Daughter of War

by S. J. A. Turney

  Arnau had made the mistake of trying to urge Brother Ramon into some revelation the previous night after compline, as the folk of Rourell had gathered in the refectory in their now-common muted indulgence. They sat in small groups with murmured conversation and no laughter. Ramon, as was often the case, sat on his own with a cup and a bottle, and Arnau had joined him. He had drunk beer with the knight, constantly attempting to manoeuvre the subject of their stilted mutterings, and constantly failing. As the night had ended and the brothers and sisters moved off to their dormitories, Arnau’s head had been a little fuzzy. He’d climbed the stairs slowly, in expectation of a hangover the next day, something he had not had in months now. It had taken little time to fall into deep slumber.

  He wasn’t sure what woke him. Perhaps it had been a hooting owl. Perhaps a noise from one of the other beds where the male populace of Rourell slumbered on. But then owls were common, and he’d become used to the night-time symphony of the brothers quickly, so neither seemed likely. Perhaps it was just discomfort. Certainly, as he turned in his blankets to lie on the other side, there were unaccustomed aches and strange noises from his torso. Then the bladder pressure started. He lay for some time, willing the increasing urgency to go away, turned over again several times to see if it would ease, and then finally lay on his back in discomfort, wishing it would stop, knowing full well that he was merely delaying the inevitable.

  Finally, unable to bear the increasing strain any longer, he threw back the blanket and rose from his cot on bare feet, padding across the wooden floor towards the door to the necessarium. There was a faint odour of dung that clung to that corner of the room despite the fact that waste was deposited through the holes out into the open air.

  He turned the door’s handle and padded into the fetid room, shutting the portal behind him to contain the smell. Compared with that of the monastery in which Arnau had spent time in his youth, this facility was a small and basic affair. The abbey of Santa Maria’s latrine arrangements had been impressive: a row of toilets perhaps fifteen long in a wide room of their own, as big as Rourell’s dormitories, and with a constant strong flow of water beneath carrying away waste into the river for some other poor fool to deal with further downstream. Rourell’s was different. Ingenious, but small. There was no running water here, and the preceptory was surrounded by a dry ditch. Consequently there was no constant supply on hand to wash away the waste. Instead, a water tank on a raised platform at the outer corner of the preceptory above the ditch caught the meagre rainfall and stored it, augmented by buckets brought from the well if necessary. From the tank, a set of wide gutters ran at a gentle slope below both the male and female necessaria, around the walls, across the south causeway and then through a channel out into the fields, where the shit was unceremoniously deposited, aiding the growth of the olives or wheat, no doubt. The water was halted by a small sluice door which could be lifted by means of pulley and rope from within the preceptory to wash the drain clear.

  Arnau stood at one of the apertures and lifted his black sleeping habit, identical to his daytime one. With a sigh of relief, and wondering whether he would find it easy enough to fall asleep again upon his return to the dormitory, he let go, peeing out through the hole and down into the warm night air outside. Above each toilet there was a slit-like window through the thick wall, acutely angled, more for additional ventilation than for viewing, and as he stood with the seemingly endless arc of urine dropping through the hole, his gaze fixed on the somewhat narrow view through that aperture.

  He blinked at the momentary sight of two white figures passing by. Frowning in confusion, he clamped off the flow with a little difficulty and let his habit drop into place once more. On a whim, he hurried to the next narrow window, just in time to catch the briefest glimpse of white blur past.

  Knights or nuns. At least two. He’d have questioned his eyes and his imagination in the depth of the night had he not seen that flash of white through the second window for confirmation.

  Still frowning, he stumbled back through the door, allowing it to shut behind him. Straining his eyes in the gloomy interior, he scanned the beds. There was a telltale human-sized bulge in each. The figures outside were not knight brothers, then. So they had to be either nuns – or possibly not connected to Rourell at all, though that seemed unlikely. For a brief moment he considered shouting an alarm and rousing the brothers from their slumber, but instead padded across to his cot, grabbed his hose and boots, and opened the outer door, padding down the stairs. He was not sure yet what this all meant, and it would be unhelpful to deprive the entire male population of the preceptory of a good sleep without at least an idea of whether there was really any trouble.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he slipped into his hose, tying them to the drawstring of his brais hurriedly, then slipping into his boots. He opened the next door and stepped out into the courtyard. There was no sign of movement here, but he could hear the gentle tones of Father Diego in the chapel. The man never slept, Arnau was sure. He contemplated speaking to the priest, but decided the old man could be of little use. He didn’t know how to rouse the sisters without entering their dormitory, which was, of course, expressly forbidden – a rule even Preceptrix Ermengarda enforced emphatically. The west gate was barred, which meant that no one had left that way without someone inside to replace the lock. That left the south gate, which was closest to where he’d seen the figures anyway.

  He hurried into the shadows of the arched corridor. The moonlit countryside beyond the preceptory showed through cracks and tiny pinpoints around the gate. He made it to the timber, blinking in the gloom, using his hands to guide him. The bar was still in place. He tried the small inset door. It opened, and Arnau’s heart pounded. He’d expected it to be locked. Starting to feel rather nervous and acutely conscious of his vulnerability, he hurried back to the courtyard and opened the door to the armoury, feeling around until he found the hook on which his sword belt hung, lifting it and scurrying into the open air once more. He fastened the belt round his waist as he disappeared into the darkness of the archway once more. Once again he wondered whether he should be rousing someone else, or possibly clanging the main bell, raising an alarm.

  No. He still didn’t know what was going on, and if he wanted to catch up with the white figures, he was losing time. He’d already delayed too long getting dressed and equipped.

  Biting down on the nerves that threatened to unman him, he passed through the door inset in the gate, closing it behind him. Somehow the fields surrounding Rourell had never seemed so open and clear to him, brightly lit by moonlight. Despite his black sergeant’s habit, Arnau did not believe for one moment he was well hidden. Any hidden crossbowman could probably put a bolt in him without a great deal of effort, and the open ground provided no cover whatsoever.

  Crossing the causeway over the ditch, he immediately turned to his left. As he passed the corner of the preceptory, he glanced up at the projecting shape of the necessarium and identified the slit window at which he’d stood, extrapolating from it. He turned in the direction the figures must have been moving, marvelling that he’d seen them at all from that angle. He squinted into the night and there, just below the looming distant shape of the mill, he spotted two small white shapes gleaming in the moonlight. He contemplated for a moment shouting out to them, but reasoned that drawing further attention to their presence might not be the cleverest approach. Consequently, he picked up pace and hurried on in their wake, making little noise other than the pounding of his feet, the heaving of his breath and the occasional clunk and tinkle of his sword at the belt.

  They had almost reached the mill by the time Arnau was halfway from the preceptory, and he noted with concern how the pair then split up, close to the building’s west wall. One white figure moved to the south corner, making for the main door, or perhaps the bridge across the Francoli that stood just beyond. The other came to a halt and both remained where they had separated. Arnau’s suspicion and worry deepened, an
d he broke into a proper run now. There could be no good reason for this, and no good outcome, he was sure.

  His eyes remained locked on the two white figures as he closed on them, and his nerves jumped a notch at the next change. The southern figure rounded the corner towards the door and bridge and, as soon as it was out of sight, the second figure, who had been standing still, turned and hurried away to the north, the opposite end of the building. The move was furtive and deliberately hidden from their companion. Arnau’s breath came in rasps as the figure turned the north corner and disappeared as he closed on the mill.

  What to do? Pursue the more suspicious white figure around the northern side or follow the initial person around the south? Sharply, he remembered his earlier nervousness upon exiting the preceptory door, and his eyes searched the nearby trees and the undergrowth near the river, half-expecting to spot hidden archers. Another dreadful thought struck him. What if this whole thing had been engineered to arrange for Rourell’s door to be left unlocked? What if, even now, black-clad murderers were moving through the darkness, making for that unwatched door?

  The notion was so alarming that even in his current predicament, Arnau turned and peered over his shoulder. Rourell was still and peaceful in the moonlight, a faint glow from the chapel rising above the walls. There was no evidence of a horde of sable killers stalking through the fields towards the monastery. For just a moment, he wondered whether to run back and alert someone in the preceptory, in case his wild notion happened to be correct. No. He was being driven to irrationality by nerves. If he left now, he would completely miss what was happening here and, being secret and hidden, it had to be important.

  So who to follow? The surreptitious one who went north seemed more likely to be causing trouble, but was also calmer and more unhurried. The other could be in trouble, given the seeming innocence of their manner.

  That decided him. It seemed almost certain, given the circumstances, that the figures were nuns, even though he’d not seen them close enough to be certain. And if a nun was in danger, then it was his duty as a God-fearing Christian to come to her aid, let alone as a brother of the Temple. He hurried away to the south, though his gaze kept flicking back to the northern corner in case that second figure reappeared. It did not, and he rounded the southern corner in time to witness the brink of disaster.

  The figure was most definitely a nun. She was standing calmly by the door of the mill, looking off towards the south as Arnau rounded the corner. Behind her, he could see half a dozen shapes emerging from the trees and scrub bushes by the river, each a burly man and armed with clubs or lengths of rope. His eyes widened as the nun’s gaze flicked round in surprise at the new arrival. Somehow, from the moment he’d seen them engaged in furtive activity near the mill, he had instantly formed the belief that it was the former maid, Maria. Given her previous escapade outside, it seemed oddly likely. So when his eyes met those of Titborga, his heart jumped.

  In that moment he realised just how much trouble this meant. Half a dozen thugs closing on the heiress of Santa Coloma, and they were not armed with swords and maces and crossbows, but with weapons of subjugation and containment. They were intent on making off with her. That immediately explained who they were and who they worked for.

  The attackers spotted Arnau a heartbeat later and they reacted with surprising efficiency, two of them making straight for Titborga while the other four peeled off into pairs, running to bypass her and intercept Arnau. The young sergeant drew his sword with a metallic rasp and prepared himself. He had the advantage over them in one way, given that they had only stout lengths of wood with which to fight while he wielded three feet of deadly, sharp-edged steel, but given their numerical superiority his own advantage seemed rather laughable.

  He could not win out against six men – the fight at the broken bridge had taught him that. Then he had faced only four and he had been armoured and with a shield, yet still he would have fallen to the fourth had Brother Lütolf not been there to save him. Despite everything he’d privately thought about the man, he wished beyond all things that the dour German was with him now.

  His immediate objective, then, was bleakly simple. He could not win in a fight with these ruffians, and to flee would be to doom Titborga to capture. He had to somehow get himself and his lady into safety. His eyes strayed to the mill door. Was it locked?

  He broke into a run. All he had to do was get past them and get her to safety. Two of the men passed the nun at speed and made for Arnau, clubs raised. The young sergeant ran at them, sword above his head as though he were intent on cleaving someone straight down the middle, grunting with the pain in his side caused by the pulling on the narrow cut there. A nagging thought told him he was displaying every tell the German brother had identified during their recent training sessions, but he had neither the time nor the incentive to worry about such things now. A duel was a duel, slow and well thought out. A melee was something different and depended almost entirely on will, instinct and reflexes. At the very last moment, as the two men flinched, each wondering whether they would be the man to die by that raised sword, Arnau nimbly ducked to the right, passing both of them, sword still held high.

  Sister Titborga was struggling with two men now, one of whom was gripping her right arm tightly, trying to uncoil a rope with the other. The second man had her other arm and was waving his club maniacally. The remaining two were now on the far side of the attempted kidnapping to Arnau and had scrambled to a halt, turning to come for him.

  Arnau’s raised sword fell, biting deep into the shoulder of the man struggling with the rope. He screamed and let go of Titborga’s arm, staring in horror at the limb that hung from his body at a weird angle, held on only by muscle and sinew. Giving them no time to recover, Arnau grabbed Titborga with his empty hand and pulled so hard that she cried out in pain. Her other captor, surprised, saw the woman slip from his grip. Arnau had her now.

  ‘The door,’ he barked. ‘Try the door.’

  She ducked past him and ran to the mill door. Arnau felt his nerves tighten at their predicament. Very good that Titborga was behind him, hurrying to the door. But now he was facing five men who had moved into an arc around them and were closing, tightening the cordon. In moments, he would be fighting five men, and he was already sadly convinced how that would turn out.

  ‘It’s stuck,’ she yelled in a panicked voice.

  More likely locked, his mind shrieked at him, but there was nothing else they could do. He had committed them to the door, though there had been in truth little other choice. Now there was no way they could get away to left or right unless he succeeded in killing all five men.

  They began to swing knotted ropes and flail with clubs as they closed on him.

  ‘Force the fucking thing,’ he shouted, promising to do penance later for swearing at a nun.

  He pulled his arms to the left, hauling back the longsword in his hands, and then swung it in a wide arc, eyes watering at the pain in his side as he did so. The five men halted their advance in the face of the horrible injury the blade threatened. They edged forward just a step, and he brought the sword back the other way in another heavy-handed swing, using every ounce of his strength and yelping as the cut in his side burned. The sheer exertion and pain was almost too much. Spots danced before his eyes and his mind whirled for precious moments.

  ‘Kill him,’ bellowed a new voice, and Arnau’s eyes flicked sideways to see another thug, presumably their leader, climbing up from the river with two more men at his side. He was the only one armed with a blade. The five men around Arnau advanced again, seemingly more afeared of their own master than of the Templar’s swinging blade. Arnau whipped it back and swung again, wondering how long he could keep this up without collapsing. The next few steps and they would be within his arc.

  ‘How’s the door coming?’ he asked with some urgency.

  ‘I don’t think it’s locked,’ the nun replied. ‘I’ve got the latch up, but I think something’s blocking i
t from inside.’

  Wonderful.

  The men were on him now. His next swing caught an extended arm. The contact robbed his arc of speed and strength, but broke the wrist of the man so badly that jagged white bone protruded from the mess. The others came at him fast now. He stepped back two paces and swung again, uncomfortably aware of the closeness of Titborga behind him. He was out of space, but the one who’d dropped from the line, screaming and nursing his ruined hand, had ripped out of the thugs the extra courage their master’s words had instilled, and their advance faltered once more, the Templar’s sword swinging back and forth in his horribly reduced space, threatening agony for the next man who advanced.

  ‘I cannot move it,’ Titborga yelled.

  ‘Kill him,’ snarled the man now at the top of the bank again, ripping his own sword clear of its sheath.

  Arnau was out of time. The men began to move again. They knew, just as did Arnau, that one of them would be maimed in the next few moments, but that the others would have the chance to overpower the sergeant near the door. None of them wanted to be the man hit by the blade, but it was a one-in-four chance. Not bad enough odds to make them falter further.

  Arnau and Titborga were about to die.

  ‘Fuck it, move!’ he bellowed again with feeling, not even bothering to feel apologetic about it this time.