“Seems you got all of the shame and none of the pleasure. But never mind,” said Sean, wrinkling his nose to emphasise the point. “She smells of herring anyway.”
That brought laughter from them both before they took another long look round, assessing the weather.
“Are we heading out onto the tops, or shall we just wait here and say later that all is quiet?” Sean said. “No one else will be out on a night like this—we may as well take it easy.”
But after the escapade in the barn Martin was loath to risk the Thane’s wrath again. Besides, although Sean believed them less than worthwhile, Martin took his watch duties seriously.
“You wait here if you want to,” he said to the younger man. “I’ll just have a quick tour and check in with the next watch up the line.”
Sean laughed again.
“You can’t think I’d let you out there on your own do you—there might be some farmer’s daughter needing rescuing. Come on then. What are we waiting for?”
The first hundred yards were uphill into the wind and a small river of muddy water ran down the well-trodden path. They had to be careful to avoid soaking their boots—they both knew from long experience how long it would take to dry out afterwards. They walked on in silence, climbing higher along the ridge above Milecastle, both of them needing all their breath to force a passage against the elements.
The wind had been howling for three days now, a storm from the east that whistled across the high tops and dumped sudden squalls of sleeting rain in the valleys. The sheep had all been brought in off the hills and the only living things abroad in the night were the watch guards and the occasional rook caw-cawing overhead as it struggled to make headway.
The path got much steeper here, the ground beneath their feet slippery with mud and wet grass. The rain reached a new level of intensity, small biting flurries battering against the young men’s cheeks and plastering their already wet clothing against their damp bodies. The blackness was complete, and only the fact that they knew this path well kept them from straying.
Martin looked out over the wall and wondered, as he did every day, if the watch was fulfilling any useful purpose and realising, again as he did every day, that it didn’t matter if nothing ever came out of the North. The only thing that mattered was that the people of his small community knew that the watchers were keeping them safe. He turned and looked back down the valley to his home.
The fort of Milecastle butted up hard against the old Roman fortifications. It had originally been no more than a square keep. But after the battles against the Bruce it had been rebuilt in the Norman manner and, over the years, had grown extensions and enhancements and turrets until it now sprawled over twenty acres or more. Only the north-facing wall survived unscathed and unchanged.
To the south of the castle there was a wide area of open farmland, pastures and crop fields laboriously dug and maintained from the continually wet soil by generations of farmers. They bred them hardy enough around here, and with the requisite lack of imagination to survive in the constant shadow of menace.
But all that was only to be seen in the daylight. Now there was only more darkness. Barely visible, tiny lights flickered in some of the high windows of the castle and Martin knew that Sean had been wrong about the old man being abed. The Thane would be sitting in one of those windows, his gaze always fixed to the North, waiting for an enemy who had never come.
Suddenly Sean pulled Martin into the lee of the wall.
“Let’s wait this out—it can’t get much worse.”
Martin wasn’t so sure, but was grateful for the rest even though the wall did little to shield them from the cutting wind.
“And at least we got a first.” Sean said as he checked along the top of the wall to ensure that the chain of bulbs was secure. “You’re the first son of a Thane ever to get penal guard duty at night.”
Martin groaned.
“There is no need to remind me. It is something my father is never going to let me forget.”
And as he said it he knew it was true. It was going to be many months before the Thane trusted him again, either as a leader or as his father. Martin had disappointed him on both counts.
The memory of the tongue-lashing he had received was too fresh, too raw. It was time to get Sean off the subject.
“But the guard is not the hardship it once was. They have not breached the wall for nigh on a hundred years. Not since the Old Protector sent them back to their mountains and executed the Blood King. I have heard that there are few left, even in the high places, and that people have gone ashore from the Islands and are rebuilding the towns.”
“Aye. That story has been around the castle walls a few times,” Sean said. “But I put as much faith in that as I do in the one about the Boy King from France coming back to reclaim the bloodline. Watch the walls, keep the bulbs fresh, and the other side can rot and fester till they have to feast on themselves—that’s what I say.”
“At least you and the Thane agree on something then.” Martin said, getting a grunt in reply from Sean.
This was leading to an old conversation between them. Sean wanted to be doing something else, somewhere else, anywhere that wasn’t this small community ringed by wall, fort and duty. Once he’d got as far as Carlisle before the officers of the watch had found him and whipped him into submission, for a couple of months anyway.
Martin’s life was bound up in his duty, to his father, to the watch and to the town that he knew would one day be under his Thaneship. That’s the way it had been for over four hundred years, the mantle passing from father to son, the reason lost somewhere in time.
Many times, as boys and men, they had stood on this wall together, Sean wondering what was out there in the wilderness beyond, Martin worrying that someday they might find out.
Sean saw Martin look out over the wall.
“I doubt if they’re coming tonight. Let’s just get the round done. This wind is likely to shrivel my manhood so much that the fisherwife is likely to mistake me for her husband.”
Sean laughed, but Martin could only manage a smile. Something was abroad in the night, he could feel it, and it laid a damper on his spirits.
They moved away from the wall and back to the path. Martin noticed with some dismay that the wall was beginning to crumble in places. He knew for certain that his father would have to be told, just as he also knew for certain that he would be back out here with a work team in the morning.
Ten minutes later they reached the top of the ridge. Up here the wind howled even harder and the rain battered heavily against their heads. Martin noticed with dismay that the watch they were supposed to meet, here halfway between their stations, was nowhere to be seen.
“At least someone has more sense than ourselves,” Sean said. But Martin knew it was just another thing to add to the list to report to the Thane. And if he knew his father, then these missing watchmen would regret missing their duty—they would be lucky to escape with only a flogging.
They waited on the top for ten minutes, but it was obvious that there would be no one to make the allotted appointment. After checking that the bulbs were still in place they turned back, happy to finally have the wind behind them.
“The Thane is truly sorely vexed with you?” Sean asked, and this time it was Martin’s turn to grunt in reply.
“Aye,” he said. “But I believe that it’s more disappointment than anger. It will pass. But I will be out here on many nights like this before it does.”
“Then I will be here with you. After all, it was my pleasure that brought your pain. We will take our punishment together.”
He punched Martin on the shoulder.
“Brothers?” he asked.
“Always,” Martin replied, and returned the punch.
Together they headed back towards home, hearth and warmth. Martin could just make out the watch light on the postern gate about a hundred yards ahead of them when Sean pulled at his arm and pointed out over the wall and
into the darkness beyond.
“Look.” There was a tremor in his voice, a tone that Martin had never heard there before, a tremor that spoke of fear. “There’s someone on the road.”
At first Martin could see nothing but more rain and more blackness. It was impossible. Nothing had moved on that road in his lifetime, and for someone, or something, to be doing so now, in darkness, was almost inconceivable. He suspected a prank, remembering their conversation less than a quarter hour before.
Then he saw the light, a faintest glimmer of spluttering red and orange that bobbed and weaved as it followed the path of the old road that led to the long-closed watch gate of Milecastle.
Martin saw that it would be only a matter of minutes before whoever was out there reached the gate. He broke into a run and heard Sean following behind him.
David Brown was on guard at the gate, a youngster of barely fifteen summers.
“You saw it?” David asked. “Should we call out the watch?”
That had been Martin’s first reaction, but it looked like there was only one light and, after the debacle in the byre, he was loath to incur the Thane’s displeasure again so soon.
“Let’s leave it until we know more,” Martin replied. “We won’t have to wait long. You stay out of sight,” he said to the young man. “And at the first sign of trouble, then you can ring the bell as much as you want.”
The lad didn’t look too displeased at the prospect, and when Martin and Sean turned towards the gate he was already holding tight on the bell rope, his eyes wide and staring.
For the first time that night Martin felt the lack of his old musket and missed the heavy weight of his sword—two more casualties of the episode in the barn.
“Well, what do we do now?” Sean asked and Martin saw that the fear had left him as quick as it had come. Now there was only nervous anticipation.
He didn’t have time to answer as a voice came from behind the gate.
“Sanctuary! Sanctuary! A Christian man and his family request sanctuary!”
Whatever Martin had expected from beyond the wall it certainly hadn’t been a Christian. He climbed the stairs beside the heavy oak gate and looked down onto the road below.
The voice’s owner was a heavy-built, heavily bearded man of about fifty. He was standing beside a small, stocky horse on which there was another, smaller, person whose features were completely wrapped up against the weather.
The bearded man raised a small brass oil lamp above his head and looked up at the figures on the wall.
“Sanctuary!” the voice cried again. “In the name of Jesus Christ, sanctuary!”
“He’s one of us,” Sean whispered. “The Others would never be able to use the name of our Lord.”
Martin wanted to agree, but he had to be sure—the Thane would expect no less.
“The watch has orders not to allow anyone to pass by night,” he shouted. “Come back in the morning and we will welcome you gladly. It is many years since we had news from beyond the wall.”
The heavy-set man moved away from the pony and approached the wall until he was standing beneath Martin. He was dressed in the Highland style that Martin had heard of, but never seen—a heavy plaid over the top of a knee length kilt, their colours indistinguishable in the gloom. He was older than he had first appeared, and a recent scar ran in a livid line from just below his left eye to the point of his jaw. Now that Martin could see him more clearly, the extra gray in his hair and at his temples was more noticeable, but his eyes were blue and fierce and when he opened his mouth his teeth, although somewhat decayed, looked normal.
“If it’s news you are wanting, I have plenty of that, and your elders are going to want to know about it tonight, not tomorrow. But have pity—my daughter is sick and needs heat and warmth if she is to survive this night.”
Martin was beginning to waver, but Sean’s next action settled the issue. The younger man lifted a bulb from the wall in front of him and tossed it to the man below.
The man caught it in one hand and, when he saw what it was, let out a laugh.
“What is this—an Englishman’s idea of hospitality? Do you want me to plant it or rub it over my body?”
“Neither,” Sean said. “You must eat it. It is the first test.”
“A test now is it? Ah well, I’ve been tested before and have yet to be found wanting.” He peeled the rough skin from the bulb and raised it to his mouth.
“Do I really need to eat this to prove what I am?”
Martin nodded and the bearded man shrugged, popped the clove into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. He grimaced and Sean suddenly had a dagger in his hand ready to throw.
The Scotsman rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, then laughed with little humour.
“By God you grow an astringent herb in these parts—I’ve never tasted stronger—it’ll be coming out in my sweat for weeks.”
He threw back his head and laughed again, heartily this time.
“Here I am expecting a musket ball for my troubles, and I get two lads feeding me garlic.”
He looked up at Martin.
“And now that I’ve passed your wee test do you think you might open the gate? Or do I have to report to my countrymen that English hospitality is all that they suspect it to be?”
Martin and Sean looked at each other. Sean nodded, and after a second, Martin did the same before turning back to the Scotsman.
“I will let you enter,” said Martin. “But you will be taken before the Thane—he will decide what must be done. But I tell you this, sir: you will find that English hospitality is well served in the house of the Thane of Milecastle.”
“Fine words lad, but it’s time for actions. Do you open that muckle gate, or do I stand here until the rain rots it away?”
Martin sent young David ahead to rouse the Thane’s household before he went to help Sean pull open the twin doors of the gate. Long unused hinges squealed in protest, and it took a great push from the man on the other side before they finally swung ajar.
The bearded man led the pony through, then helped Martin and Sean swing the doors close and drop the bolts.
When the job was completed he held out a hand that engulfed Martin’s when he took it.
“Duncan Campbell at your service, young sirs. My sword is yours when you need an ally, my house is yours when you need a bed, and let no man call me a liar.”
He also shook hands with Sean, and Martin was amused to notice that his friend came off worst when he tried to match grips. Duncan Campbell might look like an old man, but he had a strength that matched and then beat the best that Milecastle had to offer.
“We have thought for all these years that there were only the Others beyond the wall,” Sean said.
The man’s face was serious as he replied.
“Aye. For many years that’s almost all there was. Some of us managed—and still do. But for how much longer, I wonder?”
He shook his head as if to clear it.
“But that’s a story for your Thane and the elders of this fine place. Meanwhile, would you be having a physician? My daughter is in sore need of help.”
Predictably Sean was first to respond at any mention of a female, but he had only gotten as far as moving towards the pony when the militia arrived in the small courtyard in front of the gate—all twenty of them armed to the teeth and spoiling for a fight. It looked like young Brown had done more than just raised the household—it looked like he had declared a full scale invasion.
Martin caught Duncan Campbell’s arm as it was heading for his sword.
“No, man. You are under my protection. Sanctuary is what you asked for, and I’ll make sure you get it. Did you hear that,” he said, raising his voice. “This man is under my personal protection.”
“We must stake him,” a voice said, but it didn’t sound like there was the will for the task.
“There’ll be no staking. This man asked for sanctuary in the Lord’s name, and he passed the test of the
bulb. Any harm comes to him from any of you and they’ll have to answer to me.”
He thought he heard a snort of derision from Sean but he had the attention of the rest of them. He dispatched young Brown to fetch the physician and led his new found responsibilities towards the main hall where he knew he’d have to answer to his father.
“Let me talk to the Thane first,” he said to Duncan in a low voice that wouldn’t carry to the rest. “He is not a man to take in travellers readily—even those from this side of the wall.”
He was vaguely aware that Sean was sticking very close to the wrapped figure on the pony, and wondered if he should have insisted on talking to her before opening the gate. But it was too late for recriminations—his father would be waiting on the high seat.
They had just passed into the central quadrangle when young Brown returned at a run.
“The physician says he does not make calls on travellers at this time of the night, but if they would go to him, he will see them in his rooms,” he said, one hand clasped tight to his dagger the whole time.
“Sean?” Martin said in a low voice. “Will you take charge of the girl?”
He saw the eager look in the younger man’s eye.
“I’m trusting you with this,” Martin said. “Maybe we have made a mistake here, but I don’t think so. The Thane however might see things differently.”
Sean looked Duncan Campbell in the eye.
“I request your leave to accompany your daughter to the physician,” he said. “I pledge to you that I shall keep all harm from her.”
“It’s too late for that.” Campbell muttered, but he took the outstretched hand that Sean offered.
“Look after her. I will look for you after we have seen your Elders, but if they will listen to my story it could be a long night. A long night for all of us.”
Martin watched Sean lead the pony and its burden across the inner quadrangle. Suddenly he felt alone, a small boy again until a warm hand was placed on his shoulder.
“Come, young sir.” Campbell said. “And let us impress on your elders the urgency that my mission here demands.”
The Watchers Trilogy: Omnibus Edition Page 2
