Brother Cadfael 20: Brother Cadfael's Penance

The third time, as the sound faded, he felt his way to a firm grip among the branches, and began to climb.
    Almost leafless, the vine made no great stir or rustle, and the branches were twisted and gnarled but very strong. Several times on the way he had to suspend all movement and hang motionless while the watchman above halted briefly at the turn to stare out over the cleared ground, as he must have been staring at intervals all the time Yves was making his way here to the precarious shelter of the curtain wall. And once, feeling for a hold against the rounded masonry of the tower, he put his hand deep into an arrow-slit, and caught a glimmer of light within, reflected through a half-open door, and shrank back into the corner of the stonework in dread that someone might have seen him. But all continued quiet, and when he peered cautiously within there was nothing to be seen but the edge of that inner door and the sharp rim of light. Now if there should also be an unlocked door into the tower from the guardwalk. They would have been moving weapons during the day, as soon as they knew the danger, and the place for light mangons and espringales was on the wall and the towers. And stones and iron for the mangons, surely by now piled here in store, and the darts and javelins for the espringales...
    Yves waited to move again, and hoped.
    The towers of La Musarderie jutted only a shallow height beyond the crenellated wall, and the vine had pushed its highest growth beyond the level of the brattice, still clinging to the stone. He reached the stout timber barrier before he realized it, and hung still to peer over it along the gallery. He was within three paces of the guard this time when the man reached the limit of his patrol, and turned again. Yves let him withdraw half the length of his charge before daring to reach out for the solid rail where the brattice began, and swing himself over into the gallery. One more interval now before he could climb over to the guardwalk. He lay down close under one of the merlons, and let the pacing feet pass by him and again return. Then he crept cautiously through the embrasure on to the solid level of stone, and turned to the tower. Here beside it the garrison had indeed been piling missiles for the defence engines, but the door was now fast closed, and would not give to his thrust. They had not needed to use the tower to bring up their loads, there was a hoist standing by over the drop into the bailey, and just astride from it the head of one of the stairways from bailey to wall. There was but one way to go, before the watchman turned at the end of his beat. Yves went down the first steps of the flight in desperate haste, and then lowered himself by his hands over the edge, and worked his way down step by step, dangling precariously over the drop.
    He hung still as the guard passed and repassed, and then continued his aching descent, into this blessedly remote and dark corner of the ward. There was still light and sound in the distant armoury, and shadowy figures crossing in purposeful silence from hall to stores, and smithy to armoury. La Musarderie went about its siege business calmly and efficiently, not yet fully aware of the numbers ranged against them. Yves dropped the last steps of the stairway, and flattened himself back against the wall to take stock of his ground.
    It was not far to the keep, but too far to risk taking at a suspect run. He schooled himself to come out of his hiding-place and cross at a rapid, preoccupied walk, as the few other figures out thus late in the night were doing. They were sparing of torches where everything was familiar, all he had to do was keep his face averted from any source of light, and seem to be headed somewhere on garrison business of sharp importance. Had he encountered someone closely he would have had to pass by with a muttered word, so intent on his errand that he had no attention to spare for anything else. And that would have been no lie. But he reached the open door and went in without challenge, and heaved a great sigh to have got so far in safety.
    He was creeping warily along the narrow, stone-flagged passage when the chaplain emerged suddenly from a door ahead, and came towards him, with a small oil flask in his hand, fresh from feeding and trimming the altar lamp. There was no time to evade, and to have attempted it would have penetrated even the tired old man's preoccupation. Yves drew to the wall respectfully to let him