LIX

 

 

IT WAS SOME time before the assembled company gathered their wits and allowed themselves to believe the danger was past. Mélisande hauled Galfrid to his feet, and together they crept to edge of the black water. There Gisburne stood, staring at the still-rippling surface of the moat.

Mélisande stood beside him. “I have never seen a human body cling so determinedly to life,” she said. “It took all the elements to kill him: air, earth, fire and water.”

“Who was he?” asked one of the Tower guards.

“Niall Ua Dubhghail,” says Gisburne. Then added: “My brother.”

 

 

GISBURNE TURNED HIS back on the dark water then. “We’re done,” he said to Galfrid.

“Not quite,” said Galfrid, and looked up at the sky, already beginning to redden with the returning sun. “There’s an execution come dawn.”

“I’ve no taste for it,” said Gisburne. Galfrid simply nodded.

Wearily, Gisburne looked up at the White Tower. Within, the injured were having their wounds tended by the still able-bodied Hospitallers. Some, he knew, would not survive. But Ranulph would live to fight another day – or to spend it in quiet contemplation. Gisburne would suggest the latter.

As he turned, he gazed back towards the octagonal tower at the far south-west corner of the outer wall – thankfully far from the night’s chaos. There, he could see, the two Hospitaller knights still stood guard over the outer door. “We must remember to relieve our Hospitaller friends before we go,” he said, gesturing towards the tower. “I think the prisoner is now safe up there without their presence. Or ours.”

At that, a member of the garrison – one who Gisburne recognised as having regularly guarded Hood’s cell – frowned, and stepped forward. “Pardon me, sire,” he said, hesitantly. “But you don’t mean to refer to Hood?”

“Yes,” said Gisburne. “Why?”

“He’s not in that tower, sire. Hasn’t been all night.” Gisburne’s blood froze in his veins. “He was moved, earlier today – I mean, yesterday. Before all this. I took him across myself.”

“Across? Across where?”

“The stables,” said the guard. “Over yonder.” He pointed towards the stable block, a stone’s throw from the main gate.

“What idiot ordered that?” fumed Gisburne.

“The stables are attached to the garrison,” observed Mélisande. “There may be some logic in it.”

“But the garrison is empty,” said Gisburne. He turned again on the guard. “Hood was the prisoner of the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire,” he fumed. “On whose authority was he moved?”

“The Sheriff himself,” said the guard. “Sir William de Wendenal.”

Gisburne and Galfrid stared at each other. “That is not possible,” said Gisburne.

“But I saw the order,” protested the guard. His manner was nervous. “It bore his seal. There was no question. It said he was to be moved in the light of the threat from the Red Hand.”

“Who brought this order?” demanded Gisburne.

“A young lady,” said the guard. “Nobility. She was not expected, but Sir William welcomed her.”

“Of course he bloody did...” muttered Galfrid.

“Name, man!” demanded Gisburne. “What was her name?”

The guard looked from face to face, and swallowed hard. “Lady Marian Fitzwalter.”

Gisburne felt his world collapse around him. Marian. His Marian. Daughter of one of the most respected knights in the land, last seen associating with a sympathiser of Hood. And carrying the orders of a dead man – stamped by the seal ring that had been upon his severed right hand. Pieces of the mosaic – until now, meaningless shards – clicked together, the pattern suddenly becoming clear. The Red Hand had given Hood’s men that ring. In return, they had given him the information he needed to enact his revenge – had even brought him to Tancred – and used the attack as a diversion from their own rescue. As a final insult, they had tricked the Tower’s own guard into moving Hood – to a place a child could break out of. A child...

The final piece of the picture fell into place. The face of a boy, in a tavern outside Nottingham, who had raved about Hood. And the same face, just hours before, here within the Tower, carrying bread towards an empty garrison.

Without a word, Gisburne turned and raced towards the stable block.