But Gisburne meant to make it his own. Looking about him, Tancred’s feet already audible upon the rungs below him, Gisburne saw what he was after. He’d known they would be here: a row of large demijohns by the side wall, beyond the mangonel, and at the front, three large copper vats on wooden pivots, positioned over chutes in the stonework. Gisburne threw down his sword and set his shoulder against the first of them.
As Tancred loomed up the stair, Gisburne had already dislocated the first vat off its pivot. Ignoring the stab in his side, the sickening ache in his shoulder, he heaved it over onto its side, its gallons of oil flooding the floor of the tower battlement. Then over went another, and the third. The thick, viscous liquid gushed past Tancred’s feet and cascaded in a black waterfall down the trap door. It fell past the connecting ladders, and on down the spiralling stone steps – coated the interior of the tower, and glugged and oozed out of the tower doorway as it went, creeping out along the battlement walkway. Tancred stared in perplexed rage at the glossy slick, then back at his opponent. He placed one foot forward, and it slithered sideways.
Gisburne shot him a look of vicious glee. “Spin on that,” he said.
And, as Tancred swiped at him in fury, lost his traction and grasped at the strut of the still-cocked, creaking mangonel, Gisburne lunged forward and booted him in the balls. Tancred doubled up and went down like a Parisian whore, his blade skittering away from him. Gisburne fell on top of him in the black morass, grabbed him by the surcoat and wrestled him onto his back. He slithered, recovered his sword, and – still holding Tancred by a handful of stained silk surcoat and oily mail about the scruff of his neck – struggled to his feet, his blade poised high above his head, ready to strike.
This had not been part of the plan. But killing Tancred now did not seem such a bad idea.
The reptilian, expressionless eyes in that oily, bloody half-and-half face flicked sideways. Then Tancred gave a kind of hoarse cackle. For a moment, Gisburne did not know what it was. But as it grew, he realised. It was laughter. So unexpected, so horrid and so utterly alien was the sound issuing from that scar-like slit of a mouth, that at first Gisburne could only gawp in dumbfounded revulsion. Then his eyes followed Tancred’s line of sight. Upon the gatehouse tower, he saw the scorpion turned upon him, its operator’s eyes wide, its huge, spiked bolt pointed at his heart.
Tancred, still chuckling, narrowed his eyes as if to say: Let’s see if you can survive this one...
Gisburne hesitated, for a moment looking like he might accept Tancred’s unspoken challenge – might put the marksman’s mettle to the test – and to Hell with the consequences. His eyes dropped to the demijohns, only yards distant. If he could just grab one of those...
Then a bellowed cry made him turn.
“Gisburne!”
It came from the bailey. There, down below, a man-at-arms gripped a bloody, near-lifeless Galfrid. Next to him, bare-footed and bound, stood Mélisande, and behind her, the grinning Ulrich held a blade across her white, exposed throat.
He will exploit your weakness. That was what Aldric Fitz Rolf had said.
Gisburne’s sword faltered and fell, the castle echoing to this wholly new sound – a sound its denizens had never before heard: the dry, hollow sound of its master’s jubilant laughter.
LXI
A CIRCLE OF knights had gathered about the box. But it was not this that held Gisburne’s attention. It was the fact that, a little way beyond, Mélisande was being tied to a stake and surrounded by dry, bundled brushwood. That, and the bizarre vision that lurked near her.
The box had been placed on a stout table in the middle of the bailey’s open courtyard, and those gathered – all of Tancred’s remaining knights – now stood around it, hushed and expectant, the only sound the scratching and yelping of the still-famished dogs in the cage by the stable block.
At Gisburne’s left hand, some distance from this group, was a wooden pallet – it did not seem fitting to call it a table – large enough to hold the body of a man. The wood was worn and pitted, its surface stained almost black over the years, by uses Gisburne did not want to guess at. At one end, a row of thin blades, pincers and other unidentifiable tools lay in a neat row.
Spread out on the ground on the other side was a motley collection of gear, mostly Galfrid’s: clothes, knives, a mace, Gisburne’s pilgrim staff, sundry personal effects. It had all been picked over and gone through in search of the key, and any other possible clues that might enlighten them about the box, and now lay discarded. It was no longer needed. Gisburne had wasted no time handing over the key. He wanted this over with. And so they had gathered, eager to see their hard-won prize – to gaze into the face of the Baptist.
They had not harmed him; had not even threatened to do so. All the threats had been directed at Galfrid and Mélisande. And there was only one question they wanted an answer to. A simple question, repeated over and over.
Gisburne had resisted, but it was a token, a delaying tactic, and no more. As he had stood there – his hands bound in front of him, his arms gripped from behind by a guard with foetid breath – they had pushed Galfrid forward, his hands similarly bound. He bore no mark, but his body was clearly unable to take much more of whatever it was they were doing to him. He had taken two steps and collapsed. As they had hauled him up, and he had again almost crumpled, Gisburne had appealed to them. “For mercy’s sake,” he’d said. “Give the man his stick so he can stand upright at least, and face his punishment as God intended.”
Tancred had narrowed his eyes at that, but nodded to his serjeant, who had thrust the pilgrim staff into Galfrid’s hands. They then manoeuvred him to the pallet next to Gisburne, where he stood, head bowed, silent and impassive.
Both Galfrid and Mélisande were to be punished, Gisburne had been told – not for their own sins, but for his. They had been in his thrall – that much was clear – and now only he had the power to ease their suffering.
Tancred gestured to Galfrid. “This man would not reveal the truth,” he said. “So we will reveal his flesh.” Meaning they were going to skin him alive. This, Tancred called “fitting punishment”. He pointed at Mélisande then, away behind the group. “This woman put two of my loyal men in the cold earth. So she will burn.” He turned to Gisburne again. “Only you can redeem them. Answer the question and they will receive a swift death.”
Gisburne had looked at Mélisande as Tancred spoke these words. She seemed largely unharmed – surprisingly so – but her features were drawn, and her eyes filled suddenly with such despair that he felt his heart would break to look at them longer. He tore his gaze away. There was little point trying to fathom Tancred’s warped logic – far less trying to reason with it. He knew he would have to give him what he wanted.
It was then that the bizarre vision – the one he heard them call “Fell” – stepped forward.
He was big. Not merely corpulent, but unnaturally broad in the hips and shoulders, giving the impression that his stocky legs were too far apart to connect to his body. They stuck out from the long, stained smock like the legs of an ox – like the limbs of some monstrous half-cow dressed up in an approximation of human clothing. The smock – as big as a tent, and caked with filth and gore – hung to his knees, but was stretched tight across his stomach and his huge, bovine barrel of a chest. His arms were short, and ended in pink, filthy, sausage-like fingers, twice as thick as any fingers should be, while his large, domed head seemed sunk into the great bulk of his shoulders, as if there never had been any neck. When he walked, it was with a stiff, awkward rocking of his whole body, as if on legs that would not bend. At each effort Gisburne could hear the moist, laboured rasp of his breath.
But it was not any of these things that finally made Gisburne shudder. It was the fact that his features were entirely obscured by a veil – a ragged piece of grimy muslin draped over his head and face. Gisburne could see from the expressions of the knights that he was not the only one to regard this creature with awestruck
revulsion.
He had been overseeing the tying of the bonds around Mélisande – he apparently knew how to tie them in such a way that the body would burn before the rope gave out – and now stepped forward to examine the tools on the pallet. He huffed and snorted over them, lifting one long bladed knife close to his face and turning it over.
Tancred raised a hand. “No,” he said, his eyes fixed on Gisburne. “The woman first...” Fell gave a strange rasping squawk – was that annoyance? Disappointment? – returned the blade to its place, and shuffled away.
Tancred, his hands clasped behind his back, walked in a tight circle between Gisburne and the horseshoe of knights, then turned to face him.
“How... does... one... open... the... box?” he said, articulating each word with slow deliberation.
Upon Gisburne’s answer depended a life. He appeared to struggle within, looked momentarily defiant, gazed at Mélisande, then let his head fall in defeat. “With the key. Just with the key,” he said.
“And you swear before God, on the lives of this man and this woman, that to do so will not damage the skull?”
Gisburne let his eyes flick up to the pleading face of Mélisande – pleading not, he thought, for him to save her, but to resist Tancred at any cost. Then to Galfrid, who stood like a lifeless dummy – like a straw-stuffed pell upon which knights practiced their swordplay. “I do swear it,” said Gisburne. “Before God. On the lives of my friends.” And with a great sigh, he bowed his head once more.
Galfrid already appeared half dead. But, when he had collapsed and been hauled to his feet to be stood next to Gisburne, something odd had occurred. Gisburne had, for a fleeting moment, caught Galfrid’s eye. And Galfrid had winked.
Tancred gave an almost-smile, and nodded to Ulrich, holding the key in his outstretched hand. Ulrich took it, leered at Gisburne, then approached the box.
“Carefully,” said Tancred. It was not in his nature to trust. The gathered knights watched in silence as Ulrich tentatively located the key in the lock, and slowly turned it. It clicked. The lid released, and sprang up a quarter inch. Ulrich turned, grinning in triumph, then lifted the lid and peered in. There was another click, a strange thunk. Ulrich seemed to start at it, every muscle tensed.
“Well, Ulrich?” said Tancred. “Is it there?”
But all that came from Ulrich was a long, drawn out wheeze. He swayed, and staggered back stiffly, then collapsed like a board at Tancred’s feet, a tiny crossbow bolt sunk deep between his staring eyes.
In a fury, Tancred turned on Gisburne. “I think you have misunderstood the nature of your situation,” he hissed. He nodded at the guard with the flambeau, who advanced on Mélisande’s pyre. It seemed he would have his witch-burning after all. Then he turned his back on Gisburne. “Get this out of the way!” he spat, kicking Ulrich’s lifeless body.
“And I think you have misunderstood yours.” Gisburne’s voice rose clear and strong. Tancred stopped at the words. They no longer had the tone of a defeated man. Nor of an emptily defiant one.
He narrowed his eyes, looked upon Gisburne almost with pity. “A man should know when he is defeated,” he said.
Gisburne raised his head to meet Tancred’s cold gaze. “The line between victory and defeat is fine,” he said. “And the outcome today is yet to be decided.”
“Decided!” Tancred gave a scornful laugh. Some of his men echoed it dutifully, emptily. “By whom? You? Look around. You are captured, your precious box and its key taken.” Yet, for the first time, there was the hint of uncertainty upon his features.
“But you didn’t capture me,” Gisburne spoke slowly, deliberately. “I rode into your castle of my own free will. To bring you the key.” He paused for a moment, allowing a faint smile to creep across his lips. “So you would open the box.”
The cold anger in Tancred’s eyes suddenly gave way to doubt, then a terrible realisation. As he stood, one of the knights hunched over the reliquary called out, nervously.
“My lord – why is it... clucking?”
Tancred turned. It was true. From somewhere deep within there came a rhythmic tic-tic-tic. Slowly, almost subconsciously, the knights closed in around it.
“What is this?” demanded Tancred. There was a note of panic in his voice now – almost hysteria.
“The box is about to destroy itself,” said Gisburne.
“Tell me how to stop it – or the girl dies.”
“You’ll kill her anyway. And there is no way to stop it. You have only moments to safely remove what’s inside.” His eyes glinted with a demonic fire. “Hurry!”
Tancred roared and pushed past the knights to the box, the tic-tic-tic suddenly gathering momentum. He grabbed a mace from one of his men, raised it... then froze, uncertain, caught between action and doubt. An almost unknown emotion seemed to flood over him. Fear.
“Close your eyes,” Gisburne whispered to Galfrid.
LXII
IT WAS FEAR of failure that gripped Tancred. Fear of losing what God had promised him. Because God could not be wrong. God could not be mistaken. And yet... And yet... For an instant, he had felt that terrible uncertainty flicker within him – the self-questioning that he had once seen as a virtue, and which now was utterly alien to him. But it was a flicker, and no more. In another instant, he had conquered it. Conviction once more filled his soul and gave strength to his arm. He raised the mace high.
As he did so, the box shuddered and jumped. Then it jolted with sudden violence, ringing like an anvil struck by a hammer. A burst of white powder exploded outward and upward, covering Tancred and his knights and forming a cloud that settled slowly about them. They coughed, choking on the dust. Tancred – white as a ghost, caked in the stuff – wrenched back the lid of the box.
Empty. It was empty. “No...” he uttered in disbelief. “No!”
The prisoners would pay now.
Before he could turn, he heard the first cries of pain. Around him, it seemed the white dust was now rising off his men in coiling trails, like wispy, ephemeral phantoms – as if their spirits were fleeing their corporeal shells. But it wasn’t dust. It was smoke. He blinked hard – then he too began to burn. At first, it stung his eyes, then his skin. The stinging became a fire. Then he was plunged into the flames of Hell.
Quicklime. Burning him, eating into his flesh and that of his men. They began to panic. Blinded, steaming and smoking – the quicklime reacting with their hair, skin and clothes, still wet from the rain – they clawed at their faces, writhed on the ground, ran wildly into each other, some with weapons drawn, inflicting terrible wounds. Their flesh peeling, their lungs on fire.
The last thing Tancred saw was Gisburne, free, sword in hand, and his own clutching fingers, blistering, bubbling, being consumed.
LXIII
TO THOSE WATCHING, it must have looked like an outbreak of madness. Or some act of sorcery. Gisburne did not waste his advantage. He smashed his head backwards, feeling his guard’s nose crack. Galfrid raised the pilgrim staff. Gisburne grabbed it, and both men pulled. This time, Galfrid got the blade. He swung it about, felling his guard, then killed Gisburne’s, a fire in his eye that Gisburne had not seen before. Gisburne dropped, cut his bonds on his guard’s sword, then took up the weapon.
Barging past the chaos of staggering, screaming men, his arm over his face, he headed for the pyre – for Mélisande. He was dimly aware, as he skirted around the still swirling cloud, of Galfrid – far less debilitated than he had allowed his captor to believe – smashing his way past Tancred’s stunned, crippled knights, towards some other, unknown goal, and then disappearing from view.
Almost at the pyre, a figure loomed suddenly before him. The guard with the flambeau. Resolute. Defiant. In his left hand he gripped a warhammer, his eyes fixed on Gisburne.
Gisburne did not hesitate. But instead of defending himself, the guard – in a last act of perverse malice that could only have been inspired by Tancred’s example – threw the flambeau upon the piled brush
wood. Gisburne’s blade sliced across his temple with a sound like a knife on a whetstone. The guard’s helm went flying. Part of his skull went with it, trailing blood. He dropped like a rock. But the flames leapt – the oil-soaked wood sizzling as it caught and flared.
Without pause, Gisburne waded into the fire, clambering up the crackling bundles and hacking at Mélisande’s bonds. He cursed the grim care with which they had been tied. Fell had done his job well. But in another moment, both he and Mélisande were diving free of the fire. Gisburne – his left boot still smoking – scrambled to his feet, looking about, ready to fight. A crossbow bolt zipped from somewhere on the battlements and struck the ground nearby. It was too chaotic for the guards to easily pick them off without hitting their own, and the courtyard was now enveloped in a haze of swirling smoke from the blazing pyre – but it might not be so for long. Mélisande snatched up the discarded warhammer, and the pair of them darted towards the stables – the nearest shelter from the eyes on the battlements.
As his back slammed against the stable block, Gisburne saw where Galfrid had been headed.
Directly ahead, some little way off, the weird, bulky figure of Fell tottered towards the supposed safety of the keep, hooting and snorting in alarm. Pursuing him with a look of grim resolve – but limping badly, Gisburne now realised – was his squire. Fell saw the keep’s gate was shut, wailed in protest, and changed direction like a frightened animal, heading now towards the dog compound, just yards from where Gisburne and Mélisande now stood.
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