Alan of Evesham emerged easily from a light, feverish doze. He took his responsibilities to his men and his master very seriously and was receptive for that reason to very slight changes in the atmosphere around him. Just now, however, he did not trust himself. The fever would make his ears abnormally sensitive, it was true, but it also might deceive them completely by confounding imagination with reality. He lay and listened, trying to localize the sounds in the dark, then sighed and closed his eyes again. He had heard the clang of arms it seemed, but he knew that to be impossible. He had been dreaming, he supposed, of the past or hoping for the future; they could fight against the very walls of the tower without sound coming through. Then he was staring into the darkness again. He could not be dreaming, for there was the sound still and it was coming from above him. Sir Alan almost laughed. He might easily dream in his fever, but not of battles in heaven. His smile was short lived as he strained to hear better; there could be no doubt that in the chamber above men were moving arms. But why?
"Herbert," Alan whispered.
"Yes, sir?"
"Who has been watching at the door grill? Bid him come here."
A hand fumbled at his feet, slid gently up his leg. "Sir?"
"Have you seen aught?"
"Ay. Men have come running up the stairs and down carrying arms."
"You blackhearted idiot! Why did you not tell me?"
"None came here. You said to warn the men when they came to bring us food."
Sir Alan ground his teeth as well as he could for pain; he had been much cut about on the face. "Ass! If we ever get out of this alive, I will have you flayed. How long?"
"As long as it might take to go a mile at a foot pace."
"Herbert."
"Sir?"
"Spread the word among the men—but quietly—that they should seek along the walls and floors for anything, metal, sharp stones, the buckles of their belts, anything that may be used to pick the lock or work around the wood and loosen it."
"Sir Alan," Herbert protested, "that door is oak as hard as iron itself, and the lock is no child's plaything. Our first plan is better."
"Oh God, why am I cursed with a troop of moonlings? Did you not hear? The keep is under attack. Why do you think men came to carry arms? Do you think they will stop to bring us food? I know not who Lord Peverel's enemies may be, but if enemy to him then friend to us, and my heart cries out that it is our own lord seeking his lady and his men. Mayhap we will not win free, but will you sit here in the dark while your lord fights and not try to give him aid?"
He stopped, gasping with weakness, but be had said enough. The spirits of the men near enough to hear rose almost to gladness. The insults and threats of their captain were old familiar friends, indicating to his men only that he was feeling better, and they had all been with Hereford in desperate situations before. His name was, to them, almost a magic password of success.
"The earl is come."
"Lord Hereford has come for us."
The words were whispered from man to man together with the orders of Alan of Evesham. Hastily but carefully, one man still watching at the door to guard against surprise, the search was begun. Patient hands, hard as the pitiful implements they found to use with much handling of weapons, began to work at the wooden frame near the lock and around the lock seated in the door. That the task was very nearly hopeless did not discourage them; at least there was work to be done.
With rage and disbelief Lord Peverel had watched the first cask of Greek fire, a flaming mixture of tar, pitch, and oil, fly over the outer wall. The second, which set a storehouse in the bailey alight, sent him into violent action. He shouted at de Caldoet to send out messengers to the king and to assume the defense of the outer walls. He himself would hold the inner keep, he added in a voice which he managed to keep firm only by a great effort. He need not have bothered, for de Caldoet was not likely to be deceived by a firm tone in a man who abandoned his outer defenses to another before they were even threatened.
The mercenary was a trifle surprised. Peverel was not ordinarily a coward, although he plainly was no man to cling to his courage in a forlorn hope. De Caldoet could only assume that Peverel knew more about the strength of the attackers than he admitted. Well, well, de Caldoet thought, that was no problem. If they were too strong, he would open the gates to them upon promise of freedom for himself and his men. He would even help them take the inner keep for a price, and there was no doubt he would get his price for he knew the castle well and could be invaluable to his master's enemies. At present there was no particular danger and he could afford to stand his ground.
Peverel was thinking very similar thoughts as he made for the great inner donjon with rather unseemly haste. He recognized the irrationality of his behavior but could do nothing about it because a cold fear had a grip on him that he could not shake. His mind was sure that Nottingham could not be taken if well defended and that he had done the one thing that could endanger it. Nonetheless he was terrified, too shaken to give orders or urge his men to fight. In fact it had taken all his strength not to seize a horse, order a company to follow him, and ride away. All he could do now was to hide until he could command himself again. To try to command his men in the state in which he was, was to make cowards of them all by convincing them their situation was hopeless.
In the gray light of a dawn that promised more rain, Walter of Hereford drew rein on a rise to consider how best to trouble Peverel. He had no expectation of being able to storm the keep with five hundred men, for he had none of the machines or weapons necessary for such an effort. Nor, in spite of his elder brother's fears, was he mad enough to try to take Nottingham Castle by surprise. He could, however— The thought stopped dead in his mind as his eyes took in the landscape before him. Burnt out! It was burnt out, and lately. Smoke was still curling lazily from the ruins of ricks and huts. Walter raised his eyes from the fields to the walls of Nottingham. There was fire within the keep also!
The first notion that came to him with a flash of rage was that his brother had made a fool of him again and had beaten him to the attack. He very nearly cried out and ordered his men to charge. He was, however, an experienced soldier in spite of his youth and was restrained by his own good sense. It was impossible. Even if Hereford had lied and his men were fresh he could have come no quicker, and Walter knew what he gazed upon was the work of several hours.
Walter frowned. The Constable of Nottingham had many enemies, but unfortunately not all of them would, for that reason, be friends to Hereford. It was plain enough from what he saw, however, that Nottingham keep was in no immediate danger of falling into the hands of its foes. Walter lifted the mail band under his helmet to scratch his forehead.
What now? He could see no sign of the raiders, had no idea of their strength or even where they were. One thing alone was certain; he and his men could not sit there forever. They would have to move one way or another soon because the darkness was rapidly yielding to morning and in that scorched area there was no place to hide.
Walter turned his head to speak over his shoulder to his master-at-arms. "Let four men ride back along our trail seeking my brother Hereford. Say unto him that Nottingham is already afire but not by me, and that he should make all haste to join me here. Let two man lie here on the rise and watch what goes forward. Send another twelve round about to discover if they can who has set these flames, but let them have a care not to fall into the hands of the raiders. I have no desire yet that they should know we are here. Bid the men ride a little below the ridge also, that they do not show themselves when the sun rises."
He then looked around and gestured the men toward a wooded area that would provide some shelter. Without more ado he dismounted, his squire running up to take his horse, and lay down on the ground in a bed of bracken. It was cold and damp, but he was used to that. It might take his men ten minutes or two hours to return with the information he wanted and he would use the time for rest because there might well be heavy fighting ahead.
The messengers found Hereford without difficulty, and the army made what speed it could. The horses were still tired, however, and the terrain difficult so that it was midmorning before Hereford finally flung himself off his mount and shook his brother awake.
"I have half killed us getting here, Walter. It is good to find you so much at ease. What the hell is going forth?"
"You need not knock the teeth out of my head. Why should I not take my ease? Our work is being done for us—look."
They walked to the rise and looked over the fields which were no longer smoking but lay black and sodden under the light drizzle. Nothing moved in those fields nor, as far as either of the men of Hereford could tell, in the keep itself. The drawbridge was up, the gates tight shut; if a man moved on the battlements, it was impossible for him to be seen from where they stood. At that hour of the morning there should have been work parties going and coming in time of peace or war parties going out to make forages against the enemy in time of war. Strangest of all was the fact that there was not a sight or sound of the attackers.
Walter looked into his brother's puzzled blue eyes. "So it has been since I came. Then the fields were still burning and there was fire in the keep too, but not a man have we seen except the slain in the village."
"For what do they wait? Why do they not come out, more especially since there is no army camped before them."
"Why ask me? I have been waiting here since dawn for that very thing, thinking to fall upon them and take to myself credit for what I have not done. He who has thus laid his shoulder to our wheel is gone like smoke in the air."
Hereford shrugged and turned to consult Lord Radnor, who had not dismounted. Roger was not as blankly surprised at finding Nottingham under attack as his brother was, since he had had a hand in arousing feeling against Peverel in more than one quarter. He could not, however, understand the tactics being used. It was mad to fire the fields and the keep and then ride away. Still he could not doubt the word or efficiency of Walter's men who had sought for miles around and found nothing. The quiet prevailing over the castle itself was also a puzzle, unless—unless the keep were already taken, the battle over when Walter arrived.
"No." Radnor replied definitely to that. "It could not be. At the least there would be wains carrying forth the plunder. I do not know what this bodes, Hereford, but I say we are big enough. What profit to sit here wondering? Let us go down and camp on the fields before the keep, let us cry our defiance, and take him if we can."
"Walter?" Hereford questioned, turning to his brother with deliberate courtesy.
The younger man looked up in surprise. His brother was much more in the habit of telling him what to do than asking his opinion. Such deference made him suspicious, but he could see nothing in Hereford's face or manner that was not reasonable in the circumstances.
"We can do naught else unless you think to tempt them out by showing only a small portion of our men. Somehow, I do not think they will fight unless we attack, no matter how we move. I am willing to do as Lord Radnor suggests."
They had, in fact, little other choice. There was no longer any chance of storming the keep by surprise, although Hereford had never counted much upon that opportunity anyway. Most castles were always on guard and quickly defended and Peverel's surely would be because he was cordially hated by most of his neighbors. They could have done little more than what was already accomplished for them, except, perhaps, to have kept the livestock and grain to feed themselves and their horses. The men moved down over the rise in a long column behind their leaders and around the keep well out of arrow range. Somewhat beyond the embers of the village a camp was begun while Radnor, Hereford, and Walter continued around to see what they could learn of the construction of the keep and the lay of the land.
It took them about half an hour, for they went slowly and then more slowly, looking at the gray stone walls and looking even oftener at each other. Not a sound came from within the walls, not an arrow was loosed at them, not a sign of movement did they see. The silence weighed on the spirit. It gave the feeling that eyes, not human and angry but cold and dead, watched from behind dead walls. On the north side of the castle they stopped. Without the elaborate equipment for the assault of a keep, which might take weeks to build, this was the place to attack. By common consent, yet without speaking a word, they moved closer to the walls, closer still, tempting the bowmen to make them a mark … nothing.
"Can they be all dead?" Hereford murmured, somehow unwilling to break in upon the stillness with a normal speaking voice. He had the feeling that if he spoke aloud he would wake something horrible behind the quiet walls.
The others too suffered from the same sensation, and for a long minute they were still. Suddenly the tension was too much for Walter. His sword sang with the swiftness with which he drew it, and he clashed it against the metal bosses of his shield, waking echoes and crying out, "Come out. Come out and fight, you rotting lepers. You toads who eat filth—fight—or open your gates and make way for men to enter."
Radnor and Hereford half raised their shields now expecting the hail of shafts so long delayed, but nothing came except one coarse laugh. A postern door, so cleverly concealed that they never would have seen it, opened surprisingly near them. A man, as large as Lord Radnor, even heavier, and a good deal uglier appeared in it.
"Come in, my little cockerel, if you will. Mayhap on our dung heap you will not crow so loud. It might be also that you will crow to get out even more vainly than you crow to come in."
Hereford's horse was in front of Walter's, blocking his, even before he could set spurs to it, but the spell was broken. The earl's clear laugh rang out shattering the stillness again.