It was about half an hour before the castle’s drawbridge came down with a clatter and a boom. Four soldiers rode out toward the shore. Their leader stiffened in his saddle as he saw Ian and Gar waiting on the shore. He waved to his companions, pointed ahead, and the four came onward at a trot.
“Into the saddle, lad.” Gar swung aboard his tall roan. “They’ll have a few words for us, you may be sure.”
“Why?” Ian managed to mount his pony, still rather clumsy about it. “We’ve come to join them.”
“They don’t know that yet,” Gar said, grinning. “For all they know, we could be spies disguised as soldiers, or renegade gentlemen fleeing from the law—or, for that matter, nothing but footsore, weary travellers who need a place to rest.”
“Would travellers seeking rest come at daybreak?” Ian wondered.
“Probably not,” Gar conceded, “so they’ll think we’re enemies, until we’ve proved otherwise. After all, who would ride by night, if he had nothing to fear?”
The drawbridge before them came down with a crash, and the guardsmen trotted across it. The one in the forefront leveled his pike and cried, “Friend or foe?”
“Friend,” Gar replied. “I am Captain Gar Pike, a mercenary soldier, and this is Ian Tobinson, my apprentice. We seek employment with Lord Aran.”
“Employment, eh? Looking for a job, is it? What worth to Lord Aran is a man who sells his sword?” Gar’s smile vanished. “You know our code—once we’ve accepted a man’s coin, we are loyal till the battle is over.”
“Aye,” the lieutenant admitted, “but there are tales of blankshield soldiers who have turned traitor for pay.”
“And tales of other mercenaries, who rode them down and killed them for their treachery” Gar countered with a scowl. “Then too, I mind me an I have heard of no few serf-soldiers, and even gentlemen, who have done the same, though they fought for their own lord, and not for pay.”
The lieutenant rested his hand on his sword and moved his horse closer. Gar touched his own sword. “It is not for you to judge my loyalty,” he said softly, “nor to hire me or send me on my way. Your duty is only to bring me to your lord.”
“Aye, and to clap you into irons if you are a traitor or a spy,” the lieutenant snapped.
Gar slid his hand inside his doublet and brought out a roll of parchment. “Here is a testament from my last employer, Lord Gascoyne, attesting to my loyalty, and to my quality as a soldier. See there his seal!”
The lieutenant took the parchment, unrolled it, and looked at the drop of sealing wax with the imprint of Gascoyne’s ring. He nodded reluctantly and handed it back. “Have you many such others?”
“Five,” Gar answered, “and all of them speak of my virtue.”
“Only five?” The lieutenant peered sharply at him. “You have not been a soldier long.”
“I have not been a freelance long,” Gar corrected. “It is scarce a year since I left the private companies, where I gained my rank, and struck out on my own.”
The lieutenant nodded slowly, frowning. “Blankshield soldiers usually come in companies. There are few of you who ride alone.”
Gar nodded, smiling. “Then you will understand why I have only five other testaments. From this, I gather that I must be the only blankshield soldier who has come to Lord Aran’s castle.”
“And a fool you were to do it,” the lieutenant blurted, then clamped his jaws shut, looking angry and downcast.
“True,” Gar said, grimly nodding. “No mercenary soldier in his right mind would seek to join a side that has so small a chance of victory, and so great a chance of defeat.”
“We will not be defeated!” the lieutenant cried. “We will defend my lord Aran to the death!”
“And so shall I,” Gar said softly. “Lord Aran, alone of all the lords in this land, is as just and merciful as a lord should be.”
The lieutenant frowned. “Strange words, from a man who fights only for money.”
“Aye, and a strange lord’s gentleman who is willing to die, to defend him! How many battles have you heard of, in which the gentlemen died?”
The lieutenant’s mouth tightened. “Few.”
Gar nodded. “The serfs die; occasionally a gentleman, by accident; and the lords, never, of course. Think you that I am so young that I do not know this rule?”
“Even as you say, Aran is a lord worth dying for,” the lieutenant said, stone-faced. “But I was born and raised his man. You were not, and therefore must you be a fool.”
“Indeed,” Gar retorted, “for any wise gentleman would have ridden over this bridge, turned his coat, and sold his allegiance to one of the neighboring lords, so that he would be on the winning side when they come to fight Lord Aran.”
The lieutenant’s face darkened. “Do you say I am mad?”
“Mad as a hatter,” Gar said cheerfully, “and so am I—and therefore have I come here to die with you.” The lieutenant’s face lost some of its hardness, then grew somber. “It may be that we shall not die. It may be that Lord Aran shall prevail against those who seek to pull him down.”
Gar sighed and shrugged. “It is possible,” he agreed, “but scarcely likely.”
“Aye,” the lieutenant agreed. “It would take a miracle.”
“Then it is for us to provide such a miracle.” Gar grinned. “Come, Lieutenant. Take me to your lord.” The lieutenant stared, then finally smiled—but Gar suddenly lifted his head, then turned to look off to the west. Ian looked too, but heard nothing.
Far away, a small dark line was crossing the horizon, reaching out toward the causeway.
“The serfs, with their wagons, livestock, and goods,” Gar said softly. He turned back to the lieutenant. “I heard their carts creaking, far away. Will the battle be so soon as that?”
“So the reports do say.” The lieutenant’s face was set, grim. “The rival lords have assembled their armies. They may ride today; they may be at our gates at any time.”
“It is well that I came when I did,” Gar said.
The lieutenant turned his horse. “Follow,” he said. “I will bring you to his lordship.”
Gar turned to Ian. “You have heard of Lord Aran, lad. Would you like to meet him?”
Ian gulped and nodded.
The three serf soldiers turned their horses, encircling Ian and Gar from behind. The mercenary smiled and rode across the causeway toward the castle.
Ian followed.
As they rode down the long pier, Ian wrinkled his nose. The wood smelled abominably.
Gar saw his look and smiled. “It is pitch, lad. The boards are soaked with it. When the enemy comes, Lord Aran will burn this causeway.”
Ian looked up at him, wide-eyed, then stared down at the blackened wood. His stomach twisted at the thought of the inferno to come—and twisted again as he realized what it meant: that anyone in the castle would be completely isolated from the shore. True, they might be safe in an impregnable fortress, able to thumb their noses at the world—but they might also be trapped.
They rode over the second drawbridge, under the huge iron spears of the portcullis, through a stone tunnel whose walls had arrow slits, and out into the bailey.
Ian looked around, amazed. He had never been inside a castle before, and could scarcely believe that so much land could be contained within a stone wall. It seemed far bigger than it had from the outside. But large as it was, there was a flurry of activity; soldiers were drilling in the center of the yard, gentlemen with swords were fencing with one another; servants hurried to and fro, marking out squares on the ground with powdered lime and bearing loads of straw to dump within those squares. Smoke streamed into the air from a low building against the western wall, and hammers rang within it—a smithy, Ian guessed, and the smith and his apprentices were making more weapons. A shiver ran down his back as he realized that he was going to be in the center of a battle—but if he wished to be a mercenary like Gar, he had better become accustomed to it.