Friday before the Feast of Saint John, 1198

Vraagen’s visage was a death mask, but more than just the way he moved with a semblance of life, a great fear seemed to flow from him like a miasma. Madeleine swooned, and Gaspard fell to his knees, clutching his face and screaming. The creature commanded Daria to be still, but it had no hold on her, and with a blaze of fire the maga scorched a broad circle into the floor. But Vraagen had been a magus once, and he rushed the circle before Daria could cast a ward upon it.

Stephan, bruised and cut, threw himself in the creature’s path before it reached the prima, while Michi blocked the course of the lesser creatures. The things fought with strength they had never had in life, but Vraagen’s power was not in melee, and Daria’s spells leached the force from its attacks. Soon the creature fell to its knees, and the fighters moved in quickly, dismembering the corpse. Daria stepped over and pulled the aegis token from its crumbling neck.

“He made me do it!” Gaspard cried, arms around his knees. Cyril tearfully relayed how he had met the creature in the hog wood on one of his pre-attack errands, and it had taken control of his mind. He had fetched Gasard to Bar du Sud under false pretences, all the while knowing what he was doing, but all the while unable to stop himself. There the creature had made the magus his thrall. “I stole the aegis token, and awaited his further commands,” Gaspard said. “He bade me hide my role from everyone, and I could not but comply!” “But why? What did it want?” Michi asked. “Vengeance upon those who interred it?” Madeleine responded. “He was of Daria’s house. The better question is why the Count’s soldier dug him up.”

In the hall, Juliana begged to be sent back. “If I stay, the Count will not have to trump up grievance against you. And if I do not return soon to the camp soon, I will be missed. Let me return with him—but we will meet again!”

Etien had lost three knights and dozens of men; those remaining were dissipating into the night, chased by mobs of villagers, and could not be rallied. By the time dawn arrived the Count’s camp was broken and his train headed for Arbois and back to Frois Pont. “He underestimated us and did not plan a sufficient assault,” Johannes assessed the situation. “He won’t do so again, but I doubt he’ll be able to raise a large enough force to return before the end of summer.”

End of Chapter Three

Friday before the Feast of St. John, 1198

“Who else has committed high treason against the Holy Roman Emperor and his rightful vassal in this manor? Who else has bargained the lives of his comrades for a handful of the Count’s silver?” Daria stared at the two cotters. The great hall was silent; even the mice in the rushes had gone still.

Diederick, one of the village yeomen, had brought in Staas. “I caught him in the forest with three of the Count’s soldiers,” he had explained. “He was guiding as they marked a path. The soldiers fled, but this one was not so fleet of foot.” Staas’s cousin Erich was also brought in. He confessed to taking silver to sour the castle well, but found he didn’t have the stomach to complete the task.

“The punishment for high treason, by the immutable laws of the Holy Roman Empire, is dispossession, torture, and dismemberment,” Daria continued, her voice low. “By right I should have your eyes gouged, your tongue rent from your throat, and every bone in your feet broken one by one before I have you drawn and quartered. But there is not time.” She turned to other business, waving dismissively. “Hang him. Not here—down in the village.”

A crowd had gathered by the time Staas was dragged behind Stephan’s great destrier to the old oak by the green. Staas had lain at the center of many a village dispute over the years, and traitors are hated by all. But troubled times breed troubled minds, and the Count had worked hard to sway the villagers’ loyalties. “The Count is strong, and they say he will bring a real army,” Erich had said, before Daria dispossessed and exiled him. “He tells everyone he will put a new lord in the castle, and many believe him!” Indeed, a furtive mumble passed through the assembled villagers, and many a brow was creased.

And then there was Etien, surrounded by his men, watching and jeering from the edge of his camp. Stephan rode calmly into the center of the green, high in his saddle, and fixed the crowd in his eye. “Villeins of Bois de Haillot! We are each of us, from your Lady Daria to the poorest cotter on this manor, and all between, vassals of the Holy Roman Emperor. We are all bound to his law, and we all owe our allegiance to him. Soon it may come to be that we will have to account for our duties with our very lives.” Here he was interrupted by hoots and cries from the Count’s camp, but a steely glare in that direction quieted them. “I will be the first to defend our homes and our honour,” Stephan continued, looking from villager to villager, then sweeping his arm back toward Gaspard and Madeleine, “as will all those from the castle. No amount of silver will sway us from our duty.” He lowered his voice. “If there are any here who would shirk from that duty, let him now speak.” The crowd was silent, then one man stepped forward and spat on Staas. Another hissed, and others scrambled for dung and stones to throw at the hapless traitor. Michi swung the rope over a branch and fixed the noose around Staas’s neck. He hoisted it with a merciful jerk.

Etien scowled as the villagers jeered the hanging man, his eye meeting Stephan’s for a moment as the knight turned back toward the castle.

The rest of the day was spent in preparation. With the Count inciting treason—even the poisoning of the well—it seemed clear he did not intend to depart without control of the castle, however gained. The levies were drawn up and armed; the remaining villagers called to the castle. After much debate, Daria agreed that their duty to hold the Emperor’s fief superseded the terms of their Imperial charter (which forbade the improvement of the castle), and raised stone along the never-finished perimeter of the bailey wall.

The Count’s attack came late, after Compline, with a hail of arrows from the dark as a ram was run up to the newly-restored gatehouse door. An intense exchange drove the attackers back with the gate unbreached, but it was a feint only, and a further assault drove at the broad flank of the bailey wall. That very morning a man might have scrambled through the gaps, but Etien had not counted on that; the attackers had ladders and soon gained the wall. They were trained men, and fierce, and eager for easy glory against a pathetic cadre of untrained and poorly armed defenders. They cut easily through the levy, slicking the wall-walk with blood, but the defenders had determination and numbers on their side.

The din of fighting was drawing down when Madeleine cocked her ear. “A woman calls out—beyond the walls!” Below, just emerged from the brush of the surrounding forest, Lady Juliana struggled against a pair of soldiers. Stephan was over the wall in an instant, Michi, Gaspard, and Madeleine just behind. They cut quickly through the attackers and pulled Juliana back to the shadows of the curtain wall. “Why are you here?” Stephan demanded. “I had to warn you,” Juliana replied. “My lord Etien has built ladders in secret—tall ladders; much bigger than these.” They scrambled back into the castle and deposited Juliana in the hall with Daria and Johannes before climbing up to the roof of the keep.

They were just in time. The keep had never been finished above the second floor, and the uncrenellated walls offered little protection against the rain of arrows decimating the small contingent of levy stationed there. But that was coming to an end, as the Count’s soldiers were planting their long ladders and beginning to climb. Michi and Stephan rushed to the wall, but the attackers were already pouring over, led by the knight Geert. Etien’s man fought like his namesake, tenaciously and with no concern for his injuries, and by the time Stephan had dropped him another dozen men had gained the wall.

It was a true melee. Men fell screaming to their death, while others met axe or sword. The rotting floorboards ran slick with blood and offal, and everywhere was the din of steel on steel, of screams and shouts. Daria appeared, and her command of the winds blasted a handful of attackers from the wall. Michi and Madeleine forced over the last of the ladders, and slowly, finally, the fight came to an end.

And in the quiet that followed there was a rasping, cough-like laugh. Everyone turned. On the wall opposite, above the cliff face looking down upon the Meuse, a figure tottered into the meagre torchlight. Like Thorold, its flesh was the colour of brick, but thin and papery, stretched taut over near fleshless bone. It was dressed ancient opulence, robes embroidered heavily in the arcane symbols of the Order of Hermes. It stepped forward, pointing at Daria, while two more creatures, red and bloated and once soldiers of the Count, crawled over the wall behind it. Around its neck, on a simple leather thong, swung a fired clay disk with the mark of Triamore--an aegis token; the same key given visiting magi so that their magics might not be hindered by the covenant's protective spells. The most closely guarded of Triamore's treasures, and the key to unlock all its defenses.

Thursday before the Feast of Saint John, 1198

The bailey was alive with activity--a castle's preparations for war--so the peasant was little regarded as he made his way over to approach Stephan. Hat in hand, he held out a small square of folded paper. "Who from?" the knight demanded. "The lady, in the encampment," the villager stammered before taking a quick leave. Stephan regarded it, then unfolded the vellum. The hand within was neat, but it might as well have been Aramaic: Stephan could not read.

He found Madeleine in the library. "From the Lady Juliana," she confirmed, then looked sheepish. "It is supposed to be a secret, for you alone." "Just read it," Stephan replied. "She says she will ride in the hog wood at Sext, and asks that you find her there, alone. She will have only her maid." Stephan studied the stonework at the far side of the library. A message, a love letter—or a trap of some sort. "I do not trust her," Lady Madeleine opined. "Maybe we should talk to Gaspard."

The found Michi outside Gaspard's door. "There's somethin' wrong with Gaspard," he said. "He went out last night and was gone for hours, but won't say where he's been. It's as though he's got a mind of his own all the sudden." "Cyril went about for some hours after Compline as well," Stephan said. "He claimed Gaspard sent him on an errand." They entered the lab to find Gaspard huddled under a blanket. "You have suffered a shock!" Madeleine exclaimed, but try as they might, they could get no further details from the magus.

Sext was approaching. Stephan had Cyril saddle Renfrogne, then set out into the hog wood. The note called for secrecy, but Michi, Gaspard, and Madeleine were not far behind--along with Gigot and Celestine, whom Madeleine had been tasking together quite a lot recently. As the letter promised, Lady Juliana was riding her palfrey along the hog-trodden paths, her wizened maid trailing behind afoot. Both dismounted and walked. "Please forgive my manner," the young lady said. "I am unaccustomed to treachery. But it is no secret my lord Etien covets this castle, and he will seek to take it." "So why do you speak to me?" Stephan asked. Juliana looked troubled. "I have not been long in my uncle's court, but I see that he gets no good council. His knights fear him, and will not oppose his temper--he has none so bold as you. Surely there is some way to bring this to a peaceable conclusion?" "I am a man of war," Stephan replied, "and though I may love peace, I do not have the skills of a diplomat. What can I do?" "In one of the many squabbles among the Bavarian princes, my mother served as a hostage. My Count would have this castle--but he also offered marriage. Perhaps a token of trust would assuage his ambition--enough so he would see no threat in the castle, even if he cannot hold it."

It was nearly Vespers. Stephan had returned from his secluded rendez-vous with much to think on and a promise to meet again the day after the morrow, and had spent the afternoon giving Cyril some rather harsh lessons in swordplay. Suddenly a man rushed through the gate. "The Count attacks!" Stephan called for Renfrogne and sped from the bailey, Michi, Madeleine, and Gaspard in tow. It was no full-scale assault--rather, a wagon on the road approaching, just beyond the trees, beset upon by soldiers. Stephan put the spur to his destrier, but Madeleine's eye was caught by a commotion in a copse concealed by a nearby hedgerow. Someone had disturbed an angry raven: More soldiers, and a knight as well. No sooner had Stephan and Michi reached the cart than the knight--it was Gervais, from the feast--charged their flank, his lance seeking Stephan's heart. The blow caught Stephan's shield, and the latter knocked it wide. Arming swords were drawn, and the two armored horsemen jostled in a struggling circle, raining blows upon one another as they sought opening. Madeleine climbed into the cart (the driver having fled) and started from the battlefield, while Michi faced down the Count's soldiers.

Gervais was a powerful and determined opponent--the toughest knight Stephan had ever faced. Both were bloodied and bruised when Gervais rang a powerful blow off Stephan's helmet. The latter was dazed, and might have given his opponent the opening needed for a killing blow. But Gervais was in little better shape, and as he positioned for the final attack an unexpected strike from Michi dropped him from his courser, bleeding and unconscious. The tiny field of battle was suddenly silent in the evening half-light: The Count's men had all fled or been felled.

Wednesday before the Feast of Saint John, 1198

A new character has joined the heroes of Triamore covenant—or has at least been following them around for a few days. His name—Wart—is almost as obscure as his origins, but he is hardly the first ragamuffin to seek a home in the forgiving shelter of Hermetic society. (Truth be told, there is some clue to his history in the constant hint of tannery odor that seems to follow him everywhere.) Wart does not yet enjoy the same regard as his more veteran covenmates, so to rectify that he tells following tale in his own words.

It all started on a foul foot when the doxy with the Frenchy way of talking let a plague victim fall on her. Good fortune I was there to save her with my handsome new spear. The big fellow with the shiny sword helped.

Truth, this is a strange group of folk. One is this man who mumbles and thinks he can talk to animals and foolery. Everyone says he is a maggot or something. Another is a knight in mail who hits me whenever I go near. He is good with his sword though and he’s really noisy so he is great to hide behind because no one can hear me. Also there is the doxy (such is what my old master would have called her) and she has a woman with her they are both gorgeous but I think the doxy has mistaken me for someone called Hunculous or monkulous. Every time she sees me she points and shouts it and then gabbles away in her gobbledy-gook. She talks a lot as well, she never stops. She is also really good to hide near. There is another fellow in a cloak as well. He is a little creepy but at least he is quiet. I think the doxy and the big fellow with the sword like each other. My old master reckoned it was a sure sign of love if two people were always arguing all the time. The big fellow has something wrong with him because he talks in gobbledy-gook as well, but it is not the blather of the Normans but something else even harder to understand.

Anyway after we rescued the doxy from the dead man with plague they stuck her in a cell. It was the nicest cell I have ever seen with a carpet and everything. It was not too cold and there were only a few rats. So that is what the cells for the ladies and lords are like.

Anyway in the morning she still didn’t have plague so they let her out. Her and the fellow that mumbles went to the library. They have so many books. I’m sure they wouldn’t miss one or two.

Eventually we went off to the forest again following the stupid dog that used to belong to the huntsman, who was the man with the plague. We must have walked forever. Occasionally the strumpet would shout “munkulous” at me then the big fellow started sniffing everything and people made me go away as if I smelled. I don’t smell of anything. The other lads at the tannery never complained.

I found the trail for them but did they say thanks? Poxy nobles. Eventually I led them to a hole in the ground that had a big box for putting people into made of stone. Someone had dug the person up and everybody got nervous. Not me though. I think they need me to inspire them to acts of bravery. After that the doxy and the mumbler went back to the library again.

Now we’re looking for somebody’s trembling house and some stranger named “aaagh” or “yurgh” or something else dumb. I’m not really sure though, for they never really explain anything to me. But also, there is some Count hiding soldiers in the woods and giving villagers money and everybody thinks he’s going to attack the castle. Nobody has told me how much he’s paying though. The big fellow with the shiny sword thinks that the lord Count is going to attack the castle. He didn’t last night though.

Oh I almost forgot. They brought me a crossbow and I have my own spear and boots!!! Truly this is a place of riches.

Certes, that is all that happened—or all I can remember.

Second Tuesday before the Feast of Saint John, 1198

Activity at the gatehouse drew Stephan and Michi over. Johannes had the village smith and a gaggle of peasants labouring on the gate all morning, struggling to work through the rust that had bound the hinges open for two decades at least. But this was something different.

“It’s Vasten!” Wart, a slight, unkempt youth who sometimes helped around the stables, was rubbing the ears of the huntsman’s favoured hound. “But where is Thorold?” The huntsman had set out hours before—nothing strange about that—but for the hound to return alone was an poor omen. Gaspard joined them. “Have you asked the dog?” he said.

The long-legged, shaggy hound’s ears and tail were drooping. “Thorold is still in the wood,” Gaspard reported after a casting of magic. “The dog doesn’t want to go back, but it is ashamed to have left its master.” Stephan stepped up. “Can he take us to where it happened?” “Yes,” Gaspard replied after checking with the hound. “Go, then,” Johannes commanded.

They set out within the hour, as the springtime sun was moving from Sext toward Nones. Cyril led the way with Vasten and a scent hound on leads, with Stephan and Madeleine on horse, despite the promise of forest ahead, and Gaspard behind with Michi, and Wart trailing them. They crossed the great field toward Ville de Haillot hamlet, then the western waste, then entered the forest. Nones came and went, and still the hound led onward.

There was a scream ahead, and a crash through the undergrowth. They were in the woods, but it was not so dense as to force the riders from their horses. Stephan put his spur to Renfrogne, and the destrier leapt forward, but what crashed toward them was neither beast nor warhorse but a small palfrey with a slight rider. Stephan grabbed at the reins as the panicked horse charged past, pulling it quickly to a stop. The rider was Lady Juliana, niece of Etien of Namur, with her servant struggling on foot behind her.

“Dead men,” the young lady sobbed. “In that thicket. Butchered!” Michi investigated, trailed by a curious Wart, as Stephan checked the area and Lady Madeleine calmed Juliana. Four dead men: soldiers, in the livery of the Count. Their encampment was in a little bowl, hidden among rocks and trees in a dense stand of brush. The men had fought against their death; weapons were in hand or scattered about. The fire was cold, but the ashes had not been rained upon: They could not have been dead for more than a day. “An hour before Matins last night,” Gaspard reckoned, employing his spells upon a corpse. He cast another magick, then blanched as he watched events the others could not see. “A thing like a man came upon them, only it was bloated with flesh the colour of rust, like a livid corpse. It chewed upon their flesh after they died.”

Back at the castle, Stephan sought out Johannes. “I don’t know what should trouble us more,” he reported. “This murderous beast, or that the Count is sending his men into our forest.” “South of the Sambre is no part of the Count’s holdings,” Johannes concurred, “even if the forest isn’t truly ours either.”

Madeleine and Gaspard reported to Daria. “Return the girl to the Count’s camp,” she instructed, after hearing their story. “And inform him of his loss. But give him no cause against us—and on the morrow, find out what has become of Thorold.” They escorted Lady Juliana down to her uncle’s camp. Though he received his niece with relief, his face turned red at the story of the dead men. “You murder my men and then bring me this tale of faeries?” he roared, the veins showing at his temples. His knights and footsoldiers were moving to encircle them, but Stephan stared the Count down. But then Wart broke and ran, and suddenly weapons were ringing from sheaths. Juliana stepped up, grabbing the Count’s elbow. “Please, my lord,” she begged. “I know not how this blood was shed, but credit them at least for their aid to me.” The Count’s rage cooled the slightest, but his words were still forced through his teeth. “For the sake of my niece,” he said, turning away.

The day ended as it had begun: with a fluster and flurry at the gate. It was well past Compline, and Refrogne was for once as willing as Roos to be led to the stable. “Thorold has returned,” came a cry from the gate, which groaned on its rusted, but now useable, hinges as the guards pulled it open again. Outside, in a circle of torchlight, Thorold sat on the ground, shaken and panting. “I must have fallen; perhaps I struck my head,” he mumbled. “I do not feel well at all . . . .” Two guards helped him to his feet, but no sooner was he up than he doubled over again with a piteous groan. The now substantial crowd gathered closer for his aid, but when he looked up his face was the colour of brick, his lips drawn back over his teeth.

His first blow drove one of the guards to the ground, and the servants and covenfolk scattered, screaming. Michi drew his sword and charged, with Stephan as well and even Madeleine producing her curved Saracen blade. As they closed the creature lunged at Madeleine, throwing her against the tower wall and driving its teeth into her throat. Stephan and Michi fell upon it, and soon cut it down. “A revenant!” exclaimed Michi, hacking head from body as Gaspard rushed to Madeleine’s aid. “Her wound is not severe,” he reported. “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t,” retorted Michi, “But creatures like this one, they carry their curse to their victims. That thing was Thorold once—what if the same should befall Madeleine?”