Archer's Grace

by Anne Beggs

  Fear buried all pain, but her left leg hummed, like bees trapped in a hive, a steady reminder that she was vulnerable. Even so, Eloise cued Garth, believing her legs to be correctly placed. Garth jostled, struggled but didn’t move forward.

  Looking out, Eloise saw Pingbee’s horse and one of the browns with a rider and staff, blocking Garth, crowding them back at her attacker. Glancing back, she saw her attacker, heard a roar of defiance, his sword coming at her, rather - two swords. She was paralyzed, death was certain. Her mind in some perverse cruelty conjured an image of an artistic red heart, painted on her chest, a bold target for the sword tips, heart, lungs, and ribs pierced and torn. Yet both blades went astray, missing her entirely.

  Behind the attacker was Roland, head bleeding, cheeks puffing with exertion, his own sword buried to the hilt through the attacker’s armpit and protruding out the chest. Both men were struggling and heaving as Roland tried to extricate his sword. Again Roland was out of sight, behind Reginald’s familiar shield as he pushed against the groaning, foamy-breathed soldier, leaving a scarlet swath of blood across Garth’s dappled coat.

  Eloise and Garth were still trapped in a vicious vortex between the horses of Pingbee and his opponent before them, and the dying man and Roland behind. Hands trembling, nocking another arrow, she tried to place it on the spine of the soldier before her and loosed it. Another arrow, loose.

  Pingbee's horse backed, then reared as the attacker swung his staff.

  Grabbing another arrow, Eloise sucked in her gut as the soldier jabbed back and the end of his staff thrust past her before she could grasp the arrow. She felt the impact and heard the blunt thud as the staff smacked Garth on the head.

  “Not Garth!” she howled, drawing another arrow, trying to rise up to place the arrow tip at the base of the soldier’s hairy neck, severing his wicked, horse-abusing spine for all time. The man swerved and dodged. Following the line of his hauberk, down his torso, his thigh…unprotected by chain mail, chausses - Eloise aimed, breathed out, loose. He hissed and flinched; his staff useless against her arrow embedded in his knee.

  “Eloise!” Roland shouted. “Get down!”

  His voice, the words, the urgency. Eloise felt frozen in time trying to respond. It was as if she watched herself bend, lean forward, her right ear resting on Garth’s taut neck. She heard the shoosh as the deadly staff passed above her, slicing the air instead of her skull. She felt Garth move, saw the tufts of brown hair, where Garth had bitten the soldier’s horse. Next the fletch of her arrow then the soldier’s boot passed before her eyes as he tipped back, his brown horse scooting forward, Garth right behind him.

  Sitting up, Eloise scanned the road, reaching to draw another arrow. She found nothing. She looked down. Empty.

  Roland battled the tenacious man on the ground, the staff bludgeoning and striking. Pingbee continued his battle with the soldier on the brown horse, her arrow still in his knee. Motion caught her attention: the grey horse and rider with his sword drawn. Before him on the ground, armed only with a long dagger and one ear, stood Alred.

  Eloise and Garth moved in behind the mounted soldier. Alred was her charge. She had stitched his wound and he was her responsibility now. But she was out of arrows.

  Her bow made a suitable staff, unstrung, but she couldn’t unstring it from horseback.

  Leaning forward she took the limb of her bow with both hands and slammed Cara over the soldier’s head. She yanked back, pulling the soldier, hearing his choking cough, as his hand went to the bow digging into his neck.

  “Back, back, back,” she said to Garth, her seat cueing, willing her horse to help pull the soldier from his saddle as the soldier tried to right himself, his horse rocking back with the rider’s weight. Eloise wanted to grab the other end of the bow, twist around then rotate the limbs so the string cut into his throat. But the end of the bow was lodged too tightly, choking the soldier all the same, with far less effort from her. As he slid from his horse, Eloise kept the bow tight on his throat, until he grabbed it with his free hand. Eloise was forced to release Cara lest the soldier use it to pull her from her saddle or hit with his swinging sword.

  “Alred,” she yelled as the soldier stood, sword ready, “grab Cara.”

  Eloise swung Garth’s hip into the soldier, knocking him to his knee.

  “Alred!” she shrieked, as Garth continued to step over the soldier. “Grab the bow. The bow!”

  Garth sprang up, humping his back, the saddle spun, and Eloise saw the ground come up on her--grass, mud. For a moment she existed in a world of blackness and pain. Sound invaded, grunts, shouting. Forcing her head up, rubbing dirt from her good eye, she saw she was still in the saddle. Where was Garth? Alred had his boot planted in the soldier’s back, her bow, the weapon of a coward, twisted around the helpless soldier’s neck. Cara prevailed.

  She heard hoof beats behind her. This wasn’t over. Fear and shame gripped her with equal and indistinguishable force, crushing her into the dirt where she lay. She was broken and beaten, a crippled freak, a cunt not a cock. Far from home, in this hostile land of Leinster. Never, she shuddered. Dahlquin will not die faceless. With naught but the dagger in her calf sheath and the saddle as a shield Eloise forced herself to rise for what must surely be her last fighter's stance.

  “Alred,” she gasped in warning as the ground shook and she turned to face her attacker.

  Before her a black destrier and Roland, sword and shield poised.

  She felt herself try to smile as she lifted her chin and heard an unladylike snort. The saddle dropped from her trembling hand.

  Unsmiling, Roland surveyed the scene around her. Satisfied it must be safe he dismounted and stood before her, his deep breathing the only sound between them. Why so much anger upon him, she wondered? He was always mad at her, wasn’t he?

  “Fucking, Holy, Saints on a Cross,” Pingbee said. “Alred, brilliant idea.”

  Alred was still choking or attempting to decapitate the limp soldier. He tugged and twisted the bow once more before letting it drop with the lifeless torso.

  “It was,” Alred said, looking around until his gaze fell on Eloise, “her idea,” he said, pointing a shaky finger at her, still panting with his efforts.

  “Run out of arrows, did you?” Pingbee shouted, as he rode among the bodies examining the wounds as did some of the bravest onlookers from the roadside.

  Eloise tried for another smile, or nod of acknowledgment. Still she couldn’t speak. The words came too fast, too many and so inaccurate for the torrent of thoughts. After days of anxiety with Roland constantly looking over his shoulder, Tiomu’s men had finally run them down, culminating in this bloody siege on a public roadway. Her memory could barely register the images of soldiers, sword blades, the sound of staffs and impacts and screams, and the crush of her helplessness to intervene, to end it. And now her only, utterly useless response was to stand mute.

  “Satan’s horns,” Pingbee called. “Three arrows here. Three more. Ow, painful that,” he made a squeamish face. “Is three your lucky number, El?”

  She shook her head, then wondered if mayhap it was.

  “Roland,” Pingbee called, “we may live by the sword,” Pingbee said as he swung his sword in a slow, round arc above his head, “but they died by her arrow.”

  Eloise found her tongue at last, “Book of Maitiu.”

  “This one’s still alive, God have mercy,” someone groaned, for the man was contorting upon the ground, unable to remove the arrow embedded in his ear.

  “An avenging Arch Angel, you are,” Pingbee said, chuckling then laughing.

  Roland stared mutely from Pingbee to Eloise and back briefly to the strange faces of the stunned onlookers.

  “Arch,” Pingbee said, emphasizing the hard ‘ch’ sound, and laughing some more. “Archery,” he snapped when Roland and Alred didn’t laugh with him. “Arch Angel. Were you struck in the head? Ah, you were, bloody fuck.”

  Eloise could hear people gasping and imagi
ned the gore laid out before them. Instead of words, salivation flooded her mouth. She glanced at Roland and thought he looked as peaked as she felt. She and Roland bent over, hands on their knees, side by side, puking and coughing in companionable spasms.

  “Aw, that’s a foul victory celebration,” Pingbee mocked.

  Roland put his shield arm across Eloise, pulling her close. She felt the weight of Reginald’s cracked shield and Roland’s arm on her back, sheltering her. She leaned against Roland as they continued retching.

  “The whelps are still pissing themselves,” Pingbee grumbled.

  DAHLQUIN CASTLE, DAY SEVEN OF THE SIEGE, 14th of June

  “Hubert,” Tiomu called over the gatehouse. “Let us talk, man.”

  “Wish to surrender?” Hubert answered back. His ranks laughed and jeered.

  “I would offer you the same. Your cause is lost. Save your women and children at least.”

  “You have shown yourself a coward, and unchristian,” Hubert shouted down. “Already my messengers take word of your treachery to Gerald FitzGilbert. You think to fool me with your own two stooges there,” Hubert pointed to the staked bodies.

  The day after Eloise, Roland and Reginald escaped the castle, Tiomu had three bodies prominently displayed upon tripods in full view of the castle. Reginald's body was easily identified by his garments, his leather girdle hung around his neck and his sword and scabbard lay down his chest. The other two were in braises and tunics only, their features unrecognizable. That was two days ago. Honor dictated that a knight of Reginald's rank deserved a burial, but instead Tiomu left him, a stinking, bloated corpse covered in crows and vultures and flies, like the other two men. As a sign that Tiomoid U’Neill was, like Hubert, a barbarian.

  “Meath and Ulster will be warned, even your blood U’Neills will not stand with you against Connacht and Leinster.”

  “My stooges,” Tiomu faked, “look again Dahlquin. It's your own men found dead under the falls, as you see them here.”

  “Oh,” Hubert chuckled, “over the falls, was it?” She had escaped, and Roland, too. God’s Blood, he was proud of her. He waved his arm and turned his back. “Let fly,” he ordered.

  A mighty crack split the air as the “Asp,” Dahlquin’s trebuchet launched another projectile. The huge stone whistled as it passed over the ramparts. “Again!” ordered Hubert before the stone hit. The men scrambled to reload.

  Wood splintered, men shouted and ran. Tiomoid U’Neill looked on in horror as his mangonel lay in broken pieces.

  “Here it comes again!” all eyes looked up to see a flaming ball descend upon the broken mangonel. The oil-soaked material exploded on impact and the rest burst into flames. Dahlquin cheered in defiance of the attackers. Crossbowmen and archers picked off as many attackers as they could, before order was regained.

  Hubert hugged the trebuchet engineer, lifting him clear off the ground. Diligently had the man measured and calculated to take out the assaulting siege engine. Singing, dancing and more cheers filled the bailey, ramparts and every tower. Aine came out of the infirmary to see for herself. Hubert found her and hugged her. He fought to keep his own tears in check.

  After a brief exchange of victory and celebration, Hubert directed everyone back to their posts.

  “We must be vigilant. They will be enraged now. Don’t get cocky. Back to your stations.”

  Tiomoid U’Neill also fought to bring his men back to order and position. One of his captains was already drawing orders for the carpenters and woodcutters to return to Hubert’s forests for lumber. They would build another mangonel, as well as more siege towers. Resources were on their side of the barricade. Resources, but not time. Tiomoid U’Neill’s plan depended on a speedy take-over. That had been his real gamble. He had, mayhap, been too confident in his traitors and his own might. How had Scragmuir been alerted so fast? His men had blocked all the roadways. Yet his messengers told him Scragmuir rode to the aid of their neighbors, Ashbury. He should have been on the way south in three days’ time, but he wasn’t victorious here.

  The Danes and Norse Hebrides were vicious and capable fighters. All had gone as planned, yet Dahlquin stood. Where were the showers that drenched Connacht daily? Five days of clear weather allowed Dahlquin to rain fire upon him and his men. It was unheard of. Did the Heretic of Dahlquin and her spawn control the weather? Were the two ladies to blame for his misfortune? And that Welsh Devil, Hubert.

  “Hubert!” he screamed up at the ramparts, hoping to draw his nemesis back. “Hubert!” he demanded. Furious at being ignored, desperate to strike back, to inflict injury and humiliation, Tiomu ran to Reginald's body, waving his arms, dispersing the black birds still feasting upon the remains. Tiomu removed the leather girdle and scabbard, releasing a swarm of flies. Fury upon him, he was oblivious to the rotten stench and putrid decay. “A thousand curses upon Dahlquin!” he shouted, stabbing Reginald's groin repeatedly, but the carrion eaters had already mutilated Reginald's manhood. “Satan’s curse upon you, as your flesh blisters away,” he wailed, frustrated again, as his men tried to pull him away. “Hubert,” he growled, thrusting the sword into what might have been Sir Reginald’s mouth. One last, foul act of desecration, but impotent without Hubert to witness it.

  An hour later in his tent, Tiomoid U’Neill held council.

  “All is not lost,” Tiomoid said with force. He had been rethinking his strategy. He glared at each of his assembled officers.

  “We have the resources,” one acknowledged.

  “Scragmuir might still be persuaded, for the hatred of Dahlquin, to side with us,” offered another officer, his bloody right arm in a filthy sling.

  “Once Ashbury is secure. A show of Irish faith for FitzGilbert, but Dahlquin defeated in the bargain. And three allies for you, Lord,” said the first.

  “The tide might yet be turned,” said another.

  “Connacht united,” Tiomu said, a wry smile slipping across his battle-stained face. All he needed was one castle, one stronghold to negotiate from. He was U’Neill, he had ties with Scotland as well as Ireland. Louis needed brave men for his crusade. Tiomu would have many soldiers to offer, once he was instated. Just one castle.

  Tiomu lifted his wooden cup in toast. His officers joined him, drinking down the watered wine in noisy gulps.

  ON THE ROAD, LEINSTER

  Eloise watched the large drops make little craters in the dirt at her feet. As Pingbee had observed, rain arrived, in slow, large drops. She stood slowly, her arm still touching Roland’s.

  “Alred!” Pingbee shouted. “Fetch El’s arrows.”

  Alred looked up, tottered and collapsed. The binding on his ear was saturated with blood.

  “Fucking Hell,” Pingbee muttered, scanning the faces of the encroaching travelers. “I need a good lad to retrieve the arrows,” he called out, “and a bottle or skin bag. I can pay. And where is that damnable warden?”

  A young, barefooted boy ran up to Pingbee, “I’ll get your arrows, sir.”

  Pingbee looked the boy over, small, with a snaggle-toothed smile.

  “May you have goodness,” Pingbee said.

  Another shoeless boy ran up and they both nodded their heads, eager to help the victors, it seemed.

  “Step lively. Clean them good, and I’ll find some token of appreciation,” Pingbee smiled at the boys, waving a hand to send them off. “Aqua vitae!” Pingbee bellowed. “We’ve six, I correct, twelve horses, tack and armor to barter. But I’m a cheap bastard the thirstier I get.”

  Roland stroked her hair, but with his studded glove, all he managed to do was pull the loose ends. Eloise hadn’t notice until now her cap was lost, and her ill-kept braids had come undone in an unraveling mess.

  “Can you brush it at all?” Roland asked, as she ran her fingers through the bramble of her once glorious tresses. “Just get the knots out and let it hang, aye? We’re in Leinster now, close enough to end this disguise.” His right cheek twitched in an attempted smile. Or was it a grimace? Was h
e still furious with her? Why had he held her so? He was so moody and unpredictable. Even so, she put her arms around him and let herself fall against his chest, taking the weight off her injured ankle. She fought back the tears as his shield arm squeezed her close, hiding her from view.

  “Roland!” Pingbee called.

  Pushing the shield away, Eloise and Roland both looked up at the knight on horseback. “Ah, may you have goodness, bless you sir,” Pingbee said to a man passing him a half empty skin bag. Pingbee took a long drink from the spout, and Eloise was amazed he didn’t dribble a single drop. Then he tossed the bag to Roland.

  “Tell me that isn’t the best fucking drink you ever guzzled, Roland,” Pingbee said wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Grand as a big thumbed whore.”

  After a long drink, Roland held the skin bag to her, but she shook her head.

  “That will put fletch on your shaft, El,” Pingbee laughed. “Well, fletch,” he corrected, looking away. “Take my excuse, such shame upon me, Maiden.”

  Was he blushing she wondered?

  “At least rinse your mouth,” Roland encouraged, holding the skin bag to her.

  She lifted the spout to her lips and let the drink pass into her parched mouth. The liquid burned her split lips and she feared she would breathe fire like a dragon as she swirled the distilled whiskey, not ale, about her mouth quivering with pain. Unable to bear the spirit touching her lips again. she swallowed hard as warm tears coursed down her cheeks.

  “Roland, you and El- Eloise, need to go, too risky here,” Pingbee said, recovered from his impropriety. “Warn FitzGilbert. I’ll take care of this mess, the warden. Hand that bag back,” he asked, reaching for it.

  Eloise was relieved to see Garth and Artoch grazing together on the tall grass just off the roadway. Alred’s horse wasn’t far off. She whistled and Garth popped his head up, green strands hanging from both sides of his busy mouth. She whistled again, and patted her leg, another cue for him to come to her. He chewed a bit more, his side heaved, and he returned to grazing. He ignored her. Given all she had put him through these five long days, she could understand his reluctance. Eloise limped towards him, two steps before the pain upon her ankle nearly dropped her to her knees. He looked up, waiting, and she called it even.