Bass’s order that some few of the would-be ambushers from the second attack be allowed to escape was fruitful, in that there were no more attacks of any nature for the remainder of the trip, much to the disgust of Sir Calum, Sir Liam, and the rest of the galloglaiches, who all had relished the occasional light amusement.
Sight of the distant, ancient tower of Whyffler Hall on the horizon was very welcome to each and every member of the weary, dreary, saturated, and wind-burned column. Welcome, despite the fact that it meant for most of them only a pallet of straw in some unheated outbuilding or a tent or, at best, leave to sleep in the great hall on a bench or under a table. At least the straw would be dry and the roof would keep it so and their cloaks would provide warmth with the icy-toothed winds kept at bay by the walls.
But the galloglaiches. other troops, and servants were allotted scant time to rest after their long, difficult ride. Hardly were they dismounted when the duke and the archbishop had them in the old tower keep, hacking once more at that same wall to the ensorcelled chamber that many of them had but so lately walled up.
Clearance of the walls this time brought the same pulsing pale-greenish glow. But it brought something else, as well, on this second occasion, something discomforting for all its common familiarity—the strong reek of a battlefield, the stench of corporeal corruption, of corpses left too long unburied.
“I thought you said that you and your men buried the body of Colonel Dr. Jane Stone/’ said the archbishop, who had once been Dr. Harold Kenmore, wrinkling his nose against the assault of the stink from below.
“And so we did, Hal. We buried her out beyond the hall privies, where the dead rievers of Laird David Scott’s force lie.”
“Then who,” demanded the archbishop, “in the name of all that’s holy is rotting down there below us, Bass?”
The Duke of Norfolk meticulously checked the primings of his pistols, then grasped a torch and moved into the archway. “I don’t know, Hal, not now, but I sure as hell mean to find out.”
CHAPTER
THE FOURTEENTH
“Can you not think of any reason why the ground level, below us here, would have suddenly flooded, Geoff?” said Sir Bass Foster, Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Rutland, and Baron of Strathtyne, to his seneschal and castellan for his barony, Sir Geoffrey Musgrave. “Clearly, it’s not been prone to flooding ere this, else rats would not have tunneled under that dirt floor in such numbers. Why, when 1 was down there on my last trip, that floor was pocked with dozens of burrow openings.”
Musgrave scratched at his scar-furrowed, balding scalp. “Well, your grace, as your grace may have noted when he rode in yesterday, Henny Turnbull and me, we had decided that rainwater had commenced a-pooling up too much in the rear court, so we had set some lads a-digging aside the old tower keep for to put in a gravel sump, but then this last month it’s been near steady rain and nae work could be done on’t.”
“That could well be our answer,” said Bass. “And none of you thought that channeling a new drainage pattern in the rear court might flood the ground floor of the tower, Geoff?”
“Why, o’ course not, your grace. Ever mon aboot knows that the foundations of the auld tower keep goes clear doon tae bedrock.” In his agitation, Musgrave was occasionally slipping back into his Northumbrian country brogue. “ln the hunnerts of years it’s stood, ne’er could ony thrice-domned Scot dig deep enough for tae undermine’t!”
“Maybe so, maybe not, Geoff; and even if so, the shifting of but a single foundation stone could leave more than enough of an opening for a flood of water to enter and percolate up through that dirt floor.
“Al1 right, Geoff, forget about what’s past. It’s damned good for you and everyone else hereabouts that it happened as it did. Those three men were evil men and far better dead than alive.”
“But your grace, please . . . what kilt them? I watched the three of their rotten corpses stripped and nae single mark was on them.”
With a hand signal to Bass, the archbishop took over. “Look you. Sir Geoffrey, suffice it to say that great power, deadly power, lay in the square metal device and in the silver plate on which it rested. They put that deadly power into the water in which they were partially submerged, and when those three men were transported near knee-deep into that water, the power stopped their hearts and so killed them.
“You may call the power alchemy or sorcery or witchcraft, to yourself, but you are never to make mention of this incident to anyone else—man or woman or child—save those of us here at this table. For the remainder of your life, on your honor, you are to maintain your silence. Do you understand me, Sir Geoffrey?”
“Aye, your grace,” answered Musgrave humbly. “‘pon me oath as a belted knicht, ’twill be.”
“Now, Geoff,” began Bass, “whence came the slate with which the newer portions of Whyffler Hall are roofed over?”
“From a auld quarry, your grace, once in the lands o’ the Heron family, it lay; but noo it be a part o’ your grace’s own Barony o’ Strathtyne.”
“Then find quarrymen quickly, Geoff, and see it reopened. You’re to have loads of quarried slate delivered here to Whyffler Hall until his grace, Harold of York, indicates that there is enough. He will need stonemasons, too, all of them that you can locate and hire on.
“That matter aside, now, Geoff, answer me this: Is there a good source of really good potter’s clay about?”
Musgrave wrinkled his brow, then said, “The best what I knows of is the claypits on the lands of Laird Michael Scott, fu’ brother tae the late and unlamented Sir David Scott, but a gude mon, for a’ that.”
“Allright, Geoff, contact Laird Michael and tell him that I’ll be wanting to buy more than a few wagonloads of his potter’s clay. I’ll leave you enough gold for the job.”
“Your Grace’s pardon,” said Musgrave, with a worried frown,”as I said, Laird Michael be a gude mon and honest, but neither he nor I can speak for a’ his relatives and retainers. Far better tae pay him for the clay in honest siller and let nae single Scott, Scott’s man, or Scot suspect that there might be gold at Whyffler Hall.”
Bass shrugged. “Very well, Geoff, you know this border far better than I do. You handle it your way. I’ll not be here but a day or so more. I have king’s business in the south.
“But his grace, the archbishop here, will be remaining for an indefinite period, he and Master Rupen Ademian. Try to do whatever they ask, unusual as the requests may be. I’m leaving a Spanish knight, Don Diego, from my staff to help you out here; he has managed his own estates, so he should have no difficulty in assuming some of your more mundane responsibilities, subject always to your approval, of course.
“When the archbishop and Master Ademian have completed that which they are remaining here to do, Don Diego and your lances will escort his grace back down the long road to York.”
Sir Geoffrey nodded and essayed to finger the forelock that had moved far back on his head, now out of easy reach, “Aye, your grace, a’ will be as your grace has ordered’t.”
As Bass Foster led his staff and galloglaiches down the long, cursive roadway toward the gate that pierced the wall circumscribing the old outer bailey of Whyffler Hall, the taste of the good brown ale that had filled the stirrup cup still on his lips and the adrenaline rising at the thought of the crosscountry hellride that would put them all back in York considerably faster than they had proceeded from that city’s environs, his musings lay with all that had gone before, as well as all that loomed on the near horizon.
“The first time that I rode out of here bound for York, it was behind Sir Francis Whyffler and his banner, with Buddy Webster on my one side and Professor William Collier on the other. That was not so long ago, either, but now I’m the only one of that leading party left. His grace of Northumberland, Duke Sir Francis Whyffler, is now his majesty’s voice at the court of Egon, the Holy Roman Emperor and husband to Arabella Whyffler, Sir Francis’s only daughter; Buddy was hurt so badly at the Battle of Hexham that he no longer can sit a horse in comfort; while Bill Collier, after turning on me, his wife, the king, and England is now howling away his life in some Scottish monastery’s madhouse.