Buch lesen: «Ironheart»

Prologue

Northern Marches, Wales, 1188

The night was dark and full of menace. Leon shivered, struggling to stay awake. It was the joining point of the night. The hour of beginnings and endings. It was an unholy hour to be out of bed; the black watch before cockcrow when men most often died, and demons walked.

“Are you a knight?”

A thin little reedy sound it was, echoing somewhere from the right. At first Leon thought he had imagined it, for there was something about old piles of stone like this that accumulated shadows and odd sounds, creaks and sighs of wind.

Then it came again, eerie, alien, disembodied, drifting across the battlement, a voice soft as reeds twisting in the wind.

“Are you a knight?”

The point of his sword lifted a little.

It was an intrigue. It must be. Soon it would be dawn—the hour for murder and mayhem. He exhaled softly. It was comforting that the gray of his cowl and cloak bled into the gray of the battlements, leaving no shape for the eye to catch. There was only the shine of captured light from his naked blade as he waited, listening.

Glancing over his shoulder, Leon saw no movement, suspicious or otherwise, but his back prickled as if several thousand insects crawled up and down it. He swallowed hard.

It took courage to ask calmly, “Who is this?”

Silence.

It was some rotten trick. None had played such since he was nine years old and he’d dared the raven in the hayloft that the other pages refused to face. It had known better than to meddle with him, and fled with a great rustling of straw and a clap of wings.

“Is anyone there?” he asked the shadowed air and held his breath waiting for an answer.

Nothing changed. No voice responded. No figure appeared from the doorway. He swallowed loudly. No harm was near. A very little light came up from below, not enough to light the steps. If any spirits dream-danced there, none spoke.

He gave that some thought, then cleared his throat. He had been speaking French; he shifted to Latin. Nothing. “Who?” he demanded in Anglo-Saxon, and last of all, with fading hope, the old Gaelic of his childhood.

“I am here.”

That rocked him on his heels. The voice came from behind him now, the same voice, as if it were stalking him. He spun around, hands out, at hearing a light skipping step from the direction of the parapet. Closer, came the high piping tone of a child.

“I said, Are you a knight?”

Leon stared a moment, heart thumping. Shadows shifted and took substance. A glimmer. It was a girl, a highborn little girl in a white night rail, but lace dragged about one ankle and her lips and hands were muddied. She tilted her head to one side, studying him.

“No,” he said, to humor her while he tried to think. The girl had a pixie face, and the dark, shining hair that bounced about her shoulders was black as only an elf’s can be. But she looked real, a babe scarce weaned. There was no magic. There was nothing to fear. Her gaze remained steady. He felt heat flare in his ears, so he added, “When I am a man I will be.”

A frown touched her brow, as if he had said something curious. “Is that not the way of things?” she said, edging closer, as though they already shared one secret, and might share another, in time.

Leon blinked. How could a little girl speak with such knowledge? Except for the druids, adults were jealous of their secrets and did not share them with children. Was she a druid’s daughter?

Had he been enchanted? He clenched his hand to drive the thought away and touched the rough stonework. It felt real enough, down to the grit of old mortar.

I won’t let her see she has me uneasy, he told himself firmly. I won’t let her trick me. He took the chance. It took real effort, but he kept his voice steady.

“Are you a witch?”

“Do I look like one?”

“I’ve only seen one, face-to-face. At least I think it was a witch. You don’t look like her. But how should I know?”

“Well, now that I see you close up, you don’t look like a knight, either. You’re tall, but you look like a boy.”

The small doubt held him still, but that was only his good sense that said girls were not safe wandering at cockcrow alone. There were all manner of unwholesome things that haunted the night. And this one feared no harm from them—that seemed evident, whatever her reason.

He thrust his sword in its scabbard. “You’re distracting me from my duty. What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to watch.”

“To watch what?”

Her shoulders jerked slightly. “I wanted to see Father—they told me he’s going away with the prince,” she said fiercely, a dimpled dragon flashing fire and smoke. Her little jaw set. Her eyes were alive with thoughts. “I had to get up early and run away from Nurse, ’n’ here I am.”

He started to walk. She pranced along beside him.

“The battlements are out of bounds. How did you get here?” he asked, with deep notes of iron grating on one another in his voice. “And more to the point, why?”

“I couldn’t go downstairs because of the guards, and I didn’t want to climb out a garderobe shaft ’cause they smell so awful, ’n’ I came up here instead.” She moved closer, scowling. “I tried to get up there.” She pointed into space out a crenel. “But I’m not big enough. But you’re here, so you can—”

Leon flinched, and said, between closed teeth, “Forget it.”

He paused at a buttressed arch and turned to look into the vast hollow before them. From this angle, no lights shone, not even faint ones. It was black as a cave. Only the immensity of air, palpable as a beast, betrayed the cavernous gulf beyond.

Fear clenched his heart with an icy grip. How had he gotten into this? He grasped the merlon with one hand, to keep from shaking, and felt sandstone crumble under his fingers. He pulled back by instinct.

“Flamed rotted-out pile of—” He caught back a swear-word.

She turned her head and looked at him. Then slowly she began to smile, her eyes anxious, but her grin growing wider. She was contemplating mischief, he was sure of it.

“Are you afraid?”

“Of course not! I have an arm of steel and a heart of iron!”

“Oo-oh, how wonderful. Are heroes always so strong?”

“Of course.”

Leon sweated. Heroes are always strong, and they never run away, he told himself. And that was a worry. He was scared and breathless.

“You’re bigger than me.” A sudden pale glance, starlit. She smiled. “Can you see over the top?”

He nodded foolishly, and again she laughed. He thought that perhaps he had never heard a lovelier sound. “Of course.”

“Well?”

He was more than a little unnerved. Breath came short, in shameful panic. At the same time, his heart leaped into his throat and stayed there. Does she know? He cast her a sideways glance. A dimple winked in her cheek, but she stood there, dark eyes wide, full of faith and innocence; real, and not an illusion. It was surely the weakness that was the illusion—

Leon snapped into focus with a shudder. “Disabuse yourself of such notions. ’Tis not yet dawn.” He was arguing with himself more than with her. He turned to face her, feeling his face flush. “There will be naught to see,” he said, surprising himself with his vehemence.

“Oh,” she said wistfully, as if dashed in her expectations. However, she was not demolished, for she stared at him with bright blackberry eyes, and went on. “I was rather looking forward to—well, this grand occasion…the wonder and excitement…it’s dull in the nursery…I have to make up my own adventures—” she talked rapidly as if to ward off his saying anything “—being a boy, of course, you don’t have to make up little pictures in your head of what it’ll be like when you’re all grow’d up.”

“I never said I didn’t dream, but the future is clouded, and there’s no way to foretell or change it.”

“Nonsense! Close your eyes. Tight. Imagine for yourself what it’ll be like when you’re a knight.”

Leon shrugged, stunned by this abrupt assault and uneasy about its possible consequences, but did as he was bid, his hand resting lightly, prudently, on the sword hilt.

A searing flash burned his eyes. The sharp crack of lightning—or deadly magic—barked beyond the castle walls, then bugles blared and he felt the pounding of heavy hooves through the ground.

It was a trap! Nay, it was sorcery, and everyone knew sorcery was an evil used by heathens of old. For all he knew, it was a trick to distract him from his watch. It wouldn’t have been the first time a child was used as bait in a trap. What can I do? he asked himself. His brain recoiled from the prospect of being the agent of assault, or worse, by failing his duty…

“No!” he protested with more determination than he felt. But the enchantment held him fast. There was no choice but to go with it.

Combat surrounded him, fire and smoke and the clamor of battle in all directions as far as he could see and hear. His helmet was gone and he could feel the gashes in his steel chain mail. His skin was torn in many places and blood covered his body. Flames spouted from the siege wagons, and some tents had caught fire. Rain kept the wagons from becoming an inferno, but the unburned canvas kept the rain from extinguishing the fire.

Then he saw the banner, the rampant lions outlined in gold against the bright red field, now trampled in the earth, torn by sword and dyed almost black in the blood of the young soldiers who followed it. He couldn’t tell whether it was rain or blood running into his eyes, but his vision blurred to nothing.

Caer Llion! Where are you?

He flinched suddenly at the touch of a slender hand and turned to see a small figure standing before him. This one was not armored like the knights, nor tall nor broad enough to be a soldier. This was no manly fighter, but a woman!

“You are hurt,” she said. A deep cowled hood shaded her face, and her elfin features seemed to glow and fade in the reflected light of the flames.

“The battle is lost,” he whispered fiercely, straining to control his disbelief. He gasped for breath.

“You and your men fought well.”

“And died well. I must claim vengeance.”

“You’ll get no vengeance riding alone into that nest.” The girl-woman took his arm and began to lead him away, though there was no way to tell which way to go. “And you, my golden knight, you have a destiny to fulfil. Hold on to me and you will live to fight again. I will protect you.”

He nodded his head, confused. How did this woman think she could do such a thing? He peered into the shadows of her still-raised hood. She let the hood slip back far enough for their eyes to meet clearly. Her eyes were brown, soft and deep, and he felt lost in them, lost in wondering what he had not seen.

The question seemed quite unimportant as his eyes saw more and more shadowy forms appearing, only to flee in all directions and be followed by great waves of horsemen and their riders. There were no individuals—only bodies, armed and unarmed, eager to slay and keep on slaying.

He squinted, not quite seeing their faces, and always the riders passed the two figures without seeing them. He heard the screams of men caught by lance or mace or hoof, but he felt the soft protection of magic, invisibility created by the girl-woman that now cloaked him.

A damp wind swirled around him, and he felt a slight chill. The air smelled of masonry. His reason told him he was on the battlements, but his irrational self said he must have tripped for a minute, then leaped forward a full decade or more.

“What is it? What did you see?”

Leon opened his eyes. He blinked and the vision was gone. The inky blackness of the night was giving way to a softer gray. Had the vision been an image of reality?

“Nothing much, and nothing certain,” he answered, turning on his heels, but the muscles in his legs trembled despite his determination to stand firm. “Except the prince is coming, and so is bad weather.”

“That’s important!”

“If my knowledge of ritual is accurate, at your age, you should still be abed, and not wandering around the battlements. These are not the most friendly of parts,” Leon replied, the edge of his voice as sharp as his sword.

“You try to frighten me,” the girl said in a voice that sounded like music tinkling on his ears. “But I am not afraid.”

He rounded on her angrily. “Are you questioning my courage?”

“Not your courage, never that. You can finish anything you start.” She looked Leon squarely in the eyes as she spoke. He sought some hidden message there, some gleam of witchcraft, but instead the raven-black depths showed him she was even more uneasy than he was himself. Now all those images seemed ridiculous and absurd. Some of the tension left his body.

There was a long silence. For a long moment Leon listened to the silence that had sprung up between them because it was an unquiet silence, one rife with sizzling tension, almost a contest of wills.

Then an urgent whisper, combined with a tug of his coat, quietly, shyly, tentatively, hopefully, and smiling that innocent smile. “I want only to see Father and the others.”

Leon laughed out loud. “Are you certain?”

“That’s all,” she affirmed, still smiling sweetly.

“How can I refuse to do a good deed?” he asked, hoping there was no tremor in his voice.

That angelic smile. “Would you…?”

He was a fool to do what a girl-child wanted him to do! Yet, her invitation was the only option he saw. Strange thing! He could see no honorable way to deny her. He dared not back out now. He did not want to go to that place—but what else might he do when he was the only one here to help her? he asked himself. It was almost as if he were no longer in command of his own body, that even had he wished to halt and turn back he could not have done so. This was where he was destined to be, what he was fated to do.

And that was magic, surely?

Rush into it and through, it’s the only way to face what you fear, he thought. Tightening his gut, he braced both hands against the wide tooth of a merlon and leaned out a crenel to see past an intervening wall buttress.

The side of the castle dropped sheer. Far down showed the footings of solid granite. Below that…

The earth and river and dark forest far, far below.

He groaned involuntarily. His palms on the merlon were slick with sweat, trembling. An icy ball of fear turned his insides to water. He wanted to go back, but forced himself to stand firm. Far away a cock crowed, calling forth the dawn. The air hung cold and wet about his face as he looked down.

It was no good. His breath rasped. His teeth danced. His sight hazed. His legs shook so violently his kneecaps drummed the stone wall. Stand here too long, and he’d pitch over the parapet like dice rattling out of a cup. Slowly, shuffling his leather boots, he crept away from the gaping space.

“What did you see? Lift me up so’s I can see it, too!” Her mouth open, her face all delighted smile, she danced for the battlements rising on the western end of the parapet.

Already spooked, Leon jumped at the girl’s blithe command. Deep shuddering twitched his body. Backing against the inner wall, he willed his heart to stop pounding. Surely it could only beat so fast before bursting. He blinked the night as clear as it would come. There was color in the world. It was dawn. He took deep breaths of clean, cold air.

“You’ll fall,” was all he could say.

She gazed solemnly up at him. Unafraid. She gave a furious shake of her head. “No I won’t, ’sides, you’re here to stop me.”

He opened his mouth to refute but his jaw trembled. His breathing had slowed, and he mopped his brow with his sleeve. He hated being up in the battlements. He still remembered falling off the tower at Whittington. Even now, he screamed in his sleep when he recalled that day. He had been seven then. He had cried in his foster father’s arms, which had embarrassed him, but his foster father had patted him on the back and hugged him the way he hugged Fulk Riven, called him his other son and assured him even grown men made mistakes and wept.

“The other end will give the best view.” Indignation, combined with the fear that she might actually leap onto the crenel, made Leon stride out ahead. But she only laughed and followed him.

Walking east, he asked, elaborately casual, “Do you get giddy on heights?”

“Not the times I try,” she said, skipping beside him.

He shifted his posture, suspecting mockery. He regretted bringing up the matter, but he refused to care what the witchling thought. She seemed absolutely fearless. So young to have such courage, he thought. He saw scratches on her arm and large muddy rips in the gown at her knees. The girl’s nurse would be searching for her by now, and he almost felt sorry for the woman. She would suffer if the mother saw the child now.

“Lift me up, so’s I can see over.” She lifted up slender, fragile-looking arms.

The morning breeze stirred his hair and softly cooled his overheated cheeks. He became calm, and out of calmness came determination. He would not abandon his first damsel in distress. He picked her up, and set her bare feet on the seat of an arrow loop built into a buttress in the parapet.

She stood up on tiptoe, craning forward. She was mad, he was sure of it. He brought a firm hand around her waist to keep her safe, but he didn’t stop her looking.

“Lean on my shoulder if you get dizzy. I’ll catch you.”

“I know, silly!” Steady as a rock on her perch, she rested a small hand on his shoulder and, moth-light, touched his hair. “You talk funny, but you have nice hair. Shiny.”

Her voice sparkled with hints of laughter. She smelled of soap and girl and honey powder. He blinked and wriggled his leather-clad toes. “Thank you.”

Leon stood perfectly still and glanced over his outstretched arm. It was just dawn; the air hung cold and foggy around him, obscured the towers, cut off the tops of gates, pooled and eddied along the courtyard outside the siege walls, and collected wood smoke in long, flat, sooty sheets.

Troops marched out of the gatehouse. He watched the glittering armor-clad company file through the dimming patches of fog, buckles clanking, pennants snapping on poles, accoutrements jumping and tingling regularly at every step in a mass musical note, muffled strangely in the sea of fog.

“Can you see the prince leading them all?”

The girl-child tossed her head to get an unruly lock of dark hair out of her eyes. “There he is! There he is!” She squealed in delight and clapped her hands.

“He must. He is the commander,” Leon said briskly. He glared out the embrasure at the troops still marching past, and fretted to himself. Keith, who would be sixteen years old next Midsummer’s Day, had been chosen to squire the prince. Keith, who in spite of his new length of leg and width of shoulder, could not best Leon either at mock battle or in a wrestling match.

“Aren’t they grand? Where do they go?”

“Men gather here. To ride with Richard. To Palestine. To fight the Saracens.”

As soon as he spoke, he regretted it, for the look on the child’s face turned from joy to fear. She frowned, a little knitting of the brow. Small hands clutched at him.

“Oh. Bad men,” she muttered. Her face crumpled. She looked so young—not a witchling now, but a frightened child.

He was quick to mend his error. “Cheer up, little girl. Your father will be home soon enough,” he said lightly.

A frown. She was not to be distracted. “What if the bad men attack us while Father is away?” she said faintly. “Should we all run away very fast?”

Leon looked up at the white, frozen face. Loosing a rare and splendid smile, the one his arms-master said in a few years would melt women like wax in a furnace, he said softly, “No. My lord would stop them before they reach here.”

Brave though she was, she was still a girl, and that smile held a mighty magic. She laid her hand upon his arm and squinted through black curls at him, a swift bright glance.

“I can throw rocks at them! Big rocks.”

“Oh—” Leon struggled to keep from laughing. He brushed back the dark hair. “That would be most helpful.”

Men marched into the fog and vanished. The air seemed unnaturally still and heavy. As an omen it made his spine turn cold. The day seemed perilous, full of portents; yet there was nothing he could put a thought around. As if—

As if he were on the brink of his own forever after—or maybe only of growing up. He had twelve summers and, with Keith’s departure, was newly promoted to squire, but tall and muscular as he was, and good as he was with either sword or bow, he hadn’t grown into his hands or feet yet.

The girl-child shaded her eyes, shaking her head. “I don’t see them anymore.”

Leon took a deep breath, drew her back from the crenel edge, tender in his grip. She studied him with grave bright eyes. “Don’t you wish you could follow the prince?”

“I wish I was with him. I wish it more than you know,” he told her fiercely, angry with her for asking. His voice echoing loudly in the dawn sky.

“It is not too late. If you run fast, you could catch them.”

He knew that. He was also not accustomed to being made light of. “My lord isn’t happy with things along the border. He wishes me to stay, be a shield-brother to his heir.”

“How will you win your spurs?” she asked with just the hint of a smile.

Leon did not rise to the bait. He was a squire, past childhood, and he had seen the lordlings come and go. He thought of Keith all bruised and bloody, crying foul, and the demands of his own stubborn honor. Then he thought of make-believe things, set in the future. Images of the girl-child, now a woman, a prisoner in the place where crows gather, where the woods grow strange and twisted. Himself, helmed and mounted, sword in hand overwhelming a dragon.

No, that was too exotic.

He rebuilt the image and tried to make it something real; the girl-woman up on the battlements, dark hair aflying in the wind, laughing and holding out her arms; himself, just walking into them, and not noticing the precipice.

No, that was too incredible.

The picture changed. The name of Caer Llion had been added to those famed few that were bywords to both friend and foe, whom men would follow into the jaws of death at the wave of an arm. Iron-helmed, he sat astride a huge destrier, sword held aloft and gleaming in the bright morning sun, thundering over the desert sands, leading a band of knights, an iron-clad avalanche of destruction.

“I haven’t got it all worked out yet, but one day I’ll be a knight. I have to. I must.” He used the blunt mode for conviction, for absolute duty—for oath swearing.

“You could run away and become a commoner if you wanted it enough. Father says the common women have more fun than the highborn.”

“He talks too much. Knights are shields against evil. They are the only hope for pig farmers and little girls—saints preserve their stubborn necks. Nobody else will take pity on them.”

“How proper. They will sing songs in your honor.” A small hand crept into his, the other touched his jaw with her thumb.

“Sounds good to me.”

She wound her tiny fingers through his hair. “Why not? You are brave and noble and strong. You will make a great knight.”

Leon’s nerves jumped, his pulse fluttered and a flush came over his skin, confusing all his thinking. She was curious. She thought he was very brave. It puzzled rather than delighted him, but it was very hard to go on being mad at someone who really believed that. He searched his mind for something clever to say in response. When nothing came to him, he settled for attempting to endow his silence with a knowing air.

She smiled prettily. Her breath was in his face, warm as a spring sunbeam. “Will you marry me when I grow up?”

Leon couldn’t help feeling embarrassed. The girl was so foolish she was a woman already! He was not certain what he was supposed to say, but it wouldn’t hurt to put her straight.

“You must marry a man with estates and title.”

“I could never marry a man I didn’t love!” she said with all the blithe confidence of a four-year-old girl.

“One day a knight will come and steal your heart.” He swung her down to the parapet.

“Will you be my own special knight?” she asked straightway.

“Of course,” he said grandly, flourishing a salute.

She blinked rapidly. Then she glanced upward, a piercing, anxious look. “For ever and ever?”

Leon smiled his sudden smile. His voice changed, deepened. “Henceforth, I am your forever knight.” Bowing low he kissed her hand.

She slid her hand free and detached a knot of ribbon from her night rail and held it out to him. “Then I will wait, ’n’ when you are all grown up, you shall come back and marry me.”

“Just like that?”

She nodded her head emphatically.

Leon took the token and tousled her hair. If she were not careful, this rare blossom would grow into a thorn bush! He glanced at the dawn sky, pretending disinterest.

“All right,” he conceded.

She planted her hands on her hips. There was witchcraft in her eyes. “Will you swear on it?”

Leon ground his teeth. Aggravating girl! Really, she tried his patience to distraction! He inclined his head and turned away. “I vow by sun and moon, earth and water, fire and air. Does that satisfy you?” he said to the free air beyond the walls.

Behind him he heard a whisper of slippers. His back muscles went rigid.

“Nurse!” She ran off gaily, muddy hands outstretched. “Oh, Nurse, I could see far and far. I saw the prince ride out!”

Leon looked around. The waiting woman lowered tight-clenched hands and spread them, and hugged the draggled child to her. In a deliberate, careful tone she told the child, “You must never climb up there alone, you know.”

“Oh, I didn’t. My own true knight was with me.”

“This running about has got to stop, my girl.”

“But why?” The light voice lilted.

The nurse brushed her off mercilessly, then wrenched her away, scolding loudly, “It’s unnatural to want to be adventuring out of doors.”

“But, Nurse, I have found my knight—only he’s not a knight yet—and he’s got hair like gold!”

“One day a fine man with golden hair will ask for your hand, then marry you, get you with strong children, a round half dozen. But until then, little mistress, you’d best be learning the ways of a lady.”

When she reached the doorway, the girl turned. “Until we meet again, may every road be smooth to your feet,” she called in her bell-chime voice, the traditional Celtic farewell.

“And may you be safe from every harm,” Leon managed to reply, with more feeling than the customary response usually carried. He had forgotten to ask who her father was. Not that he would ever see her again. The FitzWarren entourage was returning to Whittington on the morrow.

Unable to stop himself, he reached out a hand, wanting to ask her name. She did look at him, a pale, distracted glance, but the nurse waved him off when he’d have followed her.