Lions of the Grail

by Tim Hodkinson

  ‘By sweet Jesus you’ve been in a fight, I see,’ Peter said, seeing Bysset’s split lips, bruised cheek, swollen nose and blackened eyes. ‘Is that from the big tournament in Carrick? I bet you gave as good as you got though!’

  Bysset grunted and glared at the old servant from under lowered brows. ‘Open the gate. We have business with your mistress.’

  ‘Certainly sir, certainly.’ Peter hurried as best his old bones would carry him down the ladder from the lookout tower. His arthritic hands and his withered arms shook as they strained to lift the heavy wooden bar from the gate, then he swung the gate open.

  The horsemen entered the courtyard and dismounted.

  ‘Where is your mistress?’ demanded a fat man in a tight-fitting yellow and red tunic.

  ‘Who are you, sir?’ Peter asked, not liking the man’s haughty tone.

  ‘I, villain, am Syr Johan D’Athy, Constable of Carrickfergus.’ The fat man was indignant.

  John Bysset raised a conciliatory hand; his face took on a friendly smile. ‘Now, let’s not all fall out,’ he said. ‘Peter, where is Dame Alys?’

  Peter pointed to the tower with the smoke rising from the chimney. ‘She is in the top room, brewing her potions.’

  The friendly expression dropped instantly from Bysset’s face. ‘Right. Seize him,’ he commanded and two of the men-at-arms grabbed Peter, each holding him by one arm.

  ‘What is this?’ Old Peter was incensed.

  ‘So we catch your black mistress at her spells, eh?’ Hugo Montmorency, the Hospitaller Knight, said. ‘We are here to end her Devil’s work and arrest her for the murder of Syr John Talbot earlier today.’

  ‘Murder?’ Peter was incredulous. ‘My mistress helps people; she does not murder them!’

  ‘What is going on?’

  The sound of a woman’s voice made them all turn round. Alys de Logan was looking down from the top window of the tower.

  ‘Don’t say a word,’ Montmorency growled in a low voice to Peter.

  ‘Dear Alys! It’s me.’ Bysset smiled.

  ‘They’ve come to arrest you, mistress! Run!’ Peter shouted. He suddenly stopped, his eyes widened and he looked down at the hilt of Montmorency’s kidney dagger that now protruded from just below his ribcage. Dark red blood dribbled out around it onto the ground. With eye-dazzling speed the Hospitaller had drawn the knife and driven it up under the old man’s ribs to puncture his heart. With a heavy groan the porter slumped in the arms of his captors, who promptly let go and he fell face first into the mud of the courtyard.

  Bysset swore as Dame Alys disappeared from the window.

  ‘Go!’ Montmorency commanded the men-at-arms. ‘Get her. Kill the child.’

  D’Athy nodded in agreement and waved them in the direction of the tower. The door of Corainne Castle was on the first floor, reached by a wooden ladder and the men-at-arms rushed straight to it.

  The ladder forced them into single file and the first one had got about halfway up when John Bysset shouted a warning. The man looked up just as a large iron cooking cauldron, still brimming with steaming liquid, came careering down from a third-storey window of the tower directly above the ladder.

  The man-at-arms did not have time to react as the heavy cooking pot smashed into him, landing on his head and spraying the men behind him with boiling liquid. All three men who had started their ascent of the ladder came tumbling off it. The first man, who had borne the brunt of the pot’s impact, collapsed and slithered off to land in the mud where he lay, unmoving.

  ‘Get that bitch away from that window, damn it!’ D’Athy screeched. Montmorency signalled to the Hospitaller sergeant, who unstrapped a crossbow from the saddle of his horse. He slipped his foot into the stirrup at the bottom of the weapon and with both hands cranked it into the firing position. Releasing his foot from the stirrup, he raised the crossbow and aimed it at the window from which the cooking pot had come.

  ‘Next time she shows herself, shoot her,’ Montmorency ordered.

  While the Hospitaller covered them, D’Athy’s remaining men-at-arms recommenced their ascent of the ladder to the door, this time keeping a cautious eye on the open window above their heads. Nothing more fell from above.

  Soon the first man reached the door. He and the second man clambered onto the ledge on which the door sat and forced it open.

  The men-at-arms streamed into the tower. While the sergeant with the crossbow still covered them, Bysset, D’Athy and Montmorency all followed them up the ladder into the tower. Once they were all in, the crossbowman lowered his weapon and began climbing up after them. He got halfway up when a heavy wooden chair came clattering out the window above to thump into him. The impact of the falling furniture snapped his forearm and swept him off the ladder, his crossbow discharging as it tumbled from his grasp. The crossbow quarrel shot straight into the wall of the tower, ricocheted and embedded itself with a soft thump in the body of the prostrate man-at-arms who had been hit by the cauldron. If he was not already dead, he certainly was now.

  Montmorency looked out from the door at the carnage behind him and swore. He turned to Bysset. ‘What can we expect from her now? Will she have any more surprises for us?’

  Bysset shrugged. ‘She’s resourceful, I’ll give her that. She’s obsessed with hanging on to what she sees as her birthright, so I’m not surprised she’s putting up a fight. But she’s just one woman and she’s trapped upstairs now. There’s only one way up and down this tower and it’s by that spiral staircase over there. Things should be easy from now on.’

  ‘What is upstairs?’ Montmorency asked.

  ‘There’s a sitting room on the next floor,’ Bysset replied. ‘What’s on the top floor I don’t know. She never let me up there. I assume it’s her bedroom and some sort of brew house where she concocts her spells.’

  Montmorency gave a derisory snort. ‘You mean to say you have been wooing her all this time and not seen her bedroom?’

  Bysset glared at the Knight Hospitaller. ‘Coming from a man like you who has vowed celibacy—’

  The constable stepped between the two men. ‘We have urgent business, gentlemen,’ he reminded them. ‘Come. Upstairs. Let us end this nonsense now.’

  They were standing in a sort of storeroom area that occupied the first floor of the castle. In the right-hand corner was the entrance to the spiral staircase that led to the upper floors of the tower. The men-at-arms rushed towards the stairs with D’Athy following at a discreet distance.

  They climbed two turns of the spiral and came to the door leading to the second storey of the tower. The first man-at-arms tried the handle.

  ‘It’s locked,’ he reported.

  ‘She must be in there. Break it down!’ shouted D’Athy from further down the staircase.

  The first man-at-arms to reach the door took a step back on the stairway then smashed his shoulder into the door. The wood was rotten and the impact forced the lock from the wood with a soft crackle. The door sprang open and the man tumbled forward into the room. The next man on the stairway ran in after him, his dagger at the ready.

  With the tension in it released, a rope that had been attached to the inside handle of the door freed its hold on a large iron spade that was suspended in the air by another rope. The spade’s weight now made it descend to the floor. As it did so, it pulled taut a third rope that tightened across the trigger of an ancient crossbow that was set up, cocked, on a table opposite the door.

  The crossbow fired. At such close range the quarrel went clean through the chest of the first man through the door, shattering his heart on the way. The iron bolt exploded from his back and embedded itself in the shoulder of the man behind him, who screeched and dropped his dagger. Momentum carried the first man on across the room even as he died, blood fountaining from the wounds in his chest and back. He collided with the table the crossbow was on and crashed onto it, knocking it over and crashing to the floor where he expired with a final surprised gurgle.

  The so
ldier who had first broken open the door stayed on the floor with both hands over his head. The man with the quarrel in his shoulder writhed on the floor and screamed in agony. Outside on the staircase, the rest of the men-at-arms ducked down.

  ‘What in Hell’s name is going on?’ demanded Johan D’Athy. Being round the bend of the staircase he could not see.

  ‘It was a trap,’ shouted the man-at-arms lying on the floor. ‘Crossbow set up to fire on anyone coming through the door. Adam is dead. Malachi wounded.’

  D’Athy turned to glare at Bysset who was behind him on the stairway.

  ‘Did you not know about these tricks?’ he demanded.

  ‘Of course not,’ Bysset hissed. ‘She never mentioned them to me!’

  ‘Is she there?’ D’Athy shouted.

  The man lying on the floor cautiously raised his head. All he saw before him was a comfortable sitting room with a big fireplace in the far wall. An embroidery frame with a half-finished tapestry on it sat near the window.

  ‘No sign of her,’ the man on the floor reported.

  ‘When you said she was resourceful, I didn’t think you meant downright dangerous!’ Montmorency, who was behind Bysset on the stairs, growled. ‘Constable D’Athy, I believe the Bible is very clear on this. It states in the book of Exodus that you should suffer not a witch to live.’

  D’Athy shouted to his men further up the stairway: ‘She must be on the top floor. Let’s not take this bitch alive lads, eh? I hear she is a pretty one too. First man to get her can have her. We’ll slit her throat afterwards.’

  The remaining men-at-arms recommenced their ascent of the stairway with renewed eagerness, pushing each other in the jostle to be first. The narrowness of the stairwell only permitted single file but the men crowded together so that there was little room between them.

  ‘Wait! One more thing!’ Bysset shouted from below. ‘She told me there is a trip step on the stairway between the second and third floor.’

  The men-at-arms slowed their pace somewhat as they scanned the stairs above them while making their way up.

  The first man had made it about halfway between the two floors when he shouted: ‘Found it!’ and pointed at the step three in front of him. Sure enough it was lower than all the other stairs, deliberately made so to catch the foot of anyone unfamiliar with the castle who may be rushing up the stairway.

  ‘Lucky you spotted that, mate,’ the man-at-arms second on the staircase said. ‘These steps are so steep if you’d tripped on that you might have brought us all down the staircase with you.’

  ‘Aye,’ the first man, pleased with himself, took a big step over the lowered stair, placing his foot on the step above.

  There was a cracking sound as the step gave way beneath his weight and collapsed along with the two steps above it. With a cry of surprise the man-at-arms fell through the hole and tumbled down onto his comrades on the turn of the spiral below. One stone stair smashed directly onto the head of the man in front of D’Athy, stoving his head in with a wet crack and spraying the constable with a sticky mess. The man-at-arms who had stood on the collapsing stair landed on the rest of his colleagues and everyone on the stairway went tumbling backwards. All of them toppled down the stairway, each man’s weight knocking over the man behind and sending him tumbling until they all spilled around the corner back into the sitting room on the second floor.

  ‘God’s balls!’ D’Athy roared as he picked himself up.

  ‘She didn’t happen to tell you about a collapsing stair as well?’ Montmorency spat in Bysset’s direction.

  Bysset shook his head meekly.

  The remaining uninjured men all got to their feet and began to ascend the stairs again, this time with a lot more caution. Once they had all negotiated the gap where the collapsed stairs had been, they gathered outside a door that lay at the very top of the stairway.

  ‘What do we do?’ A man-at-arms asked for guidance. ‘It could be another trap.’

  D’Athy nodded and turned to Montmorency and Bysset. ‘I don’t want to lose any more men.’

  ‘I think it’s time we used our guile,’ Montmorency said. ‘She is a woman after all so let’s play on her weaknesses. Bysset here is betrothed to her after all.’ He laid a hand on Bysset’s shoulder. ‘Go and talk to her. Convince her that you are not here to hurt her. I’m sure her affections for you must count for something. While you do that, I’ll go and get the crossbow.’

  Bysset nodded and pushed his way past the men in front until he came to the door.

  ‘Just keep her talking and away from that damned window,’ Montmorency hissed as he turned and ran back down the spiral stairway, his black cloak billowing behind him.

  Bysset tapped hesitantly on the door. ‘Alys? Alys my love, are you there? It’s me, John.’

  ‘Oh I’m here all right,’ Alys de Logan’s angry voice came from behind the door. ‘Don’t you “my love”, me! What is the meaning of this? You come here with armed men? I was a fool to ever trust you. You were only after my lands all along!’

  Bysset shook his head, a useless gesture given that the door was closed and she could not see him. ‘No, Alys, it’s not like that. The constable just wants to talk to you about some silly gossip that is going around the town that you are a witch. I’ve come along to make sure you are all right.’

  ‘Talk to me?’ Alys was incredulous. ‘He killed my porter!’

  ‘Yes that was unfortunate,’ Bysset coaxed, ‘and I’m sorry about that. I truly am. I will get you another porter. But let’s all sit down and talk this through and avoid any more unpleasantness, eh?’

  There was silence and Bysset smiled. His charm never failed and he was getting through to her. He slid his dagger out of its sheath and slipped it into his belt at his back, then laid a hand on the door latch.

  ‘I’m going to come in,’ Bysset said in a calm, reassuring voice. ‘That’s all right isn’t it? There are no unpleasant surprises waiting for me are there?’

  ‘The door is open,’ Alys responded in a quiet voice.

  Bysset carefully pushed the latch and the door opened a crack. The men-at-arms around him moved away from the door. He stood to one side and pushed the door fully open.

  Nothing happened.

  Bysset looked into the room and saw what looked like a mixture of a bedroom and a kitchen. It was dark and gloomy, the windows letting in little light. There were two beds near the door and there were several tables stacked high with herbs and bottles of liquids. The room was divided by a set of heavy curtains that hung halfway down the room. The curtains went right across the room from floor to ceiling and were divided into three. One had been pulled aside to show a large cauldron of steaming liquid sitting on a stone hearth near the chimney at the far end of the room. In another break in the curtains stood Alys de Logan.

  ‘Where is Galiene?’ Bysset asked.

  ‘Not here,’ was the only reply Alys gave.

  Bysset looked behind him and saw that Montmorency had returned, now armed with the crossbow of his fallen comrade. The Hospitaller nodded to Bysset and Bysset stepped into the room, his hands spread out before him showing he had no weapons.

  ‘There, you see?’ he cooed. ‘I’ve not come to hurt you. How could you think that of me? You know I love you.’

  Alys did not reply. She looked down at her feet and Bysset advanced further into the room.

  Behind him, Montmorency crept up the stairs and stood out of sight to one side of the door. Cautiously he peeked around the corner and saw Bysset with his back to him and Alys standing in the gap in the curtains.

  ‘Now!’ the Hospitaller shouted. Bysset flung himself to the floor. Montmorency stepped out into the doorway and raised the crossbow. Dame Alys had no time to react before he fired the weapon directly at her chest.

  To everyone’s surprise, instead of a soft thump followed by a fountain of blood and a scream, there was a loud clang. The crossbow quarrel seemed to be embedded deep in Alys de Logan’s breast, but her d
ress around it appeared oddly distorted and there was no blood.

  For a split second, Bysset believed Alys had used her witchcraft to conjure up some sort of invisible shield that had saved her, then he saw her turn away and disappear, leaving the crossbow bolt somehow embedded in mid-air. He leapt to his knees, drew his dagger and tore the curtains aside.

  He realised now how they had been tricked. A tall, perfectly flat, highly-polished sheet of metal, its centre now warped and distorted by the crossbow bolt, stood between the gap in the curtains, reaching from floor to ceiling. It was angled so as to reflect the part of the room hidden behind the curtains.

  Montmorency had shot Alys’s reflection, not her.

  The real Alys had actually been standing beside the big fireplace, hidden from them by the curtain. With a shout of rage Bysset hurled his dagger at her but Alys was already moving too fast for him. She darted to the wide fireplace and grabbed a rope that hung inside it. Without hesitation Alys leapt past the fireplace and into the chimney space behind it, quickly sliding down the rope. In the pitch black of the chimney she kept slipping down, sending up a billowing cloud of soot behind her.

  D’Athy’s men-at-arms and Montmorency rushed into the room above and they all ran to the fireplace.

  The big chimney went right down the tower of the castle, stopping at every floor on the way to open into a fireplace. In moments Alys had shimmied down the rope to the first floor, where she tumbled out into the storeroom, coughing and wiping the soot from her eyes.

  The little girl, Galiene, stood beside the fireplace waiting for her. She too was covered in soot having climbed down the chimney ahead of her mother. She held a lit torch that she had taken from a wall bracket.

  Alys quickly got up and grabbed the torch. Returning to the fireplace, she touched the flame to the rope she had descended. It had been carefully soaked in tallow and grease and ignited instantly.