A roar erupted from the warriors below. Spears rose, and swords clattered on shields in a great din.
“Angevins!” Fulk yelled. “To war!”
The battle cry resonated through the courtyard. Looking out over his new army, Adémar gave a cold smile.
Lucien felt reassured, for their sorcery would have the potent fuel it required: blood and souls.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
THE VALLEY IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH
Five riders galloped toward Brosse, thundering across roads and meadows muddied by the cold rains that drenched Aquitaine in the first days of March.
Rain soaked the cloak and tunic that Ciarán had worn since losing his habit in Cordoba’s Guad al-Quivir. He no longer resembled a monk, for his tonsure had long since grown out, and now his rain-slick hair fell nearly to his shoulders. He rode a piebald colt beside Alais’ chestnut mare. Khalil, whose raven-black steed was fastest of the five, led the way, while Dónall, on a roan gelding, and Isaac, on a dapple gray, followed.
Évrard had provided the horses when they reached the seaport of La Rochelle, where they bade farewell to the captain and Josua, still stricken with grief over Eli’s death. In the days that passed, Ciarán’s sadness over Eli’s death had given way to anger, which only drove him to ride harder.
They raced through rugged hill country, with thick woods broken by green pastures, passing farms and villages depleted of food and firewood by Duke William’s four thousand spearmen and mounted lancers. They had set off a week ago in the bleak wake of William’s army, and by dusk on the third day of March, they reached a tiny village called Bélâbre, where they sheltered at a dilapidated priory dedicated to some obscure saint.
That night, gathered around a crude table in the priory’s guesthouse, they supped on stale bread and watered-down wine in the dim glow of a single rushlight. Ciarán was so excited, he could hardly eat.
“How much farther is Brosse,” he asked.
“We should be there before nightfall tomorrow,” Alais said.
“That’s the eve of the prime conflict—not much time to find the gateway to Rosefleur.”
Alais sighed. “I never saw a gateway or a tower there.”
Isaac set down his hard crust of bread. “Then what will we do?”
“Rosefleur lies in the Otherworld,” Dónall said. “There should be some sign of the gateway. In legend, they come in many forms: rings of standing stones, ancient burial mounds, mist-shrouded lakes.”
Khalil lowered his cup. “Tell us about this Otherworld.”
“To the Celts,” Dónall said, “it is the land of the Fae, though it goes by other names. The Northmen call it Álfheimr, and the ancient Greeks called it Elysium, a secret world on the edge of our own. My old friend Thomas described it best. Imagine an oak, he said, where the fullness of its leaves and branches are the world we live in. Its trunk is the center of the earth, and its roots bore into the underworld. But there are the shadowy places in between the leaves and branches. Those places are the Otherworld.”
“It sounds like the land of the Jinn,” Khalil offered. “In Persian tales, it is a dangerous place, which men should avoid.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Ciarán said.
“I still do not understand how we will ever find such a place,” Isaac remarked.
“I wouldn’t worry,” Khalil said. “This is all Kismet—fate. How else do you explain how a poet inspired by Fierabras encountered two monks—in the land of the Moors no less—with a book by Maugis d’Aygremont? You needed the cipher of one to solve the riddle of the other. Kismet—that’s why we will find it.”
“Thomas was the believer in fate,” Dónall said.
“Let’s hope he was right,” Ciarán replied.
Dónall’s expression grew dark. “If he is, then by tomorrow we’ll stand at the brink of the apocalypse. And may God help us all.”
*
The next day, they rode hard, and by twilight, they arrived at a part of the valley where the Anglin River was flanked by wildly overgrown hills damp with rain. The view from this vantage point was chilling. Smoke from hundreds of campfires rose above the valley’s tallest hill, above the fortified walls of Castle Brosse.
“My God,” Dónall murmured. The fortress capped the rugged hill, which bordered the river and was ringed by streams or moats carved into the hillside’s rocky terraces. A winding path, broken by the streams, climbed the hill to the fortress gate and a sheer wall of stone, capped by battlements. Within that wall, at the far end of the fortress, another earthen mound supported an ominous-looking timber keep surrounded by a palisade of standing logs sharpened to spearlike points. In the dim twilight, ravens circled overhead, diving occasionally toward the battlements to feast on things dangling from the walls.
Beside Dónall, Ciarán tried to imagine how such a fortress could ever be taken. For Castle Brosse loomed over the Val d’Anglin like the shadow of death. And within that shadow, between the riverbank and a vast forest that spread east to the valley’s edge, sprawled the sea of tents and campfires of William of Aquitaine’s army.
Dónall pointed to a small cluster of tents set behind the main encampment. Women tended campfires, and a few monks and nuns in black habits moved about.
“Those women followed their men here,” Alais said. “And the monks and nuns are here to care for the wounded.”
Dónall studied one of the larger tents near the monks. “An infirmary’s my guess. No one will pay much attention to us back there.” He drew his cowl over his head. “Let’s go.”
In the larger encampment, grim-faced horsemen tended their destriers, and spearmen and lancers sat by campfires sharpening their weapons. Some looked as young as fourteen—barely men at all despite their iron helms and mail hauberks. Many bore round shields covered in leather and painted with colorful images of birds or beasts—the devices of the lords who led these men. Similar shields were propped up beside the tents.
Two men trotted their horses around the perimeter of the camp. They wore white cloaks over polished armor, and falcon plumes in their helms.
“Raymond and Dalmas,” Alais whispered.
She hid her face behind the hem of her cloak and walked with her eyes down. Ciarán drew his own hood over his head, and they hurried out of Raymond’s sight.
As they walked, the smell of horses soon gave way to a far worse stench. Not far ahead were rows of freshly dug graves numbering in the dozens. The stench wafted from the cluster of tents that made up the infirmary. Monks holding cloths over their mouths ducked in and out through the openings. Around open fires, bleak-faced women mended tunics and stirred bubbling pots.
“We should be safe here for the night,” Dónall said as they reached the women’s camp. “Talk to some of the women,” he told Alais. “See if you can find us shelter.” She nodded and headed toward a cluster of women, none of whom looked older than sixteen.
Khalil wandered off in search of news about the siege. Meanwhile, Ciarán, Dónall, and Isaac wandered toward the encampment’s eastern edge, where a deep forest began just a few hundred yards away.
Nearing the camp’s perimeter, Dónall stopped and gazed out at the forest. It stretched as far as the eye could see, dominating the entire eastern side of the valley. It had a feel about it—a certain primeval aura. Perhaps it was the combined effect of the gnarled oaks with their twisting branches and moss-covered trunks, the beeches choked with thorny vines, and the thick carpet of leaves that disappeared within the shadows of the ancient oaks. It was the type of forest that even the most seasoned Irish hunter would be wary venturing into—a place perhaps haunted by leprechauns and goblins and wicked woodland spirits, and surely the home of wolves and wild boars with tusks that could disembowel a man with one fell swipe. Few woodsmen had disturbed the place, for only a scattering of tree stumps marked the forest’s edge, which meant the men of Brosse feared these woods enough to take their timber elsewhere.
A breeze soughed through the ancie
nt treetops, and Dónall began to smile. Isaac gave the two Irish monks an uneasy glance.
Ciarán placed a hand on the rabbi’s shoulder. “You were worried about finding the gateway,” he said. “I’d bet anything it’s somewhere in those woods.”
*
Khalil returned grim faced. “We do not want to stay here long,” he said.
They huddled beside a campfire, supping on bowls of porridge that Alais had procured from a group of nuns who hailed from the abbey of Sainte-Croix. The nuns had also found them a tent, abandoned four days ago by a group of women whose men had died in battle. And these men were not the only ones to die, Khalil reported, for William’s siege had not gone as planned.
“They did not foresee the treacherousness of that hill,” Khalil said. “The duke sent men with a ram to batter down the gate, but they never gained their footing, and were slaughtered by defenders on the wall, who rained arrows and stones and boiling oil upon them. The duke lost forty men in that first attempt—their bodies now hang from the walls, feeding the ravens.
“Next he tried to mine into the hillside and sap the walls to collapse them. But the hill is solid rock, so his miners went nowhere. Meanwhile, the viscount of Limoges sends skirmishers from the fortress. They kill only a few of the duke’s men at a time, but they are slowly filling those graves.” Khalil nodded toward the mounds of earth near the infirmary. “Were that not bad enough, a sickness has spread within the camp. Men’s bowels run like water. They are succumbing to dehydration and filling the infirmary’s beds and not a few of the graves. Hence this fine stench.”
“What does William plan to do?” Alais asked, looking pale.
“There is a cleric here who apparently whispers in the duke’s ear,” Khalil said, “assuring him that God will reward him with victory. So he plans to stay here and starve the defenders out. His men have burned every farm and field to the south and east, but some fear that the fortress could hold six months’ worth of food. The duke also has a siege engine like one of the old Roman catapults. They have tried slinging stones at the curtain wall, but I understand it did little good. So instead, they lob the carcasses of dead horses and cattle, hoping to spread disease within the fortress. Or they catapult bales of burning hay to set fire to the defenders’ grain stores. But to prevent that, all they need inside the fortress is a good well and some buckets. The duke has dispatched men to build two more of these siege engines, but who knows when they will be ready? So for now he bides his time, like Agamemnon waiting forever outside the walls of Troy.”
“This cleric who whispers in the duke’s ear,” Dónall said, “did you see him?”
Khalil took another sip of watery porridge and grimaced. “He wears the black habit of a Christian monk and is as fat as a hog ready for slaughter.”
“Ah,” Dónall quipped. “That would be the good Prior Bernard.”
“Have you seen a cleric in bishop’s robes?” Ciarán asked. Beside him, Alais stiffened.
Khalil thought for a moment. “No,” he finally said.
“William shouldn’t have come here,” Alais muttered.
“No,” Ciarán replied. “You can be sure Adémar of Blois goaded him into it.”
“So you think it’s a trap?” she asked.
Ciarán glanced at the sky, where a sliver of a moon had emerged over the hills. Just below the horizon and soon to shine over Brosse, Scorpio and Sagittarius waited.
“I don’t know,” he told her, “but I don’t like the timing of it one bit.”
*
After supper, they tried to sleep. From the main encampment came the songs of men drinking wine to numb their pain and summon the courage needed for battle. Embers in the campfire crackled, and in the forest, a lone wolf howled. Alais nestled against Ciarán. He found himself yearning for her, yet he knew that even if he abandoned his vows and forsook the life of an Irish monk, he and Alais could never be together like a common man and wife. For their fate seemed headed along a different path.
In time, Ciarán’s eyes grew heavy and his restless mind surrendered to uneasy dreams. He didn’t know how long he slept, but he woke suddenly when the men outside started screaming.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
WAR AND BLOODSHED
Outside the tent, wolflike howls mixed with the screams of men. Ciarán scrambled to his knees, his mind racing.
Alais grabbed his shoulder. “What’s happening?”
Khalil gripped the hilt of his scimitar. “Another skirmish,” he said, bolting from the tent. Ciarán hurried after him into the foul-smelling air. Above him, stars shone in the night sky.
The clamor came from the western edge of the encampment, near the riverbank, where glowing flames engulfed two of the tents. A band of warriors, howling like wolves, hurled firebrands into tents and engaged the loose muster of spearmen who hurried to protect the camp. Panicked horses whinnied. Spearmen rushed into the fray, raising their shields and rallying the camp as their comrades, surprised by the initial attack, lay wounded and moaning on the ground wet with dew.
From the surrounding tents scurried women and monks, crying out at the sight of the conflict scarcely forty yards away. Another firebrand streaked through the sky, and several monks crossed themselves, muttering prayers. Alais hurried next to Ciarán, followed by Dónall and Isaac. The rabbi bore the befuddled look of a man woken from a deep sleep.
“They came up the riverbank,” Ciarán told Dónall.
Ahead, the skirmishers hurled axes and spears into the growing wave of William’s spearmen. One of William’s white-cloaked lords charged toward the black-garbed raiders, who cast their remaining firebrands before making a fast retreat down the riverbank. Breaking ranks, the spearmen pursued them. In the main encampment, men tore down the burning tents, trying to stop the spread of the flames.
“Look!” Alais cried.
Atop the hill, the battlements of Castle Brosse suddenly ignited.
“Holy mother,” Ciarán said under his breath.
Rows of torches bathed the fortress in a hellish glow, illuminating the warriors assembled on the walls, and the corpses of William’s dead dangling in a ghoulish fringe below. The warriors beat their swords against shields in a thunderous din. Then a crease of light appeared down the center of the castle’s gate, and a great roar resounded from the walls. The gates opened, unveiling an army of warriors who shook torches and shields, howling like beasts. They mocked the spearmen, who pursued the skirmishers fleeing toward the castle.
“This is bad,” Isaac said.
Khalil nodded. “They are welcoming an attack.”
The drumming from the castle grew louder. Stone-faced, Dónall seemed lost in his own thoughts until, behind them, one of the women gave a panicked scream.
Ciarán whirled to his right as a firebrand streaked overhead to land on a nearby tent, setting it ablaze. From the riverbank charged a half-dozen men, shrieking like madmen, their dark cloaks stuck with leaves and mud, their bearded faces contorted with drunken rage. The women scattered, and monks hurried toward the infirmary as two flaming brands fell on its main tent. The cloth ignited, and panicked cries rose from within.
“Into the forest!” Dónall cried, gripping his leaf-shaped blade.
Ciarán took Alais’ arm, but she stood frozen. One of the skirmishers charged toward her, eyes burning with carnal fire, and waving a sword above his head. In three strides, he was on them. Ciarán pushed Alais behind him and stood between her and the attacker’s blade, raising his arms as if he could somehow ward off the blow.
“Ciarán!” Alais screamed.
Instinctively he closed his eyes, and for an instant he felt as if he were back in Derry, about to join his fallen brethren. But his attacker’s howling cry suddenly became a choking gasp, for Khalil had reached the attacker first. A fount of blood jetted out from the man’s throat, darkening his beard as he dropped his blade and tried in vain to stanch the flow. Khalil nodded to Ciarán, who nodded back, still stunned. Alais tugged urg
ently at his arm as the remaining attackers beheld their fallen comrade. Their eyes filled with hate, and on they came.
Ciarán felt the sizzle in the air, and the sudden wind whipping the hem of his cloak an instant before the ghostly blue flames wreathed the treetops at the river’s edge. The skirmishers did not realize what was happening until it was on them. A ferocious gust tore the flaming tents from their stakes and sent a curtain of fire onto the charging men. Their dark cloaks exploded into flame, and their lupine howling soon turned to horrified screams.
Dónall stood defiantly against them, making a circle with his leaf-shape blade, and the wind whipped the flames up into an inferno.
Behind them, men were shouting. Ciarán spun around. At the edge of the main camp, a group of spearmen looked on. Duke William, wearing a hastily donned hauberk, was among them. By his side, Lord Raymond tried to pull the duke toward the front of the camp, but William just stood there, staring aghast at the raging fire. In the glow of the flames, his handsome face looked pale and frightened, like that of a lost child stunned by the chaos all around him.
“William!” Alais screamed. “Pull your men back! It’s a trap!”
“Alais?” William gasped, but did not move.
“My lord,” Ciarán yelled, “listen to her. More is afoot than you suppose!”
A corpulent man in a black habit pushed his way through the crowd of spearmen. It was Prior Bernard, wearing a crazed look. “The witch!” he bellowed. “Ignore her lies, my lord! You must fight. God favors the victor!”
Dónall tugged Alais back and grabbed Ciarán by his cloak. “Let’s go,” he said, glancing to the sky. “We’re out of time.”
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