Count Scar - SA (38 page)

moonlight through the windows. It was a strange sensation to realize that he had no idea I was here—unless he had what Brother Melchior called a second eye, and was only pretending to be
unaware of my presence.

But no one challenged me as I reached the bottom of the tower and opened the door there. Beyond lay a roofless passage between two high walls, which magnified the sound of careless footfalls. The
man who had been here a moment ago was gone, but as I craned my neck upward, peering toward the top of the tower with my back pressed against its wall, I caught a flicker of light brighter
than the moon. The watchman had lit a lantern to keep himself company.

Which meant he might be too dazzled to spot someone moving in the shadows below. Quickly and cautiously I proceeded down the passage, hunched over to avoid both moonlight and watchful
eyes. I had been clenching my sword so tightly the hilt was slippery; I paused to wipe my hand on my tunic, listening but still hearing nothing.

On either side, opening from the passage, were store rooms, certainly rifled now by the heretics. The doors stood ajar, but I did no more than glance into the rooms' black interiors. The Perfected
had my treasure chest of carefully collected rents, along with my grain reserves, spices, and wine. I would have happily let them have it all if I could just have control of the castle again.

Almost at the end of the open passage a stairway to my right led upward, toward Melchior's private chambers and the chambers which the countess's ladies had doubtless used when she and
Thierri ruled Peyrefixade. From those chambers went one of the staircases that eventually reached the chapel. I didn't like to think what profane rites the heretics might be performing there—

animal sacrifice, lustful orgies, even human sacrifices for all I knew. Melchior had tried to tell me the Perfected would not do such things, but I was still sure they would. I would have to have
him reconsecrate the chapel immediately if we got the heretics out—assuming we both lived.

Past the staircase, the open passageway opened onto the castle's main courtyard. Very slowly I leaned away from the wall against which I was pressed, just enough to see into it. A short distance
away stood several of the damned heretics, yawning and talking. Moonlight glittered on helmets and weapons. Yet there weren't very many of them, I tried to encourage myself, not nearly
enough to fight off the duke's forces if the walls were breached or the gates opened.

However, if they had even a few seconds' warning, I reminded myself, they would be able to retreat into the central keep, barring the heavy doors of the great hall, and then wait us out nearly as
securely as they had when they controlled the whole castle. That is, if they had thought to shift some of the grain supplies from the main storerooms into the storage cellars of the keep.

I shook my head. Gavain had doubtless already thought of this. He was after all a duke's son, brought up on strategy and command even if he had given it all up to seek his soul's damnation in
the mountains. And at the moment he might very well be settling himself by my new hearth into my own bed.

None of the warriors in the courtyard had spotted me. And the fact that no alarm had yet been sounded meant that Melchior too had so far eluded discovery—and that no one had realized the
postern was now guarded only by a dead man. But it would be folly to try to make my way across the open courtyard with anyone in it.

But this was my castle. Even if the heretics had Raymbaud's magical map and even though I was slinking around like a thief, I knew Peyrefixade better than any heretics who hadn't even been
born the last time the castle had been in Perfected hands. I smiled for a second, ducked out of the passageway, took two steps on the flagstones of the courtyard, and was through the door leading to
the kitchen stairs before any of the heretics might turn at the movement in the shadows and see me.

But still I waited for a minute, sword ready, just inside the door, in case any of them became suspicious and came to investigate.

When no one appeared, I slipped down the wide steps into the kitchen itself. The room was empty, the fires banked for the night. Yet I stayed instinctively in the shadows as I crossed it, making
for the passage on the far side that came out near the main gates. With teeth clenched, I made my lame leg carry its full weight, to keep from stamping with my good leg at each step. The
moonlight cast grotesque shapes on the wall from the cooking spits. So far I wasn't doing much to divert the heretics' attention from whatever Melchior might be doing. But a single-handed fight
against all the heretic warriors, while doubtless noisy, would be doomed from the beginning.

I froze. Steps sounded before me. It sounded as though someone was coming into the kitchen looking for something to eat.

Holy, pure, perfected people, they call themselves, I thought bitterly, who claim they relinquish the pleasures of the flesh. And yet after a dinner of dry bread and lentils any of them—even the
duke's son—must start thinking how good a bite of meat pastry would taste.

And would have a hungry man's irritation added to a heretic's fanaticism when he found me here.

I stepped behind a bank of shelves, listening to his footsteps. He seemed to hesitate for a moment. Had the way of perfection become stronger for him than hunger— or did he suspect my presence? I
tried not to breathe, though the pounding of my heart was so loud it seemed he must hear it. But then the steps began moving again.

In an instant I could have tipped the shelves and all their contents over on him. But I stopped with a hand already braced for the push. The clatter of broken crockery would bring all the warriors
from the courtyard down into the kitchen, and besides, this was my cook's kitchen and equipment.

Instead I reversed my sword, and as he stepped past the end of the shelves, just as he caught sight of me from the corner of his eye and was opening his mouth to shout, I struck him firmly on the
temple with the hilt.

He slumped to the floor with a faint moan. I tied him up swiftly with the twine the cook used for trussing roasts, then thrust the end of a flour sack into his mouth. Going up against heretics I
wanted God on my side, and the fewer deaths on my soul the better.

I stood up slowly, trying to steady my ragged breathing. The whole incident had taken under a minute. I strained my ears but did not hear anyone else approaching. At that moment I would
cheerfully have exchanged this furtive advance through the castle for open battle in the emperor's armies, the horns calling, men and horses screaming, and the stench of blood everywhere.

But fighting on behalf of the emperor would not get my castle back. I dragged the heretic under a table, in the hopes that he would not be spotted in the shadows if someone else became hungry. He
breathed shallowly and did not stir.

Then again I advanced through the moonlight and shadows, across the width of the kitchen and along the passage beyond. Here more steps led up to the courtyard, coming out very near the main
gates.

At the top of the stairs I paused again, at the door the heretic had left ajar in entering, and tried to knead some of the pain and stiffness out of my leg. In a very few moments I might need it for
running. From the darkness of the doorway I could see the moonlit courtyard and the great gatehouse. A single warrior stood before it. His face was dark so I could see no detail, but he appeared to
be looking in my direction.

I did not move. If he had a Magian's second eye he had seen me already, but if this was another soldier with no magical powers he might not have spotted me. After a moment, he turned his head
away and walked a short distance up the courtyard before returning again to the gates.

"All right," I told myself. "Assume he hasn't seen you." He was several dozen yards from anyone else, the only person between me and the gates. "Now all I have to do is find a way to get past
him and get the gates open before all the rest of the warriors get there."

I would have to kill him, I decided. There was no way I could surprise him as I had the man in the kitchens. But if I appeared suddenly when he thought he was safe he might be just slow enough
to react that I could have my sword in him before he had a chance to cry out or fight back.

Then came the tricky part. I could throw the bars off the inner gates and have them open in a moment, probably before the rest of the warriors realized what had happened and were able to reach
me. Then I would dart through into the gatehouse and wedge the inner gates shut behind me with the bars. That would give me a minute or so safe from the heretics, during which I would raise
the portcullis, get the bars off the outer gates, and retreat into the guard room in the gatehouse. There I would blow the horn to tell Duke Argave and his men to advance at once, while I held off
the heretics, who would only be able to reach me one at a time—

There was a difficulty with this plan. Unless Duke Argave was very quick, indeed waiting just outside, the heretics would be able to get the outer gates shut again before he got up the hill. In
leaving the siege camp so abruptly I'd had no chance to plan strategy with the duke—not that he had seemed particularly willing to listen to any of my strategy anyway. And the security of the
guard room would be security only if there was no one already there, something which seemed less and less likely the more I considered it.

I was almost ready to try it anyway when the man near the gates turned in my direction again. I inched backwards, keeping my sword behind the door frame so the moon would not glint on the
blade. And for a moment the light fell on his face.

He turned away again after a few seconds, but I needed only a second to recognize those arched eyebrows and straight, slender nose. It was the duke's son, Gavain.

"It wouldn't have worked anyway," I told myself, backing slowly toward the kitchen. I should have expected that the duke's son would be at the gates, at the most crucial spot; I would have been
there myself. "Maybe the priest and I shouldn't have split up. Melchior could have used his magical powders and potions against the warriors while I got the gates open, and given the duke
enough time to roll out of bed and get his armor on and his rear end up here."

Excellent reasoning though all this was, I knew perfectly well that it was not the real explanation for why I was now retreating back the way I had come. I just didn't want to have to kill Gavain.

In the kitchen the warrior I had knocked unconscious still lay motionless, his breath snorting around the flour sack. It hadn't been much use trying to hide him, I thought, my own passage silent.

Even if someone didn't see him they would certainly hear him.

Was it because I couldn't imagine Arsendis ever marrying me if I had killed her brother? That couldn't be it, I told myself wryly, because I already knew I didn't stand a chance with her.

Whatever friendliness she might once have felt toward me would have died in seeing me a lamed man turned out of his own castle. Or did I hope to ingratiate myself with Duke Argave?

Considering how furious he had been with me ever since I reached the siege camp, it was hard to see him any more unwilling to have me in Peyrefixade than he already was. A great deal of fuss, in
fact, could have been avoided if I had run Gavain through the first time I saw him, when he appeared before us so startlingly in the mountain passes to warn me obliquely against the bouteillier. A
knight and a gentleman, he wouldn't have liked a traitor, even a traitor who was working for him, any more than I did.

Proceeding cautiously through the kitchen, I realized that the real reason I didn't like to kill Gavain was that, even if Arsendis ended up married to Thierri or to Prince Alfonso, I knew she would
be happier knowing her brother was still alive.

Now I needed a new approach to the gates. My thoughts turned with relief from nebulous affairs of the heart to a concrete stratagem for action.

I rapidly turned the plan of the castle over in my mind. This stair would bring me back to the main courtyard, some distance from the gates. I should be able to wait until no heretic warriors were
near and get up from the courtyard onto the walkway along the outer wall. Once on the battlements I could proceed along them to the upper gatehouse, with luck not running into any warriors
or attracting Gavain's attention. If the door from the battlements into the gatehouse was open, and there was no reason why it shouldn't be, I could get into the guard room before anyone realized
I was there. I would then be positioned between the inner and outer gates.

So far, I thought with new energy, this plan had promise. My mind kept on churning as I climbed back up the stairs by which I had originally descended into the kitchen. Having killed or
otherwise incapacitated whatever heretic warrior might be in the guard room, I would raise the portcullis, go down and open the outer gates, return immediately to the guard room, lower the
portcullis from there to keep the defenders from reaching the gates to shut them again, blow the horn to alert Duke Argave, then—

The door before me, the door leading from the kitchen into the courtyard, was shut. I had left it open when I came through, not wanting the creaking of hinges, however faint, to attract anyone's
attention.

Was there someone beyond it? I tried to listen over the roaring of the blood in my ears, but the heavy door would have stifled the sound of another's breathing anyway. This, I thought grimly,
would be a good place for Melchior's most devilish spells.