Smoke and Steel

The Falcon's Children, Chapter 28

Getting out of the range of the catapults meant going back up the main row of Dernbridge, all the way back to the town square, where a makeshift hospital had sprung up beside the alder’s house and the sounds of battle were muted compared to the cries of wounded men.

“I want the others down here,” her captain said to Cedrec, gesturing to the inn. “And we need to find our horses. I want us ready to leave in a hurry.”

“Are we losing?” Alsbet said. It couldn’t be, a few catapults couldn’t be a match for all those cheering men, those brave men …

“Not losing yet, not losing yet, but there’s three different captains fighting this battle on our side and we’re just reacting to whatever Aengiss does — no, princess, no, don’t fear, we can win, we should win, but it’s our task to keep you safe, and when things fall apart they can fall apart in a hurry.”

“He’s right,” Maibyghon said softly, then switched to Brethon. “The Skalbarder seems to know his business, but a battle needs a single general, not three. We should be ready to run.”

“Run where?” Alsbet said, and while Cedrec and the Brethon knight, his name was Aerhuinn, headed for the Snow Goose she let her gaze rove around the square, wondering where they had penned Paulus and Arellwen, wondering if the townsfolk were still all inside the shrine —

— and thinking of them, she thought that she should be a princess to all her people if she wanted to angels to smile on her, and she slipped from the saddle, still holding the bare sword, and crossed the hard-packed mud to the shrine’s doors, where two legionnaires stood casually under a crude statue of Raguel.

“Are the people still inside?” she asked, and as they recognized her they reacted with confusion — a salute from one, a sketched bow from the other — and the younger one, blonde hair beneath his helm, nodded and said: “They’re safer inside, m’lady, highness I mean. Old folk and such.”

“What happens if — if the enemy overruns the town?” she said.

“We won’t be guarding the door then,” said the other, his speech Argosan-accented. “They can make their own way like the rest of us if it’s a rout.”

“Can I go in to them?” she asked. “I’ll leave my sword with you.”

“Well, why — ” They exchanged glances. “No need to leave it, highness,” the older one said. “But will your men, will they go with you? It’s crowded inside, we can’t be responsible for your safety …”

“I’m responsible,” said Gavian, looming at her left side, “but this is foolishness. Visit with them once the battle is done, highness, if all is well, but for now when Cedrec brings the others down …”

“When he brings them down I will be back outside,” she said. “I wish to say a prayer with my people, Gavian.”

“Your people need you to be safe,” he snapped at her, but she knew what she was doing, he didn’t need to protect her, and she passed between the soldiers and went through the doors into the shrine.

It was crowded indeed, the air close despite the cold outside, the benches filled with reclining figures. The frescoes on the vault were shadowed — vague angelic figures, Eris and Era, Magaric and the lion, Tophir in Arrabas, even stoical Brasila, the model of female virtue Gavian had urged on her. What light there was spilled through through ceiling apertures to fall around the altar of sacrifice — a simple block surrounded by huddled people, some in cloaks and some in blankets, their low noise diminishing as she entered, bringing more light with her, and heads turned and craned to look.

The alder was with three heavyset men near the chorister benches, and he came to her, recognized her, bowed. One of the other men followed him, the same bodyguard she had seen last night, his cloak a heavy swaddle around his height and breadth.

“Alder …” The name came to her. “Alder Merfen, do your people have everything they need? Angels willing the battle will soon be over, our army gone.”

He looked yet more nervous than in his own house the prior night, his eyes darting to his larger companion — perhaps thinking the bigger man the likeliest protection should the battle reach them here.

“It’s all satisfactory, highness,” he said. “Difficult, of course, but the men — your men — brought in bread and water this morning, and we have blankets from our homes, we lit the altar fire in the night … Angels willing, yes, it will all be over soon.”

“And the children?” she said. “Are they all right?”

“The children, yes, yes …” Something about this made him appear even more anxious, and as her eyes swept the space she realized that she didn’t see many children. How many adults were crowded in — forty, maybe fifty, in a space built for twice that? But maybe that wasn’t surprising, surely some people had hid or fled. And she heard an infant crying, one at least. Maybe the other children were huddled under blankets near the altar …

“They’re fine,” the bigger man said. “Some of them are with their mothers in the crypt.”

There was a faint lilt to his voice — probably Ysani, maybe he’d come to Rendale as a soldier and married into this village.

“There’s a crypt?” Gavian said. He had come in behind her, Maibhygon as well. “Is there more than one way in and out?”

The big man, the maybe-blacksmith, gave him a suspicious look. “Aye, there is. Why might you ask, captain?”

Almost certainly a former soldier if he recognized Gavian’s badge of rank.

“I might ask because if you have to seek shelter there, you’ll want to be ready to flee out one way if the other one gets blocked.” He transferred his gaze to the alder. “The princess wants to see to your folk’s safety, and I want to see to hers — so I’ll tell you now that there are only two guards on the outside of your doors, and if they leave it means the fight is coming toward you, and you’d best either put everyone underground or try to make a run for it with everyone who can run. Do you understand me?”

“Underground, yes,” the alder said. “We have people too old to run, and as for the, the children …” — another glance at his larger companion — “surely honorable men of the Falconguard would not hurt our children.”

“I am certain they would not intend it,” said Maibhygon gravely, “but in battle terrible deeds are often done by men who barely know what they’re doing.”

The shrine door opened again behind them, a spill of light, and turning they saw Cedrec and the veiled Fidelity, who came quickly together to join them.

“The rest are gathering outside,” Cedrec told Gavian. “The sister wanted to join the princess in her prayers.”

“Not sure we have time for those,” said Gavian, as Alsbet noticed the other two big men shouldering their way across the space toward them, each almost a twin of the soldier-turned-Dernbridge-man beside them, large and grim-faced with cloaks that reached the floor.

She sensed the people on the benches and around the altar looking at them; it was strange that only the alder had come to her, and none of the town’s women, who surely needed comfort and might take some from seeing a princess in the midst.

“Princess, can we go to the altar,” Fidelity said softly. “A brief prayer …”

Maybe the broad-shouldered trio were a town watch of some sort — and through the rays of sun and deep shadows she spotted a few other men, similarly well-built, stationed almost as guards around the huddled villagers, around the altar, around a space that might be the entrance to the crypt …

“We can be moving quickly,” Cedrec urged.

“Quickly is good,” Gavian said.

“One prayer together, princess, a prayer for victory …”

She nodded to Fidelity, and was about to tell her captain to give them just a last moment — but she paused, sensing something from him, some unspoken thought, and he reached out and took her arm, more firmly than usual, and said: “If they’re ready, we’re ready. The archangels will hear us pray from the road. You’ve shown yourself to your people, let’s be off, highness.”

Somehow she knew not to object. The smell of the place was intense, the old scent of smoke and incense and the new odor of sweating flesh, and so was a feeling of simple wrongness — something wrong in the flickering eyes of the alder, in the silence of his people, in the absence of children —

“Yes,” she said, trying to look graciously at the alder, “if the angels are good I will return …”

— something wrong in the size and shape and accent of the man beside the alder —

“… and the good sister here and I will be praying for you all …”

— something wrong in the big hand going inside his cloak, for all the world like he was still a soldier going for his blade —

Before anything else happened she heard Maibhygon say feyaer!, which even she knew, in a part of her mind that belonged to her lost days as a courteous hostess, that a prince of Bryghala would never say with a lady present unless the situation was dire indeed.

Then Gavian yanked her, so hard that she lost the sword and heard it clatter on the stone, and she stumbled with him toward the doors, in the corner of her eye seeing that the big man had actually drawn a blade, a legionnaire’s sword if she ever saw one … and then something, someone hit Gavian and she lost his hand and went down, her knee hitting the stone floor hard, the pain a jolt up her leg into her hips, and she tried to come up and someone was standing over saying “hush, hush,” and something was pointed at her, a crossbow, they were ringed by crossbows, men from nowhere, men who weren’t from Dernbridge, men who could only be from the…

“Falconguard,” spat Gavian, like her knocked off his feet and pinned in place, his sword drawn but useless, four men around them, Cedrec with a sword out to protect Fidelity, Maibhygon holding a dagger but likewise frozen by the weaponry.

“They took our children back to Rendale last night,” the alder said, a whisper that carried. “They took my wife and others into the crypt …”

“How many of you are there?” her captain said, almost ruefully.

The first big man, his blade naked now and level, shrugged and said: “Enough for what we need to do. What we’re doing. Time for you to join the womenfolk below.”

She thought she recognized two of them now, familiar faces from the Castle buried under hoods and stubble. The baby was wailing loudly. She wasn’t that far from the door, if she screamed the soldiers outside might hear, she might die but then whatever was planned might not come off, the battle might be won, the crossbow bolt in her breast a subject fit for ballads …

Her eyes met Maibhygon’s, and he shook his head, a tiny jerk but perceptible.

She nodded, and rose at the Falconguardsmen’s urging, and they began to move toward the altar. But then she did shriek a little, and she felt a swordpoint press up against her spine, as though ready to go through her and divide her breasts with steel — and somehow that seemed almost more desirable than the nightmare striding toward her like a priest leaving the altar after the sacrifice, the nightmare that was Paulus bar Merula, armored and beaming, with blood on one of his hands and arms spread wide in welcome.

“Why princess, a happy coincidence for both of us! I was just going to bring these fine men and come looking for you!”

The sword was still pressing, but she stopped moving, let him come to them. “How – you were under guard — how did you escape?”

“From the single guard set to watch me and the chancellor? I wouldn’t dignify that challenge by calling it an escape. But hunting you down was going to be trickier – and then, blessedly, here you are! To minister to your people, I suppose …?” His hand swept the benches around them, all the huddled townsfolk, who were really all the town’s old folk, white hair and parchment skin and eyes that stared like an audience at a players’ tragedy.

“A risky gambit,” he said, as if to answer her unasked question. “Clear half the village and most of its children as hostages, swap in some Falconguardsmen, leave just enough women and babes” – the wail rose again, as if on cue — “that nobody notices, and fill the crypt with fighting men. Didn’t know if it would work, but better than sitting in that old keep waiting for the Old Hound to come, don’t you think?”

“There are guards outside,” she breathed. “We’ll scream for them before you kill us …”

“Ah, but this isn’t a story, princess, and I’m not unfolding a plan for you to nobly foil. The men we hid are joining the battle as we speak.”

“Like I told you,” one of the big men growled, “crypt’s got two entrances.”

“One leads out and then down to the battle,” Paulus said. “I’ll walk you through it all, if you like, when this is over.”

She spat at him. “The angels see you! The angels know what you’ve done!”

“No doubt.” He gestured upward toward the shadowed frescoes, and his smile was almost sad. “But if they watch, and do nothing, what does that tell you about them?”