The Edge of the Blade Read online

  The Edge of the Blade

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Disclaimer

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Part Two

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Part Three

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Part Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Part Five

  Chapter Thirty Four

  About the Author

  Copyright

  The Edge of the Blade

  Graham Shelby

  This book contains views and language on nationality, sexual politics, ethnicity, and society which are a product of the time in which the book is set. The publishers do not endorse or support these views. They have been retained in order to preserve the integrity of the text.

  Bill and Anne, Voyagers and harbourmasters both

  Part One

  The House of Tremellion

  Chapter One

  The siting of the castle had added two hours to his journey; the time it took to skirt around the bleak Cornish ridge. It was his grandfather’s fault – well, no, entirely to the old man’s credit – that Tremellion stood where it did. Its broad back to the north, the castle dominated the ridge. The base of its outer wall was planted sixty feet up from the Hexel River. The wall itself rose another twenty-two feet, its long northern side further strengthened by four semicircular towers. But only a madman – an army commanded by a madman – would attempt to scale that near vertical face.

  Indeed, it would be lunacy to choose either route, for the now dead Sir William Falkan had, as was said, chosen his perch with care.

  Nevertheless, admiration for Sir William’s cunning found no place today in the travel-weary Baynard Falkan. He was soaked to the skin, his hands and face slapped raw by a bitter March wind, the nagging pain of toothache in his lower jaw. The nearest physician was, where? In Launceston? Too far away. No choice then but to submit to the less-than-tender mercies of Constable Guthric. Think of that and maybe the pain itself would cringe and grow quiet…

  Tremellion had never housed much by way of a garrison; few castles did. Fifty men was fifty mouths to feed, fifty bodies to be lodged, clothed, armed. It was unnecessary in time of peace, easy enough to recruit from the villages if war or menace loomed. A castle was not, after all, an hospice, and the ashlar blocks of Tremellion were its most daunting show of strength.

  So Baynard’s escort consisted of no more than five men-at-arms – a quarter of Tremellion’s watchguards – and the two servants who occupied themselves with the baggage, the crude leather tents, the purchase and cooking of food. The tents had been pitched on a dozen separate occasions during Baynard’s month-long absence, though part of the month had been spent at his destination, an island fortress off Cornwall’s north-west coast. A memorable experience, once the choppy crossing had been made, for the castellan of Ardelet Island was an old friend of Baynard’s father. They’d been on crusade, these two grizzled warriors, and the master of Ardelet had welcomed Sir Geoffrey’s son. Eager questions were answered with a full and courteous response, and Baynard had been deemed worthy of further introduction to the household. This came in the shape – and the very shapely shape – of Ardelet’s two young daughters, each of whom decided the tall, wiry visitor was for her. They set out to charm him, amuse him, impress him with their accomplishments – and all the while speak sweet poison of each other. Delighted to find himself in such fragrant demand, the young Baynard Falkan might have bedded them both, dreamed of it certainly, regretting the fact that the island baron was a friend and ally of Tremellion. He imagined how it might have been if… This girl tonight perhaps, that one… Or even, well, why not, it was possible, he was lusty enough, God knew, why not the three of them together, churning and writhing on a bed of skins and fur…

  To hell with honour. Discipline be damned. Would Ranulf have withheld? Cul de diable, he would not! Given the chance, the merest whisper of a chance, and Baynard’s hulking, self-serving brother took his pleasure wherever, whenever he could.

  Wet through and whipped by the wind, the younger Falkan led his escort across the moorland and around the western base of the brutal ridge. He found fault with his grandfather for having positioned Tremellion so. Found fault with Sir Geoffrey for having instilled in him the precepts of knighthood. Felt ashamed of himself, remembering what Ardelet’s daughters had asked him as he’d prepared to leave the island. One of them sidling close to inquire, ‘These few scant days you’ve spent with us here, Sir Baynard. Is it truly all you’ve spent?’ And then the other, softly edging him aside to murmur, ‘You seem so complete in your bearing, Baynard Falkan. What a pity the weakness is so very well disguised.’

  As for Ranulf, who might by now possess the county’s most extensive collection of faults, vices, iniquities, sins and imperfections, it made Baynard grind his teeth – and wince as he enraged the ache – to realise he actually envied his elder brother. Not always. Indeed rarely. But at this moment, setting honour and duty in the scales, then balancing them with the imagined nakedness of the girls, then yes, just for the instant he saw a devilish wisdom in Ranulf’s view of life.

  * * *

  By the time the travellers reached the entrance to the ravine, the elements of weather had combined to a harsh spring storm. Rain flooded the southern side of the ridge, splashing up at the riders, buffeting their horses. The early evening sky was shutting up shop. Oddly, there was a mutter of appreciation from the escort, thankful that Baynard had driven them hard, goading them all day, bringing them home to Tremellion before dark.

  But if home be thought of as the gateway to the castle, it was still a long way off. Not so far in distance, no more than two hundred yards, yet two hundred yards that exemplified Sir William’s cunning, the talents of his architects, the skills of the Cornish masons.

  Here, to the south, the ridge was partially severed by a deep, natural ravine. The floor of this gully sloped upward, its sides chipped smooth, offering nothing by way of a foothold to the invader. You would attempt to climb the steep granite ridge, or you would come along the cutting, the choice was yours. But once on the ridge, you would be vulnerable to arrow-shot from the wall, from the gatehouse, from the fists of the southern towers. Your ladders would slip on the escarpment, your flesh seared to the bone by boiling lead, tipped from large hinged cauldrons. Sharp-edged rocks would kill you outright, or smash you, horribly wounded, to the grassless foot of the slope. You would not, unless led by some madman, even attempt the ridge. All you would do – all you could do – was battle your way the length of the ravine.

  If Tremellion was Sir William Falkan’s finest achievement, the southern approach was his chef d’oeuvre. He’d found this te
rm appropriate, for the fortifications of this minor Cornish castle had been inspired by one he’d seen in Southern France. A fortress built to withstand the ravages of the Moors, sweeping up through Spain. A frontier fortress, with a similar narrow approach, offering the enemy the same limited choice. Scale the rocks and perish in the attempt, or see how far you could get along the gully.

  The problem was simple, the solution yet to be found, for the narrow upward cutting that led to Tremellion incorporated a series of walls. This one jutted from the righthand side, that from the left, forcing the attacker, even the visitor, even the homecoming Baynard and his men, to zigzag their way around the end of one wall, cross the width of the ravine, then zigzag again. And again around eight separate high stone hedges.

  To make matters worse, an iron-strapped door closed off the entrance to the cutting, with a second door halfway up. Reduce them to splinters and you’d reach the upper end of the ravine – peering at the massive towers of the gatehouse, and trapped in a well of walls.

  It had yet to be proved that anyone could enter Tremellion, without first being admitted by the Falkans.

  * * *

  But Baynard was recognized, the door held open, greetings voiced by the guards. Dulled with fatigue, he climbed from his horse, his link-mail hauberk heavy on his body, his linen surcoat drenched to a rag, the quilted undergarment wet and ponderous. He lifted his acorn-shaped helmet from his head, fished inside it for the cord, looped the leather thong around the pommel of his saddle. Pushing back the mail hood, and with it the hood of the gambeson, he let the cold rain drum the sweat of travel from his hair. He turned then to his escort, managed something of a smile and led them through the ascending alleys, guiding his horse, but allowing the palfrey to nudge him up the slopes.

  Twenty years of age, the younger son of the Falkans of Tremellion, Baynard let the horse chest him forward, jolting his senses awake…

  He’d done what he’d been sent to do, delivered a letter to the Lord of Ardelet…

  Accepted a written reply… safe in his saddlebag… addressed to Sir Geoffrey Falkan…

  Enjoyed his stay on the island… Relished the company of the daughters… Suffered the ache in his groin… Suffered it worse when they’d said what they’d said… Not having spent himself… So well disguising his weakness…

  But that was just a midden of a thing to say… What did they expect, those frivolous, flouncing women, that he should seduce the daughters of his father’s lifelong friend? See the result of that next winter! The two girls, isolated on their island, each with an infant sired by Ardelet’s guest! Try explaining that to their father! Try explaining it to his own father! Where then the precepts of knighthood?

  The palfrey continued to chest him up the ramps. Guards signalled a welcome from the second iron-strapped door. It pleased them to see Baynard home again. A decent young fellow, Baynard Falkan. He held honour well. But what a blighted shame he wouldn’t inherit Tremellion. It’d go to Ranulf, of course. Had to; had to go to the elder son. Point of law; tradition; the way it always was…

  Baynard stumbled on the rough-hammered cobbles of the ramp. Pain jarred through his body, found its way upward and set the tooth in his jaw dancing with agony… It reminded him of the man he most respected in the world. After the recently crowned King Richard, of course. And the heroes of the Crusades. And the heroes of legend. And Sir William Falkan. And his father, Sir Geoffrey, though admiration was mingled with love, that was the difference…

  But the man Baynard most respected was the Constable of Tremellion, the more-or-less-forty-year-old chewed and scarred assembly of muscle that was Guthric. Unsure of his age, he possessed less imagination than a backward flea, less knowledge of poetry and music than an ill-tempered brachet hound. His humour swung from the gallows, his opinions of the world as rough and pitted as his own pock-marked skin. There was no profit in trading wit with Constable Guthric; he’d take what was offered and crush it beneath the heel of his dour response.

  And yet his values were hard to fault. Foremost among them was his loyalty to Sir Geoffrey, the protection of Tremellion, the hard, unyielding eye he cast upon Ranulf and Baynard. Ranulf had learned to sneer at Guthric, talk of him as a worn-out creature, a remnant who’d outlived his time. But this same sneering Ranulf had never said as much to Guthric’s face… Wouldn’t dare to… Who in all of England would be quite as stupid as that?

  The gatehouse loomed. A clever gatehouse, since an attacking force would have to follow a turn in the wall, the sudden angle jamming their approach to the eastern bailey. And all the while, above their heads they’d find meurtrières, murder-holes through which the defenders would loose their arrows, drip the ghastly, flesh- corroding lead…

  Baynard led his companions through the arch below the portcullis, around the righthand turn of the tunnel, out into the bailey. The palfrey gave him a final nudge and he caressed the animal, wiping the rain from its muzzle. He didn’t expect his father to venture out in such dismal weather; knew for certain his brother wouldn’t trouble to do so. As for Guthric, well, Guthric was probably busy—

  ‘You got back all of a piece then. There’s visitors here, Sir Baynard, come from Outremer. Pity you wasn’t home afore midday, ’stead of dawdling down from the coast. Been nice to have seen the Falkans out to greet ’em. The best food’s been eaten, though you might find something set by for you in the kitchen.’

  And there he was, the grim, indestructible Guthric. Set like some snouty bear in the entrance to the guardhouse, his massive frame tented in a peaked leather hood that spilled to form a cloak. He gazed unblinking at Tremellion’s younger son, ignoring the sag of Baynard’s shoulders, his admission of fatigue.

  A month away, and the dark-skinned Baynard wanted to tell the constable he was pleased to be home. But Guthric would shrug the sentiment aside – a month away and Baynard was half a day late. Hadn’t got back in time to greet the travellers from Palestine. So Baynard let his greeting go unspoken, and asked instead who they were, these overseas callers.

  ‘They hadn’t stated their business when I left ’em,’ the constable growled. ‘But my guess is they’re recruiting. Men or money. They’re acting so polite with Sir Geoffrey, there’s bound to be a begging bowl brought out.’

  ‘Will you see to the horses,’ Baynard said. ‘I’ve a letter should be delivered to my father.’ He unstrapped the saddlebag, a protective pouch for Ardelet’s reply.

  Guthric turned aside, barking a command to someone inside the guardhouse. A man emerged, nodded at Baynard, caught at the bridle of his horse. The weary young Falkan started through the muddy spread of the bailey, halting when he heard the constable add his name. ‘There’s a young woman with them. Better you should show you’re half alive than look half dead.’ Then he barked again at the ostler, leaving Baynard Falkan to make of that what he would.

  * * *

  The ravine maze was not the only barrier Sir William had devised against a would-be attacker.

  Once through the gatehouse you were in the eastern bailey, the long outer yard of the castle. Swarm across it and all you’d take were the stables, the chapel, one of Tremellion’s three wells. You’d kill some of the garrison – those in the gatehouse, the guardhouse – but all the while you would be prey to the shafts loosed from the towers and the curtain wall.

  The same height as the outer walls of the fortress, the curtain cut Tremellion neatly in half. Angling a little off-centre from the north wall to the southern gatehouse, it contained its own fortified entrance. Seize the eastern bailey, and you were only halfway home.

  Baynard tramped through the entranceway, followed the wide stone path to the lake, crossed the wooden bridge and climbed the final ramp to the solid, rectangular keep. A moment’s pause and he was admitted to the damp, unwelcoming structure that was home to the Falkans. Here, beyond the portcullis and double-barred doors of the keep, he was faced with a choice. Climb the spiral stairs on the left to the Great Hall of the castle, or the
narrower spiral on the right that led up to his chamber. Grunting a reply to the watchguard’s greeting, he gestured to the man to unlock the door to the private stairs. Then he toiled his way upward, clutching at the newel post, feeling the beads of wetness that exuded from the stones. Thirty-six steps – always spiralling right so a defender could use his sword, an attacker forced to switch hands – and he emerged in a narrow passageway, illuminated by a single bracket torch.

  The first door on the left admitted to his own bachelor room. Opposite was Ranulf’s chamber, the widower Sir Geoffrey’s at the end of the passage. This last chamber was extensive, shared until three years ago by Sir Geoffrey and the Lady Elena. But the Greek-born mother of Ranulf and Baynard had died, along with countless thousands of others, in the winter epidemic of 1187, leaving the Lord of Tremellion to prowl the quarters, alone.

  Entering his own austere cell, Baynard’s sole desire was to drop the saddlebag, divest himself of the heavy, link-mail hauberk, unlace the quilted gambeson and stretch out on the narrow, leather-braced bed. Surely Ardelet’s letter could wait till tomorrow. Surely too, the youngest of the Falkans would not be needed when the begging bowl was passed around by the visitors from distant Outremer.

  On the other hand, there was the thing Guthric had told him; the remark that he’d better look half alive than half dead, for a woman was with them, across there in the Hall. Not just any woman. The constable wouldn’t send him to meet some thrice-married hag. What the Saxon had meant was that Baynard would do well to summon his energies, perch with the other Falkans – and see for himself if the visitor took his fancy.

  * * *

  He struck a flint, touched a taper to the spark, carried the flame to a squat, ringed candle. By the time he had stripped, sluiced his body from a basin of cold water, raked his hair with an ebony comb and dressed in a plain, belted shift, dry shoes and a mantle pinned at the shoulders, the candle had burned a quarter of its way to the next hour-mark ring.