Enoch's Device (18 page)

The basilisk howled and yanked its head back from the hole. Ciarán heard the huge, writhing body slide off the shelf as its howls reverberated through the passageway of the dead.

The beast was gone.

“Well done!” Dónall exclaimed. “Are you all right?”

Ciarán just grimaced. Half his face was numb. His left eye had frozen open, and his left arm, screaming from the icy venom, was useless.

“It isn’t the basilisk’s gaze,” he said. “It spits some sort of poison.” Ciarán sensed the venom spreading to his chest and lungs, and found himself straining to breathe.

Dónall looked at him grimly. “Perhaps I can drain it out.” And pressing the crystal into Ciarán’s shoulder, he uttered a string of alien words. The white light flared anew, and Ciarán could feel its calming warmth, dissipating the icy cold. Liquid began to bead on the shoulder of his woolen habit. Then the droplets started to sizzle and steam away, like water on a hot skillet.

Ciarán clenched the fingers on his left hand and felt the muscles slowly returning to life. “Like a miracle,” he said, amazed.

“Not precisely,” Dónall said. “The power simply forced a chemical reaction, breaking down the venom.”

Ciarán thought about that, feeling grateful for this mysterious power of the Fae, until another question entered his mind. “How will we get out of here?”

Dónall looked around. “This cavern’s natural,” he observed, “and the walls are cool. I suspect there is water not far from here.”

Ciarán picked up the book satchel from the rocky floor, where the basilisk’s eye was but a smudge of dark ooze. Then a new and terrible thought struck him. “What about Alais?”

Dónall’s expression grew dark, and he placed a hand on Ciarán’s good shoulder. At his next words, Ciarán’s heart sank.

“I fear there is nothing we can do for her now.”

*

They trudged through the tunnels for what seemed like hours. At times they stopped to rest, and Dónall closed his eyes and extinguished the light summoned to his crystal. The
soul
light,
as he called it. Ciarán sensed that it took a fair amount of energy to keep the crystal lit, and Dónall could not go too long before needing to rest. During those dark intermissions, Ciarán could not help but feel as he had when they left Derry, when he had to leave behind his dead and dying friends. This time, it was Alais whom they left behind, and Remi who had given his life—trying to save them, for that could be the only explanation his charging the basilisk. Maybe the poison he had drunk would have killed him anyway. Still, if not for Remi, they would all be dead.

When Dónall had rested again, he spoke the simple Fae word and blew on the crystal again, conjuring its cool light, which always faded to a soft, white glow. Continuing through the tunnels, they found water dribbling down the walls, disappearing into small fissures in the rock. The air grew damp.

“A stream of some sort can’t be too far away,” Dónall said.

They walked farther. At times, the tunnel walls grew dry again, and Ciarán feared they may have taken a wrong turn. Other tunnels intersected the one they traveled down, and though he had little choice but to trust Dónall’s sense of direction, he worried that they would lose their way.

Eventually, Dónall’s crystal went dark, and the tunnel went as black as a tomb. “What happened?” Ciarán asked.

Dónall let out a long sigh. “I’ve never had to sustain it so long. I must have hit a limit of sorts. We’ll have to continue by feeling along the rock—or else we sleep here.”

The thought of actually sleeping in the featureless blackness was unnerving, especially not knowing for certain that the basilisk was deterred. That horror was the last thing they needed creeping up on them as they slept. No, Ciarán decided. He would rather chance stepping off a precipice or making a wrong turn.

“Let’s go,” he said.

They searched for the source of the water. And when the walls grew wet, Ciarán began to sense a dampness in the air—and a freshness. There was a difference, he realized, between the air wafting in from tunnels near the source of the water, and the dry smell that rose from the side tunnels that must continue deeper into the hill. In time, he began to hear the faint sound of rushing water. A waterfall, perhaps?

As the tunnel rounded a bend, a blinding sliver glinted through the darkness. Ciarán blinked, and it took him a moment to realize that he was gazing at daylight.

Exuberance surged through him as he stepped out into the morning sun. At first, he had to shield his eyes, but gradually, the outside world came into focus. Through the mist of falling water bouncing off stone, his eyes made out the green of trees on a hillside. A rock ledge flanked a cataract that spilled into a pool below them. He could see moving motes of brown, chestnut, and gray. Large shapes, some moving ever so slightly—a score of them at least. The scent of horses mixed with the freshness of the falls.

Ciarán squinted, struggling to sort out the brownish shapes and, above them, the glint of metal and the brown of cloaks. Horses, he realized, bearing riders.

Amid the roaring falls, he heard the
thrum
of a bowstring. Then the first arrow zipped past his ear and splintered against the rock wall behind him.

T
he guesthouse door crashed open,
jolting Alais awake. Wide-eyed, she strained to see in the thin moonlight. As shadowy figures charged into the room, a surge of panic seized her, and she sprang to her feet, only to collide with sinewy arms. A rough jute sack, reeking of stale oats, went over her head and was cinched tight at her neck. She feared she would suffocate, but through panicked breaths she tasted air through the fabric.

She let out a muffled cry: “What is happening?”

“Silence!” growled a hard voice inches from her ear. She struggled to break free, but her captors bound her wrists with rope that bit into her flesh until she could feel the slickness of blood on her palms. Yanking her to her feet, they pushed her out of the guesthouse and into the bitter air. Her bare feet ached on the icy ground.

“What have you done with the Irish monks and the Parisian?” she demanded.

“They defied the rebel lord and have been punished.”

His voice was husky and cruel, and despite the hood, Alais felt certain it was the voice of the surly gatekeeper who had greeted them at Saint-Bastian’s. “
What
rebel lord?” she asked.

Her captor just grunted and pushed her down a path, keeping a firm grip on her left arm.

They were near a stable, for she could smell the horses and hear their faint snorts and whinnies. Keeping her panic at bay was like damming the waters of a raging river. Yet after everything that had happened during the day, she knew she must try to stay calm. The men had not hurt her yet, but they surely would. Until then, there was still time for clear thinking. She feared for the Irish monks and even the lanky, half-crazed Benedictine, but she knew that if she dwelled on their fate, she would lose the battle with her fear. Under her breath, she whispered to Saint Radegonde a prayer for deliverance.

The men helped her onto a saddled horse. They spoke in whispers. Others had joined them, though how many there were, she could not tell. Someone started leading her horse by the reins. The other horses followed, their hooves clomping against the hard ground both ahead of her and behind. They were leaving the priory.

To fight the dread clawing at her insides, she concentrated on the things she could notice: the chirring of crickets, the scent of beech trees. Her horse was picking its way down a rocky path. Pebbles crunched under hooves. The path was winding, for she felt her horse turn at each bend.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, choking back a sob.

“Shut it!” one of her captors hissed.

As the horses plodded along, the men began chanting. It sounded monastic, haunting yet strangely beautiful. One voice began; then a chorus of six or seven more joined in. Alais tried to follow the words, but if they were Latin, it was of an age or dialect she did not understand. The chanting rose and fell as their horses maneuvered down the tortuous path. In the pauses of the chant, as the faint gray of dawn began to filter through the weave of the hood, she caught the sound of rushing water. They were nearing a waterfall.

After a time, the chanting stopped and so did the horses. Two men lifted her from her saddle and stood her upright on the cold, damp ground. One of the men removed her hood. The morning sun was blinding, even in the shade of the tall pine trees that surrounded them. As her eyes adjusted to the glare, she counted seven black-robed monks, two of whom had dismounted. In a clearing ahead were more than a dozen horsemen, clad in familiar dark cloaks. Her heart began to race. One of the monks beside her was the prior of Saint-Bastian’s. He acknowledged one of the riders in the clearing. A cloak covered all but the hem of the rider’s black robe, but it could not disguise the sharp cheekbones and silver-flecked beard, or those feral eyes that even now were undressing her.

“I heard the bishop of Blois was looking for a witch,” the prior said.

“No,” she stammered. “Please!”

The twang of a bowstring split the air, and Bishop Adémar’s eyes shot up toward the falls, to what looked like the mouth of a cave. Two men in gray habits now stood in the opening, shielding their eyes from the glare.

*

When a second arrow clattered against the cave’s rocky walls, Dónall grabbed Ciarán and hauled him backward. Above the roar of the falls, he could hear men yelling. Another arrow zipped past his shoulder and splintered against the rocks. “Down on your belly, lad!” Dónall growled.

Ciarán dropped to the cave’s rocky floor. “What in the hell . . . ?”

Two more arrows struck the rock, one of them glancing and clattering to a stop just before Ciarán’s nose. He glanced warily at the sharp iron arrowhead. “Didn’t you see those men?” Dónall said. “They’re led by the count of Anjou and the bishop of Blois.”

Ciarán’s eyes grew wide. “They were waiting for us, but how?” He crawled to the edge of the cave and peered downward, then sprang back as another arrow splintered against the cave’s roof.

From the clearing, Adémar of Blois bellowed, “Kill the one with the sword! He is the sorcerer who slew your brothers in arms at Selles!”

Ciarán glanced at the leaf-bladed sword, which he had kept since their encounter with the basilisk, and offered it to Dónall. “Can you use it again?”

Dónall shook his head. “I’ve not enough strength—keeping the light going in the tunnels took too much.”

Another arrow clattered against the cave’s wall, but no more followed. Ciarán looked questioningly at Dónall. “They don’t want to shoot their own men,” Dónall said. “They’re climbing up.”

“Then we go back,” Ciarán said hastily. “There are other tunnels. We can hide.”

Dónall shook his head wearily. “We’ll never find our way in the darkness. If only I’d saved some strength . . .”

Ciarán looked at the sword, then at the mouth of the cave. It was so narrow that not more than a man or perhaps two could enter at a time. He could try to hold the breach
.
But these were seasoned warriors—men trained to fight, who, moreover, would like nothing better than to get their hands on the monks who had rescued the witch and killed their comrades. For an instant, he wondered whether Niall had entertained such thoughts when he stood against the Franks at Derry. And had Saint Columcille considered his own mortality when defying King Diarmait’s army? “
We fight because we’re brave,
” Niall had said, “
and because we’re Irish!
”

Ciarán lay there for a moment, listening to the sound of his own breath. Then he rose to his feet.

“Don’t be daft, lad!” Dónall yelled. But Ciarán started toward the cave’s mouth, gripping the sword’s hilt. Any moment, he expected the first of the warriors to charge into the cave.

From outside, a great din erupted, as if all the warriors were joining in a battle cry. Screams followed, horses whinnied, and branches snapped.

Peering out of the cave, Ciarán could hardly believe his eyes. The archers were under attack.

*

Alais felt the ground tremble beneath her feet, and as she watched, the prior’s expression went from concern to outright panic. The pounding hooves of so many horses, accompanied by the cries of men, raised a frightful din before she even saw the first cavalrymen through the woods ahead, setting upon the bishop’s soldiers. At least a dozen more men than her captors, in chain mail and iron helms and charging with leveled lances, caught Fulk of Anjou’s men flat-footed. Spears smashed through the Angevins’ painted shields, splitting wood and plunging into the bodies of men. Alais saw one warrior pierced through the neck. Another toppled from his mount, felled by the bloody arc of a cavalryman’s sword. The cavalrymen were beardless, and one carried a banner of a crimson lion: the arms of her cousin, William of Aquitaine.

Alais felt a sudden surge of hope.
Thadeus,
she thought,
finally they came!

The prior cast a fearful glance to his monks, who were scattering into the woods like rats from a burning barn. Alais stood there alone, watching wide-eyed as the fierce riders of Aquitaine hacked away at the Angevins, who were so stunned by the sudden attack that they could not form a defensive column or dismount to establish a shield wall. The Angevin archers, who moments ago had nearly killed Dónall and Ciarán, died on the points of Aquitaine lances. Other Angevins, who were scaling the hillside toward the cave, now returned to defend their frantic comrades, who were fighting back as best they could. An Aquitanian mount toppled onto the churned earth, a spear protruding from its belly. Its rider fell clear, only to be crushed under the hooves of a panicked Angevin destrier, whose rider died an instant later when an Aquitainian sword cleaved through the side of his neck.

Alais’ awe at the initial attack quickly turned to vengeful glee. With each Angevin sent to his death, she felt a sense of justice. She scanned the chaotic scene for Bishop Adémar. He had fallen behind a cluster of Angevins. Seeing a blade flash before the bishop’s face, she drew a sharp breath, praying the sword would strike true. But then, seeing the blade sink into the neck of one of William’s men, she realized that it was in the bishop’s hand.

She watched in horror as the bishop struck down another, wielding his blade like a trained swordsman, fighting his way toward the center of the Angevin force, where the black-bearded count of Anjou battled the cavalrymen with the fury of a wild beast. Fulk the Black plunged his sword into an Aquitainian horseman, then withdrew it in a backhanded swipe that cleaved through a second horseman’s jaw. Alais could hear Fulk’s voice above the din of battle. “Kill!” he roared. “By the souls of God, kill them all!” William’s men pressed forward, battering through the Angevin shields, but reaching Fulk, the attack broke like a wave against a sheer cliff. He split the head of one of the Aquitainian mounts, which bucked in death, spilling its rider into a sea of stamping hooves. Fulk’s rage inspired his Angevin forces, who held fast as their leader continued his bloody onslaught. In a heartbeat, Fulk cut past another rider to challenge the one holding the banner of the crimson lion. The standard-bearer raised his shield, which Fulk split with a hard downward blow. Then the count recovered and thrust his sword, and the crimson banner fell beneath the cavalry’s hooves.

Alais’ hopes faltered as the Angevins let out a cheer. But the Aquitainian cavalry surged, spurred on by their leader, who was cutting his own path toward the count. The left flank of the Angevin wall began to buckle, and for the first time, Alais saw Fulk and the bishop backing their mounts toward the woods. William’s men outnumbered the Angevins and had already taken more than half of them to their deaths. A battle cry rose among the Aquitainian ranks as one of the lead Angevins fell, a broken lance protruding from his mailed chest. Alais held her breath, teetering between fear and elation, until Fulk’s pocket of resistance began to collapse. The riders of Aquitaine swelled into the gaps, and the Angevin horsemen broke and fled into the woods.

The Aquitainian leader rode forward. He had a proud face with a sharp nose and prominent jaw. Grateful tears tinged Alais’ eyes, for she recognized Lord Raymond, one of William’s dearest friends, whom she had known since childhood.

“No mercy!” Raymond cried. “Chase them down for William, for Aquitaine, and for God!”

“No!” cried a voice from above them on the hillside. It was the older Irish monk, Dónall, who had climbed down the rocky incline near the falls. The younger one, Ciarán, was just behind him.

Raymond glanced toward the monks as his cavalrymen gathered in a semicircle around him.

“My lord,” Dónall said between huffing breaths, “call back your men, that they might live to fight another day.”

“But we have them!” Raymond shouted.

“You’ve won through surprise,” Dónall replied, “but there are evil forces in those woods.”

“Then all the better to strike them down!”

Dónall shook his head. “No, my lord. There be sorcerers, minions of the devil. Not even the pope himself could stand against them.”

“But God stands with us this morning! Back off, old man, or be trampled!” Raymond reared his destrier, and its forelegs kicked the air.

“Raymond, no!” Alais ran into the clearing. “He speaks true.”

Raymond pulled off his helmet. His black hair was cut short in the Roman fashion. “Alais?” he gasped.

“These men freed me from Fulk’s soldiers at Selles,” she said, standing between Dónall and the Aquitaine lord. “But I sense it, too. There’s something wicked about this place and about those men.” Alais believed every word she told him, yet in her mind the wickedness of which she spoke had an all-too-human shape in the form of Adémar of Blois. But there was something about the prior and her captors from Saint-Bastian’s, something about their haunting chant, that told her Dónall was right.

Raymond dismounted. “Were you hurt?”

She winced but shook her head. She didn’t want to tell him—or anyone. She began choking on her tears but fought them back. “I am fine.”

Raymond embraced her. “They bound your hands,” he said, anger flashing again in his eyes. He unsheathed a dagger and carefully cut the cords around her wrists. This time she embraced him and kissed the corner of his mouth. “We received word of Geoffrey’s passing,” Raymond said softly. “William sent me to secure your lands at Selles. We arrived there yesterday at dusk. I know what happened. Fulk of Anjou will pay for what he did, as will that vile bishop.”

She gave a thankful sigh. “These monks were trying to escort me to Poitiers. They are in need of sanctuary.”

“Yet they would have me forego our chance to run the enemy down?”

“If you are meant to destroy him,” Dónall interjected, “then at the right time, God shall make it so. But for now, take the story of this victory to your duke and make him proud.”

Raymond’s eyes narrowed. He thought for a moment and then spoke. “For the sake of the lady, I will desist. But do not think that it means an Irish monk can tell a lord of Aquitaine when to fight.” Raymond called to his men. “This is Alais, the lady of Selles-sur-Cher and cousin of our beloved Duke William. Treat her accordingly.”

As the cavalry gathered, Ciarán turned to Alais. “Are you truly all right?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “I feared you had been killed.”

“They tried,” he said. “But they killed Remi.”

Alais felt a sudden sadness for the Benedictine. “Why would they do this?” she asked, noticing the pain in Dónall’s eyes.