***************************************************************************8
Chapter 13
Owen slipped out of the kitchen
doorway. Jon had been busy, and could not take much time to talk, so Owen had
left him, to go and get a closer look at the castle. He climbed up a narrow flight of steps to the
wall. No one was there. The guards were still recovering from their binge of
drinking, so Owen was alone. He paced the wall, thinking for a few moments. The
night air was refreshingly cool, but all the same, he felt an unusual tenseness
and uneasiness.
He walked around the wall,
thinking, for a long time. He knew Nai was here, and he had possible allies
among the slaves. Plans were formed and
discarded in his mind. He thought carefully about it. He couldn’t wait for
Noren. It could take days, even weeks,
for Noren to return with his ‘army’ of rebels.
Something could happen to Nai at any time. He settled down, thinking.
His mind began to wander.
Out of boredom, he began to
study the workmanship of the wall. It was not as badly designed as he had first
though. Although the bottom wall was short, it also had spikes and ridges
designed to prevent attackers from climbing over it. There was also a stout pike hung from the
wall every few yards to be used to push back the ladders.
On the top wall, it was even
more impressive. The arches which Owen had scoffed at earlier were actually
cunningly designed. They offered defenders a way to get quickly from wall to
wall, but mechanisms controlled by chains, pulleys, levers and a few other
pieces allowed for the destruction of the arch in less than a moment.
“Whoah.” He muttered. “Tougher
than I thought.”
“It’d be hard to breach without
the right equipment.”
Owen turned. A figure stood
behind him, leaning on the railing of the wall. It was Jon. He stood there,
quietly.
“So, tell me why you are here,
and how you came to be here.” Jon said, looking into Owens eyes.
Owen sighed, and began to tell a
quick version of his story. He left out a few things, such as Noren, and his
liking for Nai, but eventually made it to the end.
“So Keegan took Kallan and
Marcus and began pursuing the barbarians, and I came to see if I could find
Nai.” He stopped, and stood, looking off into the courtyard below. Jon looked
at him, then looked back.
“I better be going. They will
begin to wonder where I am.” He turned and walked quickly down the stairs, and
disappeared around the corner of the keep in a few moments. Owen sat quietly,
and then quietly walked down the stairs, then to the stables. He settled in the
hay near his horse, his hand on one of his knives.
********************************************************************************
Owen woke early the next
morning, uncomfortable, with straw stuck in his clothes. He decided that sleeping in straw wasn’t a
very good idea. He stood, dusting himself off, picking the straw out of his
cloak. His horse was standing quietly in
the stall, nibbling on some hay. Owen slipped out of the stall, and out into
the biting morning air. The sun had not yet risen. The sky was a dark
grayish-blue.
He walked out, keeping in the
shadows of the wall, his cloak covering his bright colored clothing. He crept
along, watching carefully. Apparently, some of the soldiers had come out of
their drunken stupor, and were patrolling the wall above. Owen paced quietly
around the courtyard, thinking.
The sun began to rise, and a
bell rang in the keep. Doors opened, and people came out everywhere. Owen
quickly ran toward the stable, and slipped inside as slaves and soldiers passed
by, heading to their work. Owen watched as the slave drivers, armed with
cudgels and leather cords, pushed the slaves to work. Owen craned his head,
looking for a glimpse of Nai, but did not see her. He slipped to another
window, and watched, but still saw nothing.
He noticed several slaves,
accompanied by a few soldiers, coming toward the stable. He looked around for
somewhere to hide. The stable was two stories, connected by a ladder. Owen
climbed the ladder quickly, into the hay loft. He heard the men enter below
him.
“You, groom, get horses ready.”
A soldier’s voice echoed in the stone building. “Fifteen of them, with light
gear and bags. Lord Cardowac wants a
search party.”
He heard the heavy footsteps as the soldiers
walked out. The grooms began to ready the horses. Owen knelt, and looked
through a crack in the floorboards. There were four of them, and they were all
fairly tall men, with thin wiry frames. They were dress in worn clothes with
leather aprons, a variety of horseshoeing tools sticking out of the pockets.
They began to saddle horses, and one checked the hooves of each one, pounding
in a nail with a small hammer here and there, or trimming a slight bit of hoof
off.
Owen watched, interested, until he saw one
coming toward the ladder. He stood, and looked around. He saw a low beam on the
ceiling, and he jumped and grabbed it. He held on tight, and climbed the wall,
then pulled himself onto the beam. He climbed up it further, and then moved to
a higher beam, without any light falling on it. He was hidden in the shadow.
The grooms head poked up through the hole, and then he moved to a pile of hay
in the corner. Grabbing a hayfork, he began to push it into a gap between the
wall and the floor. It fell down to the bottom story. He looked around, then
began to sweep up the hay.
Owen moved his hand to get a
better grip, but his foot slipped, and he tumbled to the floor. He landed in a
heap with a mighty thud. The groom turned, hayfork in hand, toward the noise.
Owen winced and then rolled to the side, standing and getting out his hatchet
as he rose. They both stood there, watching each other carefully.
The groom was in his early
twenties, with a head of closely shaven black hair. His face was angular, but
his nose was rounded, as if to make up for the lack of roundedness in his face.
His eyes glittered with some feeling, but his mouth was wide with surprise. A voice came from below.
“You alright Jordl?” It was the
voice of one of the grooms.
Jordl looked down, and then back
at Owen. “Yes, I’m fine. Just dropped a bale.”
He backed up, then looked at Owen more closely, before turning and
bolting down the ladder. Owen stood, breathing carefully, watching the ladder,
hatchet in hand. He quietly slipped it back into its sheath, and then tiptoed
to the crack. He looked down.
“Almost ready, scum?” A soldiers
voice loudly asked. Owen put his head carefully through the hay gap, and looked
at the door.
“Almost ready.” One of the
grooms led another horse out the door, and tied it to a long rail on the front
of the building. Owen stood quietly, and walked to the window. He looked out.
The sun had risen now, but there was still only a light red glow over the
castle. Rocks surrounded it, so the sun took longer to fully rise. Owen watched as slaves bustled around the
castle, working hard, their slave-masters watching closely for any sign of
misconduct.
Owen looked down. Several horses
were already outside, and a groom came out leading two more. Now there were
only a few more horses to bring. Owen sat quietly, waiting. Finally, after what
seemed like forever, the last horse was brought out, and the grooms went to
different work. Owen stayed quietly watching the courtyard from the loft
window.
Cardowac came pacing out of the
inner wall, clad in a burgundy robe over his usual chainmail. His sword was at
his side. He mounted on a large chestnut gelding, and 15 sturdy soldiers
followed him. They mounted, and he turned and looked at them. His voice echoed
over the stone.
“We search the red rocks, and
the foothills. Reward to the finders!” With a cheer, they trotted out of the
castle, the gate clanking closed behind them. Owen watched until they were
gone, then climbed down the ladder and stepped quietly through the stable, and
out the door. He stayed in the shadow of the wall, and then dashed across the
courtyard, into the inner court. He watched carefully, and making sure no one
was watching, he walked to the keep, and pulled the door slowly open. It was
heavy, and creaked as he pulled it. He slipped inside, and looked around.
He was inside a great hall, with
two long tables running lengthwise along it. There was a raised dais on the far
end, with another table upon it. The whole room was musty and dirty, but he
could tell it was used often. It was empty except for a few rats picking at
crumbs on the floor.
Owens stomach grumbled. He
hadn’t eaten for almost a day, and even then only a bit of meat. He looked in
his satchel, but there was only a little left of his dried food. He decided to
save it. He looked around, but there was no food on the tables. He sniffed.
Something smelled good. He followed the smell, and came to a door to the right
of the dais.
He opened it slowly, and then
walked down a set of stairs. He paused
at the bottom, and realized he was in the kitchen again, except this time from
a different direction. It looked as if the cooks were cleaning up. A large pile
of leftover bread and meat was on a tray just out of the stairway. Owen stepped
out carefully. A large woman walked up to him.
“What are you doin’ in here
young man?” She asked, putting her hands on her hips. Owen looked around,
cornered.
“I, umm, I’m looking for Jon.”
The woman looked at him carefully, and then turned. “Jon, come over here.” Jon
turned from where he had been standing on the far end of the room.
“What?” He saw Owen. “Oh.” He
walked over to Owen. The woman stood back, watching. Jon looked at her with a pained expression on
his face, and then turned to Owen. Owen
backed into the stairway. Jon followed
him, and then quietly spoke.
“What do you need?”
Owen looked over his shoulder at
the woman. “I need two things. One, I haven’t eaten a good meal in days. Can
you spare a little something.”
Jon looked back at the tray of
food. “Yes, no problem.”
“And
secondly, I’m looking for Nai. Where is she?”
Jon had an
unreadable expression on his face. “Just wait. I’ll take you to her.” He turned
and went back into the kitchen. He quickly heaped some meat and a slightly
burnt roll onto a wooden trencher and brought it to him.
“Here, take this. We have a lot
of leftovers; it all goes to feed us, usually, unless we’re caught. Then it
goes to the pigs.” Owen nodded, and then dug in. The roll was just slightly
burnt, and still tasted very good. The grains crunched as he bit in. The meat
was dark brown, and juicy, of a type that Owen had never seen.
He quickly ate on the steps, and
then walked back into the kitchen, placing the trencher on a pile of dirty
dishes. Most of the slaves were gone, but Jon and a few others prepared some
small trenchers of food. Owen stood patiently to the side, waiting. Finally,
Jon came, holding a tray with several pieces of food.
“Follow me.”
He walked up the stairs, and
then turned into the hall. He walked along the edge, until he came to another
doorway. He turned into it. Owen followed. They walked up another staircase,
which went around the edges of the tower. Several doorways branched off, but
Jon continued going past several of them. Finally, on the third story, Jon
stopped, and knocked on a small door leading out of the hallway. It opened. Jon
walked in. Owen stayed in the hall, but looked in the door.
He looked into a small room,
where 3 young women stood. They were all dressed nicely, in flowing dresses and
robes, but their faces bore testimony of the abuse they had suffered. Owen
looked at each one in turn, until he came to the last. It was Nai. He breathed
a sigh of dismay. Her face was bruised, and he could see the edge of a peeling
bandage hanging from her arm under her sleeve.
She smiled at Jon, and he smiled
back, then he passed her the food. Owen had a pang of jealousy, but he did not
know quite why. He stood, feeling shy,
in the doorway. One of the girls turned, and raised her eyebrows.
“Who are you?”
No comments:
Post a Comment