Moments later, a hand on Segle’s shoulder marked the end of her employment at the cauldrons.
That she had not been taken from the kitchens before was to her a source of dull surprise, for when a Trundleman, especially the Trundleman in charge of the mines, made even a mild request, the request was that in name only. But Blean seemed less imperious than the others, and it was not as if a kitchen-girl alone could serve his needs or ranked high in his preference. Each of the Trundlemen already kept several women. Some had wives here at Valdoe, even families. Segle knew that Blean’s interest in her would not be sustained. It was a whim, a moment’s gratification.
Whatever his attitude, it was of no consequence to her. Whether she was violated in Blean’s chamber or in the soldiers’ brothel, she knew that what little remained to her was finally about to be taken by Valdoe, taken and ground underfoot. She tried to compose herself for the ordeal; but as the women slaves bathed and dressed her ready for the Trundleman’s presence she was filled with a blind terror and for the first time in her sixteen years fervently and truly wished herself dead.
* * *
Tagart walked through the massive framework of the gateway and found himself inside the Trundle.
Among all the elaborate plans, the devices and stratagems he had invented on the length of his journey from Burh, this was the only, the single possibility he had not considered, had not even thought of: that the gates would be standing open without the slightest challenge to his entry.
The whole feel of the place had changed. Soldiers and strangers alike were passing in and out as if the Trundle were not a fort at all. There were men in the guard towers; and Tagart had been given a desultory scrutiny by sentries on the road up the hill and by the gates, but since entering the boundary limits no one had spoken to him, asked him who or what he was, where he had come from, or what he was doing at Valdoe.
It had taken him over two days to make the walk. The heavy exertion of the journey had left him weaker, with constant pains in his chest, and aching feet, legs and back, but in his mind he had begun to improve, to plan more clearly. The delirious, dreamlike periods had grown shorter and less intense, and now he was almost himself again.
He had kept to the roads, making detours into the trees only to avoid the ferry stations, swimming the rivers using the inflated water-bag to help float across his pack and clothing. West of the Arun he had caught up with and, at some risk, joined the tail of a party of itinerant pedlars, chapmen on their way to the festival. In his speech and manner he found no trouble in joining them, for chapmen were usually descended quite closely from the nomad tribes: people who retained a wandering existence, working where they could, selling what they could, hawkers and petty thieves, despised by nomads and farmers alike. In appearance, too, Tagart was not out of place among them. He prompted no undue interest. After swimming the river, he had cleaned himself up as best he could, washed his farmer’s clothes, and forced his feet into the unfamiliar clogs. The chapmen, a dozen or so men with their families and flocks, had questioned him but had seemed inclined to accept that a lone traveller would prefer to walk in company.
As payment for this protection, their leader had demanded the whole contents of Tagart’s pack. Tagart had tried to bargain. He told them that he too was a pedlar, that he had come from further east, and that he was searching for his family, from whom he had become separated at one of the villages where there was only enough harvest work for himself. He said he thought they might have stopped at Valdoe or be there still; he was hoping at the least for some word of them. He could not spare his belongings: they were the tools of his trade. The leader insisted. After much argument he relented and accepted a compromise. Tagart parted with his spare clothing, most of his flints, his rope, twine, grapnel, and one of the axes.
It was extortion, but it provided a safe passage through the most dangerous part of the journey, the last few miles to the fort. Tagart fell to the rear of the line, walking beside a youth whose sullen capacity for conversation soon became exhausted, enabling Tagart to withdraw into his own thoughts and plans.
They passed through Eartham, below its fort, and Tagart traded a few flints for hot gruel and bread at the settlement there. Keeping his adopted companions in sight, he left the shed where gruel was being sold and sat down in the shade of a beech tree by the road.
With the silvery trunk at his back, he dipped his bread into the bowl. Above him the sky showed blue. The wind hissed in the beech-leaves; the branches swayed. The road here was wide and well trodden, an important route. It ran between an avenue of beeches, not planted, but two uneven and inconsistent rows of trees which had escaped the axe only because no one had seen any reason to cut them down. The huts and houses of the settlement, encircled by a palisade, stood on the south side of the road and backed on to a system of fields which sloped gradually downhill into a belt of woodland. Beyond this, just visible from the village, spread the coastal marshes of reedbeds and saltings known as the Rifes. These had their beginnings at the Adur in the east and ran for mile upon mile along the coast below the hills, below Valdoe, to Apuldram and Itchenor in the west.
Tagart finished his gruel. There were other travellers on the road, some stopping for refreshment, others going straight on, covering the last few miles to Valdoe. Most seemed to be traders of one sort or another, with bales and bundles, or animals, laden or not, on halters. He saw a few soldiers, some in armour, and here and there a group of more prosperous-looking travellers: wealthy farmers or priests from the villages. A small crowd had gathered by the gruel shed, and by another shed where meat and fruit were on sale.
Tagart stood up. His companions were leaving.
A few hundred yards west of the palisade the avenue of beeches came to an end. On the right was the scrub-clad steepness of the hill, leading up to open ground and Eartham fort. On the left were the village fields. With Tagart again at the rear, talking to no one, the chapmen followed the road through fields and scrub as it curved first one way and then another, accommodating itself to level ground below the hills. Less than an hour from Eartham, in the late afternoon, they came within sight of the Trundle.
Tagart’s main worry was a fear of being recognized. He had worked at the flint mines and might be known, but though he half consciously pulled up his jacket to cover his neck and the lower part of his jaw, he put his trust in the anonymity of a slave. His features might cause a twinge of memory; he might be half remembered; but it was unlikely. An overseer took little note of a slave’s face, caring only about the number of flints he could produce in a day. And out of the mines, in farmer’s clothing, among the crowds, there was still less chance of being recognized. Nonetheless, Tagart watched warily as he went, walking self-confidently as if he were a freeman and not a fugitive, with a ready rebuttal and feigned resentment on his lips if he were to be challenged.
On the outskirts of Valdoe the group was questioned and searched for weapons. Tagart repeated his story, the one he had told the chapmen. It was accepted without demur. The soldiers opened his pack and took the remaining axe, and he was allowed to pass on.
Tagart accompanied the chapmen for most of the way up the hill, past the slaves’ quarters, and, leaving them, went on alone through the timber framework of the gateway and into the Trundle.
* * *
“Give me one of those,” Tagart said, pointing at a leg of bustard on the stall in front of him.
“Five scrapers.”
Tagart did not know that he was expected to bargain. He reached into his pouch. His flints were almost all gone, but he was hungry. Over two hours had passed since his arrival, and he had yet to be sure where Segle was. He had loitered for as long as he thought it safe, watching the kitchens at the slaves’ quarters. There had been no sign of her. He saw the day-shift miners brought in for their food; he saw them led out again and into the cage for the night.
Meanwhile, round the walls and inside the Trundle, the preparations for the feast were coming to a clo
se. Tagart heard raised voices and music, and one by one more fires were being lit. The sun set; the breeze dropped; and in the kitchens the slaves were beginning to clear the tables. Desperately he wondered whether he could risk an enquiry. He decided he could not; but he had no choice.
There was no other way to find her. He approached the edge of the kitchens, called to one of the women there, and asked for Segle.
“Who are you? Why do you want her?”
“I am her friend.”
The woman, middle-aged, with lank brown hair, stood closer to the bars and looked from side to side.
“Blean has taken her,” she said. “The mines Trundleman.”
“When was this?”
“Today.”
“Where is she now?”
She could not tell him, nor could she speak longer. The kitchen overseer had called her back to work.
From the slaves’ quarters Tagart had made his way to the stalls.
He paid for the roast leg of bustard and tore off a mouthful of the rich, dark meat. “Do you know anything of the Trundle?” he said, as casually as he could, to the man behind the stall. “Do you know which part is which?”
They were standing near the gate. The parade ground and much of the outer enclosure were visible. A great bonfire had been torched by the knappers’ shed, in the middle of the enclosure, well away from the palisade, and its flames threw a lurid light on the crowds.
The stall-holder was a short man with fair hair, dressed in beaver and doeskin. He was a fowler, a freeman who traded with the consent of Valdoe, giving a tithe for its protection.
He said, affably enough, “Why should it interest you, friend?”
“I have never been here before. I would like to know. Where is the house of Lord Brennis? Where do the soldiers sleep?”
Aware of an opportunity to impress, the stall-holder pointed out the various features: here the barracks, there the deep ditch which had taken hundreds of slaves to dig, there the inner palisade surrounding the Lord’s Enclosure, where only Lord Brennis was allowed to enter freely.
“And the Trundlemen? Where do they sleep?”
“See there,” he said, indicating a low building next to the inner palisade. “Their quarters.”
“Do all the Trundlemen live there?”
The stall-holder frowned. “You seem very interested.”
Tagart made himself smile. “All those who know me say I am too curious.” He finished the last of the roast meat. “You cook this well,” he said.
“My woman does it.”
Tagart dropped the bones into a butt provided for the purpose. “I wish you good fortune in your trade,” he said, moving away into the semi-darkness, but the stall-holder was already attending to another customer.
In the west, behind Bow Hill, the last of the day showed as mere paleness. Smoke from the bonfires and cooking fires and from the torches which had been set up on top of the walls, and smoke from all the night fires of the temporary settlement, the fair, rose into the darkness. Tagart turned towards the Trundle. From the high ramparts came a squeal of pipes and a loud, wild, rhythmic thumping of drums which persisted through and overcame the cheering shout of the crowd. Burning brands were held to a huge heap of brushwood and timber on the southern slopes of Valdoe Hill, and the beacon fire caught light. An orange twinkling appeared on Bow Hill to the west, and Eartham Hill to the east, and on along the coast, one after the other, on every hilltop where there was fort or settlement loyal to Valdoe and the Gehans.
* * *
The door of the bedchamber shut with a clatter of pegs locked into place, and Segle was alone.
She looked round the room. The women slaves had conducted her here, into the Trundlemen’s quarters, down a dark passage, and into Blean’s suite. Light in the room issued from wooden lamps – clips holding rush-pith dipped in beeswax – standing variously on shelves, by the bed, on a table by the window. As they burned they cast weird shadows and made moving shapes of the curtains and wall-hangings. Under her feet she felt soft matting. A smell pervaded the room, a smell of rosewater.
Outside, she could hear shouting and music and the noise of the feast. She stood in the middle of the room and clasped herself, and, no longer wishing to witness any part of the bedchamber or its furnishings, closed her eyes.
She opened them again and looked up. A curtain had been drawn aside: Blean came in. In the uncertain light she saw that he was wearing nothing; she forced her eyes not to drop, not to look down, to keep to his face. He came and stood behind her. She felt his fingers on her neck.
“You’re trembling.”
Segle said nothing as she felt his body pressed against her own, moving her towards the bed.
2
Tagart elbowed and shoved and shouldered aside the jostling crowd of people and pushed a passage across the parade ground to the door of the Trundlemen’s quarters, his mind working at a furious pace, not knowing what he was going to say or how he was going to get in. He had wasted too much time, hesitated too long, been too cautious, too timid: nightfall had come, and with it the Crale feast had already started.
As the pipes on the ramparts shrilled and the rhythm of the drums grew faster, Tagart forced his way through the last of the throng and found himself in the main entrance. He was in a tackle room hung with nets and bows, ropes, outdoor clothing and gear.
A man came from the side, out of the shadows and into the lamplight. He was grey-haired, less tall than Tagart, with a doeskin jacket and leggings – an attendant of some kind.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
Tagart looked past him and into the dark doorway that led inside, and unbidden the right words came to him. “I bring an urgent message from Stobas at the mines. I must see Trundleman Blean.”
“Has there been an accident?”
“I must see Trundleman Blean, in person. Immediately.”
“He cannot be disturbed.”
“Where are his quarters?”
The attendant moved to bar Tagart’s way. “He cannot be disturbed!”
Tagart thought of striking him, of knocking him aside, but changed his mind. There would be other attendants.
“I would not be in your place when he discovers you’ve stopped me,” Tagart said. “A year’s work is in peril. The main-shaft struts and shutters are in danger of collapse. We’re rigging jury props but even those are breaking up under the strain. We must have the master’s word. Only he know what to do.”
The attendant seemed to waver. “He’s with a girl. I daren’t go in.”
“Then let me. If he’s angry I’ll take the blame. I’ll say you tried to stop me.”
The attendant still hesitated.
“Is that his door?”
“No.”
“Well, which is his?”
“Follow the passage to the end. Knock before you enter – he’s alone with her.”
Tagart was not fully aware of pushing past the attendant. He was in a dark passageway, moving down it towards a glimmer of lamps and the shapes of wooden doors. His hands fumbled with catches and the door opened into a dimly lit room. Making big shadows, he crossed it and thrust aside a curtain and there before him was a bedchamber and in the corner a bed, and Blean, and Segle; her right hand was touching the floor, fingers spread wide in an agony of revulsion. Even as the man on the bed realized that something was wrong, Tagart’s doubled fists came down on the back of his neck and broke from him a low grunt: Blean’s muscles went limp and he slumped, a dead weight that Tagart rolled aside and to the floor.
In the feeble light of the rush lamps Tagart crouched and took Segle’s small, pale hand. He whispered her name. She opened her eyes.
“I am Tagart,” he said, gently. “You will be safe now.”
She could not speak; she could not raise her head from the deep fur covering the pillows. She watched Tagart without recognition.
Beside Tagart, Blean stirred. On the table Tagart found a roll of legging-straps. He ti
ed Blean’s ankles and wrists, and pulled them together from behind. With another strap he tied a gag into Blean’s mouth. Blean lay defenceless. Tagart told himself he should kill him. He should remove from the world a man who lived by enslaving others, who had no conscience about robbing them of their life and liberty.
But Tagart could not bring himself to do it. There had been enough violence, and there would be no more.
Segle slowly sat up. He wanted to comfort her, to reassure her; but there was no time. He said, “Where are your clothes?”
Still she was unable to understand. Tagart noticed some clothing – presumably hers – on the floor and crammed it into his pouch. Taking one of Blean’s capes, he pulled it round her and helped her up, over to the window. As he ripped the kidskin curtain from its bar he glimpsed the fires and lights in the outer enclosure.
Segle would not respond to his voice. With a hand on each side of her waist, he lifted her over the ledge and let her down on the other side, then climbed through himself.
“You were killed,” she said, softly. “They said you were killed in the mine with Boak and the others.”
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
Tagart guided her away from the wall of the Trundlemen’s quarters and into the crowd, the bonfire somewhere on their left, its glare rising into the sky, carrying up smoke and heat with burning twigs and glowing bents of straw. On the wind was the smell of roasting meat.
“Keep by me,” Tagart said, and held fast to Segle’s hand as he drew her towards the south-west gate.
It would be at most only a few moments before the attendant went in and found Blean. Tagart and Segle would have to make the most of their start. He thought of taking a straight run for the forest. At night there, alone, he could not be caught. But with Segle it was different. She would slow him down; and from her things at the Trundle the hounds would hold a scent so strong that in dry woodland there could be no escape.
The Stone Arrow Page 20
