To Carry the Horn

Chapter 7-2

The hounds indicated clearly that the scent led them here, but they whined and wouldn’t cross the open space to the palisade.

George sympathized. He didn’t want to get any closer himself, and Mosby was also restive. He noticed that the others were also staying as far away as the open perimeter would permit, Orry and Rhian comforting the hounds.

The sound of a rider coming up from the right drew their attention. Thomas Kethin appeared and joined them. “I came out of the woods on the back trail but close to one of the footpaths, and I lost the track there. I could see you headed down to the ford below me, so I crossed over at the bridge to join you and met Rhys coming up the road. I’ve left him down by the gate.”

“Where are we, do you think?” Idris asked him.

“By the shape of the slope, I’d say we’re roughly behind the balineum. The west branch can’t be far from here, where it enters under the ground.”

They could faintly hear the busy yard on the other side of the palisade.

Idris decided. “We’ll go around and find the exit point. You stay here, in case it isn’t obvious and we need the sound of your voice as a guide.” Thomas nodded.

“George, ride down and send Rhys up here. The way’s smooth enough for the cart, and we can move the hounds with least disruption that way. You can wait for us below.”

George turned downslope and trotted down to find Rhys at the gate. He told him of their discovery so far and sent him up to Idris.

While he waited, he thought about the hole in the palisade. Not just a murderer, but apparently within the grounds, one of their own. That should get everyone’s attention.

The whole party rejoined George at the gates, with Orry driving and the hounds in their crates. Idris led them up the grounds and back through the curtain wall where they’d started. He continued back to the palisade, passing the kennel buildings and yards on the left.

When they reached the palisade, George saw that it was smooth and dense on this side, too, and a space of about twenty feet was kept clear in front of it. Idris took them at a walk along the inner edge of the gap, upslope away from the kennels.

George got his first good overview of the entire yard, which he estimated at about two hundred acres. As they moved along, he saw straight lanes leading down to the manor, with buildings on either side and many people occupied with their mid-morning tasks. How would they find one person in this huge establishment?

The kennels were clustered behind him, with the stables and other buildings laid out in ranks on his right on one side of the lane as they walked up the slope, facing them. Nearer to the palisade wall were workshops, warehouses, and a blacksmith.

The next lane brought more workshops on either side. George recognized the low infirmary building and its morgue from the night before on the north side of the lane, near the manor, and some small dwellings on the south side.

Idris called a halt as the infirmary line of buildings came into view. George saw a cluster of buildings at the edge of their path up at the top of the next lane. Since the land cleared for the yard was on the slope of the hill, the west palisade marked the local highest point, and these buildings were sited on the highest ground within the palisade.

Large windowless stone buildings stood upslope in the group, and then what were clearly laundry and public bath buildings were placed downslope, with steam rising in the crisp air.

Rhys turned to George as they stopped. “We’re famous for our balineum, the baths. It’s truly miraculous what Ceridwen was able to accomplish. We’ll never want for water, between the west branch and the underground streams, and buried pipes carry water to all the buildings.”

Rhian joined in. “Ceridwen’s always telling me how much we learned from the Romans.”

George looked over at the manor below them. The third floor roof was just even with the highest of these buildings, so pressure and gravity must be adequate to convey water to that height.

Idris said, “I was here when Creiddylad set this rear palisade. The lower one for the front grounds came much later. All in one spring we planted it, from seeds and seedlings rescued as the land was cleared. We worked from the end of one rising curtain wall to the other, while others raised the first buildings. Then, in a single night of the full moon, she sent us all indoors and walked the length of it. Come morning, it was a deep line of well-grown saplings thickly sprung.”

“How do you maintain it?” George asked.

“It maintains itself. Don’t ask me how. The trees don’t seem to age past maturity.”

He turned his face to the palisade and shouted, “Thomas!”

A voice responded from the other side, just a bit in front of them.

“I thought this was about the right place.”

They dismounted and led their horses, trying to look carefully at the palisade without getting too close. Mosby was skittish, eying the trees nervously.

Idris said, “This won’t do. Rhian, will you hold them for us?”

Rhian retreated a few steps and the others handed her their reins.

“From here we can’t see the postern gate and, more importantly, its guards can’t see us. The balineum shelters this spot from view in most other directions. Ah—here it is.”

He called back over, “Thomas, come in at the postern gate.”

He pointed to a slight unevenness where one trunk stood a little further into the path. On the other side of that tree, George saw a low decayed area, free of vegetation. His skin crawled this close to the palisade, as if it broadcast a subsonic hum. No wonder the animals kept away from it.

Idris called over to Orry who waited at the cart. “Hitch those horses and bring the hounds back, with Rhian.”

He leaned his full body a little toward the wall, as if bracing himself against a strong wind. He smiled at George’s expression. “I like to test myself against it, see how close I can get. I don’t know anyone who can touch it.”

George wondered about its defensive properties. “Can it be burnt? Could you blast a hole through with cannon?”

“It doesn’t burn. I’ve traveled with Gwyn and I know what your cannons can do, but gunpowder isn’t the same here. The first time I encountered it, I brought some back. It would hardly burn, much less explode. When I asked Ceridwen about it, she told me it wouldn’t work.”

George thought ruefully of the revolver he was carrying under his coat. Good thing I didn’t rely on that.

Orry and Rhian brought the hounds to the inner edge of the path. Rhian unwrapped the bundle from her pocket and let them smell the broken stick again as a reminder. After a bit of casting about they settled on a trail leading directly to the balineum and ended at a back entrance to one of them.

Rhys sighed. “That’s it, then. End of the trail.”

He turned to George. “It’s the back of the bathing rooms. We could look inside, and see if maybe something was dropped, or stashed. Sometimes you get lucky.”

Rhian said, “We should at least bring the hounds to the front of the building; he had to have left it later.”

“She’s right,” Idris said. “I’ll go with them. You two look into the baths.”

Rhys opened the door and they walked into a small bare anteroom. Before them were entrances to two main rooms. “Let’s try the men’s side first,” Rhys said, pulling open the right hand door.

George felt as though he’d entered a Roman movie set. Steam rose from several small rectangular pools with seating ledges. Decorative mosaics featuring hunting scenes and vegetation covered the walls, floors, and depths of the baths themselves. The echoes that George associated with indoor pools were muted by fiber mats and wooden furnishings. He glimpsed other rooms off to the side with shelves for clothing and towels. No one was currently using the baths.

Rhys and George split up and covered all the rooms in the building, including the women’s baths. With no current occupants, the search went quickly, and they discovered nothing.

George smiled at Rhys’s obvious disappointment. “It was always a long shot. Let’s join the others.”

They found that the trackers had had no success of their own. The hounds couldn’t pick up the scent again, though they walked around the entire building.

“Rhys, I believe Orry’s work here is done. Please thank Master Ives for me and rejoin us at the manor,” Idris said.

Rhys nodded. They all returned to the cart to unhitch and remount their horses, then Idris led Rhian and George a bit further along the palisade to the postern gate.

George discovered how a gate in this palisade was possible, despite the repulsion effect of the trees. A square stone tunnel, large enough for two mounted men or a small cart was built all the way through the palisade. The stonework on either side and above it extended about fifteen feet, and it was barred at each end by a gate. He realized the stonework on the main gates was for the same purpose, to insulate users from the palisade’s effects, but the main gate was so much wider that he hadn’t felt any of the repulsion using it.

Idris told George, “It takes strong men to stand guard here and to use the tunnel. The one part of completing their basic military training that all the men dread most is the assignment to stand watch here. Not all of them can do it. Some of the horses can’t manage it either, but we have a few that’ve become accustomed to it.”

Thomas emerged through the gates and joined them.

Idris said, “I think we’ve done everything we can for now. I don’t believe I could get permission from Gwyn to parade everyone in the compound, guests and locals alike, before those hounds, even though it’s the most efficient way to identify the killer; too many political problems with that.”

“Very frustrating,” George said. He felt his shoulder blades twitch with the knowledge that a murderer was in here with them.

Idris looked at him. “Thanks for your help. Thomas and I need to report back to Gwyn, and he’ll want to see you for the midday meal, but I don’t have other instructions for you in the meantime.”

Rhian spoke up. “I’ll take charge of my kinsman and deliver him to Gwyn when he’s needed.”

“Thank you, my lady, that should do.”

Rhian waited until the two men had started down the slope and turned to George with a conspiratorial air. “I’ve a favor to ask. Isolda and I have errands to run in the village and we were told yesterday that we must have an escort while this villain’s still at large. Wouldn’t you like to see the village?”

“Well schemed,” he said with a smile. “Just one problem—what good would I be as an escort with nothing but my bare hands?”

“Oh, we can get something for you from the armory.”

“I hate to disappoint you, but my people aren’t all trained in edged weapons. We play at it, sometimes, but it’s been many years since I last held a foil or a saber.” It was surprisingly humiliating to admit this. He was so comfortable with firearms that it had always seemed enough for self-defense. Now he found himself in a place where that wouldn’t do him any good at all.

Her look of surprise was comic. “I hadn’t thought of that. Come with me anyway, there must be something you’re familiar with. We can always get you a club, you’re so much bigger than me it might do.” George looked at her sharply with that last line, but she kept a straight face.

They headed over to the barracks area behind the stable and hitched their horses in front of one of the stone buildings. “We have more weapons in the manor’s armory towers, but this is closer,” Rhian told him as they went in.

Several men were engaged in practice sessions and others were cleaning weapons and armor. The walls were hung with dozens of swords, axes, and other medieval-looking items. George thought he could identify halberds among the pole weapons, but lacked the technical vocabulary for some of them. He pointed at one of the spiked clubs. “Think a morning star would be appropriate for the drive into town?”