Not one of the worst of them, this Guarin. Yves had taken the measure of many of those close about their chieftain, by this time, he knew those who took pleasure in hurting, in defiling, in making other human creatures writhe and abase themselves. And there were more than enough of them, but this Guarin was none. The boy had even learned how some of them had come into this service, and could pick out worst from best. Some were footpads, murderers, thieves from choice, born to prey on their own kind. Some were petty tricksters from the towns, who had fled from justice and taken refuge where even their small skills could be used Some were runaway villeins who had committed some angry revolt against tyranny, and put themselves on the wrong side of the law. Several were of better birth, younger sons and landless knights who considered themselves soldiers of fortune in this company. Some were even men disabled in honest service, and cast off when they were of no further profit; but these were few, and trapped, they did not belong in this garrison, but had blundered into it by ill-fortune, and could not get loose.
Guarin was a big, slow-witted, easy-going soul, without cruelty. He had no objection, as far as Yves could see, to robbing and sacking and burning, provided others did the killing. He would go with the crowd and behave himself conformably, but he would rather not let blood himself if it could be avoided. But for all that, he would carry out his orders. It was the only way he knew of ensuring a share with the rest, all the food he needed, and all the drink, a roof above him, and a fire. If his lord told him point-blank to kill, he would kill and never hesitate.
The day enlarged over the two of them, and brightened. The murderous weather, if it had not yet softened, held a kind of promise. It was past noon when someone thumped merrily at the trap, hauled back the bolts below, and rose out of the dark, wood-scented pit of the tower with a bag of bread and meat and a pitcher of hot, spiced ale for the watchman. There was enough for two, and Guarin spared a portion for his prisoner. They were lavish with their provender. They had the provisions from at least four local holdings to feed them.
The food and drink helped for a while, but as the day wore away the cold came down again and bit hard. Guarin stamped about the boards to keep himself warm, constantly patrolling in order to keep watch in every direction, and paid no attention to his prisoner except for a hard stare now and again to remind him that he was helpless, and had better not attempt anything on his own behalf. Yves fell into an uneasy doze for a while, and awoke so cold and stiff that he found it necessary to get up and stamp his feet and clap his arms vigorously to get his blood flowing again. His guard laughed at that, and let him dance and exercise as he liked. What harm could he do?
The light was beginning to fail. Yves fell to pacing the tower a few steps behind his watchman, peering out at every embrasure upon a world still peopled only by his enemies. On the precipice side, in particular, he craned perilously to see below, but still had only the barren cliff-edge and the distance before him. That entire side of the square tower looked out upon the sky. But at the eastern corner, while Guarin’s back was turned, Yves found a rough join in the timbers by which he could gain a foothold and hoist himself up to achieve a better view. Below him the rim of rock levelled out, and by straining perilously round towards the void he could see at last that the stockade did not continue all round the castle, but terminated where it met the cliff-edge. Here at the corner the drop was not quite sheer, he could see the first jagged folds over the edge, every ledge with its smooth burden of untrodden snow. All that motionless, empty whiteness everywhere, as though the friends on whom he relied had deserted him.
But the whiteness was not quite motionless, nor the rocky landscape quite empty. Yves blinked in disbelief, seeing the outline of one hanging drift move, and show for an instant the shape of a raised head, a shadowy visage lifted briefly to judge the next stage of a solitary and perilous climb. The next moment there was nothing to be seen there, at the extreme edge of the stockade and some ten yards down the broken face, but a mound of snow. Yves stared, straining anxious, elated eyes, but there was no more movement.
A shout behind him caused him to slither down frantically from his perch, even before Guarin’s hand plucked him down and shook him heartily. “What are you about? Fool, there’s no way down there for you.” He laughed at the thought, but blessedly did not look where the boy had been looking. “As well get your throat slit as break your bones at the bottom of that fall.”
He kept his grip on the boy’s shoulder, and marched him along before him, as if he really believed his prisoner might yet slip through his fingers and cost him dear. Yves went where he was hustled, and thought it wise to whine a little about his usage, to keep the man amused and distracted.
For now he was sure he had not been deceived. There was a man down there among the rocks, a man who had covered his dark garments with a white linen sheet to move invisibly in the snow, a man who had clambered at his peril, surely not up the whole cliff-face, but laboriously round the rim from the trees, just below vision, to make his way out across the rock face beyond the stockade, and into the bailey where no one watched, where it was thought impenetrable. And in so disciplined a fashion, slow-moving even in this icy coldness, able to freeze into ice himself, and be part of the rocks and the winter. And now he was waiting for the dark, before venturing the last perilous passage.
Yves trotted submissively where the hand gripping his shoulder drove him, and hugged to his heart the blazing conviction that he was not abandoned, that heroes exerted themselves on his behalf, that heroism was also required of him before all was won, and that he must not fall short.
Darkness had closed in, and Guarin was the one complaining, before his relief came clattering up the ladder, shot back the bolts, and heaved up the trap to emerge on the roof.
This one was decidedly not among the least offensive, a bristle-bearded, pock-marked, flat-nosed cutpurse with a malicious fist, and dirty nails that liked pinching. Yves had some few bruises from him already, and gnawed a dubious lip at seeing him burst up out of the depths. He knew no name for him. Possibly he had never had a name, only some epithet by which he might be known, short of proper parentage or Christian baptism.
Guarin was none too fond of him, either, he grunted vexation at such a late relief, when he had been promised it before dark. They snarled at each other before parting, which left Yves time to shrink into his sheltered corner out of sight and mind. There might be a bleak interval. But there was someone out there in the enclosing night, not so far away, coming to his aid.
Guarin grumbled and clumped his way down the long ladder, and Yves heard the bolts shot home. They had their orders. He was left isolated here with this unpredictable cutthroat, who would stop only short of his lord’s ban. He dared not kill or maim. Short of either, no doubt he would take it for granted he had free leave to hurt.
Yves sat back against the solid timber wall, shrunken into his corner with back to the wind. It was made clear to him at once that his new guard felt no goodwill towards him, blaming him for the discomfort of being perched up here in the frosty night, instead of below by the fire.
“Pest of a brat,” he snarled, and kicked savagely at the boy’s ankles in passing, “we should have cut your throat there on the road where we first met you. If the king’s men had found you dead they’d have had no call to hunt for you living, and we should have been snug and merry here still.” All of which, Yves had to own as he drew in his feet and sat hunched in his corner, was probably true enough. He made himself as small as he could, and held his tongue, but silence did nothing to placate his custodian, rather it seemed to infuriate him.