She nodded to herself and wiped the mist out of her eyes. She slipped a leather guard on her fingers and ran the feather fletching between her lips to smooth the flights, then raised the bow and stood sidelong to the wall. She nocked the arrow to the string and rested her hand lightly to her cheek, pushing slowly back on the bow until her left arm was straight and the tension in the string was at its peak. Sighting along the shaft, she stopped her breath, plucked her fingers free and sent the arrow on its way.

  Both knights leaned forward eagerly to follow the hissing flight of the arrow. They saw it streak straight and true to the chest of the behemoth, punching through quilted gambeson and linked mail. He toppled backward off his balance, staggering with the force of the blow, his hands clutching for the shaft that was now buried half deep in his chest. As he spun around in disbelief, the watchers on the wall could clearly see the bloodied tip of the arrow protruding from his back.

  Two stumbling steps and the mountain crashed to the ground. By then Cassie had nocked and fired two more of the barbed arrows, felling the pair who stood by the handles of the winch. The two men carrying a fresh boulder toward the catapult dropped their burden and ran for the protection of the forest, but they too were sent sprawling to the mud with arrows jutting from their spines.

  Cassie lowered the bow and flexed her fingers to ease the tingling.

  Sir Thomas said nothing for a full minute. He continued to stare at the five slain men, part of him wanting to shout with satisfaction, part of him understanding the horror of a weapon that could pierce armor at a distance that offered no possible defense against it.

  “My God,” he murmured finally. “My good sweet God.”

  “De Caux will be swallowing his liver,” Sir Hubert predicted. “He’ll not find too many volunteers willing to take their place.”

  “Perhaps not, but he still outnumbers us ten to one and even the strongest of castles can eventually be undermined.”

  Realizing there was a third pair of ears privy to their conversation, Sir Thomas turned to Cassie. “We need more of these arrows. How fast can your father make them?”

  Hoping for some small crumb of praise for her marksmanship, Cassie held back her disappointment. “He is only one man, my lord. Perhaps if he had help—?”

  “Go to him. Tell him he will have all the help he needs. The castle armory will be at his disposal. As well, the castellan keeps a ready supply of iron and steel plate in the storage rooms below the keep. He will be told to provide your father with anything he needs.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  She turned to go but a further command halted her.

  “When you have done this, join me in the great hall. You will take a meal with me that I might praise you properly for your skill at...plucking acorns.”

  Cassie felt a surge of pride course through her veins. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Oh...and when you are speaking to the castellan, tell him to arrange for a bath and some clean garments. I find myself with an appetite for the first time in many weeks and I’ll not be off-put by dirty fingers and the smell of an overfilled slops pail.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “A courteous way to say: you stink like a dung heap,” she muttered to herself.

  She had found her father working in the small smithy located against the wall of the inner bailey. He looked like a Moor, covered head to toe in black soot, but he grinned through the grime and sweat when he heard how the lord of the castle had singled out his daughter, how she had proved her skill, and how, now, with men put to the hammering and cutting, he would be able to make a hundred arrows an hour rather than half a dozen.

  With neither page nor lackey immediately at hand, he sent her on her way to the vast storage rooms that lay beneath the castle keep.

  “As many dorés of iron as you can carry,” he commanded. “Any hammered sheets if possible as well. ‘Twould save time in the forge if the iron has been tempered once already.”

  Armed with two large canvas sacks and a horn-sided lantern, Cassie found the covered passage that followed the outer wall of the main keep. She went down a narrow, twisting staircase that uncoiled to the gloomy, cavernous undercroft and had to shake away visions of ghosts and huge salivating creatures. Tallow candles were set in black cressets mounted on every other stone arch, but the light they produced was weak and flickered in the drafty passage. Some had even blown out, which made for long gaps between leaving one pool of dim light and hastening to the next.

  The outer wall glistened with dampness and smelled of mold and dankness. The low ceiling was vaulted to carry the tremendous weight of the castle walls and while she was not considered tall for a girl, Cassie was still forced to duck in places to avoid scraping her head on one of the thicker arched supports. The air was cold, her skin was clammy. Her clothes were already damp from the morning dew and drizzle, so the chill struck clear through to the bone.

  There were so many storage rooms and niches carved into the stone base, she hoped she had not gone in the wrong direction after descending the spiral staircase. The air was close; she had the sensation of the walls pressing in on her, and she imagined shadowy figures lurking behind each archway. She had no idea where the donjons were—not that she even wanted to know such a thing—but she knew they must be down here somewhere too, and again her mind flared with images of chained prisoners, gaunt from starvation, pale as wraiths.

  A shudder quickened her footsteps. She came to the end of a wide passage, as her father said she would, and found the narrow door that led to yet another vaulted chamber. Normally there would have been a pair of guards placed on the door, and indeed she saw a table and two small stools to mark their post. Since the siege had begun, all able-bodied men had been sent to the walls, for if the castle fell, there would be no need to worry over what remained of the corn and ale—neither of which were in great supply. De Caux had burned the fields and destroyed the winter harvest. Storage rooms that should have been bursting with sacks of grain, bins of corn, mountains of apples and carrots were all but empty.

  Cassie heard what sounded like the scrape of a boot on the floor behind her and whirled around, holding the lantern high. Prickles flooded down her spine and caused her knees to knock together. She pressed her lips into a thin line and put a hand to the dagger she wore at her belt.

  “Is someone there?”

  Her voice echoed hollowly off the stone walls and bounced around the vacant storage rooms. She heard another sound and this time her ears were focused enough to identify the shuffling of tiny scurrying feet.

  “Rats, for pity’s sake,” she muttered.

  She expelled a long, slow breath and tried to grasp hold of her wits again.

  “Courage,” she whispered to herself. “Courage, courage, courage silly girl. Fetch the iron, take it to Father, find the seneschal and...”

  And what? Take a bath? Put on clean garments? Take a meal with Lord Thomas Purefoy as if it was her right and due? As if it was a common day occurrence for the daughter of a fletcher to even dream of sitting above the salt?

  She shook her head and lifted the latch to open the door. It was black as pitch beyond the opening and she was thankful now for the lantern. Forcing her feet to move forward again, she focused straight ahead, passing by arched oaken doors, vaulted storage rooms where tournament armor and arms were kept.

  Cassie’s footsteps slowed again.

  Up ahead was a soft flare of light. It emanated from the gap below and the spaces around a doorway, perfectly outlining the arched shape of the stone blocks. For one giddy moment, Cassie likened the sight to the late afternoon sun sending out streaks of light around a dark storm cloud. Or, as a second image took shape in her mind, the shining halo that always surrounded the head of Christ in holy tapestries. The more practical side of her determined this was the door to the armory where the precious ingots of iron were kept.

  Raising the lantern above her head, she saw a small carving on the door, a depiction of the moon and several five pointed stars surrounding it. It was odd for an armory; she would have expected swords and daggers and shields for a carving.

  She moved forward again, this time letting the metal handle of the lantern rattle by way of announcing her approach if there was someone inside the chamber. To her relief, when she tapped lightly on the door, she heard a voice reply.

  “Come.”

  The latch moved freely as she lifted it and the door swung silently open on rope hinges.

  The room was lit by a brace of candles stuck in pools of their own melted wax, set on a small wooden work table. Seated on a three legged stool was a hooded figure who partly turned his head to acknowledge her arrival, then went back to his task, humming ever so softly under his breath.

  “Keep your heels to the floor long enough,” he quipped after a moment, “and roots begin to sprout. Come closer. It is almost done.”

  Cassie moistened her lips and stepped inside the chamber. It was apparent, upon the first shocked glance, that this was not the armory. The top of the work table was littered with the tools of a jeweller’s trade: a scarred and charred crucible, tongs, files, sand for polishing, buttons and cakes of argentiferrous lead, tiny dorés of refined silver as well as long thin wires used to shape into filigrees. Hanging on the wall were chains of gold and silver, the candlelight making them glitter and wink with each flicker of the flame. A nearby shelf held goblets and plates stacked elbow-deep, wrought in solid gold.

  There was more, all of it dazzling and stunning to eyes accustomed to seeing only wooden bowls and using whittled sticks for spoons. There were sword handles and daggers encrusted with jewels, church plates likely hidden here for safekeeping, alongside gold and silver crucifixes.

  The jeweller’s hands were wrinkled with age, and thick around the knuckles. His fingers were blackened by years of working with silver and lead, and were moving slowly, rhythmically as he applied a polishing cloth to the object he held in his palm.

  “Bring yourself closer, child. I do not often have the pleasure of company.”

  “I am looking for the armory,” she said, staying where she was just inside the doorway.

  “Ah yes. I hear the defenses are holding well. The regent’s taxman is not having so easy a time of it as he had hoped.”

  “Lord Purefoy has vowed to keep the gates closed until it snows in hell.”

  The old man chuckled. “Yes, he would say that. Just as his father would have done.”

  Cassie’s interest was roused despite her need to find the armory and leave this creepsome place. Sir Thomas’s father had died before she and her father had come to settle at Belfontaine, but she’d heard tales of his exploits with the old king, Henry Secund. He had been the king’s champion, and—though it was only whispered as a rumor—lover to Queen Eleanor for most of the fifteen years she had been imprisoned by her husband.

  “You knew the old master?”

  The hooded figure chuckled again. “Aye, and his father before him. And his. I crossed the Channel with William the Norman, thinking to return home once he had conquered this strange, savage land. But alas I was needed here and stayed.”

  “The Conqueror William?” Her eyebrow inched upward as she felt an imaginary tug on her leg. “You must be very old then.” Old and addled, she thought.

  “Oh indeed. Verily I am called ancient by all who know me.”

  “And who knows you? I, for one, have never seen you before and I have lived in the village these past ten years or more.”

  His shoulders shrugged within the cowl. “I live in the forest and come and go without much notice.”

  “Even if that is so, the gates have been closed and barred these past two weeks.”

  “Ah, but I have my own gate. There.” He pointed a gnarled finger at a niche in the wall, a niche that proved to be, once she lifted her lantern to chase away the shadows, a doorway of sorts, waist high and shaped much like a mouse-hole.

  “Do the guards know you come and go at will?”

  “Old Ugly-Nose used to know. I made a trinket for his wife so he would keep his tongue between his teeth.”

  He still had not looked up or turned around. Cassie inched closer and, detecting her curiosity, he lifted the cloth and tipped his hand to the light. Seeing what he held, what he was so intent on polishing, the breath caught in her throat. Jewels flashed and silver flared, for nestled in his palm was a large, silver pendant. The heart of it was an oval-shaped mirror, polished so finely that the reflection was almost as pure as that from glass or water. Surrounding it were vines made from silver filigree; set in the vines were emeralds representing leaves, and cabochon diamonds representing flowers.

  “God’s truth,” she said in a hushed voice. “It is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly,” she said. “I swear it.”

  He turned then and smiled up at her. His face was as wizened as his hands, the skin thin as parchment and wrinkled like berries left too long out in the sun. It was his eyes that caused her mouth to drop open, however. They were completely white, coated with a thick, milky caul that rendered him completely sightless. How he “saw” enough to create such a beautiful jewel was far beyond her knowledge.

  “Would you like to hold it?”

  “Me?” She took a step back at the thought. Once, when very young, she had held a silver coin until her father had smacked it out of her hand.

  “Of course you.”

  “Oh, but I mustn’t,” she whispered. “I dare not.”

  “There is no one here to see you, child. Take it. Touch it. Hold it to your breast. I have done all I can do, but the metal is cold and needs the warmth of a pure heart to give it life.”

  When still she hesitated, he reached around and took her hand in one of his, uncurling her fingers so that he could lay the heavy jewel in her palm. Almost instantly, she felt her skin react, though whether it was from the pendant itself or from the thought of holding something so beautiful and valuable, she could not have said. A tangible warmth started to spread up her arm, tingling across her chest and quivering down into her belly.

  “The silver comes from Damascus, the gems once belonged to a Syrian prince. Think you it should be a pendant, hung about the neck?” he was asking. “Or a brooch pinned to a comely breast or cloak?”

  “I...I have no thought as to either,” she stammered, her gaze locked to the sparkling facets.

  “Ah well, we shall leave it up to the wearer then, shall we? But do look into the heart of it, child. Tell me what you see.”

  Cassie swallowed hard and although she did not command her hand to do so, it raised the heavy pendant so that she could see into the polished surface of the mirror. She gasped a little, for the face that shone back at her was her own, yet not her own. In the reflection, her hair was full and shining, tousled about her face in a cloud of sunlight-yellow curls. Her large green eyes were wide and calm, her lips tipped at the corners as if sharing a secret smile. Her throat was slender and bare, and she was wearing a gown made of exquisite burgundy silk, brocaded with thread of gold. The very jewel she was holding lay against the bodice, and, reflected in the oval mirror was the face of a man...a man who was handsome beyond all decency. A man who looked shocking like Lord Thomas Purefoy.

  She squeezed the pendant so hard she felt a sharp prick on the fleshy part of her thumb. It was enough to draw a tiny bead of blood and to bring her senses crashing back to earth. She all but threw the pendant back on the work table, then wiped her hand down the front of her tunic over and over again trying to rid her palm of the burning impression the jewel had left.

  “What did you see?” the jeweller asked, sensing her distress.

  “Nonsense,” she whispered. “I saw nonsense.”

  He smiled and his hand groped a moment across the table until his fingers located the pendant. “What you saw was your own heart, child. You saw your heart’s fondest desire.”

  Cassie backed up toward the door. “My fondest desire is to find the armory and return to the bailey before I am missed.”

  “Of course. Of course. I have delayed you long enough. I bid you God’s speed, child, in everything you do.”

  “You as well, sir.” She started back out the door, but paused and looked back. “I did not ask your name.”

  “Godfrey,” he said, turning slightly. “I am called Godfrey the Lombard.”

  “Be well and safe, Godfrey the Lombard,” she said, and left him to his work.

  ~~~

  Cassie found the armory—duly marked with a carved shield on the door—and returned to the smithy with her sacks filled with iron for the arrowheads. William was pleased to find several small squares of hammered steel as well. He had already culled men from the walls who were familiar with fletching and tipping, foresters and huntsmen for the most part, all of whom he set to work at once. Cassie would have preferred to remain with them and make the arrowheads, but she departed reluctantly and found her way to the bath house.

  It was located in a cluster of outbuildings near to the scullery and bread ovens, used mostly by huntsmen and visiting knights to refresh themselves before being presented to the lord. The tub was metal, lined with wood and sat on a raised platform under which fires were kept burning to keep the water hot. It was large enough to accommodate five or six big men at a time but at the moment there was only Cassandra and another older woman she knew as Nosey Rosie in the hut.

  “I’ll take them rags of yourn, dearie,” Rosie said, wrinkling up her nose, which was prodigious enough to have earned her the nickname. “I’ve orders to see ye clean and presentable, a term ye could use to describe owt yer wearin’ at the moment.”

  Cassie hugged her arms across her chest, protecting the leather jerkin from the fat hands that reached for it. “What are you going to do with my clothes?”

 

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