Part 18 (1/2)

THIRTY-ONE.

I opened my eyes and tried to sit up. A pain stabbed through my head from the drug I suppose-so I lay back and settled for raising my head a little. I was back in the bedroom we'd been put in the evening before. The lamp had been left lit, its yellowish flame flickering above the rim of the bowl, making shadows jump on the walls. My hands were shackled together, and someone had been good enough to dump me on one of the mattresses. A sour-looking knight had been left to guard me; his hard eyes had caught my movement, and his jaw was clamped with hostility.

He didn't say anything though, and neither did I then. Instead I lay my aching head back down and tried to put things together for myself. The Varangians who'd been in the hall had to be dead now, except maybe, just possibly, Gunnlag. And it was hard to imagine even him getting out of it alive. Gilbert had said ”Kill only the Varangians,” nothing about taking their chief alive.

On the other hand, it seemed as if Tarel and Moise might still be alive somewhere. If I was valuable-and I supposed that was the reason for all this-then it seemed as if Gilbert would want them alive too, at least for the time being.

I wondered how many Normans I'd zapped before I'd pa.s.sed out, and whether any of them were dead. And Arno? Gilbert hadn't asked about him. Maybe he'd been followed and killed. Or maybe Gilbert had decided that if he had me, he could ignore Arno. Which was probably true. Arno had the rifle, a pistol and stunner, and maybe ten healthy Varangians, if he was lucky. With them he could probably get to Palermo all right. He'd have no reason to try rescuing us here. That would be a lot more dangerous than rescuing the Varangians in the mountains.

In fact, I couldn't see anyone rescuing us. Deneen wouldn't be back for five days or more, and she was alone, with no one to put down. Except Bubba of course. And for all Bubba's talents and brains, this wasn't the sort of situation he could operate in.

It was up to me to get out on my own. My hands explored my belt; it was bare. I didn't have so much as a knife, or a communicator if I had anyone to communicate with.

Just having my hands free would be a big improvement, a start. Carefully I raised my head enough to look at my guard again, and didn't see a sign of any key ring. Only his eyes. I suppose Gilbert had the key to my shackles.

”Where is Gilbert de Auletta?” I asked.

The Norman scowled. ”Taking care of other business. He'll get to you soon enough.”

That didn't sound very promising. I got the notion of Tarel or Moise being questioned, maybe with the help of things like knives or hot coals. I hoped they'd have the good sense to tell the baron whatever he wanted to know.

”How many men did I kill in the great hall?” I asked.

My guard didn't answer, but if looks could kill, I'd have been dead right then. I was pretty sure I hadn't swept much of the room before I pa.s.sed out, but I'd had the stunner on medium, and at close range like that, a military model could kill people. Maybe I'd zapped a friend of his. I wondered if Arno would still be interested in getting the help of the Rebel Javelin, Maybe, when he got to Palermo, he'd talk to Guiscard, and Guiscard would come up here and wipe Gilbert out. That was my best chance, I decided.

But it irked me that I couldn't see any way of getting out of the situation on my own. I decided to relax as well as I could and wait, so I closed my eyes. After a while I dozed, and woke up to Gilbert's voice.

A hand slapped me hard.

Gilbert didn't look too good, or sound too good either, and I wondered if I'd zapped him. That didn't seem possible. If it hadn't killed him, it would have left him unconscious for quite a lot of hours.

”Where is the monk called Moise?” he demanded.

”Brother Moise? The last I knew, he was in the hall, falling off the bench from the drugged drink.

Perhaps the Angel Deneen has taken him into the sky. Perhaps she will come back and take you next.”

He glared more hatred at me than my guard had, and for a moment I thought he might draw his sword and convert me into steaks or something. Instead he turned and left the room without saying anything more.

By that time, my headache was only a shadow of what it had been. And interestingly, I was actually feeling pretty casual about the situation. I'd either be dead tomorrow or alive, and right then I wasn't all that worried or afraid. Which seemed a bit strange to me, but I wasn't going to argue with it. Instead I closed my eyes again, to rest and hopefully sleep some more. The next time I opened them, my guard was asleep on one of the other mattresses. The lamp had burned down to a fluttering glow. Something had wakened me, and I sat up. Looking around, I couldn't see anything that might have done it.

Then I felt a draft, and the lamp blew out. The draft had been from the wrong direction for the window or door, and it srnelled musty. Someone or something was behind me now, I was sure of it. I could sense something there, and for a few seconds my hair felt as if it were standing up like wires. It's got to be Moise, I told myself, and the spooky feeling pa.s.sed.

Why Moise? And how could it be him?

Then a knife tip touched the side of my neck from behind, and callused fingers touched my face. My heart almost stopped. There was the whispered word, ”Who?”, in Provencal.

I barely breathed my name.

The hand withdrew, and the knife. ”Is the other one your guard?” he whispered.

”Yes.”

Dimly I saw my visitor slip past me toward the Norman guard, and kneel. After a minute I heard a long shuddering sigh. My visitor stood again and came over to me, ”Come,” he murmured. ”Your guard is dead.”

Now I recognized the voice: It was Moise!

I rolled to my knees and got up. ”My hands are shackled,” I whispered, ”but the guard has no key.”

”We can free them later,” he murmured, then took my arm and turned me around. There was an opening low in the wall, with a faint glow on the other side. Moise led me to it and we went through on hands and knees. The other side was a pa.s.sage not more than three feet wide. A girl was standing back from the opening, maybe twelve or fourteen years old, holding an oil lamp. I couldn't tell what she looked like because, like most of the other women and older girls I'd seen here, she wore a cloth over her face from the cheeks down.

Moise, still on his knees, pushed the door closed. It was mortared slabs of rock, looking like the stone blocks of the wall but split thinner. It seemed to move on some kind of bearing, maybe stone b.a.l.l.s in rounded holes. The slight grating sound of its moving was what had wakened me. If it hadn't been for Moise's voice, I wouldn't have recognized him. In the lamplight, I saw that he was wearing a hooded Saracen robe and slippers.

We got up then, and Moise said something to the girl, in Arabic I suppose. She answered him, and I followed them along the pa.s.sage, A few yards farther we came to stairs that led steeply down maybe fifty or sixty steps. At the bottom the pa.s.sage continued level, its ceiling low enough that I had to stoop a little.

The girl stopped after maybe a hundred feet and pointed upward. Moise pushed where she pointed, and a trapdoor opened overhead. We helped each other up, and I found myself in a round room with a ceiling that barely allowed me to stand erect. The place smelled kind of like grain smells on Evdash.

A tall, powerful Varangian was sitting there against the wall, hauberk, sword, and all. His legging was cut away from one leg, up to the knee, and his calf was bandaged. ”Ketil!” I whispered, and going to him, I shook his hand awkwardly with both of mine. It seemed to me he might be the only Varangian left alive here. I realized then that he hadn't been at the banquet; in fact I hadn't seen him since we'd arr arrived at the castle.

I turned to Moise. ”How did you get here?” I asked, still softly.

”How did he get here? And who's the girl?”

”Her name is Layla. She is the daughter of the Saracen who was steward of this castle. He was killed fighting the Normans; so was his master. She and her mother work here now.

”She was told to take care of Ketil, and then the Normans apparently forgot about him. So when she heard that the Varangians had been ma.s.sacred, she brought Ketil here to hide. After the battle of Misilmeri, her father showed her the hidden pa.s.sageways and every hiding place. She even knows a hidden way out of the castle. Just above us is a large grain storage vault. Sometime in the past, a false floor was put in it to form this secret chamber.”

He stopped there as if that was all of it. ”So how did you get out of the hall?” I asked. ”And run into her?”

”It was you who made it possible. But first I must explain that I did not even taste the drink. Then, seeing the Varangians falling drugged, I pretended to be drugged too, and let my head drop onto the table.

Before you fell, you killed several of the Normans with your stunner. Unfortunately, Gilbert was only touched by it-he was probably ducking beneath the table as it reached him. I heard some Normans saying that Gilbert could neither move nor speak, though his eyes were open.

”His wife took charge then, screaming orders to the knights who still lived, and the castle's foot soldiers.

More orders than there were Normans to carry them out, some of them impossible or contradictory. I felt hands drag me from the room and leave me in a corridor. When I opened my eyes a slit, a minute later, there were only myself and two Normans lying there, and my belt things had been taken. So I got up and fled. I didn't know where to go, so I went outside, intending to hide in the shrubs and plan what I might do.

”But Layla, who was going home from working in the kitchen, saw me leave and followed me. She brought me here and gave me this.” He took a sheathed knife from inside his robe. ”And brought me the robe as well,” he added. ”Then a few minutes later, she brought Ketil. I described you to her then, and told her I wanted to rescue you. And Tarel.”

”What about Tarel?” I asked.

”He is somewhere with no hidden pa.s.sage. Only three rooms open on a pa.s.sage, and by luck, you were in the third of them.”

”Ask her if she can think of a way we can get to him and get him out.”

”I have. She tells me there is no way short of searching, and taking him by force.”

”Okay,” I said, then examined my wrist irons. There was no lock. They'd simply been bolted, the nuts turned so tightly they'd been burred. I gestured. ”Can Layla get a hammer and chisel? Now?” Moise turned and spoke to her in Arabic. She shook her head as she answered. ”Not tonight,” he told me. ”She would have to go to the smithy and steal a chisel, and there will be men about, searching for me.”