John Dalmas - Return to Fanglith

A tall, powerful Varangian was sitting there against the wall, hauberk, sword, and all. His legging was cut away from one leg, up to the knee, and his calf was bandaged. "Ketil!" I whispered, and going to him, I shook his hand awkwardly with both of mine. It seemed to me he might be the only Varangian left alive here. I realized then that he hadn't been at the banquet; in fact I hadn't seen him since we'd arrrived at the castle.

I turned to Moise. "How did you get here?" I asked, still softly. "How did he get here? And who's the girl?"

"Her name is Layla. She is the daughter of the Saracen who was steward of this castle. He was killed fighting the Normans; so was his master. She and her mother work here now.

"She was told to take care of Ketil, and then the Normans apparently forgot about him. So when she heard that the Varangians had been massacred, she brought Ketil here to hide. After the battle of Misilmeri, her father showed her the hidden passageways and every hiding place. She even knows a hidden way out of the castle. Just above us is a large grain storage vault. Sometime in the past, a false floor was put in it to form this secret chamber."

He stopped there as if that was all of it. "So how did you get out of the hall?" I asked. "And run into her?"

"It was you who made it possible. But first I must explain that I did not even taste the drink. Then, seeing the Varangians falling drugged, I pretended to be drugged too, and let my head drop onto the table.

Before you fell, you killed several of the Normans with your stunner. Unfortunately, Gilbert was only touched by it-he was probably ducking beneath the table as it reached him. I heard some Normans saying that Gilbert could neither move nor speak, though his eyes were open.

"His wife took charge then, screaming orders to the knights who still lived, and the castle's foot soldiers. More orders than there were Normans to carry them out, some of them impossible or contradictory. I felt hands drag me from the room and leave me in a corridor. When I opened my eyes a slit, a minute later, there were only myself and two Normans lying there, and my belt things had been taken. So I got up and fled. I didn't know where to go, so I went outside, intending to hide in the shrubs and plan what I might do.

"But Layla, who was going home from working in the kitchen, saw me leave and followed me. She brought me here and gave me this." He took a sheathed knife from inside his robe. "And brought me the robe as well," he added. "Then a few minutes later, she brought Ketil. I described you to her then, and told her I wanted to rescue you. And Tarel."

"What about Tarel?" I asked.

"He is somewhere with no hidden passage. Only three rooms open on a passage, and by luck, you were in the third of them."

"Ask her if she can think of a way we can get to him and get him out."

"I have. She tells me there is no way short of searching, and taking him by force."

"Okay," I said, then examined my wrist irons. There was no lock. They'd simply been bolted, the nuts turned so tightly they'd been burred. I gestured. "Can Layla get a hammer and chisel? Now?"

Moise turned and spoke to her in Arabic. She shook her head as she answered. "Not tonight," he told me. "She would have to go to the smithy and steal a chisel, and there will be men about, searching for me."

Then Ketil spoke, questioning, and Moise answered in Greek. Next Moise said something in Arabic to Layla, who nodded, raised the trapdoor, and stood waiting, looking at him.

"What?" I said.

"Ketil has an idea for freeing you. We will go and bring something, Layia and I." Then they left, the trapdoor closing behind them.

Ketil and I sat waiting for quite a while, neither of us saying anything. Ketil looked as if I wasn't there, as if he were alone with his thoughts. Grim thoughts. His two-handed sword was in his fists now, fists that looked enormous to me. Finally the trapdoor began to lift again, and Ketil raised his sword in readiness for whatever might appear.

The first head through was Layla's, and Ketil relaxed. A block of firewood followed her, then Moise, who closed the trapdoor.

"There," he said to me. "Kneel down and put your chain on the block."

I got the idea, and knelt. The chain was only about three inches long. When I put it on the block, my wrists were less than three inches apart. Ketil had gotten up. I looked up at him, and my thought, in Norman, was God, let him be accurate.

Because the ceiling was low, he got down on his knees. Then he raised the heavy sword as high as the ceiling allowed and swung hard while my eyes squinched shut. There was an impact that jerked my wrists, and my eyes popped open. The chain had been cut and the block half split, and although each wrist still had its iron cuff, my hands were free.

Ketil was examining his blade where it had chopped through the chain, while Lay la stared at the block from over the edge of her veil. I turned to Moise. "Now I need a Norman hauberk," I told him. "And a sword. Let's see if my dead guard's been discovered yet."

Tarel:

I woke up on my side in a dark room, with the first headache of my life-a bad one. I was on a stone floor, with my hands tied behind me, and whatever my ankles were tied with was also attached to my wrist bonds, bending my legs back. I was really immobilized. If I tried to move my feet, it pulled on my arms.

Someone was there with me. I couldn't see him because he was behind me, but I could hear him breathing. I was pretty sure it wasn't a guard. A guard would have had a lamp lit, and besides, this sounded like someone asleep, and maybe sick or hurt.

I didn't need a guard anyway, the way I was trussed up.

There were other sounds too, that came in through the window. At first I could hear people talking. Normans. Then after a few minutes I heard someone call from a little distance, and someone else called back. Then it was quiet, with only a little talking a couple of times, farther away in the courtyard. From what I could hear, they were hunting for someone. I wondered if some of the Varangians had escaped, or possibly Larn. Deneen had said Larn led a charmed life; that he always found a way out of things.

My fingers found the cord-it felt like twisted cloth- that tied my ankles to my wrists. If I could get that untied… I pulled on it, which drew my legs back farther, until I felt the knot with my fingers. That was the first practical value I'd had from hand-foot art-it makes you flexible. But when I let go of the cord with my hands to explore the knot, my legs wouldn't stay bent that far back, and the knot got away from me.

Now what? I wondered. There was no one to answer, of course. Whoever was in the room with me was behind me, probably also tied up.

So I just lay there for a while, waiting for whatever might happen. But that got boring, so I pulled on the cord until my fingers found the knot again. Then I pulled an inch or two farther, until I'd hooked a couple of fingers of my left hand under a more slender cord that was wrapped several times around my ankles. I held on with my left hand then and began to feel of the knot with the fingers of my right.

It had been pulled up pretty tightly. I've always had strong fingers though; in school there wasn't anyone who could grip me down. Hardly any could even hold their own against me, not even Larn. So I dug and plucked at it, not sure whether I was accomplishing anything or not. After a while, the backs of my shoulders felt like they were going to cramp. But I wasn't willing to let go, because then I'd lose whatever gain I'd made.

Finally, I could feel the cord give a little through a loop of the knot, and a minute later I'd pulled it free. But the knot was still tied; it had been a double knot, I let go and gave my shoulders a rest, rotating them as much as I could. Then I went through the whole thing again, but this time I knew I could do it, and pretty soon the rest of the knot was untied. My ankles were still tied together, but they weren't tied to my wrists anymore. Straightening my legs was one of the biggest treats of my life.