Part 13 (1/2)
He glanced at the stairway for a moment.
”Your appearance here, and my naming you to them, has heartened them mightily,” he said. ”But there may still be some faint hearts among them. If you stand with them, none will dare skulk off, hoping by hiding to at least prolong their lives by a few moments or an hour.”
”It is a strange train you have about here, Sir Mortimor,” said Brian. ”Without offense, Sir Mortimor, I seem to gather that these men of yours are lions one moment and mice the next.”
Sir Mortimor shrugged.
”What would you?” he said, still in a low voice. ”It is their nature in these parts. They do nearly all things for profit; and if there is no profit, then they think only of their skins. Honor is but a word, except to those who are great men among them-as Sala-ad-Din was during the First Crusade, or Baybars, who won the battle at 'Ayn Jalut.”
He turned abruptly and led his way down the stairs. Within moments he had separated out those he wanted to join him in a charge on the outer door, and those who would stay with Brian and Jim.
”Keep the inner door open for us, messires!” he called to Jim and Brian over the heads of those around him, as they cl.u.s.tered facing the opening revealed by that same door right now. He turned to face the open pa.s.sageway and lifted a long sword in one large hand high over his head. ”With me, children!”
He ran forward into the pa.s.sageway and they ran with him. Jim and Brian, standing near the front of those who were left behind, watched as they swiftly approached the door, which was now smoking visibly around its bottom edge.
”Use your swords!” he shouted at those about him. ”Lift the bar that way. It is too hot to handle!”
The foremost men obeyed. The heavy bar was pried upward out of the iron sockets that held it firmly to the stone on either side, and tumbled to the floor.
”Now!” roared Sir Mortimor. ”Open it!”
The mice had become lions. Fearlessly, more than half a dozen men threw themselves bodily at the door, which must be even hotter than the thick piece of timber that had been barring it. They fell back, only to have others throw their weight against it, and gradually the door opened with jerks, obviously pus.h.i.+ng a considerable load of the burning material piled up against it A spear flew through the opening from the other side, and Sir Mortimor's long blade caught it in mid-air, cutting it in half and throwing the parts aside before it could pierce one of the packed bodies behind the knight. Bowmen and slingers at the back of Sir Mortimor's attacking group began to send their missiles in return through the opening, and no more spears came.
Meanwhile, bit by bit, the door was being forced outward, opening an ever larger gap as the fire beyond was pushed aside. Finally, there was room for a man to slip through-and one did, followed by others as swiftly as they could, while the rest shouted in wild triumph and threw themselves even more heavily against the burning door.
Suddenly the door gave all at once, its lower half breaking off, and a couple of men falling directly into the flames beyond. If they screamed, their voices were lost in the general uproar; for immediately the rest of Sir Mortimor's fighters were going out, either through the open gap or over the broken half of the door like hurdlers.
Clearly, there had been only a small party tending the fire and guarding it in the wooden pa.s.sage that had been built almost up to the door. Those guardians were now suddenly in flight, with Sir Mortimor's men after them like hunting hounds who had already tasted blood.
The men with Jim and Brian stirred, talking, moving toward the pa.s.sageway, now eager to be in on the fight.
”Hold!” shouted Brian.
They hesitated, then stopped; looking at him, and then quickly looking away again. Clearly they still wanted to rush to join their fellows around Sir Mortimor; but from the way their Lord had talked about these two knights, perhaps that would be imprudent. Brian now had his naked sword in his hand, holding it up over his head in plain sight; Jim drew his and held it up likewise. The two blades shone and the men stood still.
”Messires!” came the voice of Sir Mortimor. ”Come forward to me- alone!”
The last word was added as, once more, the fighters around Jim and Brian began to move toward the pa.s.sageway. But they stopped at the sound of Sir Mortimor's last word. Brian and Jim went forward alone.
”You see what they have built,” said Sir Mortimor, sheathing his sword, as they came up to him. ”A fine platform for using a battering ram, if the fire did not work for them, and a roof over all. I wonder that they should build so quickly-but then, they are seamen; and seamen are used to making such things, quickly, on order. Though Beaupre did say that the number of hides they have covering this structure suggests they flayed more goats than they would find in my village alone. What do you think of it, gentlemen?”
Jim and Brian looked about at it. Neither had anything to say. What they saw was simply a long, roofed shed made of wood and heavy cloth, stretching out and backward from the castle door on a level with the top step of the stairway. Its farther end was open; but there was nothing to be seen there but darkness, with stars above, and-far below-some flickering lights among the still-standing structures of the village.
”I will have my men start to tear this down, before those below can get more people up here. We will use the timbers to barricade the front door from the inside,” said Sir Mortimor. ”Also, we will take away the goat hides, so any future advance on the castle will not be protected from fire. Sir Brian, you offered yourself earlier. Would you go up and take charge of the watch from the top of the tower right now? Sir James, I have nothing to ask you at the moment. Perhaps you will think of something yourself-or you might even wish to join Sir Brian at the top of the tower. I will be up there shortly, as soon as barricading the door is well underway.”
”I will be glad to hold the tower,” said Brian. ”James, will you accompany me?”
”Yes,” said Jim thoughtfully, as they turned away from Sir Mortimor, who had already started to turn away himself to give orders for the dismantling of the structure and the scattering of the burning embers of the fire. Jim and Brian went up the stairs, climbing them side by side, in silence. Once they reached the floor that held their own room, they both turned toward it without needing to say anything to each other.
”James,” said Brian in a low voice, once they were inside with the door closed, ”Sir Mortimor thinks only of holding his castle until these pirates grow tired of attempting it, and sail away. That is not the way to deal with a situation like this. He should be thinking of ways in which he can attack and defeat these who have come against him.”
”If you say so, I'll believe you,” said Jim. ”I've got a lot more faith in you than I have in anyone else where it comes to fighting.”
Brian looked embarra.s.sed.
”That is a kind thing to say, James,” he said. ”I know not if I truly deserve it, considering that Sir Mortimor has had war experience; and I, in any real sense, have not. But I have had experience with castles attacked, and the attacking of castles, and I vow I am right. But it warms me that you should take my word for it so easily.”
”It shouldn't,” said Jim. ”I wouldn't have ventured a guess that way myself; but the way you think sounds better to me than the way Sir Mortimor is obviously thinking. I'll think along the lines you've just mentioned, myself; and tell you if anything comes to me. Is that all right?”
”Nothing could be better, James,” said Brian. ”Now, shall we go up to the top of the tower?”
”You go ahead,” said Jim. ”I'm going to try to get hold of Hob, and see if he can't go out and spy over the enemy territory for us. I think if I call him through the fireplace that he's used to us being close to, he'll hear me; even if he's in another chimney. I'll join you at the tower-top as soon as I talk to him.”
”Good,” said Brian.
He went out.
With his going, the room suddenly seemed unusually empty. Jim looked around himself. It was a small room, not too clean, now lit-but poorly so-by the flames of what was unburnt of the fuel in the iron basket of the cresset on one wall. Beyond the wide arrow slit, or window-whichever it was-the blackness of night still showed. Yet it must be getting on toward dawn. Also, it was cold.
Jim looked at the fireplace. It, like the cresset, had burnt down to the remains of its fuel. There were some pieces of glowing wood; a few of these were putting out feeble flames, but not throwing much in the way of heat-an unthinkable situation in any inhabited room of Malencontri during cold weather.
Equally, it was something he had never encountered as a guest in any other castle or ecclesiastical building where he had been a guest.
Happily, some extra wood had been left by it; although it was equally unthinkable that someone of Jim's rank should have to feed the fire in his own fireplace, except in an extreme emergency. Jim thankfully put it all on the embers; and they were hot enough so that the flames licked up freshly.
It would be some time before the cold stone walls warmed up, but the very sight of the fire was warming and he could feel some heat on his face as he leaned down toward the fireplace opening and called into it ”Hob!” he shouted. ”Hob, would you come here, please?”
The words were hardly out of his mouth before Hob's face appeared upside down peering into the room under the top edge of the fireplace opening.
”M'lord!” he said, and popped out into the room, to sit cross-legged on a waft of smoke that seemed to pour endlessly forward from the fire, but vanished completely an inch or so beyond Hob, so that Jim did not even smell smoke.
”I suppose you know what's been going on, Hob.” said Jim.
”Oh yes, m'lord,” said Hob cheerfully. ”I know all about what's been going on here and just about everything else as well.”
”I see,” said Jim.
”You're looking tired now, m'lord,” said Hob, concernedly examining Jim's face. ”And you've still got that sad look. I wish you'd let me take you for a ride-”
”I'm sorry,” said Jim. ”There just isn't time for that now. Look, Hob, I was going to ask you if you could leave the castle and go down and look around the village below, where those men are who're attacking this castle. Do you suppose you could do that-ride the smoke and just sort of listen at the walls and look around and things like that?”
”Oh, I've already done that,” said Hob. ”There's nothing to it. I go up on smoke here and ride it down there; and then I can go anywhere I want from their fires in their buildings, coming out the smoke holes at the top. They don't really have fireplaces there, m'lord. They've got sort of a hole dug in the earth and they build the fire in that. There's no stone floors there. Just dirt.”
”That's excellent,” said Jim. ”In that case, you can probably tell me what they've been talking about.”
”Talking about, m'lord?”