In the deepening shadows, Aarak saw that this was one of the newest types of castles. Built of stone because it could be made taller, less inclined than the wooden ones to be gutted by fire, and sturdy enough to repel most kinds of attacks. Melancholy lute music came from a lighted window in one of the towers, and laughter could be heard from somewhere within the lower regions.
The bridge was down over the moat, and it was from this opening that three horses charged from the castle and stormed directly toward him. Weapons were drawn. Shouts covered the sweet music and the guttural laughter. The three soldiers swept down on Aarak like hungry beasts.
He knew not to run or to offer any resistance. One soldier stayed in the saddle as the other two jumped to the ground and came at him, one with his sword, the other with his club.
“I am a peaceful man,” Aarak said, the wind chilling him suddenly.
“That is not what the castle’s seer says of you,” said the one with the club. “He believes you mean to do the lord great harm.”
And with that, he swung the club so that it connected perfectly with the left side of Aarak’s skull. Aarak’s last thought was that he could not remember ever being knocked out with such precision or speed. He slumped to the ground.
The seer, as seers often were, was blind. Or at least pretended to be. Even indoors, he kept the cowl of his silken gown tight against his bald scalp as he leaned over the cot, where Aarak was just now coming to.
“They should not have clubbed you so hard,” said the seer, a scrawny man of great age who smelled of herbs and bad wine.
After feeling Aarak’s face-apparently searching for his mouth-the seer began pouring wine into where he thought Aarak’s mouth was. He missed by several inches. The red wine ran down the assassin’s jaw and neck.
“Does that taste good?” the old one said.
“Let me lick some off the floor and I’ll tell you.”
“The floor?”
“Yes, unfortunately you didn’t get any in my mouth.”
The seer laughed. “Being blind does have its limitations, I’m afraid.”
Aarak sat up and eased himself off the cot, placing his feet on the floor. His head pounded. He seized the wine bottle from the seer’s frail hand and took a swig that would have caused a normal man to vomit. He handed the bottle back and looked around the small room. Aarak enjoyed reading, but was not in any sense educated. But he recognized the symbols drawn on the wall. Druidic. This was the part of England where the Druids had once prospered. The symbols, heavily black, took on a menacing sheen in the jittery light of the three candles that lit the room.
The seer used his long, narrow cane to find a wooden stool. He sat down and said, “There is no use trying to deceive me. Your name is Aarak and you are here to steal Lord Stephen’s amulet. You know that the castle wizard showed him how to trap Drusilla inside the amulet so she could never flee back to your lord again.”
Aarak thought of telling the old man how much humiliation and agony his own lord had suffered the two times Drusilla had left him for his brother. But then he decided against it. The humiliation and the agony for Stephen had to be just as deep. No lord could look strong and masculine to the people of his village if he could not control his woman. And Drusilla had gone back and forth, unable to make up her mind between the two brothers.
Until Lord Stephen’s wizard found a way of magically trapping her inside the amulet. True, Stephen could never set her free, could never allow her to come to full and sumptuous size. She would flee him if he freed her even for a few moments. It was the possession of her that mattered to the brothers. There were many maids they could have in their villages. But there was only one Drusilla, so far beyond everyday beauty as to be ethereal, an erotic phantom on a starry night who could bring a man carnal pleasures that almost cost him his sanity.
No wonder both brothers wanted her with such longing. To possess her was to possess the loveliest woman who had ever graced the countryside. Lord William expected Stephen to be killed and the amulet to be his.
“I can hear by your silence,” the old seer said, “that I am speaking the truth. That when I told my lord that an assassin would attempt to kill him and reclaim his amulet, I was right.” For the first time, malice shone in the dark, ruined eyes of the old man. “But I am not finished telling you about your own reason for coming here.”
“The money. I’ll be rich.”
But the old man shook his cowled head. “Not the money, no, my killing man. The woman herself is what brought you here. You guarded her for more than a year. Your lord wanted to make sure that she never sneaked out of the castle when he was away. He was afraid that she had other lovers in the countryside. He even had you sleep outside the door to her chambers so escape was impossible.”
“I was only doing my duty.”
“Your duty? Did that also include being as smitten with her as the two lords are? Did that also include sneaking into the baths to watch her bathe naked? And making all these foolish plans in your head to kidnap her and run away with her, even though you knew that she found you repellent?”
“That’s a lie!” Aarak whirled on the seer, his enormous hands already fitting themselves to the size of the seer’s scrawny neck.
“You think I didn’t foresee this moment,” the seer said, backing up. “I am weary, so I don’t care if you kill me or not. But let me tell you, you will be a fool to steal the amulet. You won’t be able to resist her any more than the brothers did. And this time she is prepared-”
The attack came on so suddenly that for the first few minutes it looked like bad playacting. The old man clutched his chest and fell back against the wall. Only when his skull cracked the stone did Aarak realize that the old man was not putting on a show. Aarak had seen his share of heart attacks on his killing missions-people so afraid of the death he brought that they denied him the satisfaction of his profession by dying of a heart attack instead.
By the time Aarak got the old man laid straight out on the floor, he recognized that he was already too late. The seer had passed over, taking his secrets with him.
No time to waste. Aarak ripped the blind man’s dagger from its scabbard. He would have to collect better weapons than this on his way to find Lord Stephen.
He blew out the candles, crept to the door, opened it, and peeked out. A heavyset guard stood a few feet away, leaning against the wall as he looked over something directly beneath the hall sconce. A spear leaned against the wall near him, only a quick grab away. Fortunately, he was facing away from the assassin.
Many years ago, Aarak had been in an army where the leader regularly timed his soldiers on their abilities to perform deadly tasks quickly. Among all the freelance killers, Aarak had been the quickest at jumping a slave from behind and then giving his neck so violent a wrench that the slave was dead before he could even fall over.
Aarak hoped his timing was just as good now as it had been then. He estimated that he would need to take two quick steps toward the guard and then fling himself on the man’s back. The two steps would be the danger. The guard would have time, if he heard Aarak, to raise the alarm.
Aarak’s timing held. He took his two steps and launched himself on the guard before the man could even turn around. He had apparently been engrossed in whatever he was holding in his hand. Aarak had no trouble seizing the man’s head and twisting with such fury that blood shot from the man’s mouth and nostrils before the crack of neck bones could be heard.
Aarak dragged the dead guard into the seer’s chambers and stripped him of his weapons. Now a sword and a small ax filled Aarak’s hands as he began working his way to the lord’s chambers, one floor above.