to hold out against us. I would speak with you. Sir Mortimor. English knight.