Chapter 21      Greek Fire

 

 

 

James Beaumont eyed the banneret suspiciously.  They were alone in the practice yard behind the barracks, where the banneret had taken him after his late return from the brothels in Chipping Easton.  There, he had assuaged a foul temper arising from his embarrassing contest with Cadmon Druce.

"Your behavior was most unknightly," said the banneret.

"My behavior?" smoldered James.  "My behavior does not...."

His elder cut short the remark.  "Indeed, your behavior, young knight!  You are lucky our honored guest has the maturity you lack, else you would have found yourself cleaved in two.  He taught you much in that courtyard if you would find the wit to profit by it."

James glowered at the banneret, but kept his tongue.

"In public, you will keep your office with dignity.  In private, you may wallow as you wish, but as long as you take the bread and roof of our Lord William, you will obey the rules of the calling which has answered you with your spurs."  The banneret's voice sounded as if he were speaking to a child, yet there was no condescension.  The banneret simply viewed himself as the keeper of knightly principles in the vicinity of Norbury and a young knight had besmirched those principles publicly.  He needed additional instruction.

Tears edged into James' eyes, but he refused to let them form into drops.  He held them back.  Humiliation, anger, injustice!  By God, the old man would see no weakness in him.

"Now, lad, what have you to say for yourself?"

What did the old fool expect him to say?  Oh, I am ashamed?  Flog me?  Forgive me?  Well, he would not get the satisfaction, the old spinster.

"Speak up, James.  Do not let your pride ride you.  I have come with an offer, not chastisement.  You must show me you are worthy of the honor I bear."

James stiffened.  His pride was his own affair, yet, to get what you wanted, you sometimes had to play the suckling.  It galled him, but he could play to this old man.  Give him what he wants.  Take what I want.

James managed to hang his head.

"I regret the incident, Master Banneret," he said with significant contrition.

"That is better, young sir knight.  That you could look at yourself enough to say it, that is what I sought."

Did he need a skinner to pull it out?  What did he have?

"Sir Cadmon Druce has requested Lord William make you ready to ride with him and others from this manor."

Caught unawares, James said, "He did?" then recovering his dour bearing, continued with, "Do I have a choice?"

The banneret narrowed his eyes.  "Most certainly," he said.  "You will share the company of Thomas, his squire, Burke, and I believe, Stewart, his valet.  And Edward the smith of the town."

Ride with Cadmon Druce?  Why?  A mixed affair, but the man commanded quite a lot of respect.  It could rub off, could be useful.  Thomas would be irritating, yet, such strange company!  A journey could be quite useful to a knight in search of a patron.

"Where do we go?"

"This is not known," answered the banneret with more than usual gravity, "but know you this:  If you ride with Cadmon and give him poor service, you will first answer to him, for the lord has given him full sovereignty over those who ride with him.  But, moreover, if poor service is rendered, you will not be let in this gate again.  With these conditions, nothing but a whole heart will do.  Consider well and say."

The banneret stood with his arms akimbo, austere and proud.  He awaited the younger knight.

James thought swiftly.  The thing that bothered him most was the why of it.  Why should a knight of Cadmon's rank choose him?  And Thomas.  And that crotchety bull from the forge.  What a crew.  Was he to be their jester?

"Sir James," prompted the banneret.

"Yes," said James, looking into the elder knight's eyes.  The skin of the old knight betrayed a multitude of tiny scars made by his helm when it was struck by sword or lance the years past.  His skin showed many wrinkles and a few of the brown stains which blemished the skin of old people.  For the first time, he saw the banneret as an old man propped up by pride and rectitude, and the discovery made him oddly sad.

"Yes," repeated James, "I will go.  When do we depart?"

"In a few days."

"Will I have a squire?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"I will send Aubrey.  When you come back, he returns to my service.  Is this agreeable?"

James considered Aubrey.  He was nearly ready for a knighting himself, not the sort of squire he would have picked.  He would be independent, though most knowledgeable in a fray.  The drawback stood that he would not take ill treatment.  But, the squire had not ever shown him disrespect.  Ride with it.

"Aubrey is fine, sir."

"Good.  It is settled, then."

The banneret began walking away.  He stopped just before the door and without looking around, said, "Before you were born, I knew Cadmon by reputation only.  That was long ago.  I believe he is a good man, but his task is hard.  Take care of yourself."  Before James could answer, he entered the barracks.

James frowned.  The old man sounded as if he cared, and the realization bothered him more than he would have suspected. 

The night was cold, the air clear and still.  Starlight penetrated from the heavens with sharp authority, and a half full moon cast glittering light over frosted textures of field and manor.  Shadows lay against trees and walls like smudges of soot, somehow blacker, more secret than the night itself.

The frost laden ground crunched underfoot.  Stewart shivered.  He did not need his lamp once his eyes adjusted, but he could not bring himself to blow it out.  The extra oil used would be negligible, and the yellow light lifted his spirits greatly, though he would rather not see the strange patterns emerging from the holes in the tin shroud.  Droplets of light skimmed and shimmered over the ground in a disconcertingly insubstantial way.

Feathers rustled above him.  Stewart looked up to see a cock roosting in a tree beside the granary, its round eye twinkling like a planet.  It watched him pass.

"Sorry for disturbing you," whispered Stewart to the bird.  The creature stared, unmoving.  "I have been nursing a sick friend of yours.  You would miss Master Fowler if he could not look after you.  You should be in the coop, now, friend cock."  The cock blinked, for the sparkle of reflection winked out and returned.  Satisfied that no trouble threatened, the bird pulled its head into a fluff of feathers and the hard eye closed.  Stewart walked on, across the courtyard.  He turned toward the dormitory, then checked himself.  Thomas and he had moved into the west wing of the knight's barracks.  He had to make a note to remember that.  He adjusted his course.

What was that!  Those shadows beneath the outer wall.  Is something moving there?  So dark.

The shadows, they bothered him.  Without moving his head, he cast his eyes about the yard.  Not a soul stirred, and only one shuttered window revealed any light within.  The chaplain remained awake, burning a rare candle nub.  Probably writing, for he rarely read after sunset.  At least he was awake in this darkness, but of what real help could he be if something happened?  Stewart briefly imagined the chaplain finding his dropped lamp and rumpled cloak abandoned in the courtyard, and wondering how they came to be there.

Stewart took another step.  Knowing the chaplain kept vigil strengthened him a little, however, for if ever he had felt the devil about in the world of men, it was on this night.  He watched a cloud of breath drift away, the whiteness pronounced.  Had his lamp revealed the outline of cloven hooves walking like a man, he would not have been surprised.  The thought jolted him and he resolved to bend his mind toward other things.  A night like this would not frighten Thomas.  Not he.

Stewart took several more steps, paused, and looked again toward the wall.  He saw the silhouette of the sentry above the gate, more a statue than a man, probably numbed by cold and boredom, awake but unaware.  To the right, the knight's barracks, shuttered, quiet.  The gate to the practice yard.  The sheep shed where Alexander learned of war from the notable Cadmon Druce.  A space of frozen ground.  The stables.  That was where the shadows bothered him the most.  Behind the stables, behind the long, timber-frame barn, behind the thatching of the roof, at the rear of the structure where it abutted the curtain wall.  There, and at the granaries, whose structure rested atop toadstool shaped staddle-posts, fitted with wide stone flanges at the top to keep rats from climbing up into the winter stores.  There, beneath the flooring, in the forest of toadstools, did something move?

He wished he could distinguish between his imagination and reality, but on a night like this, who could?  No.  Something was back there.  He was sure of it.

Without taking his eyes from the spot, he hurried to the barracks, resolved to wake Thomas and tell him.  These were odd times, bad times.  The good temper of chivalry had disintegrated like old sails in a storm.  Devil or no, there could be some mischief going on.  Likely some of the household servants in a tryst, or something equally innocent, but he would have it investigated.  Laugh, they may.  The night felt wrong.

The door opened soundlessly on well greased hinges.  Stewart crept inside, shut the door and ran the bolt home so as not to wake any of the squires or servants who slept there.  The lantern cast a comforting glow around the familiar interior.  There were snores, turnings, sleep sounds, all calming in their commonality.  He moved down the hall, careful to step where the floorboards did not creak.  Thomas, content in his magnanimous way to continue sleeping on the boards of the squires, nevertheless took little time moving his goods into the barracks when the space was offered.  Like spurs, one's bed denoted one's status in life.  He slept at the end of the hall and had two walls to himself.  He shifted suddenly.  Did he wake?  No, he was dreaming.

Stewart had seen the movement before, a frantic grasp toward the edges of the bed board, as if he were suddenly falling and scrambling to take hold of anything which could save him.  Poor Thomas.  The dreams always evaded his waking memory, yet Stewart could see the effect of the worst of them the day after, for his master moved with marked abstraction, bordering on recklessness.  Did Thomas remember any of the dreams?  He said not, but at times, Stewart wondered if the contents were just too disturbing to discuss.

"Thomas," he said, placing his hand gently on his knight's shoulder.  "Thomas."

Thomas awakened.  Immediately, the muscles of his face tightened into concentration and Stewart found himself looking into ready eyes.  Sweat from the dream still glistened on his master's forehead.

"What is it?" whispered Thomas.  "It is not yet dawn."

"No.  I have been tending Fowler."

"What has happened?  Has he died?"

"No.  He is all right.  But, coming across the courtyard, I am nearly certain I saw movement in the shadows behind the barn."

To his relief, Thomas did not show disdain, rather, the opposite.  Thomas sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

"A man?" asked Thomas.

"I think so.  I am not sure."

"You did right in waking me."  Thomas stood and began dressing, quietly, by the prickled light of the lamp.  "Bring my dagger and axe."

Stewart thrilled to the moment.  He retrieved Thomas' requested weapons with shaking hands.

"Shall I awaken the others?"

"Not yet.  If it is one of cook's helpers, there is no need.  But stand ready to raise the house if I shout."

Stewart nodded tensely.  "I will."

Thomas smiled and tousled the boy's hair.  "Do not worry."

"I must.  It is all I can do."

"Then I am sure you will do the best job of it."

Thomas took the weapons, slipping the unsheathed dagger into his belt, and slipping his hand through the leather loop of the war axe.  The axe had a long, thin metal handle, ending in an axe head with a crescent blade on one side and a spike on the other, not at all like an implement for chopping wood.  It was the same axe, Stewart was certain, with which his master had ended the life of a rebel mercenary.  With such a history, he regarded both the black metal and the man carrying it with a certain awe.  The axe had seen things he would probably never see, and he simultaneously felt a mixture of envy and relief.

"Shutter your lamp now," said Thomas, "before we move toward the door.  No use giving them any cause for thinking we are in search of them."

"Them?"

"If there is treachery afoot, there will be more than one."

Stewart closed the lamp thoughtfully.  He had foolishly expected to see Thomas carrying the lamp into the darkness, and that way he would be able to see if he needed help.  Now, in darkness, how was he to know when to sound the alarm?  When Thomas shouted.  But what if someone hit him on the head before he could shout?

"Should you not wear your helmet and hauberk?" asked Stewart.

"Too much noise," replied Thomas.  "Say nothing more.  I am off."

Reluctantly, Stewart stilled his questions and followed his master to the door.  Thomas opened it noiselessly and they slipped out, keeping to the thin wedge of moon shadow cast by the corner of the barracks.  Thomas immediately separated and disappeared into the darkness around lee side of the building.  Stewart kept to the shadow, but peered into the black at the wall for a glimpse of Thomas as he moved around the edge of the curtain toward the barn.

Minutes passed.  Stewart saw nothing but the silhouette of the watchman on the gate and the dark shape of the cock asleep in the tree across the yard.  A strange odor, unlike anything he had ever smelt before, drifted to him.  Whatever it was, it permeated the air.  Some herb or spice, perhaps, heavy, unpleasantly aromatic.  The gate watch, still oblivious, had not moved at all.  A cold, trickle of fear shivered the hair on the back of Stewart's neck.

As if the darkness suddenly took form, something appeared beside him.  He bolted away from it and hit the wall, at the same time recognizing the voice which spoke to him in a whisper.

"Calm, Stewart," said the voice.  A shadow then said, "Sorry I startled you."  It was Cadmon Druce, unmistakably.  Though the voice was seldom in evidence, it was distinctive.  "I smelled naphtha," said the knight.

Stewart gasped, his heart pounding in his ears.  So the spice was naphtha.  He had never heard of it.

Cadmon put a steadying hand on Stewart's shoulder.  "Who is out there?  Is it Thomas?"

"Yes."

"Armed?"

"An axe.  And a dagger."

"Where?"

Pointing ineffectively, Stewart said, "Behind the barn.  I thought I saw something in the darkness."

"You did."

Another shiver.

"The gate watch has not moved."

There was a pause.  "He is probably dead.  Did Thomas tell you to give an alarm?"

"Yes, if I was to hear a shout from him."

"I want you to wait until the moonlight touches this mark."  By the reflected glow near the edge of the moon's cold light cutting across the front of the barracks, Cadmon made a mark in the frost with the toe of his boot, not far from where the line of moonlight touched the ground.  "T'will be but a few minutes, Stewart.  Then I want you to shout of a fire at the top of your lungs, but remember to remain in the shadows until the courtyard begins filling with people.  Shout `Fire!' and stay in the shadows.  Understand?"

Stewart nodded, swallowing hard.

"Make sure they get the stablemen out and the horses.  All the horses.  Do you understand?"  The knight had spoken swiftly, urgently.

"Yes," answered Stewart.  This strange knight worried him immensely.  "Sir Cadmon," he said entreatingly.

Cadmon stopped his departure.

"Please watch out for Thomas."

Cadmon said nothing, but the pause conveyed assurance.  A moment later, only the shadows clung around him, brighter now that his eyes had grown more accustomed to the dimness.  Thomas had told him to look a little to the side of anything he wanted to see at night and it would appear brighter.  He did as Thomas said.  Again, he peered into the darkness behind the barn, but though the trick worked, and he could see better, the contrasts were too great to see far into the ink.  Whatever went on in the shadows went on in secret.

Moonlight crept toward the mark in the frost.  Silence covered everything, like a fog.  The gate watch remained fixed, a human shape only.  Stewart shuddered, knowing in his heart that the figure over the lintel of the gate no longer shared warmth of breath.  A corpse at guard.  Who was in the yard?  He looked behind himself.  How many?  The darkness behind the barn had swallowed Thomas and now Cadmon.  What did they want here?  What was naphtha?

No sound.  The moonlight was a hair's breadth away from the mark.

"Fire!  Fire!"  The shout came from the shadows between the stable and the granary.  It was Thomas, running into the light, checking himself, and pulling back into the shadow.  "Fire in the stable!"

So, they had started before him.  Stewart joined the alarm, screaming, "Wake, wake!  Fire in the stable!"

Yet, even as he yelled, he saw no fire, no glow of orange, no smoke in the bluish light.  But the gate watch remained immobile.  Only a dead man could fail to take notice.  The chaplain emerged, confused, but quickly moving toward the stable.  Doors all over the courtyard burst open, men and women emerged, lighting lamps, hooking coats, asking questions.  Thomas ran toward the stable and tore open the door, still screaming.  The stable clan now began popping out of the barn.

"Get the horses out!" shouted Thomas, taking command.  "People, horses, tack."  He began organizing the puzzled onlookers, who scurried at his commands.  At the barracks, the knights and squires attended to their armor, for a fire could easily be a feint for general attack.  The others could quench a fire.  No sign of Cadmon.  Stewart ran into the courtyard.  The odor of naphtha was strong, pungent, almost suffocating.

The horses began emerging from the stable.  Lamps and torches lit the way.  Still no sign of fire.  Stewart saw Alexander burst from the barracks, frantically searching about.  Little did he know his knight was already in the midst of things.  A dozen horses were out, mostly destriers, though the lord's favorite palfrey could be found among them.  Men darted toward the stable doors, taking hastily bridled horses from stablemen, who breathlessly ran back into the shadows to retrieve the remainder of the horses.  Under siege, the household would be at losing advantage without the horses.  Alexander dove into the barn, emerging not with his master's prize palfrey, or the new palfrey Lord William had presented the knight, but with the old destrier known to the bemused household of the manor as Squire Horse.

Stewart ran toward Alexander and took the lead rope from him.  The old horse followed docilely, more like an ancient dog than an ancient horse.

"My thanks," said Alexander breathlessly, and he reentered the stable.

Looking up at the main house, where the lord and his eldest sister's sons had emerged in hastily acquired armor, Stewart caught sight of something high in the air, a fleck of light, like a falling star.  There it was, lofting like a spark from a campfire.  It fell, arcing gently toward the stable.  A torched arrow!

"Look!" he shouted, but the confusion and noise in the yard prevented his gentle voice from going far.  A few near him looked up, though, and watched the arrow fall onto the thatched roof of the stable.

The orange spark wavered against the thatch straw a moment.  Then a bluish glow surrounded it, a watery shimmer, like reflections in a glass.  This eerie shape wandered around the roof a moment, uncertainly gliding down the steep pitched thatch.  Suddenly, with a roar that startled everyone to a halt, the thatch exploded into yellow flame as if it had been waxed.  A blast of hot wind melted the frost at a touch.

The cock shot out of the tree like the fletched end of an arrow, and the entire courtyard burst into light, as if the sun had risen.  A deafening roar consumed all but the screams of the horses and the loudest voices.  More horses and handlers emerged from the open doors of the stable, as lines formed to move water from ice-skimmed troughs and the well.  What hope, though?  The flames already made the stable look like a gigantic pyre.

Where was Thomas?  There.  He pushed the bucket brigade away from the stable.  He had already decided the stable was lost and had the people leaning ladders against nearby buildings, where the heat was tolerable, dousing the roofs with water.  Thomas was smart.  But where was Cadmon Druce?  Stewart had not seen him since he had marked the frost with his boot.

Men on the wall were standing around the gate watchman, lowering him to the stone floor of the parapet.

A burst of knocking and shouting hammered through the thick wood of the gates.  The knights on the wall shouted to those outside, then to men by the gates inside.  The huge bars were drawn back and the gates opened to the townsmen who had heard the first shouts and come running.  To their credit, they immediately formed into crews to keep the fire contained.  Their expertise at fire fighting in town were well appreciated by everyone at the manor.

Behind the first crowd, came Cadmon Druce, trotting toward the stable, the flames illuminating his tousled hair and sweaty face.  He looked as if he had run a considerable distance.  Then the incongruity struck him.  What was Cadmon Druce doing outside the gate?  And how did he get there?

A portion of the stable roof fell in, sending a geyser of sparks tumbling high in the air, sizzling down onto nearby roofs.  The fire fighters ran from one spark to another, watering each one like a prize rose.  Screams of horses trapped in their stalls eventually subsided, and many knights wept as they would have never done for a fallen comrade.  The fire raged for hours, the ancient timbers burning with intense heat.  Clouds drifted in from the west, mixing with eye-stinging smoke to blot out the stars and moon.

At last, morning light diffused through the miasma of smoke, slowly rendering the remains of the stable, once a magnificent timber framed structure more than two hundred years old, inspiration for a dozen similar buildings in the Cotswolds, reduced to a blackened, bony, hunched over mass of smoldering stumps.  Somewhere beneath the ashes were the incinerated remains of seven horses, countless articles of tools and tack, the personal possessions of the stable clan, and the peaceful illusion that the rebel madness of the outside world would never find Norbury.

The gate watchman had died of a dagger thrust to his kidney, said one of the squires who helped carry him down.  Stewart said a quiet prayer for John Clay, who would never again stand watch over the sundry visitors to Norbury manor.

Soot blackened the walls of the granary.  The few trees standing near the stable, planted there by the builder, had writhed in the heat, split, and caught fire.  Sap rising from the roots in spring would find nothing alive to nourish. 

Dawn blended with the night until everyone realized they could see without torches.  Villagers and knights fanned out in wider search of the intruders.  Lord William approached Cadmon Druce.  Stewart could hear what they said.

"By God's teeth!" said William, "How was this visited upon us?"

"I fear my presence has drawn the deed, uncle.  The sooner I depart, the safer you will be."

"You are not to blame," said William with force.  "The rebels have found us, at last."

"No.  I believe the stable fire was an attempt to stop me."

"Stop you?  How do you mean?"

"I could make little progress without your support.  If you were convinced your best interests were better served by denying me that support, I could not but fail."

William spit his answer.  "Devil take them if they have no better view of me than that!"

Stewart suddenly found Thomas standing beside him, also listening.  He sought his master's eyes, but they concentrated on William.  Thomas had twice proved his coolness under battle, at Rochester, and in the darkened yard.  Stewart felt a paternal pride in his master, something more appropriate for a father to a son than a valet to his master.  Nevertheless, Stewart felt pleasurably warmed by his master's presence.

Cadmon noticed them and bade them join the conversation.  Cadmon briefly explained to William the parts they had played and William thanked them tersely.  Then, Stewart learned what had transpired outside his poor vision.

After leaving him at the barracks, Thomas crept around the back of the stable but found no one to swing at.  Cadmon discovered Thomas and pointed out a knotted rope which had been slung over the wall.  Cadmon climbed the rope, found a scaling ladder on the other side, descended to the ground, and plunged into the darkness to find the archer he suspected would be hiding there, but to no avail.  At Cadmon's direction, Thomas sounded the alarm and began directing the fire fighting in anticipation of the fire to come.

Even he, Stewart, was compelled to tell his part of the story several times before William was satisfied the juice had been squeezed from it.  They passed briefly over the death of the gate watch.  The cascade of conversation lapsed, then began anew.

"There is another matter," said Cadmon quietly.  "I found this charged through my mattress."  He held out a slender dagger in the Italian style.  "Careful of the blade, the brownish stain.  It is probably poison."

William took the instrument by the grip.  His expression grew darker.  He looked at Cadmon, letting the knight's words fill with meaning.

Cadmon continued, "The fire diverted everyone's attention while this was done.  The fire, only secondarily, served as a message to you.  The real work of the evening carried with the man who thrust this into my straw."

William waited for more.

"An accomplice remained outside the wall.  It was he who fired the torched arrow after the assassin had enough time to douse the stable with naphtha and visit me."

"Visit you?" commented William.  "You make it sound like a social call."

"He crept into the barracks, but fortunately, the smell of naphtha had awakened me.  I was in the courtyard before he reached my bed."