The siege of Macindaw ra-6

by John Flanagan

  She lit the oil lamp, keeping the wick as low as possible. She had already placed a rolled-up blanket along the bottom of the door to prevent any light being seen by the guards in the room outside. When the little flame settled and burned steadily, she concealed it beneath one of the ridiculous conical hats she'd brought as part of her disguise as the wealthy but empty-headed Lady Gwendolyn.

  "Knew I'd find a use for these stupid things," she muttered to herself.

  Earlier in the day, Alyss's belongings had been returned to her – after they'd been searched, of course. Consequently, she had changed back into her own simple, elegant white gown, forsaking the ornate fashions that were suited to her false identity. She was glad to be wearing her own clothes again, glad to throw off the identity of the airheaded Lady Gwendolyn. She was also relieved to find that her writing satchel, with sheets of parchment, pen and ink and graphite chalks, was in her baggage as well.

  She pulled the heavy curtain back and set the lamp on the floor below the window, tossing the tall hat to one side. She set herself to search the darkness outside, concentrating particularly on the irregular line that marked where the black mass of the forest began. For the moment, there was no sign of any reply to the signals she had been sending for the past two nights. But she had been schooled in patience, and she waited and watched calmly. Sooner or later, she knew, Will would try to make contact again. As she waited, she thought back over events of the past few days.

  Since the attempt to rescue her, Keren had submitted her to one more interrogation session, using his blue gemstone to hypnotize her and see if she were hiding any further secrets.

  It rapidly became obvious that there were none. At least, none that he thought to ask her about. That was the one shortcoming of hypnotism. Alyss would answer freely any questions he asked, unable to hide facts or lie to him. But she would not offer information unless she was prompted. Consequently, in answer to his questions, she had told him all about how Will and she had been assigned to investigate the rumors of sorcery in Norgate Fief, and the mysterious illness that had struck down its commander, Lord Syron. She had also revealed the fact that Will was a Ranger, not a jongleur.

  Under normal circumstances, Alyss would have been aghast that she had revealed secrets like these. But of course she was telling Keren little that he didn't already know. Buttle had already revealed her identity, and had quickly guessed that Will was no jongleur, but a King's Ranger. Nothing she said to Keren could do them any harm now. Aside from his determination to rescue her, she had no detailed knowledge of Will's plans.

  In a show of defiance, she had told Keren that Will would certainly have sent word to Castle Norgate by now, so that authorities there could raise a force to come and attack Macindaw. She was puzzled by the fact that Keren dismissed this as unimportant.

  Since Alyss responded to direct questions only when she was hypnotized, she had made no mention of the fact that the leather-covered glass bottle of acid that Will had used to cut through the bars on her window was concealed in the wardrobe. The bars had been replaced, of course, and she had told Keren that Will had used acid. But the renegade knight assumed Will had taken it with him. There was no way for him to know that on the night of the escape attempt, Alyss had unthinkingly placed the bottle on top of the window frame. The following day, she had remembered it was there and secreted it in the little wardrobe that completed the furnishing of her prison, along with an uncomfortable bed, two chairs and a table. It certainly wasn't luxurious, but it could have been a whole lot worse. As for the acid, there would come a time when it might be useful, she thought.

  Her eyes began to water with the strain of peering into the half-light outside the tower. She stepped away for a few seconds, rubbed them, blinked away the traces of tears and then set herself to watch once more.

  When the moon set, she would begin her signaling.

  Will was concentrating, the tip of his tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth as he encoded his message to Alyss. The dog lay under the table, and he rested his bare feet on her warm fur. From time to time, she grumbled contentedly, as dogs do. He glanced down at her, smiling.

  "Nice of you to spend some time with me," he said."Where's your new friend?"

  Her new friend was Trobar, the massively built, misshapen giant who was one of Malcolm's most faithful followers. The dog and Trobar had struck up an instant friendship. The giant had lavished her with all the pent-up affection of someone who had spent years with no person or creature to love. The dog seemed to sense his need and reciprocated, spending hours each day in his company. At first, Will had been slightly jealous. Then he realized how important the companionship was to Trobar and felt a little mean-spirited. The dog, he thought, was wiser and more kindly natured than he was.

  He was working on Malcolm's table, and he glanced up as the healer entered the room. Malcolm looked with interest at the sheets of paper covered with letters and numbers. On one sheet, Will had written the message he wanted to send. On the second, he had translated the letters into code. He saw Malcolm's interest and, trying to seem casual, turned the original page facedown.

  The Courier's code, known to the Diplomatic Service and the Ranger Corps, was a jealously guarded secret. But it was actually quite simple, and he didn't want to give Malcolm, ally though he might be, any chance to figure it out.

  Malcolm smiled as he saw the gesture. As a matter of fact, he had been trying to get a glimpse. If he could see the original message, alongside the cipher version, he felt confident he could unravel the format of the code. The young man at the table was no fool, he reflected.

  "Moonset in an hour or so," he said.

  Will nodded. "We'll get going soon. I'm nearly finished."

  "You send your message using a lamp, I take it?" Malcolm asked.

  " That's right. It's only short because there's not a lot to tell her at the moment. It's just to let her know that we're watching and to set up a schedule for further messages."

  The healer laid another sheet of paper on the table, along with a small, black, shiny pebble.

  "Is there any way we could get this to her?" he asked. "I mean, could you tie it to an arrow and shoot it through the window? Something like that?"

  Will shook his head and reached for his quiver. Malcolm had noticed that the young Ranger's weapons were always within easy reach.

  " That's not a very reliable method. If you tie something to an arrow, it tends to fall off when you shoot it," he said."We do it a little differently."

  He slid an unusual-looking arrow from the quiver and placed it on the table.

  Instead of the usual razor-sharp broadhead at its tip, it had an extended cylinder. Malcolm examined it curiously. The cylinder was hollow. A threaded cap, surmounted by a rounded lead weight, screwed onto the end to seal it.

  "You put the written message in here?" he guessed.

  Will nodded again. He leaned back to ease his cramped shoulder and neck muscles. He had been hunched at the table for some time, initially writing out a chart of the code, then the message, then the code itself. As he moved, the dog stirred. Her tail thumped the floor.

  " That's right. I could use the lamp message to warn Alyss to get out of the way, then fire the arrow through her window."

  "Easy as that?" Malcolm smiled.

  Will raised one eyebrow. "Easy as that. If you've spent five years learning to put arrows exactly where you want them."

  "And the stone?" Malcolm said. "Could you put that inside as well?"

  Will picked up the little black pebble and weighed it experimentally in his hand.

  "I don't see why not. I'll have to reduce the lead to compensate for the extra weight and make sure the arrow remains balanced. I assume you have some scales I could use?"

  "Of course. They're basic tools of a healer's trade."

  "The question is," Will continued, "why am I shooting a stone through her window in the first place?"

  "Aaah, yes," said the healer, placing one fi
nger alongside his nose. "I wondered when you'd ask that. It's to help her if Keren tries to mesmerize her again."

  That gained Will's interest immediately. He looked at the stone again, examining it more carefully. There seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary about it. He frowned.

  "What does it do?" he asked.

  Malcolm gently took the stone from his hand and held it up, admiring its deep sheen.

  "It will neutralize the blue gemstone that she said Keren is using," he said."You see, mesmerism, or hypnotism, as some people call it, is a matter of mental focus. Keren has created a situation where the blue gemstone focuses Alyss's mind on his commands. But if she can hold this little pebble in her palm and concentrate on some kind of strong alternative image, she can resist that focus and remain in control of her own mind. If she's smart, Keren will never know she has broken his grip on her, and that could be useful. She might be able to tell him all sorts of misinformation."

  He handed the stone back to Will, who turned it over, looking to see if there was something about it that he'd missed. Other than its glossy black surface, he couldn't see anything special.

  "How does it do that?" he asked. It seemed a little like hocus-pocus to him, but Alyss had been very definite about the effect of Keren's blue gemstone, and when he had related the story to Malcolm, the old healer had grasped the significance of the blue stone at once.

  Malcolm shrugged now, in reply to Will's question.

  "Nobody really knows. It's stellatite, you see," he said, as if that explained everything. Then, seeing the question on Will's lips, he continued,"Star stone. It's all that remains of a falling star. I found it years ago. Stellatite is exceedingly valuable, probably because it has otherworldly properties. Anyway," he concluded, "I don't really know how it works. I just know it does." He smiled. "It's galling for a man of science to have to admit something like that, but what can I do?"

  Will nodded, convinced. He looked at the sheet of paper Malcolm had placed on the table. It contained a description of the stone and outlined its use. But the sheet was too bulky for the message arrow. He reached into his pack and produced a flimsy sheet of thin message paper.

  " Then I'd best start rewriting your message," he said. "While I'm doing that, perhaps you could weigh the pebble and the lead weight on the arrow?"

  Malcolm picked up the arrow and the pebble.

  "Consider it done," he said, turning toward his little workroom at the back of the house.

  5

  In the tower, Alyss began her nightly ritual with the lamp, holding it high in one corner of the window, then moving it progressively to the other three corners.

  She did this five times, then stopped, setting the lamp on the floor and scanning the dark countryside outside the walls of the castle. She had done this for the past two nights and so far had been disappointed to see no return signal. She clung to the hope that Will would reply. But the hope was getting fainter and fainter. Perhaps he was -

  A light! There it was, off to her left, moving among the trees! For a moment, she felt her excitement surge, then, just as quickly, it deflated as she realized that the light was red and that it was moving along at a fixed height from the ground, alternately fading and flashing as trees obscured it. She knew that strange lights were often reported among the trees of Grimsdell Wood. Perhaps this was all it was.

  Then, out to her right, she saw another. This one was yellow, and it moved up and down in a straight line. Then it disappeared for a few seconds, reappearing some distance to the left of its original position, moving up and down.

  As she watched, it went out again and the red light reappeared, flitting in and out of sight among the trees. Alyss's heart sank. For a moment she had thought her attempts had been successful.

  Then she saw it! At a point halfway between the other lights, a bright white light suddenly appeared. And it traced a steady square pattern, just as her own had done – from one corner of the square to another in a steady sequence. Top left. Top right. Bottom right. Bottom left.

  Far below, she heard the muted murmur of voices on the battlements as the sentries also saw the lights, and she realized what Will was doing. He knew there was no way he could conceal the light from the guards. And once the news of a flashing white light was reported to Keren, it wouldn't take long for the renegade leader to guess that somebody was signaling. And there was only one person they might be signaling to.

  So Will had decided to hide his signal lamp among other lights, the sort of lights people expected to see on the fringes of Grimsdell Wood. She smiled to herself – Will was hiding a tree in the forest, as the old saying went. Another light, this one blue, was flashing. Then the yellow one was back. Then the red one. And then the white one in the center. She set herself to ignore red, blue and yellow and watch only white. She picked up her own lamp, concealing it behind a stiff piece of old, dried-out leather she had found discarded in the bottom of the wardrobe.

  She centered the light in the window and then flicked the leather back and forth five times, sending a series of five rapid flashes to the watchers at the edge of the forest. In the code, five rapid flashes from the center of the square meant communication had been established.

  Immediately, the other light replied in kind. Five rapid flashes, then a pause, then three longer flashes – the standard response meaning, Are you ready to receive a message?

  33

  The Siege of Macindaw

  She hurried to the table and seized paper and a graphite chalk. She knew Will would wait until she was ready. Back at the window, she raised the lamp in a vertical line, up and down three times. The white light outside mirrored the action. In her peripheral vision, she could see the moving colored lights flashing and winking away. She even realized that another red light had joined the display. But her attention was focused on the white light.

  It began to flash, and she noted down the letters as Will sent them.

  The Courier's code was a simple but effective system. Twenty-four of the letters of the alphabet were arranged in a grid of four numbered lines, six letters to a line. To achieve an even grid, the letters Z and W were omitted. S and V would take their place if necessary.

  This meant that the letter A was represented by the cipher 1-1, being the first line of the grid and the first letter in the line.

  By the same token, G would be 2-1, and P would be 3-4. The person sending the message would stipulate the line number by holding the lamp in a specific corner of the square. Top left was 1, top right 2, bottom left 3 and bottom right 4.

  For example, if the signal lamp were moved to the bottom left corner, then back to the center where it was flashed twice, the receiver would know it meant third row, second letter, or N.

  Unlike Will, who had to draw up the grid to compose his message – a fact that Halt would have found highly unsatisfactory – Alyss knew the grid by heart and could note the letters down directly as they were sent.

  The light flashed out steadily. To the untrained eye, it was just another random flashing light in the forest. But to Alyss, the series of flashes were as easy to read as an open book. She noted them down quickly. She smiled once. Will was not a rapid sender. Any Courier would easily beat him. Then she realized that speed was less important than accuracy and he was probably fiercely intent on his task, the tip of his tongue protruding, as it always did when he was concentrating.

  The light moved vertically several times, then disappeared, signaling that the message was finished. She seized her own lamp and replied with the same signal, then turned to read what she had scribbled down. She was pretty sure she had read it accurately as it was transmitted, but it paid to make sure. She moved her finger along the letters. They were roughly scribbled and uneven, as she had written them with her eyes firmly riveted on the light.

  There was no punctuation in the code, of course, but she understood that Will would be firing a message arrow through her window in ten minutes and was warning her to be clear of the window. Th
e work ACK was a standard code shortcut for acknowledge. The sign-off, LOVE WILL, was highly irregular. That sort of personal touch had been frowned on during her training. She smiled once more. You could read the words before her as saying she was to acknowledge the message itself, or the two-word ending, LOVE WILL.

  "Either way," she murmured to herself. Hastily, she picked up her lamp and moved it vertically in the window three times: up, down, up. It was the standard signal for acknowledge.

  Then she drew the curtain well back from the window and scanned the forest one last time. The colored lights continued to flash, and now the white light was swinging in an arc. There was no more signaling, she realized. They were just keeping the light show going. Below, on the battlements, the sentries had grown bored with the lights. The murmur of voices she had heard before had died away as sergeants ordered the men back to their duties.

  She kissed her fingertips gently and blew a kiss out into the dark night.

  " Thanks, Will," she said softly. She set the lamp in the center of the windowsill to provide him with an aiming point, then moved to one side to wait for his arrow.

  Once he had seen Alyss's acknowledgment, Will started to move forward from his position just inside the tree line. As he had done previously, he ghosted from one patch of shadow to the next, blending with the natural movements of the night and becoming part of the landscape.

  After five years of rigorous training under Halt's watchful eye – and with occasional input from Gilan, the Ranger Corps's acknowledged master of concealed movement – he didn't need to think about his actions any longer. They had become instinctive. He had already picked the spot from where he would shoot. He had to be within a hundred meters of the castle walls, allowing for the extra distance the arrow would have to travel to reach the top of the tower. There was a slight knoll crowned by a clump of large bushes some ninety meters from the wall. The additional few meters of height would be an advant age, as would the broken, shifting shadows formed by the bushes, with their dappled patterning of white snow and dark foliage. He would blend easily into the landscape there, allowing him to stand and aim carefully.