The Joys of My Life h-12

by Alys Clare

  He struggled to the top of the spiral stair and emerged into the room above, stepping aside to let Gus come out and stand beside him.

  Gus looked frightened. ‘What is it, Sir Josse?’ he hissed. ‘What’s here that we can’t see?’

  ‘I don’t know, Gussie.’ Josse forced himself to speak aloud, in as normal a voice as he could manage. It would not help if both of them were too scared to do anything but whisper. ‘Did you remark this… this presence on your way down to open the door?’

  Gus forced a smile. ‘Reckon I was in so much of a hurry to let you in that I wouldn’t have noticed a five-legged cow standing in my way. Wh-what d’you think it is?’ Despite his best attempts, the boy’s fears were gaining on him.

  ‘I think,’ Josse said forcefully, ‘that evil deeds have been done here and that they have left their mark, but they were done by human men, Gussie. Not ghosts, not ghouls, not devils, but men. Remember that.’

  ‘Human men,’ Gus repeated. ‘Right you are, Sir Josse.’ He did not sound altogether reassured.

  Josse’s heart filled with affection and pity for him. ‘You know what would be really helpful, Gussie?’

  Gus looked at him very apprehensively but he managed to say bravely, ‘No, sir. What? Anything I can do, tell me.’

  ‘Well,’ Josse said, adopting a carefully anxious expression, ‘the worst thing that could happen would be for someone to come along and surprise us here inside the fortress, so if you can find the courage, could you, do you think, go down again, cross over the plank and keep watch? Then you can give me warning if anyone approaches.’

  Gus’s relief was very obvious, but still he steeled himself to protest. ‘Reckon that’s giving me the easy job, Sir Josse,’ he remarked. ‘Me stay out there nice and safe while you prowl around here on your own? Oh, no.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Josse said firmly. ‘And, dear old Gussie, that is an order.’

  Gus paused for one more moment. Then he turned, raced down the stairs and Josse heard his footsteps thumping on the plank.

  Now, he thought, I am alone.

  He waited until his alarmed heartbeat had slowed a little, then began a careful pacing of the room above the entrance. Just as the dark guard had described, there was a row of arrow-slit windows right over the door, but other than that the stone walls were unbroken. In the far corner of the room, Josse could make out a ladder whose upper end disappeared through a trapdoor in the roof; it must lead to the battlements and perhaps also to one or two chambers on the upper floor. If de Loup and his knights made a habit of coming here, they would have to have somewhere to eat and sleep, and this barren, evil room had no domestic facilities of any kind.

  What it did have, Josse saw as he began a careful circling of it, was a long table made of smooth, unembellished oak set a couple of paces out from the wall opposite to the arrow slits. Its shape called something to mind, and after a moment’s thought he realized with a shiver of dread that it looked like an altar. It stood up on a stone dais reached by three wide, shallow steps, and at either end there stood heavy iron candlesticks, man-height, each bearing three expensive beeswax candles. Pushed up against the wall behind the altar was a large wooden chest. Josse stepped round the altar — unthinkingly he gave it a wide berth — and crouched down in front of the chest.

  It too was made of oak, and bound with bands of iron. It was fastened with a hasp, which, to Josse’s surprise, lifted to his tentative touch. He raised the lid of the chest and peered inside. Because of the poor light, it was difficult to see what was inside, but straight away the smell hit him.

  Instinctively he drew back and was about to bang down the lid of the chest. Then he thought, but I have to know. That is why we are doing all this. Steeling himself, he leaned forward again.

  Moving aside slightly so that a little more light fell on the contents of the chest, he saw that it contained folded cloth. Picking up the top layer, he stood up and shook out the folds of the material. It was a robe, made of silvery-grey silk, its wide skirts stained with dark brown. Dried blood, Josse thought instantly. But the stench was not that of old blood; it was faecal. What in heaven’s name had been going on here?

  He put the robe aside and drew out the next folded item. This too was a robe; this time deep blue. He took out the rest of the chest’s contents: thirteen robes, the ones at the bottom of the pile apparently older than the rest and with the air of not having been used in a long time, for they were dusty and the fabric was thin and spotted with age. Slowly Josse folded them all up again and stored them back in the chest.

  As he tucked in the folds of the silver-grey robe, he noticed that there was a device embroidered on the left breast. He studied it and made out the figure of a woman in a strange horned headdress. She appeared to be standing in a boat shaped like the crescent moon. He rummaged back down the pile of robes and found that every one bore the same device.

  It was with a huge sense of relief that finally he closed and fastened the chest. He stood up, his knees protesting, and straightened his back. He moved round to the front of the altar, staring at it and trying not to let the terrible images it seemed to transmit lodge in his mind. No. No.

  He took a step back, then another. The heel of his boot caught against a slightly raised stone slab and hastily he looked down. He saw beneath his feet some marks: brown marks, dry now but, from the pattern of splashes, clearly once liquid. He bent down and took a cautious sniff. Very faintly came the metallic smell of old blood.

  It was enough. Dear Lord, it was more than enough. He flew across the room, down the spiral stairs and came to a halt in the doorway. ‘Gus! Gussie!’

  Alarmed by his tone, Gus, who had been standing on guard across the ditch, spun round. ‘Sir Josse? Are you all right?’

  ‘Aye, my lad, aye, or at least I will be when we get away from this frightful place. Come over — it’s time for you to repeat your entrance procedure in reverse.’

  Gus hurried across the plank and, as soon as Josse was safely over on the far side, drew it back inside the fortress. Then he slammed the door, and Josse heard the bolts shoot home. He waited impatiently for Gus to climb the spiral staircase and the ladder and then, when Gus appeared on the battlements, called up to him, ‘Is there a way you can climb down and bring the rope away with you?’ It would be a mistake, he realized, to leave evidence that someone had been inside.

  ‘Yes, I reckon so,’ Gus called back. ‘It’s good and long, so I’ll tie one end round my waist — ’ he did so — ‘and loop the rope round the stone bastion, then lower myself down using the free end.’

  It sounded highly dangerous. ‘But you-’ Josse began.

  ‘Don’t worry. Just watch, I’ll be all right!’

  In no time Gus was bouncing down the wall, fending himself away with his feet and feeding the rope hand over hand. He reached the bottom — Josse let out the breath he had been holding — and jerked the rope free of its support, catching it as it fell into his waiting arms. He looped it over his shoulder, then scrambled down into the ditch and up the other side.

  Wordlessly Josse put his arms round the young man in a hard hug. ‘Well done,’ he muttered. Then, releasing him, added, ‘Now, let’s pray our luck holds while we make our escape.’

  It did. Whatever Philippe de Loup was doing that May afternoon, he was doing it well away from the Ile d’Oleron. Josse and Gus kicked their horses to a canter. Then, as if the animals were as affected as their riders by the brooding, lowering atmosphere of World’s End, both broke into a furious gallop.

  As the desolate north-west corner of the island was left behind, the mist cleared and the sun came out.

  Part Two

  The Shining City

  Four

  Although it was late in the afternoon by the time Josse and Gus were back in the vicinity of Eleanor’s castle at the other end of the island, Josse was gripped by the desire to get away to the mainland. Despite the sunshine that had streamed down on them once they were out from that eerie,
malevolent mist, he had gone on feeling cold and shivery. It was as if some malign influence that hung around Philippe de Loup’s fortress had adhered to him like a deadly cloak, for there had been evil in that dreadful place: Josse had almost been able to taste it.

  He made up his mind. ‘We’re not staying in the queen’s castle tonight,’ he announced to Gus. The relief that flooded Gus’s face suggested he had been fighting the same sense of horror as Josse. ‘There’s no point,’ he went on, ‘since our business here is done.’

  ‘Right, Sir Josse,’ Gus said. Then, tentatively, ‘D’you mean us to leave the island right now, then?’

  ‘Aye.’ Josse heard Gus mutter a fervent ‘Thank God’, which exactly echoed his own sentiments. Thinking that it was only fair to give the lad some sort of explanation, he said, ‘I needed to look inside that place up at World’s End, Gussie, and thanks to your ingenuity and your nimble hands and strong feet, we’ve managed to do so.’ He glanced at his companion. The lad must be aching to ask why they’d had to break into de Loup’s stronghold and what Josse had been looking for, but he was a lay brother, trained in the habit of obedience, and he didn’t.

  They rode on in silence for a while. Josse was thinking hard and eventually he came to the conclusion that if Gus were to share the perils of this mission, as indeed he already had, then it really was only fair to tell him just why he was being asked to risk his life. I need not tell him the whole story, Josse thought; the outline should suffice.

  ‘Gussie,’ he began, ‘the queen has given me a job to do and it looks as if it’s going to be dangerous.’

  ‘I’ll help you, Sir Josse,’ the lad said gallantly. ‘The lady abbess didn’t want you going into peril by yourself and she said I was to watch out for you,’ he added with a touching note of pride.

  ‘And there’s nobody I’d rather have,’ Josse said sincerely. ‘But the peril is real, lad.’

  ‘I know, sir,’ Gus said, his voice hushed. ‘I saw inside that fort place.’ He hesitated. ‘Wh-what d’you think they get up to there?’

  ‘I do not know for certain,’ Josse said gravely. ‘Rumour has it that they practise devil worship and-’ No. There was surely no need to tell this innocent young man the rest. ‘And other things,’ he finished lamely.

  ‘There was a smell like the slaughter house,’ Gus said slowly. ‘A smell of blood and of… Well, terrified animals… er… well, they shit themselves, and there was that smell as well. Wasn’t there?’ The use of the coarse word had made him blush.

  ‘Aye, Gussie, I noticed it too.’ He thought again of the stains on the silver-grey robe.

  ‘D’you reckon they sacrifice animals up there in that room, Sir Josse? Is that it?’

  Well, humans were animals, of a sort.

  ‘Aye, Gussie,’ Josse said. ‘I reckon they do.’

  ‘Oh!’ Gus looked aghast. Then he seemed to pull himself together. ‘Is that the mission, then, sir? To find out what the men do up there in the fort and tell the queen so that she can stop it?’

  ‘That’s a part of it,’ Josse acknowledged, ‘but there’s more, although I’m afraid I can’t tell you the rest.’

  Gus appeared to be ahead of him: ‘There’ll be grand and famous names involved, I’ll bet,’ he said perceptively. ‘Some great lord or knight, I’ll warrant, and the queen’s worried because rich and powerful men ought not to behave like that, and she’ll want to-’

  ‘Aye, lad,’ Josse said, interrupting hurriedly. Good Lord, if the lad were allowed to go on with that train of thought, before long he would have guessed the whole sordid, terrible tale. ‘So our task is to find out who is involved and discover all that we can about them. They’re not at the tower, we know that, and I very much doubt if they’re lodging anywhere near Queen Eleanor’s castle. I think the best thing we can do is return to the mainland and try to pick up the trail.’

  ‘Do we have any names, sir?’ Gus asked. ‘We’ll have our work cut out if not.’

  Josse grinned. ‘Aye. We have the name of the man who owns that fortress. He’s called Philippe de Loup.’

  Gus’s eyes widened in astonishment. ‘I’ve heard that name! Not exactly like you just said it, but the “Loup” bit.’

  ‘In what context?’ Josse demanded.

  ‘Saul and I were going to our quarters the first night we were here and there was a band of children playing tag out in the yard behind the kitchens. It was quite late and this big fat woman came out looking for them because it was their bedtime. Anyway, two of them were being really naughty and wouldn’t come even when she kept on calling, and she said, “If you’re not in by the time it’s dark, the Loup will get you,” and then they came scurrying in quick as you like.’ He shook his head. ‘I reckoned she was referring to some sort of local bogeyman. I never imagined he was real.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s both,’ Josse said slowly. ‘If fearsome rumours have built up about that tower out there on the point, then its master would indeed have become a figure with which to threaten naughty children.’ Perhaps too, he added silently, for one or two local boys it became more than just a threat. That thought, though, was dreadful and he tried to put it out of his mind.

  They were close to the queen’s castle now and with great relief Josse turned his attention to practical matters. ‘We’ll leave the horses by the gate, Gussie, and slip in quickly to pick up our packs.’

  ‘I have mine with me.’ Gus indicated the two saddlebags slung across his horse’s back.

  ‘Even better,’ Josse said, managing a laugh. ‘Then you wait outside the gates with the horses while I fetch mine. I’ll seek out the chamberlain and tell him we’ve been called away. The sooner we’re away from here, the better.’

  Gus suddenly looked fearful. ‘He might come after us, this de Loup, if he finds out we’ve been nosing around his old tower, mightn’t he?’

  Josse was torn between honesty and the desire to reassure. Honesty won. ‘Aye, Gussie, well he might. But,’ he added hastily, ‘even if he finds out we were there, which isn’t very likely because I don’t think we left any sign of our little visit, he’d have to discover who we were, where we came from and where we’d gone. All of which suggests to me that the sooner we get off Oleron and lose ourselves over on the mainland, the safer we shall be.’

  By nightfall they were many miles from the Ile d’Oleron. An incurious ferryman had taken them over the straits in company with a group of others and, once on the mainland, they had ridden hard for several hours. They had stopped at a tavern to eat a surprisingly tasty supper, and Josse had ordered wine. Then they had gone back outside into the warm evening and ridden for another hour. When finally they stopped, it was on the edge of a pine forest right away from any human habitation: Josse was intent on burying their trail.

  Wrapped in cloaks and blankets, they made themselves comfortable on their beds of pine needles. Almost immediately, Josse heard Gus’s breathing deepen as he slipped into sleep. It was a soothing sound, but Josse was wakeful. As they had been riding along, he had been working out a plan; now he needed to go over it again to see if it was sound.

  King Richard and these mysterious Knights of Arcturus had been at Philippe de Loup’s tower early in March. Was the late king one of the Thirteen Nobles? Were the two who had hastened away with him? It seemed likely. For some reason, the trio had left separately and been rowed out to a waiting ship by the dark guard. The rest of the knights might have left later that night, or the next morning, or they might have stayed on for a few days. For sure, they had not been there when Josse and Gus had gone into the tower, and there had been no sign of recent occupancy. Nevertheless, Josse had no way of knowing when Philippe de Loup last left his tower, or his present whereabouts. Not that it really mattered, because he did know the subsequent movements of one of the others. King Richard had gone from the Ile d’Oleron to Chalus, where on the evening of 26 March he had been struck by the arrow that subsequently killed him.

  In the absence of any other option, Jo
sse made up his mind to follow in the late king’s footsteps. There was really nothing else he could do. With that decided, he turned on his side and was soon asleep.

  It was well over a hundred miles from Oleron to Chalus. Josse and Gus had covered a good part of the journey in their fast ride the previous evening and now Josse reckoned they had less than eighty miles to go. They might make it in two more days if the weather stayed fair and no mishap occurred.

  On the morning of the third day, they climbed a low ridge and from its summit looked down on the devastation that had once been the peaceful land surrounding the castle of Chalus. The castle itself was still standing, although the gaping holes in its walls and the blasted, ruined entrance showed clear evidence of the besiegers’ fury. Broken siege engines stood on the churned-up earth like the skeletons of some huge, nightmarish monsters. Some distance from the castle, under the eaves of an area of thin woodland, there was evidence that a long, deep pit had recently been dug and filled in. Beside it, there was a group of women kneeling in the mud. They were weeping. Whatever use might have once been intended for the fields around the castle must surely now have been abandoned, for the land was deeply scarred and every living thing upon it, from grass to tall trees, had been blasted away.

  This, Josse reflected sadly, was what happened when a castle was besieged by a man like King Richard.

  He and Gus rode on. Ahead of them on the track, two men were trying to get an ox cart out of a deep rut. One man was pushing at the right-hand wheel of the cart, the other dragging at the oxen’s harness, calling out encouragement to the beasts and, when that failed, swirling his whip high in the air and bringing it cracking down on their pale backs.

  Gus was off his horse and running to the man pushing at the wheel. ‘I’ll help!’ he cried. ‘No need to whip the oxen, master — ’ he turned to the other man — ‘they’re doing their best.’

  Josse saw the man’s frustration turn to anger. He too dismounted and, hurrying over, said to the man with the whip, ‘Forgive my young friend — he meant no criticism.’