Siege Perilous Read online

  Raphael began to walk toward him.

  Ocyrhoe had watched the entire duel with her hands still bound loosely before her. As Dietrich fell, the dismayed Livonian holding the rope forgot about her and let go her tether, but she could not actually release her wrists from bondage. As the disorder in the courtyard grew louder, she put all her attention into trying to untie the knot that kept her hands held tight together. It was awkward and obvious; she turned away from the Livonians and Father Sinibaldo to shield her attempts from view, but her efforts were abysmal; her fingers could barely curl tightly enough to even touch the knot, let alone untie it. She tried bringing it to her mouth, working the rough, hempen cord with one hand while pulling it in the other direction with her teeth. That loosened something but she could not make out what it was because it was too close to see. She released it from her teeth, but when she lowered her hands her fingers jerked involuntarily and retightened what she had just loosened. With a growl of frustration, she tried again.

  She was operating by feel, not sight; she could not see what she was doing, and her gaze wandered aimlessly over her left shoulder, toward Father Sinibaldo. The Livonians had shifted their position to face off against the archbishop’s soldiers, so Sinibaldo was standing alone.

  Very close to the limestone bulge on which stood the grail.

  Toward which His Holiness subtly took a sidewise step.

  Desperately she looked around for Raphael or Vera, but they were kneeling by Percival, and she could not see them in the fray.

  She glanced over her right shoulder. The Narbonne soldiers were nearby her but if she backed up ten paces she would be closer to Hugue’s bodyguards and the other hostages. She looked back over her left shoulder.

  Father Sinibaldo took another step toward the cup. He was at most three paces away from it now, and nobody was paying any attention to him.

  Ocyrhoe brought the rope back to her mouth and tugged desperately at a new bump in the knot. Something gave. Carefully, she crooked the little finger of her left hand into the opening she had created to hold the cord where it was, then released her bite from that and tried gently tugging on another curve in the knot. This tightened the cord over her pinkie; she stopped tugging.

  Sinibaldo took a step closer to the grail.

  Ocyrhoe tugged at another part of the knot. It resisted, then suddenly released, and even the loop over her pinkie grew more slack. She closed her lips over it and pulled some more. Something tightened in the knot, something loosened, and she released it to try another angle.

  Sinibaldo took a step closer to the grail. He could have reached down and grabbed it.

  Ocyrhoe sidled toward him as she continued to pull at the knot with her teeth and tongue. The coarse fibers splintered off and tickled the back of her mouth unpleasantly, making her eyes water. Her stare stayed bent on the holy father now, frantically trying to will the cup away from him. If she released the knot to shout out a warning, she’d never figure out how to get her mouth back to the particular place it was now, just about to release the knot.

  Father Sinibaldo reached down slowly and picked up the cup. He slipped it into the folds of his robes, then released both hands so that he stood there looking innocuous. He had a small satchel tied under his arm, or a pocket sewn into a layer of his clothing—wherever he had put it, he had come prepared to snatch it away in case Dietrich did not prevail. He had orchestrated the post-duel tension, starting with the archbishop’s late arrival.

  With a desperate tug, Ocyrhoe finally released the knot, spat out the hemp fibers, and screamed, “Raphael!” as loud as she could, although she would never be heard above the fray. She ran at Fieschi, now about ten paces away from her.

  As she ran, she saw Raphael approaching him briskly but respectfully. He noticed Raphael, but not her, and seemed also to respond to something Raphael was calling out to him. He held up both hands, fingers spread, and hollered.

  “Soldiers and gentlemen!” Sinibaldo de Fieschi’s voice echoed off the courtyard walls. “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, for whose sake all of us are assembled here today, remember we are met in peace here! Stand down! Lower your fists! Do not draw your weapons!”

  Remarkably, everyone obeyed him instantly. His voice was not the loudest or the deepest or the most passionate that had called out today; indeed there was something thin and cold about it. But Sinibaldo Fieschi had a presence that drew attention like a magnet when he so desired.

  The courtyard quieted, and Ocyrhoe paused a moment. Raphael was standing right next to His Holiness, and His Holiness was successfully restraining the tension; she was not impetuous enough to disregard that. Raphael would attend to the cup.

  “Bless you, my children, for heeding me,” said the priest, with an aura of confidence that even the archbishop lacked. “Let us remember we are here to end strife, not to reignite it. Let the religious leaders debate amongst themselves—if debate even exists—what is proper in the eyes of God. The rest of you must only respect the terms of the truce. Those of the fortress, remain here until morning; as for the hostages and soldiers of the camp, the spectacle is ended and it is time for us to return to the foot of the pog and attend to the funereal needs of our fallen champion. It is disrespectful to him for all of you to bicker mindlessly among yourselves while his slain body lies on the bloody ground. Offer your enemies the sign of peace. Now. Surely His Eminence the archbishop desires to see as much?” He gestured across the yard to Pierre Amelii.

  The archbishop was thrown, but recovered quickly. “It is a decent priest who says as much,” he declared loftily. “Turn to each other now with the sign of peace.”

  That would never happen, but the men at least muttered with a gloss of shame as their hands released sword hilts and they stepped away from each other, dissolving bonds intended for combat. As Ocyrhoe watched, Raphael thanked Sinibaldo, eyeing him meaningfully. Suddenly from the center of the yard came a groan and Vera’s voice calling urgently “Raphael!” Raphael turned to hurry back to Percival.

  He had not realized the cup was missing.

  “Raphael!” Ocyrhoe shouted, running again. “The cup! He took the cup!”

  Sinibaldo heard her voice and began to run from both Raphael and her toward the smaller gate on the eastern side of the courtyard, the one they had used through all the months of siege. There was no porter attending it, and on the other side was the entire mountainside.

  Raphael looked confused, not sure where the voice came from, not hearing it clearly over the muttering of the courtyard, and mostly concerned with seeing to his wounded friend. Fieschi’s long legs took him quickly toward the gate. Ocyrhoe shouted in alarmed frustration, prayed to Ferenc’s memory for the speed and strength to overtake the priest, and ran as fast as she had ever run in her life.

  Fieschi grabbed the bolt of the gate, pushed it open, and stepped out of the fortress onto the mountaintop.

  CHAPTER 41:

  RECKONINGS

  Outside the gate, Ocyrhoe sprinted around in front of Father Sinibaldo and stared at him, wild-eyed and defiant. He drew up short, surprised by the fierceness of her look. She threw herself at him, grabbing at his torso to seek out the concealed cup. He was much taller than she was, and it was easy enough for him to grab her head with his hand and push her back by straightening his arm. But Ocyrhoe, like a feral, rabid creature, used his arm like a taut rope, climbing hand over hand back toward him to grab his torso again. She saw a small bulge on the left side of his chest—the cup must be in a pocket sewn into his mantle there. She tried to lunge for it, but he grabbed her by the hair with his right hand to push her away again. She clutched his wrist and hung from his outstretched arm, quickly raised both legs off the ground, and slammed the soles of her feet against the outside of his right knee.

  The priest groaned and sank to the left, pulling her down with him as he still held her hair with his right hand. He used his
left hand to try to break the force of the stumbling fall, then resettled his weight onto both knees. He grabbed the back of Ocyrhoe’s head with his left hand now as well as his right, and smashed her head face-down against the ground.

  Ocyrhoe screamed as the force of the push slammed her nose against the limestone. Stars exploded behind her eyes and a freezing-burning sensation erupted over her entire face. She could not see, she tasted blood. He pulled at her hair, lifting her head again, and she tensed for a second impact.

  But instead the priest released her and began gingerly to rise. She saw his left foot tense and move back a little; she realized that in her bent-over position he was perfectly situated to kick her in the stomach. She tried to move away but the pain in her face disoriented her.

  Miraculously, he did not kick her. He gave her a warning look, straightened his robes, and began to move away. We’re being watched, she realized with relief.

  She pushed herself gingerly upright, staring at him as he limped along the narrow ridge to the barbican. Obviously he did not want to go back into the courtyard. In the barbican—full of French soldiers half-drunk from a fortnight’s truce—he could easily find a place to hide it, and then claim he had no idea where it had got to.

  She stared at his limping form, enraged. She wiped her sleeve across her face and it came away sticky and wet with blood. Hardly noticing, Ocyrhoe screamed viciously and jumped to her feet. She threw herself at the priest from behind, leaping up at his back so that she landed with her legs wrapped around his ribs and her arms around his shoulders. He staggered and tried to push her off but she was frantically kinetic. Scrambling, she swung her right leg up so that her knee hooked over his right shoulder; she pressed the back of her heel hard against his chest, to anchor herself. Secure in that hold, she let go of both hands so that her slight torso dropped back and down, to smack, inverted, against Sinibaldo’s back; her head bounced once against his lower back and then she twisted up and to the left, and with both hands reached under his left arm to try to find the cup.

  Sinibaldo, stumbling along the narrow ridge under her shifting weight, lifted his bent left arm, preparing to shove it back and elbow her in the face.

  She saw his elbow rise and reached up for it before it could begin its backward motion. Pulling herself upright with leverage from her right knee, she grabbed his left elbow with her right hand when the elbow was at its highest point, and then redirected the force of his thrust, forcing his elbow out and then up over his own head. His center of gravity completely thrown, he staggered almost right off the ridge. As he stumbled toward the barbican, Ocyrhoe kept pushing his arm up with her right hand, while with her left, she reached down and around his left side, into the folds of his robes. Her fingers brushed against warm metal; she pulled at it and felt the cup in her grip, the curve of it like an old friend’s hand taking hers. The sensation of touching it sated something in her, like water sates dry ground.

  Her fingertips quickly brushed across it, remembering the bumps and ridges of the chasework. Then with a cry, she hurled it as far away as she could, following the arc of its escape with her eyes. She saw it land and was grateful she had not just accidentally thrown it off the cliff—where they were themselves in danger of ending up.

  Father Sinibaldo stumbled on toward the far end of the ridge, trying to reach the broader plain before he fell under her furious writhing. Before he could quite get to safety, however, he was buffeted hard by the back-and-forth weight shift of her throwing the cup out of reach. He bent awkwardly at different angles and clawed the air before him in wild directions trying to right himself; but he began to fall, and falling, he began to twist so that his weight would land on top of hers.

  Ocyrhoe, feeling what was happening, glanced around and realized they would hit the ground at the very edge of the ridge. If she obeyed the instinctual urge to leap away from him as he fell, she would throw herself off the cliff. Instead, she ignored the nauseated feeling in her gut as his tall frame turned, pulling her beneath him as the ground seemed to rush up toward them. She gritted her teeth and stayed inert until the last possible moment—then grabbed his arm as if he were a heavy blanket she were trying to pull over herself. At the moment they should have landed on the ridge, instead they slipped down over the edge of it and Sinibaldo, in a panicked reaction, grappled for purchase above him on the ridge itself. His left hand found a rock, and his right some indentation in the frozen earth from an earlier scuffle. Both of these he grabbed for life and stopped himself from tumbling down the cliff face; in stopping his own fall he also stopped Ocyrhoe’s. She was now in the better position mechanically; she propelled herself up off of him and back onto the ridge, then turned back to face him.

  Had she an axe she could have chopped off both his hands and watched him fall helplessly to his death below on the hard steep slopes. He looked at her, a fear and an alarm in his eyes that until this moment had been unimaginable to her. It blazed new fury and a sense of power in her.

  “Murderer,” she hissed at him. “Thief. Scoundrel. Agent of Satan.”

  He could not answer; his energy and focus was all on keeping his precarious grip on the ridge. His feet flailed, trying to find purchase on the nearly vertical surface below.

  She could have left him there, but the soldiers from the barbican had seen them now and were surely headed their way; once they saved him, he would be in charge again. He would hound her forever. She looked at his hands and considered shoving him off the edge, but that was dangerous: as soon as she’d pried his fingers loose, those same fingers could easily grab her and take her with him to a gruesome death, dashed on the rocks below. She must somehow dispatch him here, and quickly.

  With an aggravated sound she reached for his shoulder and grabbed his mantle, throwing her weight backward to try to drag him back up onto horizontal ground.

  Her effort helped a little, but confused him greatly. Again she leaned forward, grabbing for his shoulders, throwing her weight backward and inching him slightly higher onto the ridge.

  Enough of his upper body was on level ground now that he could pull himself up. He kicked away from the cliff face and rolled to safety on the ridge.

  In the brief moment that he lay supine before collecting himself to rise, Ocyrhoe threw herself on top of him, straddling his torso and diving for his face with her muddied, outstretched fingers.

  Immediately Father Sinibaldo reached up to grab her around the throat; quicker than he was, she hunched her shoulders, darted underneath his arms, and threw her body flat onto his, scratching at his face, trying to find his eyes with her fingers while her teeth, bloodied from her close encounter with the ground, reached for his nose to bite it hard. He shouted and tried to push her off, but she leaned even harder against him. “Murderer!” she shouted in his ear and then champed her teeth down hard on the ear itself, flinging her head side to side to try to rip it from his head. He cried out in alarm again and brought both hands up to her face to try to force her jaw open. She clutched at his skull, grabbing a fistful of his thick, greying hair, scratching his scalp so fiercely in the process his head began to bleed. Desperately he released her head and tried to grab and shove at her, but she was a whirlwind, crazed and frantic.

  Finally he got a grip on her shoulders and used brute force to fling her away. But the hand that held a clump of his hair stayed gripped at his scalp, and so his intended fling simply arced the rest of her body up and over to land beside him on the ground; her free left hand, the lightest and least anchored thing on her, flipped further over and smacked the earth right beside the rock he’d grabbed when they nearly went off the cliff. It was a small rock, and mostly loosened from his grappling it before. She grabbed it and reversed the arc of movement: she brought her left arm to her right, walloping him on the forehead with the rock.

  Sinibaldo screamed and jerked briefly, dazed by the blow. She let go of his hair and scrambled to her feet, still holding t
he rock.

  Ocyrhoe looked at the rock. She looked at his unprotected head. She looked back at the rock. And back at his head.

  She fell to her knees on the damp ground and smashed the rock hard against the priest’s temple. He groaned and writhed. “Whoreson murderer!” she shrieked, and bashed him again.

  The frozen ground shuddered with the footsteps of French soldiers from the barbican. After one final shriek of rage, Ocyrhoe leapt up a moment before gloved hands could grab her and sprinted across the mountaintop toward the spot where she had seen the grail fall.

  CHAPTER 42:

  DEPARTURES

  Raphael pushed through the gate and ran along the ridge toward the barbican. A crowd of French soldiers gathered around an inert figure on the ground; a few soldiers were running across the mountain crest as if searching for something.

  “What’s happened?” he demanded.

  “The girl and the priest fought,” said a Frenchman with a captain’s crest. “The priest is wounded very badly and the girl has disappeared.”

  “What do you mean, disappeared?” Raphael demanded. “Look around, man. It’s a mountaintop. There’s no place for her to disappear to.”

  “Tunnels,” said the French soldier brusquely. “She disappeared into a tunnel.” He whistled loudly; his comrades bounding over the ridge stopped and looked back. He shook his head once and broadly gestured them to return. “If she’s out of sight now, she’s gone for good.” He gave Raphael an appraising look. “Are you the Levantine heretic who knows how to heal? This priest needs your help.”

  The archbishop had prevailed. Father Sinibaldo, who had advocated forgiving the Good Ones, lay unconscious in the village, tended to by Raphael; the Good Ones made no argument in their own defense; Percival had regained consciousness, suffering strained muscles and a vicious headache, but suffering far more from knowing he had won the right to save them, and suffering most of all from the grail’s disappearance. All night, he ranged wildly over the mountaintop crying out Ocyrhoe’s name, like a hound baying for its missing master.