The Winter Knight, page 14
Arnau wondered where he would go. His change of direction had already labelled him unwilling to drop and confront the squire, and Arnau was in dogged pursuit above. Felipe was shouting now, raising an alarm. The attacker was clearly still keen to hide his identity, and even though he might well think himself capable of besting the squire, it would take time and risk his being caught and unmasked. Hence he was still on the run from both of them. Where, though? Arnau couldn’t see where he could go. There was a forty foot gap between the stables and the chapel.
The figure turned back towards Arnau, his face still hidden in the gloom of his hood.
He ran.
Arnau stared in shock as the man risked everything by breaking into an unsteady run along the apex of the roof, back towards Arnau’s building. There was a chance to catch up with him now. Arnau looked across at the stable roof. Here, at the courtyard side of it, the slates were some six feet lower than the ledge on which Arnau stood, and sloped vertiginously, threatening to tip any occupant out into the air.
Taking a deep breath, he braced and threw himself across onto the sloping roof.
Immediately he was sent into a plummeting slide, and his boots and bare, numb fingers scrabbled for a hold as he descended. Still, he managed to grasp an edge and slow himself much faster than the other man had. He was gaining. Concentrating, he scrabbled back up the slates, slipping here and there, but managing with more success than he’d expected. He was vaguely aware of Felipe bellowing something, but his gaze slid up to the rooftop.
That was why the man had begun to run… to gain momentum for another jump. As Arnau approached the apex, he could see that the assassin had managed to jump and grasp the heavy iron gutter that ran along the end of the dormitory block. Even now he was hauling himself up onto the next roof, above Arnau’s room. He was moving further away from Felipe and staying ahead of the knight.
Arnau grunted and clambered up to the apex finally.
My strength and my praising is the Lord; and he is made to me into health.
Lord, grant me this moment.
Taking a deep breath, he leapt up. The attacker was only moments ahead of him now, but that could still change. The hooded figure was up onto the higher roof. Arnau’s fingers touched the gutter, despite the lack of a run-up, but he missed and fell. In a desperate panic, he landed astride the roof’s apex, close to pulling muscles as his thighs strained. Yet he managed to keep his footing and steady himself. He blew on his frozen hands and rubbed them together, clapping them for warmth.
He looked up. The figure had vanished. He realised with dismay that the roof of this building actually abutted the castle’s walls, and rose a little above them. The man had probably slid down and dropped onto the wall walk.
Arnau prepared himself for another attempt. He couldn’t let the man get away and Felipe was now of little use down in the courtyard. As he flexed his fingers ready, a new voice cut in, shouting something in a deep Germanic voice. Arnau glanced over his shoulder. One of the guards had emerged from the tower above the chapel, likely drawn by Felipe’s shouts. Clearly he had seen the figure for he barked a command and drew his blade.
Arnau jumped again.
This time, his fingers wrapped around the gutter and he heaved, pulling himself up. Now there were at least three of them chasing the attacker. Every advantage helped. For moments he hung there, drawing laboured breaths, knowing how much strain and effort it was going to require to pull himself up onto the higher roof.
That was when the attacker dealt with his new problem. There was a thwacking noise and a cry. Arnau turned to see the guard fall. He wasn’t dead, or at least not from the crossbow bolt, for it thudded into his shield. However, the force of the missile threw the man sideways and he slid on the snowy stonework before plummeting over the edge, sword spinning away. He thumped into the stable roof hard and slid down it until he hit the angle where it touched the walls. There he lay, motionless.
Arnau snarled and threw his arm up, grasping the edge of the roof and pulling. He felt every muscle screaming, but he pushed on through the pain and discomfort. Too much rode upon this. His arm hooked over the roof, and he pulled himself up. In moments that seemed like hours, he managed to gain the range’s roof and breathed, steadying himself. It was an easy enough job now to pull himself up to the apex.
As he reached the crest, he looked this way and that.
The attacker was no longer visible, though the doorway to another tower stood open and inviting. Arnau fretted. The man had gone into the tower. He clearly knew his way around the castle well, while Arnau had yet to visit the wall walk and had no idea what to expect. He could see two more figures now in the courtyard, a guard and a serf, drawn to Felipe, who was pointing up at the roof.
The other guard on patrol at the walls was coming now, at a jog, emerging from a doorway over by the main block of noble apartments, but running his way. The assailant might yet be trapped!
With fresh purpose, Arnau slid down the other side of the roof and dropped to the wall walk, drawing his sword immediately and breaking into an unsteady run towards that open door. As he entered the tower, he felt a moment’s panic. His eyes were now used to the silver white of outside, and in this deep black gloom he was effectively blind. If his attacker was still guided by fight rather than flight, he could be hiding by the door, waiting to strike.
Arnau flailed this way and that in the darkness, sword wavering, but found nothing. Feeling his way forward he found another wall, and moving along it as he felt the first whisper of a breeze, finally found another door. Eyesight beginning to adjust, he ripped the door open and leapt through, sword sweeping this way and that in case of waiting killers.
The room was empty and lit at a comfortable level by three sources. Ahead, another doorway led out onto the next stretch of walls. To the right, a faint golden glow lit a spiral stairway that wound down into the tower’s heart and up to the top level. And to the left, a window stood open and unshuttered, that and the doorway being the source of that breeze he had felt around the edge of the last door.
He paused, wondering. The stairs went up and down, and there was still the gatehouse tower between him and the second wall guard who would be running his way. It was then, as his gaze wandered in indecision, that he noticed the cloak.
Hurrying across, he peered myopically down at the heap on the stone-flagged floor. It was the figure’s cowled cloak. He had shed his disguise. Arnau focused. Think. What might help? The footprints? He looked around the floor. There were wet boot marks on the cloak, but there were also wet prints all around the floor from where the wall guards had trudged back and forth over the past few hours. That would tell him nothing. And the man could now have relatively clear boots, having scuffed them on the cloak’s dry inside. He didn’t even bother examining the cloak. It would not contain any link to the killer, else he would not have shed it so readily.
He hurried over to the open window and looked down. There was no way the attacker could have left that way. A fall from there would kill the hardiest of men. Yet the window was open.
He grunted with unhappy realisation and squinted down. He could vaguely make out a mark in the snow below. The crossbow and quiver, almost certainly, discarded as evidence just as those other telltale items had been cast down the well on the night of a previous crime. No help there. The attacker would now look as he did any other day.
He ran over to the other side of the room and unlatched the hook on the shutter there, throwing it open. The courtyard came into view with an increased number of figures gathered in it.
Damn it. The gate tower along the next stretch of walls? Up the stairs? Down?
As he started down, he realised with further dismay just how easy it would have been for the figure to hide in any one of a dozen shadowed corners and allow his pursuer to slip past, then double back. Arnau had gone from close pursuit to looking for a single stalk of hay in a stook.
Furiously impotent and feeling the aches and pains of his exertions beginning to pull and claw at him, he slowly descended the steps and emerged finally, having checked every corner of both rooms on the way down, into the courtyard.
The castle’s occupants were waiting for him. His tired and disconsolate eyes played across them, trying to spot an obvious gap. There was none.
Felipe stood there with Matthias the guard and the serf Hugo. Dietmar was staring at him in deep concern, wrapped in a thick night blanket, beside him Kovacs, shivering without one. Bernhard was there, talking to Michael Trost. Leupold and Wolf together in a pair. Conrad and Gunther together. Winrich was now emerging from the gate tower, the man who had just now been running along the walls to help. That left only Otto, and Arnau could hardly load blame on him, since he currently lay at the edge of the stable roof, either unconscious or dead from his fall.
Every figure who could climb, drag a body, or might claim any skill with weapons was here now, watching him. Briefly, he wondered whether he should ask them all whence they had come, but the attacker would lie, and all the rest would have had their gazes locked upon the action atop the walls. No one would have noticed the assassin slip back in among them, cloak and weapon discarded.
His gaze swept back and forth. All of them had damp footwear now, for they had been in the snow of the courtyard, and a mess of tracks led back and forth into most doorways. Few wore cloaks, for the excitement had drawn most of them too fast to spend time preparing. Besides, he couldn’t rule anyone out on the basis of the cloak any more than footwear, since cloaks hung close to most of the castle’s external doors and it would be an easy task for the killer to acquire a new one. The only person he felt inclined to rule out from this entire group was the graf, Dietmar. Being wrapped in a night blanket, that might have been hard to acquire in a hurry, and almost certainly stated his innocence in that he must have come straight from bed.
Damn it. So close.
He rubbed his temples. Bernhard and Michael were now organising things, dispersing the people back to their places, with the exception of two guards who were detailed to fetching a ladder to bring Otto down from the stable roof, whether he be alive or dead. The crowd began to break up and head for the doors. Arnau sighed. For a moment, he almost stopped them leaving. Someone here was a killer, after all. But there was no longer any reasonable way to identify who it was, so there was little point in keeping them around. As things began to settle once more, Bernhard crossed to Arnau, Felipe following, angry and unhappy at the way things had played out.
‘It seems I may owe you an apology,’ the marshal said quietly.
‘Oh?’
‘After you produced the gate key earlier, and it occurred to me that you could not prove that you had been far away, the possibility of your guilt had nagged at me increasingly. I was almost ready to go to the graf. Though I might respect those Templars I have fought alongside, your Order maintains a reputation as insular and somewhat secretive. The idea that you might stoop to such deeds to maintain those lands Lütolf had willed you had gained traction with me.’
Arnau nodded. It certainly made sense if you didn’t know for sure that the two Templars had been far away when the young lord was killed.
‘But I think this throws new light upon that matter. And also upon the possibility that someone fled through the gate. There is a killer still among us, and that killer has begun to target you now, clearing you in my mind.’
Arnau sagged. ‘But despite this, I am no closer to identifying him.’
‘Have you nothing new to go on?’
‘No. Especially if there are two and they are working as a pair. But no, even solo I cannot identify him in a crowd. All I can say is at least one attacker is strong, dextrous, has no fear of heights, is skilled with a crossbow, and knows this castle well.’
Bernhard sighed. ‘I shall go and speak to the graf, then check on Otto. I hope for the best there, but I fear the worst.’
Arnau watched him go and was left with Felipe as the courtyard cleared. He realised then that Father Oswald had not been there. He shook his head dismissively. The old priest was hard of hearing, and probably hadn’t heard the commotion. Besides, he not only had a strong alibi, but could not possibly fit most aspects of the mould Arnau had formed for the killer.
‘What now?’ Felipe said.
‘Now, we go for a walk.’
Ignoring the quizzical looks from the squire, Arnau wandered over to the castle gate, where Wolf sat in the guard house. As Arnau approached, he realised the guard had two torches lit and the door wide open despite the cold. He was armoured with helm on head and sword bare on the table. Like all the guards, Wolf had taken to being prepared. What had happened to Anselm was not going to happen again.
Wolf spoke nothing but German, so Arnau pointed and made an unlocking motion. In moments, the guard had unlocked the door in the gate and the two Templars were stepping though it, confusion still reigning on Felipe’s face. Arnau wished momentarily that the guard spoke enough Frankish to get ideas across, and instead used pointing and motions to try and explain that they were not departing for good, and to leave the door unlocked for now.
As it shut behind them, they began to circle the castle’s walls, kneedeep in snow even at the lowest point. The sheer quantity of it confirmed the foolhardiness of any attempt to leave Renfrizhausen. Wading onwards, they passed away from the gate tower and to the next one, beside which the block housing Arnau’s room would stand.
As they waded through the snow, Arnau fretted loudly.
‘What is it, brother?’ the squire murmured, shivering.
‘This entire affair goes from bad to worse, Felipe. It may be our duty to help bring the ungodly to the light of divine justice, but we are still strangers in this place. Outsiders. Untrusted and often disliked. But despite the ill mood of the majority and the presence of an unknown killer, I had hardly expected to become a target myself. The incident at the meal might be explained away as mere chance, but not now a crossbow has been added to the arsenal being assembled against me.’
‘You have endured wars, brother,’ Felipe reminded him.
Arnau sighed. ‘War is simplicity by comparison. Fighting for our lives in Rourell, or on Mayūrqa, or even struggling to survive in Constantinople was bitter and hard work, fraught with danger. But it was clear danger. It has always been a bared sword and a screamed curse and enemies rushing at me. Against an attack like that a man can defend himself. Against a knife in the night there is no simple solution. I am a knight of the Temple, not a creature of shadows and assassin’s blades. I am not made for this kind of danger. And so we must identify the wielder of the assassin’s weapon as soon as we can.’
In order to be certain, Arnau looked up. Sure enough a square of black lay in the grey stone of the wall perhaps three quarters of the way up, the only unshuttered window.
‘Get searching in the snow,’ he told Felipe.
‘What for?’
‘A crossbow. It’s here somewhere.’
As the squire began to wade this way and that, getting into ever-deeper drifts of snow, so did Arnau. For perhaps a quarter of an hour the pair searched until Felipe gave a shout of triumph. Arnau pushed his way through the snow to the squire to find Felipe holding a crossbow.
‘What about the bolts?’
Arnau nodded, and they spent a few more minutes hunting around until they located the quiver close by, three bolts remaining in it, the others likely lost somewhere in the fall, scattered across the snow. Gathering them together, Arnau took the bolts, examining them closely, but drawing no useful conclusion. He then looked at the bow. As he turned it over, he frowned.
‘What is it?’ Felipe said.
‘I think we might finally have a useful clue to work from. I don’t think this is a standard crossbow. Admittedly I’ve never seen a German crossbow before, but I presume they’re similar to the Iberian and Frankish ones I know. This is different. More gracefully curved and ornate. This, Felipe, is a very individual weapon. With luck and the help of the Lord, we might be able to pin it to an owner.’
And with that, they turned, gripping their prizes, and began the difficult wade back to the gate.
Chapter Ten
Saturday morning
Arnau sat at the head of one of the trestle tables in the great hall, Felipe in the next seat, their prizes on the clean timber surface before them. The serfs had been in and out, preparing for the day’s first meal – a luxury that few managed, most relying upon noon for their first food, but one upon which the Ehingen lords insisted. Arnau and Felipe had not returned to their beds after their night-time adventure. Neither had felt a great urge for slumber, and both men were far too tense and alert for such, and so they had cleaned up and dried the items they had found in the snow and spent the next few hours fruitlessly going over everything they knew once more.
They had attended the morning service. Father Oswald rather slyly combined lauds with matins, given the late hour of dawn at this time of the year, and yet still apart from the two Templars, the only attendees were the priest himself and the marshal, a former Crusader whose devotion to the cross still drew him to each canonical service despite his current lay profession.
Three psalms, rote prayers, hymn, chant, reading and versicle, and Father Oswald had blessed them and released them once more to their worldly activities. The old priest had not been particularly pleased that Arnau and Felipe had brought a crossbow into the chapel, but had acquiesced eventually. The Templars were not about to let out of their sight the one piece of evidence they felt they could rely upon.
Following the service, they had returned to the hall and waited. The pair had sat as the places were set about them, comfortable that there was plenty of space for each occupant to sit at a table and still leave room for them. After all, Anselm would no longer need a place at table, and Otto would not be attending breakfast either. The guard who had fallen from the wall had survived, it seemed, and was in his rooms now, being tended to as best they could by the serfs and his friends. He seemed to have a broken arm and some damage to his chest, but his breathing seemed normal and no blood came with his toilet, so everyone was confident that unless some infection took him, he would pull through.
