The two rode on for several minutes, their horses matching step with one another. Finally, Gilan said, “He wants me to track down Foldar.”
Crowley nodded. “Thought he might ask you. I’ve got his files back at the castle. He made sure I had them before he went around insulting the King in taverns.”
“He was pretty organized for someone making an impulsive gesture. You’d almost swear he knew exactly what he was doing.”
Crowley glanced sidelong at the tall, young Ranger riding beside him.
“Oh, he knew what he was doing, all right. Halt always knows what he’s doing.”
Back at the castle, Gilan changed into dry clothes. He was staying in guest accommodations in Castle Araluen and he had a small but comfortable apartment in the east tower. Crowley’s office and headquarters were in the south tower, and to access them, Gilan had to return to the third-floor level of the castle and cross over to the south tower staircase.
He smiled as he made his way up the spiraling stairs. Like all castles, Araluen’s stairs twisted upward to the right, so that a right-handed swordsman trying to fight his way up the stairs would have to expose his entire body to the defenders above, while the defenders would show only a small part of themselves around the central column of the staircase as they retreated upward. This had been the reason why MacNeil, the swordmaster who instructed Gilan from an early age, had been at pains to make his young student practice his swordsmanship with either hand. Gilan was very good with his left hand. With his right hand, he was an expert.
Crowley’s office was three floors up. Gilan knocked at the door, then entered in response to Crowley’s call. The office was spacious and airy, like most of the rooms in Castle Araluen. A large window overlooked the expanse of grassland that swept away on a gradual slope from the castle. In the distance, Gilan could see a small village and the orderly squares of cultivated farmland.
Crowley had changed into dry clothes too, and he was now sitting comfortably in a large oak armchair by the window, reading a report. The rain was still misting outside, but the wind was blowing it away from the castle. Like most Rangers, Crowley liked fresh air and light, so he had refrained from closing the wooden shutters. As insurance against the chill of the oncoming evening, however, a fire burned cheerfully in the grate opposite the window.
“Take a seat,” Crowley said, and gestured to another oak armchair, not quite as large as his own. Gilan sat and Crowley glanced up from the document in his hand, indicating a pile of parchment rolls, each tied with a plain black string, on the low table between them.
“Halt’s reports on the Foldar business,” he said. “Have a glance through them.” He reached forward and took a quill pen from an inkwell on the table, made a notation on the paper he was reading, then continued to scan the document.
There were a dozen rolls in the pile. Each one was labeled with the name of the fief from which the report had originated. Three were also labeled with the word CLOSED. Gilan selected one of these and unrolled it, glancing through the contents.
As he had suspected, the CLOSED label signified that these were cases that Halt had investigated and found to be false trails.
Foldar was known as a cold-blooded and totally pitiless killer. Confronted by a man claiming to be Foldar, people were more likely to hand their money over without resistance. Because of this, a host of Foldar impersonators had sprung up, trading on the man’s notoriety to help them cow their victims into submission.
The report he was reading detailed one of these instances. A common robber, leader of a small band of outlaws, had assumed the Foldar identity and had tried to rob a wealthy merchant and his wife, traveling on a forest road. Halt had intervened, having learned of the plan, and the fake Foldar was now reposing in jail.
It was this proliferation of false Foldars that had led to Halt’s frustration. Each case had to be investigated, each criminal tracked down and arrested. The task could take a year or more.
Unless . . .
Gilan tapped his teeth idly with his thumbnail as he glanced quickly through another case study. An idea was forming in his mind. He glanced up at Crowley, still engrossed in the report he was reading.
“Do you mind if I take these away?” he said.
The Commandant looked up. For a moment, his attention was miles away. Then he nodded, understanding the request.
“Be my guest,” he said. “The fewer papers I’ve got in here, the better.”
He gestured to a desk in the corner, piled high with rolls of parchment, sheets of paper and linen envelopes containing reports, requests and other official forms from all over the kingdom. It was a mountain of paperwork, Gilan realized. He grinned sympathetically.
“I’ll take these off your hands then,” he said. Gathering up the parchment rolls, he rose and made for the door.
2
“I LOOKED THROUGH ALL THOSE FILES LAST NIGHT,” GILAN TOLD Crowley the following morning. The Commandant gave him a wan smile.
“All of them? Wish I could say the same. Paperwork is the bane of my life.”
“It’s the price of your exalted rank, Crowley,” Gilan told him with a grin. “That’s why you’re paid the big money.”
Crowley looked at the cheerful face beside him. “You know, there are some people who might think it was a good career move to show sympathy for their commanding officer’s problems,” he said. Then he sighed.“But very few of those people were trained by Halt.”
Gilan thought about that for a second or two. “True,” he said.
They were strolling through the parkland to the south of Castle Araluen. Crowley often held discussions with his Rangers in the open air. He claimed it was good security. Inside a castle, one never knew who might be listening on the other side of a wall or outside a door. Out here, nobody could come within earshot without being seen.
Gilan suspected that equally important was Crowley’s love of open space and fresh air. The Commandant was constantly heard to grumble about being “cooped up indoors all day.”
“So, did you discover anything important?” Crowley asked after a brief pause.
“I might have,” Gilan replied. “There are nine cases still outstanding. Of them, seven are relatively small matters—a robbery here, a holdup there. Sometimes the thieves stopped single travelers on the highway and robbed them. On other occasions, they raided small, isolated taverns or settlements. In all those cases, the amounts of money taken are relatively small. The largest was fifteen gold royals. It’s barely more than petty theft and I just can’t imagine Foldar setting his sights so low.”
“Fifteen gold royals is a lot for a small tavern,” Crowley interposed.
Gilan nodded impatiently. “I’m not saying it’s insignificant for the victims. But for Foldar? It’s really small stakes. I mean, he was helping Morgarath to overthrow the throne. For a man like that, fifteen royals is hardly noticeable.”
“What about the other two fiefs?” Crowley asked. He thought Gilan’s point was a good one. Foldar had never been a petty thief. There was little to suggest that he might have become one. He thought in much grander terms.
“One was a very large amount. A merchant was robbed and the thieves got away with a large amount in gold and silver coins.”
“That’s more promising,” Crowley said. But Gilan made a negative gesture with his hand.
“The size of the crime is more in keeping with what we know of Foldar. But the method doesn’t fit him. It was done at night, without the merchant or his family hearing anything. They didn’t know they’d been robbed until the following morning. The thief even locked the doors behind him when he left.”
“I see your point. If Foldar had broken in, chances were he would have killed them all in their sleep, just for the fun of it.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Gilan said.
“Which leaves one other case,” Crowley prompted him.
The young Ranger nodded. “As you say. One other case. It was a raid on a well-guar
ded caravan of pay wagons in Highcliff Fief, carrying silver and gold to pay the garrisons in outlying castles. Highcliff, incidentally, is currently without its Ranger. He was injured in the war and he’s not ready to resume his duties.”
“Which might make it an attractive base of operations for Foldar,” Crowley said thoughtfully.
“That had occurred to me as well. The caravan was attacked by fifteen to twenty men, all well armed and trained. Half the guards were killed. The others escaped into the trees. The drivers weren’t so lucky.”
“Now that has Foldar’s stamp on it,” Crowley said.
“That’s what I thought. In addition to the organization of the raid, and the sheer brutality involved, there’s a good chance that an informer in Castle Highcliff gave out information about that pay train. It was supposed to be a secret.”
“Exactly the sort of thing Foldar would be involved in,” Crowley said. “So what’s your next move?”
“I thought I’d travel to Highcliff and see if I can think of some sort of trap for Foldar—and his inside informant. I’ll need to nose around the place a little before I come up with any definite plan.”
Crowley nodded. “It sounds like a good idea to me. Well done, Gilan.” Then he frowned. “I’m surprised that Halt didn’t reach the same conclusion. He’s usually pretty quick on the uptake.”
“I thought the same thing. But remember, Halt was distracted, worrying about Will. And he tended to concentrate first on the cases closest to Araluen.”
“Which gave him plenty of opportunity to put his case to me and Duncan,” Crowley said. “If he was off in the west at Highcliff, he wouldn’t have been able to nag at me every second day to let him go.”
“Whereas I have no reason not to head for Highcliff Fief and leave you to your paperwork,” Gilan said.
Crowley’s mouth turned down at the corners in an expression of distaste. “Ah yes, the paperwork. You wouldn’t consider trading places? You stay and fill in the forms and requisitions. I’ll go chasing after Foldar.”
Gilan raised one eyebrow at him. “You’re right. I wouldn’t consider it.”
“I could order you to do it, I suppose,” Crowley said wistfully, and Gilan thought he was only half joking.
“You could. And I’d probably insult the King in public and have myself banished,” he replied.
Crowley shook his head. “I sometimes wonder if it was a good idea having Halt train apprentices. He seems to teach them no respect for authority.”
“Oh, he teaches us to respect authority,” Gilan said innocently. “He just teaches us to ignore it when necessary. I’ll get going this afternoon,” he added, and Crowley nodded agreement.
“The sooner you leave, the sooner you’ll be back,” he said. It was the Ranger way, after all. No sense letting the grass grow under your feet if there was work to be done.
“There’s that. And besides, I should get going before you decide to order me to stay.”
3
CASTLE HIGHCLIFF WAS APPROPRIATELY NAMED, GILAN THOUGHT. He checked Blaze’s easy canter and slumped in the saddle, studying the castle.
There was nothing remarkable about the building itself. It was a solid granite structure, with the usual four corner towers, joined by crenellated walls. A single, taller tower stood in the center of the enclosed space. That would be the keep, he thought, where the castle’s eating, sleeping and administration quarters were located. But it was the site on which the castle had been built that gave it its name. The coastline in this part of Araluen was formed by high, rocky cliffs of white chalk. The castle had been built on a high outcrop, a peninsula joined to the coast by a narrow, winding neck of land barely twenty meters wide. On either side of this path, steep cliffs dropped away to where the sea crashed constantly against the rocks, sending tall columns of spray skyward and creating a rhythmic booming sound. Tumbled piles of chalky rock at the base of the cliffs showed where the path was being constantly undermined and eaten away by the waves’ incessant attack. In time, he thought, the path would disappear completely, leaving Highcliff to stand on an island.
As he watched, he saw men patrolling the castle walls. In one of the towers on the landward side, he could make out a tiny figure leaning his elbows on the parapet. As Gilan watched, another figure joined the first, arm outstretched, pointing at the spot where Gilan and Blaze stood motionless. The first guard straightened up from his relaxed position and turned away, doubtless calling an alert to someone below.
“They’ve seen us,” Gilan told Blaze.
We are a little obvious, silhouetted against the skyline like this.
“I wasn’t trying to creep up unobserved,” Gilan said, and Blaze sniffed disdainfully. She had a habit of doing that, Gilan thought. Knowing he would never manage to have the last word with his horse, he urged her forward and she picked her way carefully down the rocky path to the beginning of the isthmus leading to the castle.
There was a sentry point there, manned by two bored-looking soldiers. Gilan identified himself, although the Ranger cloak and massive longbow left little doubt as to who or what he was, and the senior man present nodded to him.
“Just wait a moment, please, Ranger,” he said. His voice was respectful, even wary. The Ranger Corps’ reputation was the reason for the twofold reaction. The soldier nudged his companion with an elbow.“Run up the yellow flag, Nobby,” he said. Without a word, the second man stepped to a mast nearby, where Gilan could see there were two flags attached to halyards, ready to be run up. One was yellow, the other red. Nobby selected the yellow and hoisted the square of colored cloth to the top of the mast. The flag vibrated in the stiff ocean breeze, standing out from the flagpole. After a few seconds, an answering flag appeared at the castle gate.
Presumably, thought Gilan, had he been identified as an enemy, the soldiers would have signaled with the red flag. Had he been an enemy, of course, he might not have given them the chance, although he supposed no signal would be taken to mean the same as a red flag. It was probably better for the sentries’ morale to believe that they had a chance of signaling if an enemy were to arrive at the guard post.
“Go on across, Ranger,” said the soldier. Gilan waved a hand in acknowledgment and started Blaze forward.
He let the reins go slack, allowing the horse to pick her own way. The isthmus wasn’t particularly narrow for a single rider, but he was conscious of the steep drop-off on either side to the sea below. As he approached the castle gate and portcullis, the track narrowed considerably, so that there would have been room for no more than four men abreast to approach the castle entrance.
He touched the reins lightly as they reached the portcullis and Blaze came to a halt as a sergeant stepped forward. His keen gaze took in the cloak and the longbow Gilan carried across his saddle bow. He also noticed the long sword hanging at the Ranger’s left side and frowned. Swords were not normally part of a Ranger’s weaponry. Gilan nodded approvingly. The two outer guards hadn’t noticed the weapon or, if they had, they had attached no significance to it.
He produced the silver oakleaf that hung on a chain around his neck and leaned forward so that the sergeant could see it clearly.
“Ranger Gilan, temporarily detached on special duties,” he said.
The sergeant studied the amulet, glanced once more at the sword, then came to a decision. He signaled for the single pole barrier across the gateway to be raised, then stepped to one side.
“Pass through, Ranger Gilan,” he said. “The seneschal’s office is straight ahead, on the ground floor of the keep.”
Gilan nodded and urged Blaze forward through the shadows of the massive gateway. Her hooves rang loudly as they passed onto the flagstones of the castle courtyard. As Gilan dismounted, a stable hand materialized beside him.
“Can I look after your horse, Ranger?” he asked.
Gilan considered for a second or two. It was his normal practice to tend to Blaze himself.“ That would be kind of you,” he said.“We’ve com
e a long way, so please give her a good rubdown and a measure of grain.”
The stable hand nodded and reached for Blaze’s bridle. As Gilan handed it over, he said to the bay, “Go along, Blaze.”
Thus instructed, his horse turned and clip-clopped after the stable hand, toward the wooden building by the north wall that housed the stables. Gilan smiled quietly to himself. Had he not said those three simple words, she would have been as immoveable as the north wall itself.
He entered the keep. The ground floor was largely open space. In the center was a large wooden staircase leading to the next level. In the event of an attack, the stairs could be burned or smashed down once the inhabitants had escaped to the higher floor, leaving attackers with no way to access them. From there, access to higher floors would be by the same right-hand spiraling staircases he had remarked on at Araluen. On the left-hand side, a large area was closed off by a timber wall. He guessed it was the guardroom, where sentries could relax or sleep while not on duty. On the right-hand side, another wall separated a slightly smaller area. This would be the seneschal’s, or castle manager’s, office. As a Ranger, Gilan could simply head for the higher levels, where he would find the Baron’s quarters. But it was good etiquette to approach the seneschal first and he saw no reason to ruffle any feathers just to prove his own importance.
A slightly overweight man sat at a table outside the large brassbound door to the office. The sleeves of his jerkin were clad in black cloth to protect them from ink stains, and he was copying a list of figures from a parchment sheet into a large journal. He looked up at the sound of Gilan’s boots on the flagstones.
“Can I help you?” he said politely.
Gilan tossed his cloak back over his shoulders and proffered the silver oakleaf once more.
“My name is Gilan. I’m a King’s Ranger,” he said. “I’d like to see the seneschal, please.”