TW01 The Ivanhoe Gambit NEW (20 page)

"And did you?"

"No. I lost them in the woods, worse luck."

"And your wife?"

"She has been with them ever since."

"I should think that you would be glad to be rid of her," said Andre.

"It might seem so, but I miss the bloodthirsty bitch. She made life interesting in these placid times. But I'll get her back one day, mark my word. She's a peculiar woman, de la Croix. Truth be told, I don't think she ever forgave God for making her a woman. Perhaps such an overabundance of spirit is misplaced in one of her sex." Guy chuckled. "She should have been a man."

"Indeed," said Andre, "it is hard to imagine a woman who would not be satisfied with so passionate a husband as yourself."

"I thought you would understand," the sheriff said. "You're a man after my own heart, de la Croix.

What say the two of us go wenching some night?"

"Perhaps we will," said Andre, "when our present duties have been done."

"Yes, one must always think of duty first. Still, a man must have time in which to be a man, eh?"

"True," said Andre. "Else women will forget their role in life."

"The sheriff laughed. "We can't have that, now, can we?"

"No, indeed. What kind of world would it be if women were to forget their place?"

"Perhaps they would even take to wearing spurs and entering the lists," said Guy, laughing. "That would be a sight, eh?"

"I think perhaps the ale has overstimulated your imagination."

"No doubt. God made woman to serve man and that is how it should be."

"Maybe someday you will find one who will serve you properly," said Andre, smiling.

"I'll drink to that," the sheriff said.

"So will I, Sir Guy."

"Why so quiet, Andre?" said Marcel.

"I was thinking of the sheriff, little brother."

Marcel frowned. "I don't like him. He frightens me."

"I don't like him either, Marcel. He's an animal, not a man.

But then, the difference is a small one, is it not? We serve strange masters these days."

"Andre, why must we ride to Torquilstone? I'm afraid. I feel that no good will come of it."

Andre reined up her horse. "I have learned to trust your feelings, little brother. Have you a premonition?"

"The closer we get to Torquilstone, the stronger my fear becomes," Marcel said. "Let us not go there.

Our horses are fresh, the day is young, we can put many miles between us and our troubles before the day is out."

Andre sat astride her horse silently for a moment, listening to the birds sing.

"Andre?"

"I am sorely tempted, Marcel. But I, too, am afraid. This black knight is some sort of sorcerer. One moment, there is nothing there, the next, he is standing at my shoulder. He is the devil's own, Marcel."

"Then we must fight him."

"I fear we lack the proper weapons. How does one fight a warlock?"

"I do not know."

"Nor do I. Perhaps we will find a way. Until then, we must bide our time and do his bidding."

"And what if we run out of time?"

"Yes, time always was our enemy, Marcel. But then, one cannot master time."

"So we ride on to Torquilstone?"

"Yes, little brother. We ride on."

His bonds were almost loose.

I looker had tensed the muscles in his arms and wrists when they had tied him and now, as he walked ahead of his mule and behind the two Norman knights, he was making the best of the slight amount of slack by trying to work his hands free. The trail was narrow. If he could free his hands, he stood a good chance of being able to make a break for it. Perhaps he would be able to lose the men in the forest, but his progress would be drastically impeded with his hands tied behind his back. He had to get them free first. Fortunately, his position in the column made it possible for him to try. De Bracy and Bois-Guilbert rode their horses at a slow walk just ahead of him. Behind him was the mule with the nysteel armor lashed to it and behind the mule was Isaac, who was followed closely by the men at arms. Every time he had voiced a protest, one of them had cuffed him, so he was now reduced to mumbling incoherently under his breath. Hooker could not make out what he was saying, but he thought he caught a word or two of Hebrew. The old man was praying.

Hooker was flanked by two men at arms. The one on his right was left handed and he wore his sword on the right side of his body. The one on his left was right handed and wore his sword on his left side. That effectively put both swords out of his reach in the event that he could free himself and make a quick grab. It did, however, leave both their daggers within his reach. It was a weapon he was far more comfortable with.

His wrists were wet. He guessed that he had rubbed right through the skin so deeply that he didn't even feel the pain. The danger in that was that the blood would soak his bonds and make them more difficult to work loose. He struggled feverishly, keeping a careful watch with his peripheral vision on the men at arms to either side of him. They looked bored and tired, but if they noticed his efforts, they would quickly come alert.

Hooker was close to abject panic. He was sweating profusely. He didn't want to die. From time to time, in his brief career as a soldier, he had tried to imagine what it would be like to die. It was a morbid preoccupation, but he had not been able to resist it. He thought that getting shot would not be too bad, though there were ways one get could shot that would result in a slow and painful death. He had once made a list, mentally, in an idle moment, of ways in which he would prefer to go. He never told anyone about it for fear of being ridiculed. He had listed all possible ways of meeting his Maker in order of preference. At the top of the list were all the most immediate ways of dying—in a bomb blast; from a sonic weapon or a laser; a fatal bullet wound that would kill him before he knew what hit him. Following that, he considered more primitive methods such as decapitation, either by a guillotine or a headsman's axe; a sword thrust through the heart; an arrow wound, a slit throat. ... He had also dwelled upon the more terrifying ways of dying. Drowning was said to be an easy death, but the prospect of it horrified him. There was death by slow torture; death by burning; death by irradiation or disease; death by chemical poisoning. . . . There was one method of execution that made Hooker's guts crawl. He was possessed of a lively imagination and, in this regard, he was his own worst enemy. He knew there was no rational logic to fear. What petrified one man would hardly give pause to another. Hooker was obsessed with his fear of death and one manner of demise horrified him more than any other. Hanging.

He had nightmares about being hanged. He had even researched it. There was a mythology concerning hanging that held that in most cases, strangulation did not truly occur. If placed upon a gallows, on an elevation, or if sat astride a horse preparatory to the dirty deed, it was said that the noose would often break the neck and death would be instantaneous, especially if a weight were used. Hooker knew that such was not the case. It was the exception rather than the rule. The image of men dancing at the end of a rope did not spring from nothing. Depending on the type of knot used, it could take a man as long as fifteen minutes to die.

When Hooker had seen his own corpse, he had been violently sick. Now he could not push the sight from his mind. He imagined the garotte slowly cutting into his throat, the blood running in rivulets down his neck, his tongue protruding from his mouth, his fingers madly scrabbling for the wire and failing to catch hold of it, fighting for breath with every fiber of his being and not succeeding ...

His head had been practically severed from his neck by the monofilament garotte. A weapon from the future. A weapon such as the one hidden in one of Lucas' gauntlets, just at the inside of the wrist.

There was a small metal button there. One quick pull and the deadly wire could be brought into play. The nysteel gear was right behind him, lashed to the mule. It was all there, the mail, the armor, the shield, the
gauntlets. . . .
How long would it be before one of the Norman knights riding just ahead of him would discover the secrets of the armor? Hooker felt a moistness on his face that he first thought was sweat running down from his forehead, but he was astonished to discover that he was weeping silently. His wrists were growing numb. It felt very slippery back there. If only he could work his hands free! If only no one would notice—

There!
He had worked one knot loose! He had hardly any feeling left in his fingers. They prickled as if stabbed with a thousand tiny needles. His fingers kept slipping off the knots, which were slick with blood. Please, God, he thought, abandoning his atheism,
help me!
He could now almost slip one hand free of the ropes. He gritted his teeth and pulled with all his might. He felt his left thumb being scraped raw, he felt his left wrist dislocate ... and he was free!

He slammed his left fist into the face of the man to his left, crying out from the pain that shot up his arm as the dislocated wrist broke. With his right hand, he plucked the dagger from the man's sheath; moving with every ounce of speed that he could muster, he slashed it across the face of the man to his right, opening him up from his right eye to the bottom of his jaw. Then he made a headlong dive for the brush at the side of the trail.

"Catch that man!" he heard someone yell and then he rolled and was on his feet, running through the brambles, his one useless hand hanging limp at his side, the other clutching the dagger. He heard the pounding of horses' hooves behind him and the thrashing of men plunging into the brush. He ran as hard as he could, whimpering with fear. He tripped over a root and fell, striking his head.

"I have him!" someone cried.

Hooker looked up to see a man at arms bearing down upon him, sword drawn. He hurled the dagger. It stuck in the man's throat and he fell to the ground, gurgling horribly. De Bracy was upon him in an instant. He swung his sword, trying to strike Hooker with the flat of the blade, so as to take him alive.

Hooker caught the blow on his right arm and he cried out as he felt his elbow break. Ignoring the pain, he snagged De Bracy's arm and pulled him from the saddle. The knight's horse shied away from him and he heard the others close behind. He ran. A crossbow bolt whizzed by him, then another. He ran, heedless of the branches lashing at his face, tripping, falling, getting up and running; he fled deeper into the forest, trying to outdistance his pursuers. He ran without looking back. He ran for his life, not knowing that he had escaped the frying pan only to fall into the fire.

There was a knock at the door of Irving's chambers.

"Yes?"

"We have taken a prisoner, Sire," said the sheriff, from the other side of the door. Irving got up and opened the door to admit Sir Guy.

"Well?"

"You did say to keep you informed, Sire."

"What of it?"

"One of my forest patrols has taken a prisoner. An escaped bondsman, it would seem. He stumbled out upon the trail before them and went wild."

"What do you mean?"

"He seems to be a raving madman, Sire. Possessed by demons or else mad with fear. He had a wrist broken on one arm and an elbow on the other and still he made a struggle. My men said that he spoke in tongues, screaming and babbling like a lunatic. He has been held captive, that much is certain. His hands are rubbed raw from where he slipped his bonds."

"A Saxon?"

"No, Sire. I do not know what he is, but I have seen him somewhere before, I think. He has a scar upon his face. I have seen that face recently, but I cannot remember where."

"In Nottingham? At York?"

"No, Sire. Perhaps at Ashby . . . Yes, at the tournament. I'm sure I saw him among the knights'

pavilions, but I cannot remember whom he served."

"Where is he now?"

"Locked in the dungeons, below."

"Very well, I will see him presently. Await me there."

The sheriff left and Irving closed the door. A bondsman, but not a Saxon. Spoke in tongues. Was it possible? There was one way to make sure. Irving locked the door and pulled the case containing the chronoplate out from beneath his-bed. He opened it and took out the border circuits which, when assembled, formed the chronoplate. Inside the case was the computer and the tracer apparatus. Irving turned it on, then selected close range implant scan. Yes! There it was! The implant proximity signal! He was right on top of it. It was an amazing stroke of luck. The sheriff's men had caught themselves a temporal trooper. That could only mean that it was one of the adjustment team! He quickly packed the gear away and hurried to join the sheriff in the dungeons.

The nether regions of the castle were dark and damp. There was a fetid odor of decay in the stagnant air and rats scurried away before him as he descended into the torchlit dungeons. The sheriff awaited him with the turnkey, a hideous old man who smelled as if he had been three weeks dead himself. The turnkey lived down in the depths of Nottingham Castle and he had not seen the light of day in years. He was half blind and his skin was the color of the underbelly of a fish. As they passed several of the cells, Irving could hear Cedric shouting behind one of the doors.

"Silence, you!" The turnkey pounded on the door with his gnarled fist. "Nothing but noise from that one," he said. He cackled. "He'll scream himself hoarse soon enough." He paused by another door. "This one's the lady," he said, smacking his lips. "Tender morsel, that. Will you be torturing her, Your Highness? I'm a good man with the bellows, that I am. I can heat the coals so that they glow red hot!"

"Shut him up," said Irving.

"Quiet!" said the sheriff, belting the turnkey alongside the head hard enough to stagger him.

"Thank you, milord."

The turnkey paused by the door of one of the cells and fumbled with his keys. It took him an eternity to fit the key into the hole—he kept missing it. Finally, he opened the door.

Irving gagged on the smell. He spun away, holding his hand over his nose and mouth.

"Bring him out," the sheriff said.