Empire's Legacy- The Complete Trilogy

by Marian L Thorpe

  Dense blackness filled the tunnel. I pulled a candle from my pocket and lit the wick. This tunnel, I knew from the afternoon’s exploration, needed no repair. It led to the pantry of Rette’s cottage, where a woven rug covered the other trapdoor. The pantry and kitchen of the cottage stood at the back of the main building to help isolate them in case of fire. Most of the village houses had the same plan, with a separate entrance in the kitchen opening onto the kitchen garden and well. At Ranni’s cottage, I knew I could cover the space between the trapdoor and the door to the garden in four paces. With enough stealth, no one in the living areas of the cottage would know I had passed through.

  The candlelight showed me the outline of the trapdoor above me. It opened easily, and I held it open with one arm while I licked my thumb and forefinger to douse the wick. Then I waited, letting my eyes adjust again to the dark, listening. I could hear voices in the cottage, but they sounded stationary, as if whoever spoke remained in one place. I pushed the trapdoor open, hearing a faint slither from the rug, and slid out onto the floor. I let the trap down again, easing it closed with only the tiniest sound, and slowly stood. The voices in the cottage did not change. I stepped forward, rolling my weight along my feet as Tice had taught me. The garden door had two halves that opened separately to allow light and air in but to keep the goats out, and the faint light seeping in at the join gave me my bearings.

  I had just reached the door when I heard a scrape of a chair on wooden floorboards. I froze, rapidly trying to remember what in the pantry might provide cover for me, but footsteps did not approach. I felt along the lower door to find its latch, slid it upwards, and slipped out.

  The rising moon lay low in the east, giving me almost full dark for cover. A fence edged Rette’s kitchen garden against the goats, but a stile led into the field beyond. I kept to the fence, pausing once to clean off my shoes as best I could.

  Barley had grown in the field until last week. The stubble crunched sharp and noisy underfoot. The breeze brought the spicy smell of thyme to my nostrils. I froze. Someone gathering herbs? I moved to the edge of the field, where a footpath ran beside the south stream. Willows grew between the two bridges used to cross the stream to the fields and fruit trees, and the footpath ran beneath their overhanging branches. I followed the path for about a hundred yards before I turned off the path, jumped to grab an overhead branch, and pulled myself up into the tree.

  I waited, tucked up against the trunk behind the screen of leaves. I saw movement at the stile. Slowly, I crept out onto the thick branch overhanging the stream. With relief, I found the half-remembered route, where the limbs of a willow leaning from the other bank intertwined with the tree I had climbed. I slid over into the other tree, and then down its rough trunk to the ground, pausing to catch my breath, grinning with enjoyment of the task.

  I used the willows for concealment as I moved. The bubbling of the stream down its rocky bed masked the noise of my movement. At the upper footbridge, I dropped to my hands and knees to crawl across.

  Another footpath ran along this bank behind the outbuildings of a half-dozen houses, my mother’s among them. I headed upstream for a few hundred yards before turning left across a stile, moving in and out of two byres. At the last byre, I stopped. The meeting hall lay opposite me now, with open ground between where I stood and the forge. I planned to move across the hillfields, where the natural unevenness of the land and the deep heather would provide camouflage, but I had to do that without coming too close to the sheepcote. The herd dogs would raise the alarm if they caught my scent or heard me move. I also had to cross the stream again.

  No trees or structures bridged the stream this high up, but generations of children, not wanting to go around by the bridges, had dragged rocks to create stepping stones across the flow. I had added to them myself, carrying chunks of frost-sheared rock down from the hills to repair the crossing after the damage of the first spring spate. I slid down the bank to pick my way along the stream until I found them. I crossed quickly.

  I used a stone wall for cover until I reached the first of the rough hillfields. A sheepdog yipped once, but when the other dogs remained silent, she did not bark again. I turned left, from the shelter of the wall, and in a half-crouch moved through the heather, going from boulder to gorsebush to boulder, keeping to the low ground. The moon gave just enough light to keep me from tripping over rocks or splashing in puddles, but even so I had wet feet and scratches on my face and arms from unseen branches when I reached the forge.

  In the shelter of some bushes above the forge I paused, listening, for a good five minutes. I could hear Siannon snuffling and moving in his stable, and faint voices from the village. When a passing cloud darkened the moonlight, I crawled the last few yards to the forge, eased open the door, and stepped in.

  I listened. Nothing. I lit the lantern, then reached for the bucket and dipper and took a long drink.

  “Well done,” Dern said as he came in the door. “I saw you once, or rather, I had a sense of movement, for just a moment. If I hadn’t been watching for you, I might have thought I had seen a fox, or another night creature. I wasn’t expecting you for at least another quarter-hour, or perhaps a half. How were you so quick?”

  “I crossed the south stream below my mother’s house,” I said. He looked at me quizzically. “The willows lean into each other there. I climbed one on the north bank and came down another on the south. I did it all the time as a girl. It’s much faster than going up or down stream to the bridges. You can climb and go from branch to branch along the stream, too.” I added. I paused. “When did Casyn decide to follow me?”

  “You saw him?” Dern exclaimed.

  “Only barely,” I admitted. “Like you, just movement. I guessed it was one of you, and as you are here and he isn’t, it had to be him.”

  Without answering, Dern moved to the door and whistled, a piercing sound. “Our signal,” he explained.

  “You thought I might elude him?” I asked, pleased by this thought.

  “We debated the possibility,” Dern said. I heard footsteps outside. Casyn came in, breathing deeply as if he had run up the hill.

  “You did well, Lena,” he said, with a brief smile. “You climbed the willows, I assume?”

  “I did.”

  “By the time I made the bridge, I had lost you.”

  “That’s not all you lost,” Dern said, chuckling. “You owe me a flask of wine, Casyn.”

  “You bet on me?”

  Dern laughed. “Soldiers wager on almost anything, Lena. It provides diversion. Casyn bet he would catch you. I bet he would not. You should be pleased. We can share the wine.”

  Casyn spoke before I could. “What was the hardest part, Lena?”

  I considered. “The hillfields. On a darker night, I could well have fallen or blundered into a pool. But I don’t see an alternative. If I had gone higher, into the rocks, the sheepdogs would certainly have barked.”

  “There will always be risk,” Casyn said. “The higher route might be safer, if time is not of the essence. But you did well tonight. Now, take yourself to the baths. Change your clothes, collect Tice, and join us here for dinner in an hour.”

  I could smell goat rising from my clothes. Dern put his hand on my shoulder, a comrade’s gesture. “You did well.”

  I smiled and slipped out. Walking down to the baths, I could still feel the touch of his hand, warm and gentle, resting on my back.

  I left my clothes soaking in a tub of hot water and soap, bathed myself, and tended to my scratches. Tice met me outside the baths, and we walked up the hill together to the forge cottage. The door stood open to the evening, but I knocked. From inside, Dern called to us to enter. Casyn had a pot of soup simmering on the stove, smelling richly of fish, and bread and greens to go with the chowder. We sat around the plain pine table to eat, talking of what we had learned today, and the work needed with the cohort.

  “Do we tell the rest of the village what we are about?” Tice asked
.

  “I think we have to,” I answered. “Many women helped us inspect the lofts and tunnels today. In some cases, we had to ask for furniture to be moved, doors to be unlocked, or to be shown the location of the trapdoors. We were asked if we were looking for hiding places for valuables, for the children, for ambush. Rumour will be rife, and the sooner it’s ended the better. Also, if we don’t explain our plans, we risk finding a door blocked against us.”

  “But if the others know our plans, they could reveal them under threat of death or torture,” Tice countered.

  “That is true of all the plans. I don’t want secrets,” I finished, more sharply than I had intended.

  Casyn nodded, then spoke gently. “I agree with Lena. We cannot afford to divide the village against itself, and things kept secret have a way of doing that. The risk is one we will have to take.”

  Tice looked thoughtful, but did not argue. We spoke some more of assigning the necessary work, and of how to train our cohort. We agreed that I would show Tice the routes and hiding places tomorrow, and then she and I would take the rest of the cohort through the training. We would practice in the evenings until all of us could move through Tirvan unseen and unheard.

  When we left the men an hour or so before midnight, the moon rode high. The breeze, still on-shore, had freshened, holding a hint of dampness.

  “Rain tomorrow,” Tice said.

  “Likely,” I agreed. “We’ll meet at the training ground after breakfast, rain or no.” We came to the point where our paths diverged. Tice took a step up the path to her cottage.

  “Goodnight, Lena,” she said quietly.

  “Goodnight, Tice,” I answered, before a thought struck me. “Can you climb trees?”

  She stopped, chuckling. “There weren’t many in the grape fields, but I can shimmy up a rope and walk the timbers of a barn twenty feet up. Will that do?”

  Chapter Seven

  The next evening, I spoke to the village as a whole for the first time. “Women of Tirvan.” My voice sounded high to my ears. I cleared my throat, beginning again. “Women of Tirvan. Yesterday, Dern, commander of Skua, and I explored your houses and your barns.” I saw heads nod. “Many of you have been wondering why.” I glanced at my mother, who smiled back. “We were looking for hiding places. Hiding places and routes to allow my cohort to move through the village unseen.”

  “Why?” someone called.

  “My cohort’s job is to use our knives, to kill those who get by our swordswomen and our archers,” I explained, forgetting my apprehension. “For that, we need surprise and stealth. We need your lofts and cellars, and your tunnels. We need hinges to be greased, and doors unblocked. We’ll need to repair tunnels and hang ropes. My cohort will do the work, but we need you to give us access. Are there any objections?”

  Heads shook. I looked around the hall. “We’ll start in a day or two. I—or Tice—will let you know what exactly we need.” I started to step away, then stopped. “Thank you. If you have questions, I’ll be glad to answer them.”

  “Well done, cohort-leader,” Tice said, after the few women with questions had dispersed. “You made us proud.”

  Aline bounced up to me. “Did you find the tunnel from the sheepcote to the big barn?”

  “No, I didn’t. Casse must have forgotten about it. Will you show me tomorrow?” She grinned and nodded before running off to find Camy. “That could be useful,” I said to Tice, “if we can teach the dogs to be silent.”

  “I wonder what else we might have missed.”

  Over the next few days, we tested routes in daylight, added ropes, and planed down a door or two. The more difficult work of rebuilding the two collapsed tunnels we left to the women of the village with experience in building. Aline showed us the tunnel, luckily undamaged, between the hillcote and the barn, and contributed the inspired suggestion of making the ropes we hung into swings, so that they would appear to be only children’s playthings. I praised her both publicly and privately for this; she blushed and beamed.

  A few days later, in the early afternoon, we gathered at the top of the waterfall.

  “Has anyone here not climbed down the waterfall?” I asked.

  The youngest girls looked up with surprise on their faces as they heard me, an adult, speak casually of something so forbidden.

  Tice spoke. “I haven’t.”

  “Why,” Salle demanded, “are we climbing down the waterfall?”

  “Because we may need to,” I said simply. “What if it is the only unguarded route down to the harbour, or by doing so it gives us the chance to fire the catboat?”

  “I thought that’s what the tunnels were for?”

  “In part, yes,” I replied, “but what if we can’t use them?”

  I watched as my cohort glanced at each other. “I suppose,” Salle said finally.

  “It is dangerous, but it may give us an advantage of surprise or speed, which is why we need to practice. Now, who will show Tice the way?”

  “I will,” Freya offered. She slipped off her shoes, tying them on her belt, behind her back. Tice did the same. Freya walked to the top of the waterfall and jumped down to the first of the boulders. Tice followed. I could hear Freya instructing Tice for a moment or two, and then the sound of the water drowned their voices. We waited. It took, I remembered, about ten or fifteen minutes to clamber down, and no one else should begin the descent until Tice and Freya reached the bottom. If a climber higher up on the rocks fell, she endangered one immediately below.

  One by one, we climbed, jumped, and slid down. I went last. The initial descent was easier than I remembered, but, I reflected, my body had changed since I had last done this, three or four summers back. At one point, the cliff face had broken off, leaving a vertical drop of about seven feet. I hung from the rocks at the top by my fingers, feeling the strain in my arms, then dropped down onto the boulder below, remembering to lean into the rockface. Even so, I fell hard on one knee. I stood on the wet rock, rubbing my knee, looking up. I could see the irregularities that I had used as hand-and-foot holds when climbing up. They looked horribly shallow. I judged it next to impossible for the cohort’s shorter members, and absolutely impossible for any of us at night. A ladder, bolted into the rockface, would provide the safest answer, if we had the time. Otherwise, I thought, a rope, looped and knotted, would work.

  I finished the descent, joining the others shivering in the cool breeze off the sea. No one had had serious problems in the descent, but we all had scratches and bruises, and wet clothes. “Now,” I said to the waiting cohort, “who has climbed up, other than Freya and myself?” Silence. “No one?”

  “I tried, once.” Salle said. “But there’s a place where I couldn’t reach anywhere to hold on to. I had to come down again.”

  No one else had tried the climb. I looked at the cohort. Freya and I had strong arms from hauling nets, and the height needed. Tice, taller than either of us, could not climb with me. As cohort-second, she would need to take command if I fell. “Freya,” I said, “you and I will climb up, again. The rest of you, go back to the top of the waterfall to wait for us. Practice knife-play to keep warm. Tice, a moment, please.” She waited as the rest of the women began to pick their way along the rocky pools at the edge of the sea, back to the harbour. Freya waited at the base of the waterfall, where the rush of water would obscure our words.

  “If I fall—” I began.

  Tice shook her head impatiently. “You won’t. But, yes, I know. I will be in command. I pray I know the plans by now. But you won’t fall. Go, before you get cold and your muscles cramp. I’ll see you at the top.”

  I insisted Freya follow me. If I could reach the handholds, so could she. The first part of the climb passed easily. The cliff sloped gradually and the boulders clustered close together. But as we climbed, the rocks grew further apart, requiring us to pull ourselves up half our height in some cases. Water drenched us. After each particularly difficult piece, we stopped briefly to study the rocks, to d
etermine where ropes or iron bars set into the boulders might help.

  At the rockface, we stopped. “Watch where I put my hands and feet. If you see a better choice, call up to me.” I stood about eighteen inches out from the wall, bent my knees, and jumped, reaching up to a small ledge. My fingers grabbed the wet rock; at the same time, I brought my right foot up to a knob of protruding rock about half an arm’s length above the boulder where I had stood. My left foot swung free for a minute, and then found a crevice about a handspan’s above and to the left of the protrusion. I pushed up with my bent knees, reaching my right hand up to another crevice about a foot above the ledge. I pulled my body upward. I could hear my heart pounding. Above me was another small ledge. I brought my left hand up, grabbed it, hanging for a moment, my bare toes searching for grip on the rockface. I looked up. The falling water hit my face. I blinked, shook my head to clear the water from my eyes. I felt my left hand slip slightly. A bolt of fear shot through me. I scrabbled with my feet, seeking purchase.

  “Bring your right foot up a bit further,” Freya called from below me. “To the left, there,” she shouted, as I found the grip. “Now push up. The top of the rockface is an arm’s length above you.” I heaved myself up, reaching blindly with my right arm. I found the ledge, pulling myself up onto it. I lay panting for a moment. The pounding of my heart slowed. I rolled to my stomach, looked over the edge, and talked Freya up.