Part 12 (2/2)
Together the two Templars charged off up the road to the right. Some of the houses were already burning. From somewhere ahead came rending sounds of breakage mingled with screams of distress.
They had come almost abreast of the sounds when the door to one of the houses flew wide, disgorging two English soldiers dragging a disheveled teenage girl between them.
Two more soldiers followed with a second girl, perhaps slightly older than the first, bodice ripped asunder, one breast exposed. Both girls were white with terror, too shocked to put up much of a struggle. The drawn swords of the soldiers were red and dripping with fresh blood.
The sight of two Knights Templar brought the marauding party to a jumbled standstill. Their leader, a big man with a broken nose, gave the pair a broad leer and an elaborately drunken salute, apparently a.s.suming that the Templars were on the same side. Before either Templar could correct that a.s.sumption, a small boy of five or six came hurtling out of the house to fling himself at the rear-most soldier, sobbing in childish fury and hammering ineffectually at the man's armored bulk. The man clouted him with the pommel of his sword and drew back for a finis.h.i.+ng thrust as the boy collapsed to the ground.
”Strike him at your peril, Sa.s.senach!” Torquil bellowed, and lunged forward, sword in hand.
His charge caught the leading pair of marauders off guard. They hurled their captives aside and scattered, leaving him room to attack the two in the rear. A powerful downstroke took the first of his adversaries high on the right shoulder, all but severing the man's sword arm, and he folded screeching to the ground.
The second man backed at once, suddenly dead sober- but when he tried to use his prisoner as a s.h.i.+eld, she came suddenly to life and sank her teeth into his wrist. Bellowing curses, he wrenched his arm away and dashed her from him. A clumsy parry saved him from being skewered on Torquil's blade, but the impact made him drop his weapon and he turned to flee.
At the same time, Arnault dispatched the first of the remaining men with a close-handled thrust through a weak point in his foe's mail s.h.i.+rt, bursting the net links under one arm and penetrating the man's rib cage.
The man collapsed choking, blood frothing from his lips, as Arnault vaulted over him to press the attack on the last ravager.
The first man's demise had given the second one time to plan his attack. The big man sprang to meet Arnault, their swords clas.h.i.+ng in a ringing shower of sparks. Lighter on his feet than his adversary, Arnault spun on his heel, sweeping his blade upward as he did so. His opponent's lunge went wide, and Arnault used that brief advantage to bring his sword cleaving down with killing force on the other man's skull.
He wiped his blade clean on the dead man's cloak, then turned to look for the children. The three of them were cowering in the shelter of the doorway, faces averted to the wall. Ducking briefly into the house, Torquil fetched a blanket and tossed it to the girl with the torn dress.
”Their parents have been butchered,” he told Arnault in a low voice. ”We can't leave them.”
”Then we'll have to take them with us,” Arnault said. ”Let's move on.”
Shepherding the children between them, they carried on up the street, swords still drawn. But as they approached the familiar gateway to the yard of the Lindsay house, they knew they were too late. The gate had been torn off its hinges, and the house beyond was in flames. Of Johan Lindsay and his family there was no sign.
”There's no way to know where they may have gone,” Arnault said bleakly. ”And they could all be dead, in there.” He gestured toward the burning house with his sword.
”Could they maybe have gone to the Red Hall?” Torquil asked.
”The Red Hall?”
”Aye, the guildhall for the Flemish cloth merchants,” Torquil replied. ”Didn't Johan Lindsay deal in wool?”
”Of course!” Arnault paused a beat, thinking, then gestured with his sword.
”The nuns of St. Bride have a house back that way,” he said. ”We'll hope that the English soldiers won't violate a religious house. Take the children there, then make for the English lines and seek out King Edward and his commanders. Use every argument at your command to try and secure clemency for the local populace. If you find Jay, see if you can flatter him into helping you.”
”I'll do what I can,” Torquil agreed. ”Where will you be?”
”Paying a visit to the Red Hall. I gave Johan Lindsay a writ of protection when we were here before.
He's a tenant of the Temple. If he's there, he may appreciate a bit of clout to back up that writ. I'll join you in the English camp as soon as I can.”
Leaving Torquil to shepherd his charges back the way they had come, Arnault set off in the direction of the Red Hall. Every turn revealed increasing evidence of ma.s.s slaughter and an army running amok. The streets leading toward the town center were littered with corpses. The air rang with the hideous din of drunken laughter and rampant looting, punctuated by the roar of flames and the occasional collapse of a burning building.
By the time Arnault came within sight of the merkat cross marking the center of the town, he had encountered hardly a handful of citizens left alive. Those still capable of reason he sent off to seek sanctuary at whatever religious house lay nearest. The rest he was obliged to leave to the care of Providence, while he hurried on in the hope of perhaps preserving the lives of the Flemish guildsmen.
A strong smell of burning met him as he turned into the High Street. In front of him and to the left stood the Red Hall itself, its castellated rooftop bristling with activity. The lower levels of the hall were wreathed with dense, billowing black smoke lit by glimmers of orange flame. From out of the smoke came a hungry, crackling roar.
With a murmured word of prayer on behalf of those inside, Arnault hurried forward. Between him and the hall stood an encircling array of English soldiers, hoa.r.s.ely jeering and brandis.h.i.+ng their swords and s.h.i.+elds. Intermittent flights of arrows came whistling down from the roof of the hall, sowing b.l.o.o.d.y damage wherever they broke through the English defenses, but the smoke was growing denser by the minute as the flames ate their way up the walls of the building, outside and in.
Making the most of his armored height and Templar livery, Arnault shouldered his way through the ranks, sword in hand, until he located the captain in command of the attacking forces.
”What's going on here?” he demanded.
His voice was steel-edged with authority. The captain swallowed a sharp retort when he got a good look at his questioner.
”There's thirty or so Flemish rats holed up in their den,” the man said. ”We've orders to smoke them out, or let them perish in the flames.”
”Have you offered them terms for surrender?” Arnault asked.
”Aye,” the captain said. ”But they threw the terms back in our faces. As far as I'm concerned, their road to h.e.l.l starts here.”
As if in response to this unsparing declaration, there came a sudden catastrophic boom from inside the burning hall. Every visible window was simultaneously etched in flame. The whole building quivered on its foundations, lit up from inside like an alchemist's forge. Then, with another deafening roar, the hall collapsed, burying everything and everyone inside under a mountain of blazing rubble.
A shock wave of hot air swept the street, raining fiery cinders down on the neighboring buildings. The English soldiers turned and bolted, diving for cover into alleys and doorways. Arnault was driven into retreat along with the rest. When it was safe to look again, there was nothing remaining of the Red Hall but a raging funeral pyre.
No one could have survived that inferno. Whatever fate Providence had decreed for Johan Lindsay and his family, Arnault could only trust that they were now in G.o.d's hands, whether here on earth or in heaven. Swallowing his rage and frustration like bitter bile, he turned his back grimly on this latest atrocity and set off in search of Torquil.
With the town overrun and half its buildings on fire, the garrison of Berwick Castle put up less resistance than had the men of the Red Hall. By the time Arnault came within sight of the castle gates, the royal banners of the English king were flying high above its battlements, as they had before the election of John Balliol. Various members of Edward's household troops patrolled the perimeter and manned the gatehouse.
Sheathing his sword and doffing his helmet, Arnault presented himself to the first guard he came upon.
”A big, redheaded Templar? Aye, he was looking for an audience. You'll find him in there somewhere,”
the man said, gesturing inside.
Arnault's livery pa.s.sed him on into the castle without further challenge. Making for the great hall, he bypa.s.sed a line of English knights with prisoners waiting to be delivered into the custody of one of the king's wardens-all, by their dress, wealthy burgesses and members of the gentry, who could be expected to pay handsomely for their lives and their freedom. The common folk, by savage contrast, had been left to suffer butchery, unless something could be done to ease their desperate plight.
The hall was teeming with anxious townsfolk and soldiers, but Arnault's arrival was noticed almost immediately by Torquil, who came shouldering through the throng to meet him, helmet under his arm.
”The children are safe with the nuns of St. Bride,” he reported, ”though I had to remind a band of Welsh mercenaries that religious houses are not fair plunder. The mother superior of the house asked to be escorted here so that she could beg for mercy on behalf of the townspeople. A lot of other clerics are here, too, for the same reason, but so far the king has declined to see any of us.” His green eyes flicked over Arnault's taut, soot-streaked face. ”Did you find Johan Lindsay?”
”Whoever was in the Red Hall, they're all dead now,” Arnault said baldly. ”Edward's soldiery fired the hall. By the time I got there, it was already too late.”
Torquil shook his head and crossed himself, murmuring, ”May they rest in peace.” He sighed. ”I haven't had any luck finding Jay, either, though I'm sure he's somewhere around. I caught a glimpse of Robert de Sautre as I was coming up on the castle, but he was in the middle of a troop of mounted knights and I couldn't chase them down.” He drew himself up. ”So what do we do now?”
Before Arnault could summon an answer, a familiar, self-satisfied voice penetrated the undercurrent of anxious murmurings that filled the room, from somewhere above their heads.
”I heard there was a Templar brother looking for me. Now I see there are two of you.”
Arnault and Torquil turned and looked up. Brian de Jay was surveying them from the gallery that overlooked the chamber. When he saw their faces, his blue eyes narrowed, ”Why, Brother Arnault de Saint Clair-and the ever-faithful Brother Torquil Lennox,” he noted with an affability that rang patently false. ”I had no idea we were expecting such an ill.u.s.trious visitation. When one of my serjeants told me that two knight-brothers had come ash.o.r.e from the galley in the harbor, I chided him for spreading rumors. Now I see he was reporting the truth. Come up and join me-now.”
Arnault and Torquil found a wheel-stair in a corner of the hall and climbed to the next floor, where Jay received them with a curt nod and led the way to a small room on the seaward side of the citadel.
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