Brother Cadfael 06: A Virgin In The Ice

the parapet, with a furious lunge that might well have hurled him over. By instinct he had held his tongue, and made no sound. Now, suddenly released, he felt his knees give way under him, and stiffened them indignantly. He still had not uttered word or cry. He held that thought to him like an accolade, and stood doggedly waiting for the pounding of his heart to ease. It was an achievement that he stood erect at all.
    Alain le Gaucher stood with hands spread along the merlons, grimly watching the besiegers draw off into the gully. The three of his men who had followed him aloft here stood waiting for his orders. So did Yves, bracing himself not to quail when the thick, powerful body swung round on him, and the fiery eyes hung on him with calculating intensity.
    "So the brat has his value still, if not in money! Good reason to hold him fast, we may have to make further use of him to the same end. Oh, they'll not go far out of sight, I know - not yet, not until they've tried every roundabout way they can find, and been baulked at every attempt by a small knife at a small piglet's throat. Now we know they'll dance to our tune. Imp, you may yet be worth an army to us."
    Yves found no comfort in that. They would not even seek a ransom for him, his value as a hostage being far higher, now that their fortress was known. They could not hide it again, and enjoy the secrecy of their night exploits by wiping out every witness, as before. But for some while, at least, they could go on repeating the threat to kill their prisoner, perhaps even bargain with his life for freedom to march out unchallenged and resume their activities elsewhere. But no, Hugh Beringar would not so tamely give up, nor would he leave a hostage in such hands a moment longer than he must He would find some way, short of frontal assault, of breaking into this lair. Yves did his best to believe that, and kept his face expressionless and his mouth shut.
    "You, Guarin, stay here with him. You shall be relieved of the watch before dark, and he'll give you no trouble. Short of clambering over the parapet and dashing his brains out below, what can he do? And I fancy he's not yet so mad with fear as to choose that way. Who knows, he may even come to like the life with us - eh, chicken?" He jabbed a hard finger into Yves's ribs and laughed. "Have your dagger ready. If they come out of hiding, if you see any of them making roundabout to come at us, challenge on the instant, and repeat the threat. And if they persist," he said, with a sudden snap of large teeth like a trap closing, "bleed him! If it comes to worse yet, I'll take the knife myself. Me they'll believe!"
    The man called Guarin nodded and grinned, and loosened his dagger in its sheath, suggestively.
    "The rest of you, down, and we'll make better dispositions. I want a watch on every foot of our boundaries. They'll be probing busily before they give up from the cold. There's no sheriff born is going to camp in the open up here in such a winter. Not for longer than a night."
    There was a ring set into the trap, by which to lift it. He set his own great hand to it, and heaved it out as easily as lifting a ladle, and dropped it with a hollow thud upon the boards. Below, it could be secured by bolts, the metal rang as it fell.
    "We'll shut you up here, for safety's sake. Never fret, you shall have your food brought, and quit your watch by twilight, but with this chick fresh from the egg I take no chances. He's too effective a tool to risk." He clouted Yves on the shoulder in passing, as forthrightly as he had stroked the knife across his throat, and plunged through the trap, swinging down the tall ladder to the next floor. His men followed him briskly. Guarin hauled the trap into place, and they both heard the bolts slide into their sockets below, and the last man clambering down the ladder.
    The two of them were left in their rough timber eyrie, staring at each other. There was frozen snow under their feet, and frost in the air they breathed. Yves licked dried blood from his lip, and looked about him for the most favourable ground. The tower had been built high enough to command as wide a view as possible, without allowing its own outline to stare too obviously above the line of the rock. The wall surrounding it rose breast-high to him before the merlons began, he could lean between them and look out every way, but to the rear, above the sheer cliffs, he could see only the rim of the escarpment, and beyond,