Yane spoke to Aillas in low tones. "Is it true that you stabbed Alvicx with his own sword?"
"Not at all! I fenced with him a moment or two; I touched him with my point. It was no great affair."
"Not for you. For Alvicx it is shame, and so you will suffer."
"In what way?"
Yane laughed. "He hasn"t yet made up his mind."
Chapter 23.
THE MAIN HALL AT CASTLE SANK extended from a formal parlor at the western end to a retiring room for visiting ladies at the east. Along the way tall narrow portals opened into various halls and chambers, including the Repository, in which were collected curios, clan honors, trophies of battle and engagements at sea, sacred objects. On shelves stood books bound in leather, or sheets of beechwood. One wide wall displayed ancestral portraits, burned into panels of bleached birch by the strokes of a red-hot needle. The technique had never altered; the face of a post-glacial chieftain showed lineaments as keen as the portrait of Duke Luhalcx, limned five years before.
In niches beside the entrance stood a pair of sphinxes carved from blocks of black diorite: the Tronen, or fetishes of the house. Once each week Aillas washed the Tronen, using warm water, mixed with milkweed sap.
Midway through the morning Aillas washed the Tronen and wiped them dry with a soft cloth. Looking along the hall, he saw approaching the Lady Tatzel, slender as a wand in a dark green gown. Black hair bounced beside her intent pale face. She pa.s.sed Aillas unheeding, leaving in her wake a breath of vaguely floral scent, suggesting the damp herbs of primeval Norway.
A few moments later she returned from her errand. Pa.s.sing Aillas she halted, then came back, stopped and studied him, detail by detail.
Aillas looked up briefly, scowled and continued with his work. Tatzel satisfied her curiosity and turned to go her way. First she spoke in the most limpid of voices: "With your brown hair I would take you for a Celt. Still, you look somewhat less coa.r.s.e."
Again Aillas glanced at her. "I am Troice."
Tatzel hesitated on her going. "Troice, Celt, whatever you may be: have done with wildness: intractable slaves are gelded." Aillas stopped his work, limp with outrage. Slowly he rose to his feet, and drawing a deep breath managed to speak in a controlled voice. "I am no slave. I am a n.o.bleman of Troicinet held captive by a tribe of bandits."
Tatzel"s mouth drooped and she turned as if to leave. But she paused. "The world has taught us fury; otherwise we would yet be in Norway. If you were Ska, you too would take all others either for enemy or slave; there is no one else. So it must be, and so you must submit."
"Look at me," said Aillas. "Do you take me for one to submit?"
"Already you have Submitted."
"I submit now so that later I may bring a Troice army to take down Castle Sank stone by stone, and then you will think with a different logic."
Tatzel laughed, tossed her head and proceeded down the hall. In a storage chamber. Aillas encountered Yane. "Castle Sank is becoming oppressive," said Aillas. "I will be gelded unless I mend my ways."
"Alvicx is already selecting a knife."
"In that case, it is time to leave."
Yane looked over his shoulder; they were alone. "Any time is a good time, were it not for the dogs."
"The dogs can be fooled. The problem is how to evade Cyprian long enough to reach the river."
"The dogs won"t be fooled by the river."
"If I can escape the castle, I can escape the dogs."
Yane pulled at his chin. "Let me consider the problem."
Over their supper Yane said: "There is a way to leave the castle. But we must take another man with us."
"Who is that?"
"His name is Cargus. He works as undercook in the kitchen."
"Can he be trusted?"
"No more and no less than you or I. What about the dogs?"
"We will need half an hour in the carpenter"s shed."
"The shed is empty at noon. Here is Cyprian. Nose to the soup."
Cargus stood only an inch taller than Yane but where Yane was built half-askew from sinew and twisted bone, Cargus bulked thick with muscle. The girth of his neck exceeded that of his ma.s.sive arms. His black hair was cropped short; small black eyes glittered under heavy black brows. In the kitchen-yard he told Yane and Aillas: "I have gathered a quart measure of the fungus known as wolf-bane; it poisons but seldom kills. Tonight it goes into the soup, and spices the pot-pies for the great table. Guts will gurgle tonight everywhere in Castle Sank. Tainted meat will be blamed."
Yane grumbled. "If you could poison dogs as well, we"d walk away at our ease."
"A nice thought, but I have no access to the kennels."
For their supper Yane and Aillas ate only bread and cabbage, and watched with gratification as Cyprian consumed two bowls of soup.
In the morning, as Cargus had predicted, the entire population of the castle suffered cramps of the stomach, together with chills, nausea, fever, hallucinations and a ringing of the ears.
Cargus went to where Cyprian crouched head down over the commissary table, shivering uncontrollably. Cargus cried out in a harsh voice: "You must take action! The scullions refuse to stir and my bins overflow with garbage!"
"Empty them yourself," groaned Cyprian. "I cannot put my mind to such trifles. Doom is upon me!"
"I am cook, not scullion. Here, you two!" He called out to Yane and Aillas. "You can at least walk! Empty my bins and be quick about it!"
"Never!" growled Yane. "Do it yourself."
Cargus turned on Cyprian. "My bins must be cleared! Give orders or I will make a complaint to startle Imboden off his chamber-pot!"
Cyprian waved a feeble hand to Yane and Aillas. "Go, you two, empty this devil his bins, even if you must crawl."
Aillas, Yane and Cargus carried bags of garbage to the rubbish heap and took up the parcels which they had left previously. They set off at a trot across the countryside, keeping to the cover of underbrush and trees.
A half-mile east of the castle they pa.s.sed over the brow of a hill and thereafter without fear of visual detection, made good speed to the southeast, giving a wide berth to the lumber mill. They ran until winded, then walked, then ran again, and within the hour arrived at the river Malkish.
At this point the water flowed broad and shallow, though above it roared down from the mountain through steep ravines, and downstream raced in sullen fury through a set of narrow gorges where many runaway Skalings had been battered and broken on the rocks. Without hesitation Aillas, Yane and Cargus plunged into the stream and waded across, through water often as deep as their chests, with parcels held above their heads. As they neared the opposite bank they halted to inspect the sh.o.r.e. Nothing immediately suited their purpose, and they waded upstream until they came upon a small beach covered with packed gravel, with a low slope grown over with gra.s.s at the back. From their parcels they took the articles which Aillas and Yane had built in the carpenter"s shed: stilts, with straw pads tied securely over the ends.
Still in the water, they mounted the stilts and the three waded ash.o.r.e, disturbing the beach as little as possible. Up the slope they stepped and the padded stilt-ends left neither marks nor odor to excite the hounds.
For an hour the three walked on the stilts. At a rivulet, they waded into the steam and dismounted to rest. Then once more they took to the stilts, lest their pursuers, failing to pick up a spoor at the river, might cast about in concentric sweeps of ever greater radius.
Another hour they stalked on the stilts, up a gradual slope through a spa.r.s.e forest of stunted pines where the thin red soil lay in pockets. The land had no utility for cultivation; the few peasants who at one time had collected resin for turpentine, or grazed pigs, had fled the Ska; the fugitives traveled an uninhabited wasteland, which suited them well.
At another stream they dismounted from the stilts and sat to rest on a ledge of rock. They drank water and ate bread and cheese from their packs. Listening, they heard no far-off belling of the hounds, but they had come a good distance and expected to hear nothing; probably their absence had not yet been noticed. The three congratulated themselves that they had possibly a full day"s headstart over any pursuit.
They discarded the stilts and waded upstream in an easterly direction, and presently entered an upland of curious aspect, where ancient pinnacles and crags of decaying black rock rose above valleys once tilled but now deserted. For-a s.p.a.ce they followed an old road which led at last to the ruins of an ancient fort.
A few miles beyond the land once again became wild and rose to a region of rolling moors. Rejoicing in the freedom of the high skies, the three set off into the hazy east.
They were not alone on the moor. Up from a swale a half-mile south, under four flapping black flags, rode a troop of Ska warriors. Galloping forward, they surrounded the fugitives.
The leader, a stern-faced baron in black armor, spared them only a single glance and no words whatever. Ropes were attached to the iron collars; the three Skalings were led away to the north.
Late in the day the troop met a wagon-train loaded with victual of various sorts. At the rear marched forty men linked neck to neck by ropes. To this column were joined Aillas, Yane and Cargus, and so, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, forced to follow the wagon train north. In due course they entered the kingdom of Dahaut and arrived at Poelitetz, that immense fortress guarding the central b.u.t.tress of the Teach tac Teach and overlooking the Plain of Shadows.
Chapter 24.
WHERE DAHALT BORDERED ON NORTH ULFLAN"D a scarp eighty miles long, the front face of the Teach tac Teach, overlooked the Plain of Shadows. At a place named Poelitetz, the river Tamsour, flowing down from the snows of Mount Agon, cut a chasm which allowed relatively easy access from Dahaut to the moors of North Ulfland. Poelitetz had been fortified as long as men had made war across the Elder Isles; whoever held Poelitetz controlled the peace of Far Dahaut. The Ska, upon seizing Poelitetz, began an enormous work, to guard the fortress from the west as well as the east, so that it might be totally impregnable. They had closed the defile with masonry walls thirty feet thick, leaving a pa.s.sage twelve feet wide and ten feet high, controlled by three iron gates, one behind the other. Fortress and scarp showed a single impervious face to the Plain of Shadows.
The better to reconnoiter the Plain of Shadows, the Ska had started to drive a tunnel out under the plain toward a hillock overgrown with scrub oak at a distance of a quarter-mile from the base of the scarp. The tunnel was a project executed with the utmost secrecy, concealed from all but a few Ska of high rank and those who dug the tunnel, Skalings of Category Six: Intractables.
Upon arrival at Poelitetz, Aillas, Yane and Cargus were subjected to a perfunctory inquisition. Then, instead of the maiming or mutilation which they had expected, they were taken to a special barracks, where a company of forty Skalings were held in isolation: the tunnel gang. They worked ten-and-a-half-hour shifts, with three half-hour rest periods. In the barracks they were guarded by an elite platoon of Ska soldiers and allowed contact with no other persons of Poelitetz. All realized that they worked as components of a death-squad. Upon completion of the tunnel they would be killed.
With death clear and large before them, none of the Skalings worked in haste: a situation which the Ska found easier to accept than to alter. So long as reasonable progress was made, the work was allowed to go its own pace. The routine each day was identical. Each Skaling had his a.s.signed duty. The tunnel, fifteen feet below the surface of the plain, ran through shale and compressed silt. Four men dug at the front face with picks and mattocks. Three men scooped the detritus into baskets which were loaded upon barrows and wheeled back down the tunnel to the entrance. The barrows were dumped into hoppers which were hoisted aloft by a crane, swung over a wagon, emptied, and returned below. A bellows powered by oxen walking around a windla.s.s blew air into a leather tube, which led to the tunnel face. As the tunnel advanced, cribbing was set into place so that the overhead and the sides were lined with tarred cedar timbers. Every two or three days Ska engineers extended a pair of cords by which the direction of the tunnel was guided and with a waterlevel* measured horizontal deflection.
*The water-level comes in several forms. The Ska used a pair of wooden troughs twenty feet long with a section four inches square. Water in the troughs lay perfectly horizontal; floats at each end allowed the troughs themselves to be adjusted to the horizontal. By shifting the troughs in succession, the desired horizontal could be extended indefinitely, with an accuracy limited only by the patience of the engineer.
A Ska overseer directed the Skalings with a pair of soldiers to enforce discipline, should such control be needed. The overseer and the guards tended to remain at the open end of the tunnel, where the air was cool and fresh. By noting the rate at which the wagons were filled, the overseer could estimate the vigor at which the Skalings performed their duties. If work went well, the Skalings ate well, and drank wine with their meals. If they slacked or loitered, their rations dwindled in proportion.
Two shifts worked the tunnel: noon to midnight and midnight to noon. Neither could be said to be preferable since the Skalings never saw the sun and knew that they were never to see it again. Aillas, Cargus and Yane were a.s.signed to the noon-midnight shift. Immediately they began to consider escape. The prospects were even more discouraging than those at Castle Sank. Barred doors and suspicious guards confined them off-duty; they worked in a tube similarly sealed against exit.
After only two days of work, Aillas told Yane and Cargus: "We can escape. It is possible."
"You are more perceptive than I," said Yane.
"Or I," said Cargus.
"There is one single difficulty. We shall need the cooperation of the entire shift. The question becomes: are any so broken that they might betray us?"
"Where would be the motive? Everyone sees his own ghost dancing ahead of him."
"Some persons are traitors by nature; they take pleasure in treachery."
The three, squatting by the wall of the chamber in which they spent the off-hours, considered their fellows, one by one. Cargus said at last: "If we share together the prospect of escape, there will be no betrayal."
"We have to a.s.sume as much," said Yane. "We have no better choice."
Fourteen men worked the shift, with another six whose duties never took them into the tunnel. Fourteen men bound themselves in a desperate compact and at once the operation began.
The tunnel now reached about two hundred yards in an easterly direction under the plain. Another two hundred yards remained, through shale, with occasionally an inexplicable ball of iron-hard blue sandstone sometimes three feet in diameter. Except for the sandstone, the ground yielded to the pick; the face moved forward ten to fifteen feet a day. A pair of carpenters installed cribbing as the tunnel advanced. They left several posts loose, so that they might be pulled to the side. In the gap thus cleared certain members of the gang dug a side-tunnel, slanting toward the surface. The dirt was shoveled into baskets, loaded aboard barrows and transported back precisely like dirt taken from the face of the tunnel. By partially closing two men into the side-tunnel, and with the rest of the men working somewhat harder, there seemed no lessening of progress. Always someone with a loaded barrow waited thirty yards from the start of the tunnel, should the overseer decide to make an inspection, in which case, the lookout jumped on the ventilation tube to warn his fellows. If necessary he was prepared to turn over his barrow, ostensibly by accident, so as to delay the overseer. Then when the overseer pa.s.sed, the barrow was rolled so as to flatten the ventilation tube. The far end became so stifling that the overseer spent as little time as possible in the tunnel.
The side-tunnel, dug five feet high and three feet wide, and slanting sharply upward, went swiftly, and the diggers probed continually with cautious strokes, lest, in their zeal, they strike a great hole into the surface which might be visible from the fortress. At last they found roots, of gra.s.ses and shrubs, then dark topsoil and they knew the surface was close above.
At sunset the tunnel-Skalings took their supper in a chamber at the head of the tunnel, then returned to work.
Ten minutes later Aillas went to summon Kildred the overseer, a tall Ska of middle-age, with a scarred face, a bald head and a manner remote even for a Ska. As usual Kildred sat gaming with the guards. He looked over his shoulder at the approach of Aillas. "What now?"
"The diggers have struck a dike of blue rock. They want rock-splitters and drills."
""Rock-splitters"? What tools are these?"
"I don"t know. I just carry messages."
Kildred muttered a curse and rose to his feet. "Come; let us look at this blue dike."
He stalked into the tunnel, followed by Aillas, through the murky orange flicker of oil lamps, to the tunnel face. When he bent to look for the blue dike, Cargus struck him with an iron bar, killing him at once.
The time was now twilight. The crew gathered by the side-tunnel where the diggers were now striking up at the soft top-soil.
Aillas wheeled a barrow of dirt to the end chamber. "There will be no more dirt for a time," he told the winch-tender, in a voice loud enough for the guards to hear. "We have hit a lode of rock." The guards looked over their shoulders, then returned to their dice. The winch-tender followed Aillas back into the tunnel.
The escape tunnel was open. The Skalings climbed out into late twilight, including the winch-tender who knew nothing of the plot but was happy to escape. All lay flat in the sedge and saw-gra.s.s. Aillas and Yane, the last men to depart the tunnel, pulled the supporting posts back in place, leaving no clue as to their function. Once on the surface they wedged the escape hole right with bracken, pounded dirt into the choked hole and transplanted gra.s.s. "Let them think magic," said Aillas. "All the better if they do!"
The erstwhile Skalings ran crouching across the Plain of Shadows, through the gathering dark, eastward and ever deeper into the kingdom of Dahaut. Poelitetz, the great Ska fortress, loomed black on the sky behind them. The group paused to look back. "Ska," said Aillas, "you strange dark-souled folk from the past! Next time we meet I will carry a sword. You owe me dear for the pain you put on me and the labor you took from me!"
An hour of running, trotting, and walking brought the band to the Gloden River, whose headwaters included the Tamsour. The moon, almost full, rose above the river, laying a trail of moonlight on the water. Beside the moon-silvered veils of an enormous weeping willow, the band paused to rest and discuss their situation. Aillas told them: "We are fifteen: a strong band. Some of you want to go home; others may have no homes to go to. I can offer prospects if you will join me in what I must do. I have a quest. First it takes me south to Tac Tor, then I can"t say where: perhaps Dahaut, to find my son. Then we will go to Troicinet, where I control both wealth, honor and estate. Those of you who follow me as my comrades, to join my quest and, so I hope, to return with me to Troicinet, will profit well; I swear it! I will grant them good lands, and they shall bear the t.i.tle Knight-Companion. Be warned! The way is dangerous! First to Tac Tor beside Tintzin Fyral, then who knows where? So choose. Go your own way or come with me, for here is where we part company. I will cross the river and travel south with my companions. The rest would do well to travel east across the plain and into the settled parts of Dahaut. Who will come with me?"
"I am with you," said Cargus. "I have nowhere else to go."
"And I," said Yane.
"We joined ourselves during dark days," said one called Quails. "Why separate now? Especially since I crave land and knighthood."
In the end five others went with Aillas. They crossed the Gloden by a bridge and followed a road which struck off to the south. The others, mostly Daut, chose to go their own ways and continued east beside the Gloden.
The seven who had joined Aillas were first Yane and Cargus, then Garstang, Quails, Bode, Scharis and Faurfisk: a disparate group. Yane and Cargus were short; Quails and Bode were tall. Garstang, who spoke little of himself, displayed the manners of a gentleman, while Faurfisk, ma.s.sive, fair and blue-eyed, declared himself the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a Gothic pirate upon a Celtic fisherwoman. Scharis, who was not so old as Aillas, was distinguished by a handsome face and a pleasant disposition. Faurfisk, on the other hand, was as ugly as pox, burns and scars could make him. He had been racked by a petty baron of South Ulfland; his hair had whitened and rage was never far from his face. Quails, a runaway Irish monk, was irresponsibly jovial and declared himself as good a wencher as any bully-bishop of Ireland.
Though the band now stood well inside Dahaut, the proximity of Poelitetz cast an oppression across the night, and the entire company set off together down the road.
As they walked Garstang spoke to Aillas. "It is necessary that we have an understanding. I am a knight of Lyonesse, from Twanbow Hall, in the Duchy of Ellesmere. Since you are Troice, we are nominally at war. That of course is nonsense, and I earnestly cast my lot with yours, until we enter Lyonesse, when we must go our separate ways."
"So it shall be. But see us now: in slave clothes and iron collars, slinking through the night like scavenger dogs. Two gentlemen indeed! And lacking money, we must steal to eat, like any other band of vagabonds."