The Retreat (medieval historical fiction)

Chapter 10 Bring Forth the Prisoner

Four of us were looking at a kneeling prisoner, standing in a circle around him: Rainulf, Gerard, Count Stephen and I. Our captive was battered and bedraggled, yet beneath the mud and dried blood his garb was the same purple silk that all of King Bratislav's nobles seemed to wear.

'Speak again: the tale you told to me,' urged Gerard.

'About what?' The prisoner responded tiredly. He was elderly, with grey hair, although his carefully shaped moustache and chin beard were black.

'Shalk.'

With a slow look, assessing his audience, the man licked at dry lips and spoke. 'We escorted your army to a certain place, a pasture; at boundary was a wood filled with rough men, including those who had escaped Devinium.

'It was closed trap. On three sides, the wood; behind Duke Shalk, our army. Some of your people, they guessed; they were shouting. But what to do? All weapons in carts behind us. Once all your people were in pasture, a bugle by the king gives the order. And then they die.

'Everyone die. Man, woman, child. Except Shalk. King Bratislav wants Shalk to watch.'

Rainulf folded his powerful arms and his dark look did not auger well for our prisoner.

'But why?' murmured Count Stephen, with a shake of his head. He appeared frail this morning, without his armour, like a grey-haired monk not a warrior. The lines across his forehead were deeper than ever.

A look of alertness flickered over the nobleman's face. 'I say, it not good. I say, we march your people to the lands of the Magyars. But King Bratislav say, we must revenge for Devinium. And we must show next army of Franks coming to Jerusalem to honour us.'

'What happened to Shalk?' I asked.

'In chimney for king's kitchen. They lower him in from top. In chains.'

'By Christ! What on earth for!' Count Stephen leaned over as though to strike the man, though with one arm in a sling it would not have been easy.

'We have tradition. Take the air from those... evil must go from him who cannot breathe. And King Bratislav thinks man who uses name of Christ but permits Devinium must be man with the Devil inside.'

All four of us responded, shocked, but it was my question the prisoner fastened on, turning his head to look at me with sharp grey eyes.

'Alive? Yes. Probably. The king has not eaten at castle yet.'

'And are you worth something to King Bratislav?'

'Me?' He gave a shrug, which caused him to wince. 'Maybe.'

'Wait now. We've no time for dealings with that false king.' Rainulf looked angrily at me. 'We've time only to fill this man's lungs with smoke and leave him dangling from a tree. And that's all.'

'What's your name?' I looked away from Rainulf, back to our prisoner.

'Duke Carisbald.'

'A duke indeed?' Count Stephen raised his eyebrows. 'Are you related to the king?'

'I'm cousin.'

If this man were lying, he was a most accomplished dissembler. There was no desperation in his voice, if anything, a laconic drone, as if to suggest he was resigned to his death and had no hope.

'Then perhaps we can still save the prince.' Count Stephen allowed himself a smile.

'Sod Shalk for a fool and sod this liar. The mutur are marching west and we will march swiftly.' With that announcement, Rainulf took several strides away from us, although my next words caused him to pause.