The Lord and Lady in the White Tower
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I own none of this. No, really. Rating: K Time: This is a sequel to the Lady in the White Tower and begins some months after that story ended.
"Good news, I hope." Castle said.
"Yes. Brother Ryan and I have been examining the cathedral. It needs to be cleaned and needs a few minor repairs but is otherwise in fine shape. Karl and I can be married there soon." Then she smiled and reached into a leather bag that hung at her waist. "I have news for Brother Ryan." She handed him a sheet of vellum.
Ryan looked at it and then read it again.
"I can't believe this." He said.
"What?" Castle said.
"I'm to be the Bishop of the Golden Coast. But I know nothing of how to be a bishop.
"Be that as it may," Arran said, "but what you do know is how to be a good man. Now, Bishop Ryan, shall you post the banns for my marriage to Sir Karl?"
"Of course, Your Highness. It will be my pleasure."
While the work was going on repairing the walls, gates and drawbridges, more parties spread out through the city. One party found something unusual.
"There it is, Lord Castle. Just as I said it was." The speaker was Dalan, one of Sandrall's scouts. "It was well hidden between the four buildings with a false hedge covering the entrance. Would you care to look inside?"
Castle nodded and several men pushed the false hedge out of the way.
Castle and his party walked into the neat rows of corn growing between the buildings.
"This has been planted recently." Castle said.
"Aye." Replied Dalan." And if you'll look over here, you'll see some of it has been harvested recently. We have more people in our city than we had thought."
"A field of this size couldn't support more than a small family, if that. But there may be more here as the city is large. We'll have to organize a search for more plots like this. We'll need men to climb on the roofs to see every part of the city."
A group of soldiers from Princess Arran's guards climbed the bell tower of the cathedral, the tallest structure in the city, and spotted a small grove of apples growing atop a high, flat roof and some wheat growing in a walled off section between the city wall and a large warehouse.
"There can't be that many people here if that's all the food they're growing, I'd like to meet them. They doubtlessly know more about the city and the surrounding countryside than we do. They can be a big help. We'll have men ride through the streets calling upon our friends to come out."
"Send armed soldiers to call them out?" Lady Kate, said, raising an eyebrow. "Who would come out if called to by one of Sandrall's scouts, or a fierce looking horse archer. I think I'll ride through the town. Perhaps Princess Arran and Duchess Ann will go riding as well?"
The ladies did ride through the town and were joined by such other women as were available. Fat Brigid, the cook for Admiral Deese rode on a donkey while throwing out sweets she had cooked up.
"Come see Fat Brigid if you will." She cried. "These sweets are just a sample of what I can do. Have you ever had chocolate, a delicacy from far over the sea? You can stuff yourself and when you're done, I'll make more."
She was joined by Red Molly, a fair lass who was no better than she had to be and could be much worse. She rode her horse astride, allowing her skirts to ride up to the tops of her thighs, and somehow her blouse had come adrift, exposing her firm, round breasts.
"Oh, the men with Lord Castle are not enough to satisfy me." She cried, bouncing up and down in her saddle. "Are there any real men here who can satisfy me?"
A number of other women rode through the town, but they contented themselves with calling out and offering friendship to any who lived in the town.
Alas, no one took up any of the offers. However, they did notice that the sweets thrown by Fat Brigid had disappeared over night.
"We'll have to set sentries out and catch them when they come to harvest their crops." Lord Castle said.
That was easier said than done it turned out. The various crops had been planted in places where it would be impossible to station a sentry anywhere nearby without being seen. But sentries did watch from a distance to no avail.
"See?" Said Hober Mallow, an archer who'd been on sentry the night before. "Footprints in among the corn, but none leading out of the corn field. Whoever came last night wiped his tracks away."
Lord Castle nodded, as did his officers standing around him.
"Search the area. There must be a way to get in and out without being easily seen."
They did search but found nothing.
Bad luck finally undid the secret residents of the city. Trollo, a light cavalryman from Prince Polito's troops came out of a tavern and almost tripped over a young girl carrying a sack of apples. The girl ran, but Trollo was faster, and ran her down.
"I have one of them." Trollo yelled. "Call the guard. Call Prince Polito! Call Lord Castle and Lady Kate."
The girl screamed, kicked and tried to twist out of Trollo's grasp, but he held her firmly. Soon dozens of men surrounded her. She ceased struggling and began sobbing.
Lady Kate had the soldiers release the girl and stand away from her. Kate knelt by the girl and offered her an apple from her dropped bag.
"Would you like something to eat?" She asked.
The girl just shook her head.
"There's nothing wrong with it. It's a good apple."
"It's for the family. It would be wrong if I didn't share with them."
"I can see your point. Perhaps if I gave you a bag of food so that you could go back to your family and share with them."
The girl looked at Kate suspiciously.
"You have enough food to just give away to strangers?"
"We have plenty of food and once we have the city gates repaired, we'll have farms outside the city walls."
The girl shook her head.
"That's a bad idea." She said.
"Why is it a bad idea?"
"It's safe in here."
"Why isn't it safe outside?"
"It just isn't." The girl said.
"Could your family tell us why it isn't safe?"
"I suppose."
"Suppose I give you a big bag of food to take to your family to show we have plenty of food and that we don't want to hurt any of you. Could one of your family come and tell us why it isn't safe outside the city?"
"I don't know."
"Well, my name is Kate. When you go back to your family, if one of them will come to see me, they can ask anyone for Kate, and I'll come to them."
Kate had a bag filled with food. The girl grabbed the bag, and her dropped bag of apples, and ran off. She turned down an alley and was gone.
Several soldiers tried to follow her into the alley, but Kate called them back.
"If you try to catch her, they might not believe we won't hurt them."
Four days went by with no sign of anyone coming to see Lady Kate. And there was no sign that anyone was harvesting the crops planted in the city.
On the fifth day a small, older and shabbily dressed man stepped out of an alley and stopped Sir Dominic Hara.
"Excuse me, sir. Might you be able to direct me to someone named Kate?"
Sir Dominic smiled.
"You must be looking for Lady Kate Castle. I'll be more than happy to take you to see her."
"If it isn't too much trouble, sir."
"No trouble at all. She lives in the large white tower just across the square."
"Ah! The tower that arrived in the middle of the night?"
"I suppose. There are no other white towers about, are there?"
"Oh, no sir. Just the one. We were wondering how it got here, so all of a sudden like."
"Lady Kate does some odd things, I can tell you. But she's quite friendly."
Sir Dominic escorted the man across the square and to the White Tower. The door opened and both went inside. The man was a bit afraid of the elevator, but seeing Sir Dominic get in, he followed as well.
The elevator door opened to show Rick and Kate sitting at a table with some food and drink.
"Please come in and sit. Please eat and drink if you wish. I'm Lady Kate and this is my husband, Lord Richard Castle. We saw you talking to Sir Dominic and prepared somethings for you. Will you please introduce yourself?'
The man sat and looked at the food. It was only bread, cheese, and some sausage, along with some beer, but he looked hungrily at it.
"I really shouldn't eat. Everything should be shared."
"We can give you enough to take back with you to share. Where exactly do you live?"
"Wherever it is safe." The man said, then took a slice of bread and wrapped it around some cheese and sausage.
"This is very good." He said around a mouthful of food.
"We understand from the young girl that it's not safe outside of the city. Why is that?"
"The girl? Oh, young Melly. She's my daughter. I'm called Rien. And it's not safe outside the city because of Nikodimas the Slaughterer."
"But hasn't he been dead for years and years?" Castle asked.
"Oh, not the old one. This new one claims to be descended from him and he's every bit as evil as the old one. Maybe more so."
"What can you tell me about his army?" Castle asked.
"He has lots and lots of men."
"Do they have armor?"
"I suppose."
"Cavalry? Men who ride horses?"
"Horses? Yes."
"How many men does he have?"
"Lots and lots."
Over several days Rick and Kate gradually gained Rien's confidence. He brought in his whole family. This was his wife, his brother, his brother's wife and five children. Plus, Rien's wife was pregnant.
"We were very worried, Lord Castle, about how we'd feed another one, but we can expand our crops here in the city now."
"You won't farm outside the city?" Rick asked.
"No. it's too dangerous."
Castle talked with Rien and his whole family, but none of them had any idea how large the Nikodimas's army was, or how it was armed or armored.
Now that the gates, drawbridges and bridges were not just repaired, but strengthened, Castle sent out Sandrall's scouts as well as Prince Polito's men to look for any sign of an enemy army. Again, Rien and his family was of little help. All they could say was that Nikodimas and his army had been to Aurum some time ago. Rick and Kate tried to pin this down to whether this meant months, years or decades, but all they could say was that it had been some time ago.
As they continued to find no sign of an enemy, the scouts went further and further away from the city. There developed a good-natured rivalry between Sandrall's scouts and the light cavalry of Prince Polito as to who could scout the furthest and cover the most amount of ground.
"We rode as far as the river called the Big Taman on the old maps." Sandrall said. "We found ruined and burned farms and ranches and destroyed small towns and villages. But the damage was old, very old. It could have been done when old Nikodimas the Slaughterer was alive."
"No sign of anything else?" Castle asked.
"Some newer campfires, signs of small camps, what was left of a dead horse and some horse droppings, but not in any numbers. They could have been a patrol such as ours, a small caravan, some small tribe of wanderers. There was no way to know."
Castle thought for a moment.
"We need to start planting if we want to eat next year. We'll keep the patrols out but no more than a day's ride from the city. The new farms will be closer to the city than that. If patrol finds an enemy, we can call the farmers in quickly and get the patrols in as well."
"There is one more thing that needs to be done." Lady Kate interrupted.
"What?"
"Princess Arran is getting married in a month. She has no male relatives to escort her down the aisle."
"I suppose we can find someone."
Lady Kate just raised an eyebrow.
Author's note: I absolutely promise that Sir Karl will not be kidnapped by some shadowy government organization and sent on some bizarre mission. Of course, that leaves a lot of other options.
TBC