The Iron Castle by Angus Donald

Author:Angus Donald [Donald, Angus]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2014-07-03T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

We dressed ourselves in warm, dark clothing and smeared a mixture of soot and hog grease over our faces and the backs of our hands, and as silently as cats we crept out of the postern gate at the foot of the north tower and gingerly stepped across the long plank bridging the deep ditch at the foot of our walls.

I wore no mail, for speed of movement and so that there might be no telltale chink of metal on metal, and reluctantly I had left Fidelity in the care of Kit, and carried only my misericorde in a leather sheath at my waist. Robin similarly lacked proper armament, except for a hunting knife jammed down his boot.

‘We are not aiming to hurt anybody tonight, Alan. If we have to fight, we have failed in our mission and are probably as good as dead,’ said my lord. For a man who knew well how to raise his followers’ spirits, I found his words disquieting.

It truly was a black night, with only the faintest sliver of moon peeking very occasionally through the blanket of clouds – which was, of course, why Robin had chosen it. We crawled due east through mud and loose rock and tussocks of wet grass, for about two hundred yards by my reckoning, moving on elbows and knees with infinite slowness, and pausing every yard or so to listen for the enemy, using techniques that a dear Bavarian friend of mine had taught me long ago. Robin led and, as I inched along after him, I wondered what we were doing out here in no man’s land between the walls of two mighty forces when we might be tucked up snugly in bed. My thoughts turned to Tilda as we made our snail-like progress across the ground. Her smile, the way her eyes danced with light when she laughed, and how easily she found joy in the world; perhaps one day …

‘Alan!’ Robin’s voice was not even a whisper, but I caught a glimpse of his steel eyes in the darkness. I realised my forearm and all my weight was pressing down on Robin’s boot. I shook myself free of Tilda’s embrace and concentrated on placing one elbow and one knee in front of the other as silently as I could. We saw and heard nothing, wrapped in the blackness, the night dense around us. At least I saw and heard nothing until I felt Robin rise up on his knees a yard ahead of me, cup his hands together and make the sound of a barn owl hooting, three times.

To my surprise, his signal was repeated back to him twice, and up ahead there was a patch of darkness fuller than the rest. The earth wall. And was there someone there? I heard a click of trodden stone on stone and Robin rose silently to his feet. I got to mine, put my left hand on his shoulder and followed him and soon I could make out the shape of a man greyer than the surrounding gloom.

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