Chapter 32: Getting To the Fortress
"I swear in God's name and in the name of King Richard, my true liege, that I will serve him faithfully and well, to the best of my ability, and also his Queen, Renee. I shall have no other lords besides my King, and no one else shall lay claim to my sword and service." The knight in front of the King and kissed his ring, and Richard tapped his shoulder gently with his own sword.
"Rise, Sir Frederick, and take your place in the rank of my Knights." The knight rose and stepped to the side of the dais, joining the knot of other men grouped on the platform.
"Approach, Duke Gilbert."
Gilbert stepped up to the dais and knelt. King Richard had decided to try and root out the traitor by having everyone in court reaffirm their loyalties to him, starting with his personal Guard and knights, then the nobles and the other functionaries of the court. Logan, standing first in line in his new armour, looked very hard indeed at the Duke. But there was nothing to fault with his recitation of loyalty; he seemed as sincere as anyone else. So were the other nobles. The only one Logan frowned on was the elderly Duke of Westfall, and the old man's hesitation might well be due to his advancing age.
Minor court functionaries and hangers' on were slightly more interesting. There was one, a vassal to Duke Gilbert, who made Logan's hackles rise. He was a tall, burly, swarthy man, dark of skin and eye and hair, with an arrogance and hauteur that made Logan want to challenge him. However, the man bowed as low as everyone else did, and swore the oath as quickly and as firmly as anyone else did, so he couldn't call the man out for disrespect.
Beside him, Vincet stirred. "That dark man—I don't like him, Logan."
Logan shook his head almost imperceptibly. "I don't either. I've never seen him before, an' I thought I knew everyone in the palace. Keep an eye on him fer the King while I'm gone, eh?"
Vincet nodded. His voice sounded wistful as he said, 'I still wish I could go with you."
Logan grinned. "Looking for the adventure or the girl?"
"Both," Vincet grinned back. "The girl rather more, though. But you have that end pretty well covered, don't you?"
As the King dismissed the assembled people, Logan turned to look suspiciously at Vincet. "What are ya talkin' 'bout?"
Vincet sighed. "Logan, when I called you blind earlier…well, I got it right, didn't I." He sighed again. "As much as she likes me, the girl only has eyes for you. She's in love with you. I haven't got a chance with her next to you."
Logan's jaw dropped. "She said she was…in love…with me?"
Vincet grinned. "She didn't have to say it. It's written all over her. The way she jumps when you call her name. The care and attention she gives your stuff. The way she fixes your clothes and things. The way she'd always ready to run and get you anything you ask for. While we were on the road you'd tell her, you needed something…and you had it. She thought nothing of stopping her horse and unpacking everything on it, and then repacking it all, if you said there was something you wanted. She thought nothing of staying up all night oiling and cleaning your saddles and bridles so it would all look good and you would look presentable. If a girl's willing to work her fingers to the bone for you she loves you."
"She does, now? Who?" said an amiable voice from behind them, and both knights turned, then went down on one knee; for King Richard was standing behind them. "I hope someday I get a chance to meet the lucky girl who's willing to care for you. So, now, what did you wish to speak to me about? Renee said there was something you had to say."
Logan rose and looked into he King's eye. "Respectfully, Yer Majesty, I will haveta leave yer service fer a while," he said evenly. "I request your permission."
Richard blinked for a moment, obviously startled. "May I ask why?" he said finally. "My kingdom has been decimated by the wars, and there is an unidentified traitor in my court. I need all my knights right now, I can hardly spare any of them, let alone you. If it is a matter of a pretty lass--"
"No, Yer Majesty," Logan said, thinking you're half-right there. "When I left Gallas's fortress, my squire was left behind. I owed a life-debt to the boy. I must go back, and see if he is still alive."
"If he was left behind in enemy territory, he may not still be alive," Richard said quietly. Logan nodded.
"I know, yer majesty, but a travelin' caravan of deserters from over the border came in last night, and they brought with them a story about a squire being held and punished for treachery in Gallas's fortress. I believe the boy may be my squire. I had to leave him in order to get word out ta ya, but since things have now died down and ya don't need me as desperately, I wanna go find the boy. If I don't I'll have broken my oath to the boy. And I will not be an oathbreaker."
Richard sighed. "Honor. It is a double edged sword, is it not?" Without waiting for an answer he nodded. "Very well. You have my leave to go. Have you a plan for getting in and out with the boy?"
Logan nodded. He, the Weaponsmaster, Vincet, and the Queen had been up most of the night planning how to get the boy out. Logan knew it was certain death for him if he was caught; but for Jubilee's sake, he had to try.
He would ride to Argonne. Once there, he would don the discarded armour and clothes of one of Gallas's knights and slip into the retreating army's force of knights until they reached Gallas's fortress. He would pretend then be able to slip away from them and head for the dungeons where Jubilee would almost certainly be. He'd then take her and flee the castle, running for the border until they got over it, and another horse would be waiting for him at the Guard post just outside Argonne, and he'd claim that horse, put Lee on it, and they'd ride back to the castle. Something would have to be done about her identity once back here…but Logan was worried mostly about the rescue. After he got her out, then they could worry about what to do.
Richard nodded. "So be it. Go well, and hasten back, Sir Logan."
The midday sun was burning, out here past the city walls. Logan sighed. He hated traveling at the height of summer, when the sun was hottest; he much preferred winter snows; or, even better, the cool autumn breezes. He hated heat. Well, at least I don't have to wear armour, he thought.
He stopped at an inn and used some of the money the Queen had provided for the journey to purchase himself a meal. The inn was one of the ones recommended by Vincet as one that the members of the Guard frequented, and it would therefore be reasonably clean, with good food.
The noon meal served at this tavern was bread and a thick, hearty stew with more meat than vegetables, in a rich flavorful broth. He was in the middle of his second helping when a serving maid walked past his table, smiling at him, and he saw the dark hair and a flash of blue eyes. The stew stuck in his throat, and his mouth went dry.
He put the hunk of bread down, feeling suddenly inexplicably guilty. He was here wolfing down good food, bread, and ale…and meanwhile Jubilee was in a filthy, dank cell, probably suffering thirst and hunger while her body throbbed with pain. He swallowed the last of the stew with difficulty, and drank down the last of the ale. Slipping the bread into his pack, he left the inn quickly behind, trying to put as much distance between his stops as possible. When he finally stopped, well after dark at another Guard-recommended inn, he was too tired to eat much and simply fell into the bed, exhausted, to sleep.
He woke hollow eyed and still tired the next morning. His sleep had been racked with dreams, bad ones. In them, all of them, was Jubilee, crying, screaming, pleading with him to save her. He stumbled down the stairs to the common room, and the innkeeper, a smiling, round woman with ruddy cheeks brought a bowl of porridge and a tankard of strong ale. She wiped her hands on her apron after she put his bowl down and smiled kindly at him. "Bad dreams, young Knight?" she said quietly.
Logan sighed. "Yeah, they were bad," he said, smiling at her nevertheless. "A friend I care about deeply is in Gallas's Keep, an' I keep hearin' him callin' fer me in my dreams."
Her gaze sharpened. "You're Sir Logan, then?"
He narrowed his eyes. "How did ya know?"
She sighed and leaned her arms on the high table. "An innkeeper overhears things when she's bringing folks their dinner, that she does," she said. "And last night I heard a pair of guards talking about having to make travel arrangements for a knight to cross the border to rescue a squire who got left behind when the knight escaped Gallas to warn good King Richard of a traitor's plan."
Logan blinked. "They knew about it already?" he asked.
The woman nodded. "The guardsmen told me to look for a young knight with a black horse, and to give him room and food for half price. They were sent by the Queen, they said, to make sure you had what you need. The boy was the Queen's spy, one of them said, and she wanted to make sure the lad got back across the border."
Logan was stunned. For the news to be this far ahead of him…after they'd parted two nights ago Renee must have sent messengers on ahead. She must indeed care. What other secrets might Jubilee be carrying, for Renee to be so concerned? "Thank you, Mistress," he said finally, courteously. "I shall inform the Queen that she is served well by those in her kingdom." He bowed over the plump matron's hand as gallantly as a courtier over a princess's hand, and the woman giggled, flattered at the attention. She even gave Logan a small food pack to take with him, containing a meat pie and some hot bread rolls, fresh and hot from the oven, and some dried traveler's meat. "You just bring that lad back along this way when you have him," she said with a wink. "Let me see if he's worthy of serving the Queen."
Logan grinned. "Will do, Madam," he said, and swept his hat off to her as he rode off. And at the next inn he stopped at, he got the same reception; the guardsmen had been and gone, and left the same instructions. When he reached the Argonne border a few days later he was surprised to find they knew who he was and what errand he was on as well.
The battlefield, once encompassing the entire valley, was now confined to a single field just outside the town. Gallas's forces had been distracted when their King had departed the field to go to his fortress and interrogate Logan and Jubilee, and as a result had sustained heavy losses. Logan stared at the number of crosses on the floor of that valley, noted how many of them were decorated with scraps of green cloth and how many were decorated with red cloth, and noted how many of the former there were. As their numbers had dwindled, the number of red-clad knights decreased as well, as Richard ordered them away from the battlefront and out to various places that needed knights, like the border were bandit raiding was increasing.
He brought news from the capital, which was welcome by those who were left, and that night he was wined and dined on the best fare the knights had access to while he told all of them what had happened since they had come to the border a month and a half ago to fight Gallas. He did his best to minimize the role he had played, but the knights insisted on cheering him as a hero of the Kingdom. Logan was embarrassed at the attention. "Stop that," he insisted, but all that did was make the cheering and revelry increase. He finally gave up on them and went off to bed. This time, whether it was from the amount of ale he'd been given to drink or the Fates finally understanding that he was going to rescue Jubilee, he had no dreams.
He woke the next morning, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and sighing…then he saw the green and blue clothing slung across the back of a chair, and at the thought of his mission he came fully awake.
He scrambled into the borrowed garb, and clumsily donned the armour Gallas's knights wore. It had been made for a man taller than he, and it itched and chafed a bit, but there was nothing he could do about it. He went down the stairs of the keep and ate the morning common meal with the others and went out to the stables to saddle his horse. It felt extremely odd to have to do this himself; he was so used to Jubilee doing it that his hands were unexpectedly clumsy with the straps and fastenings of his horse's trappings. When he was finally done he climbed onto the horse and rode out to the battlefield.
He and the weaponsmaster had discussed this part at length, but the Weaponsmaster hadn't taken into account that the battle was no longer being fought in the valley, but on the plain above it. There were no trees for Logan to hide in, no way to join the troops as they retreated from the battle front. No way for him to insinuate himself among the soldiers.
"Ta hell with the plans," he muttered to himself. Dismounting, he removed all the horse's fancy tacking, leaving only the plain bridle, saddle, and blanket. He took the green blanket off his horse and turned it over to reveal the white lining, and put that on the horse. Then he stripped off his armour and tied it into a pack he slung over the black stallion's withers. Remounting, he picked his way unnoticed down the side of the valley, rode his horse across the floor, trying not to step on any of the hummocks of dirt that indicated where a body lay, and made his way up the other side.
He flowed the same route Julian had taken to get to the keep; he rather suspected that Gallas had gone a different way, seeing as how he'd been able to reach the fortress before Julian, Logan, and Jubilee did, but Logan didn't know how, and he wasn't about to try an alternate travel path with Jubilee's freedom depending on him. He kept to the path, galloping his horse through the trees along the path he'd followed before, and by the time it was too dark to see his way through the forest he saw he'd arrived at the place where Jubilee had tried to free him and Julian had caught her. He hadn't planned on being out here at night, and so hadn't thought to bring a blanket with him, but it was all right; he didn't get much sleep anyway. He spent most of the night staring with haunted eyes at the spot where Julian had stood and beaten Lee almost a month ago. He could still hear the boy's anguished cries as Julian twisted the arrow in his shoulder.
As soon as the light grew bright enough that he could fasten the saddle girth, he tacked up his horse and mounted, turning the horse toward Gallas's fortress.
He came out of the trees as the sun rose over the road that stretched in front of him. Before him, shimmering in the heat, Gallas's stone fortress loomed over the flat plain, an imposing, forbidding building of spires and towers. If he rode fast and hard, he might be able to make it to the fortress by midday.
He was about to spur his horse into a run when he stopped. It wouldn't work. He'd have to be ready for a quick escape, a fast ride out of the fortress, if he were caught taking Jubilee out of the dungeons. So his horse would have to be as fresh as possible if he wanted to make some speed out of the fortress.
So. How to get in?
The looks on the townspeople's faces as he rode through told Logan a lot about what Gallas's knights were like off duty. Mothers shoved their small children back inside doors and hid them out of sight as they stood defensively in front of the doors. Young maids hurried to hide themselves, or if they weren't close to something they could hide behind they stood still and stared at the ground, trying to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible. Men with pretty wives hustled them into the house, giving him a poisonous glare as he passed. He raised his head and stared directly into the eyes on one bold man as he passed; the man was the one who broke contact first, lowering his eyes to the ground and unclenching his fists. Logan ignored him, ignored all their reactions, and rode on, wondering what kind of behavior by a knight would warrant this kind of fear.
He found out as he turned down one narrow street. A pretty young girl, maybe about Jubilee's age, was shaking with sobs as a fat, greasy soldier planted a disgustingly slobbery kiss all over her lips. She kept her hands at her sides, wanting to pull away but not having the courage to do so, until he released her and stepped back, laughing.
Logan was too furious to think. He lashed out with a foot on horseback, kicking the man in the head. The man turned to Logan and growled in outrage, and Logan was forced to draw his sword to defend himself. The knight was badly out of shape, as he could tell by the considerable paunch on the drunkard; he finally went down under a hard overhand thrust to the side. As the girl and the other townspeople stood there gasping, Logan finished the man off with a sword-thrust to the chest. "Don't leave him there," he said quickly. "Get him off the street. Say nothin' to no one 'bout his death. I am not one o' Gallas's soldiers, I'm Richard's knight, come ta rescue my squire."
The girl recovered from her shock quickly. "Down that street and around the corner, Sir Knight," she pointed, her voice steady and soft. "The way to the fortress lies down that road."
He leaned over, fishing around in his pack for the bag of coins that the Queen had given him, and pressed one into her hand. "Thank ya much, Lady,' he said courteously. "Have you a place where I can change? I need to get into the armour of Gallas's knights."
"In here." She pushed open a door. "This is my dress shop. There are changing rooms back there." He nodded and grabbed his pack, disappearing into the shop to change. By the time he came out, wearing armour and clothes in Gallas's green and blue colours, the body of the other knight had disappeared, and a street sweeper was sweeping dust and dirt over the bloodstain in the road. No one would ever know a man had been killed there. Logan flashed a bright smile in the girl's direction, and she smiled back before she disappeared back into the shop.
He rode on.