By Possession (41 page)

“Your concern for the woman is impairing your judgment. If he planned to kill her she is dead already,” Thomas said.

“And if he did not plan to kill her?”

“Whatever he intended is done.”

Raymond threw up an arm. “It will help her naught if you fail because you acted rashly.”

“You know that attacking in the dark is a fool's strategy,” Richard weighed in.

Addis turned his horse and began walking it toward the shadows beside the road. “That is true, but we will not attack in the dark, old friend. Our way will be lit by all of Barrowburgh's hearths.”

What the hell are you saying? Make sense, man.

The harsh voice penetrated the fog from far away.

There's movement out there, near the distant trees to the west. Men and horses.

You say you've seen men by the trees? How many?

Closer now. A familiar voice. Simon's.

Not seen, exactly, my lord, not with the moon going in sudden like. Felt more than seen, though there seem to be darker shadows there, bigger than they should be.

Probably just the night playing tricks on you.

Not just me. The other guards feel it too. I'd not have come if we didn't agree.…

Send more men to the gates then.

Will you be coming, my lord?

Awareness of the chamber returned and she suddenly smelled the hearth. Her cheek recognized the hard texture of stone on which it lay. Screaming aches groaned through her body from the spots where she had been hit. Sliding back into unconsciousness held an enormous appeal. She heard movements, but enough sense had returned for her to resist the urge to look.

“I'll go to the top of the keep and see what's what,” Simon gruffed. “Get back on the wall.”

“What about her?” Owen asked as the guard left. She lay utterly still and hoped that they would leave her in the heap where she had fallen.

“See again if you can wake her.”

Liquid splashed her face and she fought her shocked reaction even though she inhaled some of it. Wine dripped down her immobile face, burning her broken lips.

“Are you sure she is not dead? I told you not to kill her.”

“She still breathes.”

“Leave her. We will see about this ghost army the guard
felt
and then see if she can be revived.”

She waited until silence surrounded her before she tried to rise. Her whole body from her neck to her legs felt
deeply sore, and it hurt to move her mouth. Despite the pain she reached for the wall and pulled herself up.

She could hardly escape, but she would not wait in this chamber for the torture Owen planned. The guard's report had given her hope. Perhaps Addis had come.

She groped along the wall and peered out the door. Men to the west, the guard had said. She skirted through the passageway to a chamber near the end. Trying to ignore the agony of her knotting torso, she felt her way to the window.

She was high enough to see over the walls to the distant fields and flanking hunt-land. A brisk breeze moved clouds across the moon, breaking them up now and then to permit gray light to spread. During those brief illuminations it did appear that movement occurred near the trees, but probably it was just the night playing tricks on one's eyes, as Simon had said.

She rested against the window edge and closed her eyes with disappointment. Of course he could not come until he was ready, and even then he would not do so at night. It would be rash to risk so much, even if he knew she was here.

Which he might not know at all. When he had discovered her gone, he probably concluded that she had gone back to London. Could he have thought her that faithless? Faced with her absence, he might have found it the only explanation.

Her chest filled with a horrible ache. She did not want to picture that. She turned back to the window and scanned the battlements of the inner wall to distract her mind from images of him angry and hurt, believing she had forsaken him so cruelly right before his dangerous task. The distant fields grew very black as clouds completely obscured the moon.

A flicker caught her eye and a tiny dot of gold appeared far away. It moved. Two dots now. She squinted. Suddenly four. Now ten or more. She watched in amazement as the specks rapidly multiplied and enlarged, like stars emerging and growing not in the sky but on the horizon.

The noise of household and guards suddenly stilled and the fortress went utterly silent. Others had seen. The faintest rhythm oozed toward her on the breeze, and the stars, not so tiny now, continued increasing in number and size. They filled the field and began spreading right and left, encircling all of Barrowburgh. She stretched out the window, unmindful of her sores, and the closest spots materialized into torches and then disappeared from view beneath the mass of the wall. Their light cast a yellow glow in every direction, displaying hundreds of bodies. The brightest cluster surrounded a knight flanked by the banners of Valence.

Her heart lodged in her throat while she watched him come. The sounds of his army crashed through the stillness of the keep. He raised his arm and the movement ceased and he scanned the breadth of the fortifications. Instead of grouping to make camp, the army and the torchbearers lighting its way just waited.

Another gesture and the army suddenly split and men surged forward carrying scaling ladders. Their shouts shocked the whole fortress. She gaped as the hell of war instantly replaced the eerie silence. He was attacking!

He rode his horse back and forth, yelling orders lost to her ears in the din. The torches turned his armor orange, as if he wore steel still hot from the forge. Another man joined him and she recognized the bald head of Sir Richard. The steward took command of the western attack and Addis galloped south to where the wall extended to surround the town.

She tore her eyes from the spectacle, her pulse racing. He had come, but his arrival might have increased her danger. She trusted that Simon would be preoccupied with his defenses now, but she could not count on it. She needed a place to hide.

She turned to run but a thick figure barged through the threshold. Simon strode over and grabbed her arm, twisting her back to the window. His body pressed obscenely along her back and a sour smell assaulted her. Fear. He reeked of it.

“You should be flattered. You must have pleased him very well with that body of yours. He comes for you,” he hissed.

“Nay. He comes for you.”

“These walls have withstood more than he can have.”

“He has over six hundred, all battle-hardened men. And it looks like every peasant man able to walk holds a torch out there. You should yield, and if not you should armor yourself.”

“Owen will deal with him. He has killed him before. He will do so again.”

“He failed before, and proved himself a coward in doing so. When it comes to facing Addis he will flee or surrender and leave you to face it alone.”

“He will not. Owen is more a brother to me than Addis ever was.”

“If he never showed you a brother's love it was because he knew what he had in you.”

“He was too proud to befriend such as me! To share the wealth of Barrowburgh. I saw at once that I would get naught from him. Owen saw it too. We were all just youths, but it was clear that the son of Patrick scorned me.”

“So you stole what would not be given freely!”

“A man either takes or he dies on a bloody field for
someone else's honor.” He pulled her through the chamber. “You will come with me while we watch this army founder. He will not breach the inner wall. No one ever has. When this is done I will enjoy taking you, as I have taken everything else that is his.”

His grip gouged her and she tried to keep up. “He does not have to breach the inner wall. The animals and grain are outside the first gate. He has only to wait until the provisions within are gone.”

Twisting her arm behind her back he shoved her up the stairs to the roof. “And let you starve with us? That is why I would not let Owen kill you. For your sake, woman, I hope that you pleased him well indeed.”

“Do we enter?” Raymond asked as the town gate swung wide. Figures scurried away and the torches showed five guards lying in lifeless tangles. “May not be a good idea to get caught inside. It could be a trap.”

“Those were not soldiers running away, but craftsmen. The town has opened the gate, not Simon.”

“Still …”

Addis paced his destrier forward. “The easiest way into any fortress is through the gates, Raymond.”

“There's two more after this one and no townsmen to open them. We are close to breaching on the east. Best to wait.”

Harsh and shrill sounds poured around them. The outer wall would fall, a casualty of the surprise attack, but the inner one would not be so certain. The thick circle of torches lighting the battle made it appear as if the entire scene took place within a giant hearth.

“If we attack the gate even while they defend the walls it might encourage them to withdraw. And it will force them to cover the south as well.” He gestured for Marcus
and told him to allow a hundred of the peasants to follow with the wheeled battering ram, then led a small force of knights and men-at-arms into the town.

The lanes were deserted and the buildings shuttered. Nearer the gate he could see the progress on the wall more clearly. Simon's men were greatly outnumbered and no reinforcements had arrived. Simon had decided to sacrifice the outer wall and its guard. It looked as if one section to the east had been taken and secured, but even so the superior position of the defenders meant this could last many hours.

He called the battering ram forward and dismounted. He and the others made a canopy of upraised shields to protect the farmers pulling the huge cylinder of wood. The rest of the farmers stayed out of arrow range, prepared to replace their neighbors as needed.

The repeated impact of the ram created a sound like the world's largest drum, crashing through the night. The sea of peasants surrounding the wall began cheering “Valence!” with each blow and the huge swell of noise seemed enough to crumble the walls by itself. A rain of bolts and arrows pounded into the shields with each surge forward, their whistling melody absorbed into the rhythmic battle song.

Suddenly the arrows stopped. Addis peered up to see Thomas Wake and his men fighting on the gate's battlements, but some guards had redeployed and moved in. He called for ladders and led Marcus and five others up while the ram continued its work.

He did not know how long he fought. His presence on the wall was noticed, however, and at least two archers came close to taking him down. At one point he glanced to the upper reaches of the keep and he saw Simon there, with a woman beside him. Moira. Something like the madness in the forest gripped him then and he knew
nothing but the mayhem of blood and swords until a dead calm fell that said the gate was theirs.

The sound of the portcullis rising heralded victory, and any guards still standing surrendered. Addis hurried down to the outer yard while his men poured in.

Richard found him and gestured around the bailey. “Have you seen anything like it?”

The yard was crammed with animals and wagons and stores, collected to sustain the keep in case of siege and to ensure that Addis could find no provisions in the surrounding countryside. Simon would have burned the forests next to drive off the game.

“Have it cleared. Move it into the town. Quickly, or it will be fired from above.”

Richard shouted the order and men began pulling the animals out while archers helped cover them.

“Think you to continue now? It will be morning soon and we can pick our time,” Richard asked.

“What do you recommend?”

Richard wiped some blood off his head and laughed. “As if you need my council, or listen when I give it. Well, aye, I would take advantage of the confusion. The men are still fresh and can taste victory. And if there's to be help from the inside, it will be easier for them if we move before Simon has time to consider what's what now, and think too hard about who is where.”

Addis gazed at the tall walls filling with knights and soldiers. The inner portcullis was solid iron and no battering ram would break it. He could starve them out, but it might take months. And Moira would suffer along with the others.

Let it be finished. Now.

He gave the order and Richard went to organize the attack. He looked up at the keep but could no longer see where Simon and Moira stood. He muttered a prayer for
her protection. Would the Christian saints help her, considering the sin of their love?

Just to be on the safe side he made the same request of Kovas, the god of war.

They could see it all from the keep's roof. Like gods watching from a high mountain, they saw the battle peak and then suddenly end when the gate opened. Simon's men pressed shoulder to shoulder along the battlements of the inner wall and shot arrows at the army invading the outer yard, but Moira could tell from Simon's expression that he expected no more fighting this night.

Her eyes never left Addis, even while he fought atop the gate. She saw the moment when he noticed her, and then the savage mayhem that followed.

“He will at least wait until morning to attack again. I expect he will want to parlay first,” Simon said while they watched the provisions being pulled out the gate. “It will give me a few hours to discover what makes you so valuable.”

She fixed him with one of Claire's haughty glares but it did not dull his leer. “He does not fight for me, Simon. There will be no parlay and no terms, and he will not wait until morning. Do you see any camps forming out on the field? Look you to Owen. He knows it is not over.”

The red-haired knight paced around the wall's walk, checking the deployment of the enemy. Simon's gaze found him. “He will see that Addis does not enter, or does not live long if he does.”

“You have great faith in your friend. Do you really think he will die to protect your hold on Barrowburgh?”

“Nay, probably not. But he will fight to the death to protect himself from Addis's revenge.”