The base of the tower was half of rock and half of beaten earth, and the air that came up to them was colder here than between the massive timbers above. Peering down fearfully, Yves could see in a far corner the foot of a deep embrasure, and felt the strong draught that blew from it. There was a narrow outer door upon the night, surely the door by which his rescuer had entered, and if they could but reach it unobserved they might yet make their way back by the same route, out of this enemy stronghold. He would not be afraid, with this superb being as a guide, even to venture the traverse of the rocks in the dark. What one had done alone, surely two could do together.
It was the first tread of that final staircase that undid them. Until then all had been solid and silent, but as soon as a foot was set on this warped board it tilted and settled again with a loud clap, and the echoes took the impact and flung it about the tower in a chain of hollow reverberations. In the hall someone cried out an alarm, there was a rushing of feet, and the great door was flung open, spilling forth firelight and armed men.
“Back!” snapped the stranger instantly, and whipped round without hesitation to hoist the boy before him up the flight they had just descended. “Up to the roof, quickly!” There was no other way of retreat, and the brief check below to accustom eyes to the darkness after the lighted hall could last only a moment. It was already over, the foremost man loosed a great bellow of alarm and rage, and came for the stairs in a bull’s rush, with three or four more on his heels. The blast of the uproar they raised almost blew the fleeing pair up the steps of the tower.
Where the long flight ended, the ladder in sight, Yves felt himself lifted and flung halfway up to the open trap, and that was the height of a tall man. He gripped and climbed, but looking over his shoulder and hesitating, loth to leave his companion behind, until he was ordered sharply: “Go! Up, quickly!” He completed the climb in a wild scramble, and flung himself down on his belly by the trap, craning anxiously over the rim, just in time to see, in a confusion of shadows further confused by the starlight through the trap, how the foremost pursuer came lurching up the narrow wooden treads of the stairway, drawn sword flailing. A big, bulky man, blocking off from view those who followed him.
Yves had not even noticed, until that moment, that his ally already wore a sword. The one they had taken from the guard still lay here on the roof, though Yves had possessed himself of the dagger and buckled it proudly to his belt as substitute for the one taken from him. The brief flash of a blade, like distant lightning, stabbed the darkness below, a trick of starlight following its slashing course. The outlaw loosed an outraged yell, his short sword struck from his hand and flung below to clatter on the boards. The next moment a braced foot took him in the chest and hurled him backwards while he was off balance. Down he went in a long, echoing fall, and swept his followers down with him. The stairway was narrow and unguarded, two or three went backwards under their leader’s massive weight, one at least went over the side, to a heavier fall below.
The young man turned without another glance, and sprang halfway up the ladder to the roof, and in a moment was beside Yves. The naked sword he swung glittering along the ice of the roof, and leaned to grip the uprights of the ladder with both muscular hands, and haul it aloft after him. As soon as Yves had recovered his wits he leaned eagerly to clutch from rung to rung and help to hoist the weight. With all his might, and all the breath he had regained, he heaved and exulted. The ladder had been braced against a wooden bar both below and above, but not fixed. It rose blithely, out of reach of the tallest long before the first of the attackers erupted furiously below and leaped to try and hold it.
The lower end rose clear, tilted aside and clattered on the roof, ringing a glassy cry from the splintered ice. The roars of anger below fumed out of the open trap, and Yves leaned to drag the cover over to shut them out, but his ally waved him aside, and the bewitched boy drew back obediently. Whatever his hero did would be right and wise.
And his hero, palpably smiling, though the smile was hidden in the dark, simply took their prisoner, now uneasily stirring in his bonds, by the cord that bound his feet to his wrists in the small of his back, dragged him to the trap, upended him judiciously so that his head should not take the impact below, and tipped him almost gently through the trap to fall upon his friends, and lay two or three of them flat on the boards. Their startled and aggrieved outcry was cut off when the trap was clapped into place above.
“Quick, now,” said the placid voice almost chidingly, “here with the ladder, here over the trap. So! Now you lie there upon that end, and I upon this, and who will shift us?”
Yves lay as he had been ordered, flat on his belly on the ladder, his face buried in his arms, panting and shivering, for a long time. The boards under him throbbed to the din below, spent in ugly fury six feet short of reaching the trap. And if they did rear something that would enable them to reach it, how were they to shift it or penetrate it? The trap fitted close, no lance nor sword could be thrust through the cracks. Even if they should climb up and batter a way through with an axe, only one could emerge at a time, and they two above were armed and ready. Yves lay braced, willing his weight to be double, spreading arms and legs, holding his breath. For all the bitter cold, he was in a lavish sweat.
“Look up, my heart,” said the voice at the other end of the ladder, almost gaily, “and show me that gallant face again, bruises, grime and all. Let me look at my prize!”
Yves lifted his head from his arms and stared dazedly along the ladder into bright, gold-gleaming eyes and an indulgent, glittering smile. A young, oval face under that thick, close cap of black hair, high-cheekboned, thin-black-browed, long-lipped, and with a lean, arrogant beak of a nose, like a scimitar. Smooth-shaven as a Norman, smooth-skinned as a girl, but of an olive, glossy smoothness.
“Take breath, and let them rave, they’ll tire of it. If we failed to get past them, neither can they get at us. We have time to think. Only keep well below the parapet. They know their ground, and might think it worth setting their archers to watch for an unwary head.”
“How if they set fire to the tower and burn us out?” wondered Yves, trembling as much with excitement as fear.
“They’re no such fools. They could not, without setting the hall ablaze with it. Moreover, why be in haste to do anything, when they know we cannot break out? Here in the cold or in a cell below, they have us cornered. At as this moment, true enough. You and I, Messire Yves Hugonin, have some thinking of our own to do.” He cocked his head, raising a hand for silence, to listen to the babel of voices below, which had sunk into a low, conspiratorial muttering. “They grow content. We’re securely trapped up here, they’ll leave us to freeze. They’re needed below, all that’s wanted here is a couple of men to watch our only way out. They can wait to flay us.”
The prospect did not seem to dismay him at all, he stated it serenely. Below them the hum of consultation receded and stilled. He had judged accurately, Alain le Gaucher knew how to concentrate on what was most urgent, and needed all his company to man his stockade. Let his prisoners, lords though they might be of a tower-top some dozen or so paces square, enjoy their lordship until it chilled them into helplessness, and if need be, killed them. Whatever they did, they could not get away.
A wary, suspicious stillness fell below. And the cold, no question of it, was biting sharply, congealing into the deepest, darkest and deadliest of the night.
The young man eased from his braced listening, and turned to reach a long arm towards the boy. “Come close, let’s share what warmth we have. Come! In a while we may move, but now we’ll hold down the lid together over hell a little longer. While we consider what to do next.”