“In a week,” De Chesnai remarked dryly, “I’ve not yet met one of De Gournay’s paid louts who can claim a brain bigger than a pea. He would have been after saving his own neck, methinks, by giving M’sieur D’Aeth the pleasure of chewing upon ours.”
“To the left then?”
“Aye. The left.”
They did not waste the time to hide the bodies, but ran swiftly along the low-ceilinged corridor, pausing where lit torches marked the entrance to a storeroom. There were no doors and no guards blocking them, and thus were deemed by Friar to be of no importance. After several more sharp turns along a route that took them deeper and deeper beneath the belly of the keep, they were drawn by the smell, rather than the dull light, emanating from a doorway up ahead.
This one was guarded.
Two arrows released simultaneously from Gil’s bow and Sparrow’s harp-shaped arblaster, struck the men-at-arms posted on either side of the iron-grille door, killing them with only the faintest of thuds to mark their passing.
Gil was the first to sidle up to the entryway and edge an eye around the stone frame. When she saw the vast, sunken maw of a pit that yawned beneath her, she recoiled back against the wall again, needing a moment or two to brace herself for a second look.
“Christ’s mercy,” De Chesnai murmured, the bile thickening in his throat at the sight of the hooks and ropes and chains that dangled over tables, benches, and wooden racks stained dark with blood. Iron tongs, pokers, and pincers were suspended like cooking utensils over the firepit—different sizes for different purposes. Cauldrons of oil and pitch sat cooling beside the grate, steam from the surfaces drifting lazily upward to blend with the sulphurous miasma above.
“I can only see two guards,” Friar said tautly. “But there must be more … listen.”
The sound of voices and the rattle of dice seemed to be coming from around and behind the base of the central column. As much as half of the huge room was effectively cut off from view.
“Alaric!” Gil’s voice, whispered in his ear, urged him to follow her pointed finger to a table almost directly below them. A young boy was stretched out, bound hand and foot in a spread-eagle position. His eyes were open and he was staring directly up at the door, but there was no change in his expression to indicate whether he had seen them or not.
“Eduard,” De Chesnai said unnecessarily. “You were right, Bishop. Tomorrow would have been too late.”
Alaric’s gaze flicked back to the two guards he could see at the bottom of the stairs. They would be easy enough to deal with, but he did not like going in without knowing how many more were inside, out of sight. Nor did he like the size or location of the huge bronze alarm bell. It looked big enough to bring down the walls of Jericho if struck with any force at all. Of equal concern, suddenly, was the chain attached to the bell pull. It climbed all the way up the wall and disappeared into a small, neat hole in the ceiling rafters— undoubtedly connected to another bell located in the soldiers guard station above, and possibly to a third and fourth on storeys higher up.
Alaric stiffened, remembering the guard they had shot back at the junction. He had died reaching for a chain, and the chain had slipped several links before drawing taut in his death grip.
“Christ! The alarm is already given! Gil, Sparrow: the guards!”
The two archers stepped into the doorway and without questioning the order or the unexpected savagery, fired down on the two visible sentries. The arrows both struck the same man an inch apart, and while Sparrow gaped up at Gil and fumbled another bolt from his quiver to rearm his crossbow, Gil swore and nocked another of her longer arrows, catching the second, startled guard squarely in his opened mouth. The cry of warning was strangled short, but given nonetheless and a scramble of heavy boots, chain mail, and the scrape of crossbows being armed reached the top of the stairs.
Alaric and Sir Roger were halfway down the flight of steps when the first guard stepped out from cover and fired his weapon. Sparrow was ready for him, releasing a bolt that pierced De Gournay’s mercenary neatly through the heart. Almost immediately two more guardsmen appeared, one kneeling to shoot, one discriminantly diving behind a table the instant his