lifted a face that was wet with tears and appealed to Lucien forlornly. “I would not know what to do without him.”
“You could live,” the Wolf insisted. “It is not a new or uncommon notion, and I am certain your brother would have wished it.”
“No.” Stutter shook his head sadly. “We made a pact, my lord. To live and die together. We swore it.”
“Well … unswear it, damn you, and get into the shaft. We can argue honour later.”
“My lord … no. Even if I wanted to …” He glanced pointedly at his leg and the Wolf felt a further sinking in his breast as he realized the blood pooled on the floor was not Mutter’s. Stutter’s leg had been broken in the fight; he had been thrown by D’Aeth and had landed awkwardly on the stone, twisting his leg and breaking it with enough force to drive the splintered ends of the bone through the flesh.
“Oh God,” the Wolf murmured, sitting heavily on the edge of the bench.
Stutter shook his head. “You must not linger any longer to worry over us, my lord. Robert and I … we shall keep one another company, and together … we shall endeavour to keep the bastards honest. I am not nearly as good a shot as Robert, but I can keep the bows armed … and besides, you need someone to push the stones back into place behind you, or the Dragon’s men will just climb up after you. This way, perhaps they will be confused enough to have to think on it a while.”
“The lad speaks sense,” Robert admitted. “It would work in your favour for the bastards to find no answers here. And they’ll not find any, laird, not live ones. That I promise ye.”
Lucien Wardieu looked from Robert to Stutter, and it was one of the hardest things he had ever had to do, to nod assent. “If I thought there was the slightest chance—”
“There is no chance for us, laird, an’ well we know it. But there is a chance for you to lead the rest o’ the men to safety, and by God, I’ll not be the reason any more good men give their lives! Go now, laird, and God be with you.”
“God be with you,” said the Wolf, clasping hands in a reluctant farewell.
He helped Stutter to the door of the cell and squeezed himself through the hole in the wall. He stood there in the darkness, clinging to the damp stones, listening to the harsh scrape of the blocks being nudged and cajoled back into place. His heart was pounding in his chest and his brow was clammy cold. The taste of rage was strong and bitter in his mouth—rage at his own helplessness; rage over the loss of the valiant men they were leaving behind.
28
“The eagle’s eyrie,” said Lucien bluntly, “is about the most inaccessible place he could have found to put Lady Servanne. Two guards with a ready supply of arrows could hold off an army until hell froze over.”
Alaric and Gil exchanged a glance before she lowered her head and continued to bind a minor but annoyingly leaky cut on her arm.
The pitfully small group had taken refuge in one of the overgrown orchards flanking the keep, where they had an excellent overview of the castle grounds. For the time being, all was relatively peaceful, but the Wolf was certain, when the general alarm alerted the castle to the escape, the guards would be thick as fireflies, poking their torches and their swords into every nook and cranny. The orchard would not be safe for very long, nor would the routes that led to the outer walls.
As for the eyrie …
“Thank God for Biddy,” Lucien said grimly. “In truth, I never would have throught of the eyrie until after I had searched every tower and chamber within the walls.”
He finished tying up a makeshift sling for Sir Roger’s arm, studiously avoiding Alaric’s startled glance as he did so. De Chesnai had been carrying his shoulder at an odd angle and it was not until after he had stumbled and fallen that they discovered the joint had been dislocated. Lucien and Alaric had managed to reseat the shoulder, but the arm was swollen and immobile.
“Within the walls?” Alaric queried. “Are you saying this eagle’s eyrie is something other than a tower or a spire?”
“It is a single cell, built to hold a single prisoner … but I thought it had been abandoned for