The Duke's Left Eye
by Keith P. Graham © 2006
“Is this the one?” a voice asked. “Let me see him.”
Rough hands grabbed Lemark and pulled him upright so he stood kneeling in front of the angry face of his enemy, the Duke de La Roc. The Duke held in his right hand the shaft of a crossbow quarrel. His left arm was in a sling and heavily bandaged. Next to the Duke was a man in the robes of a priest.
“You are Lemark?” the Duke asked. Lemark swayed and he would have fallen, but one of the guards pulled him up by his hair. “Answer me!”
“I am Lemark,” he answered through bruised lips. Lemark recognized the bolt. He looked up from it at the Duke's bandaged arm and then into the Duke's eyes.
“Yes, this is your quarrel. It has your name on it.” The Duke held the bolt up. “It also has something else written here, in Lanayean runes.” He turned the bolt and read from it.
“It says ‘the Duke's left eye' and it is signed ‘Emil Lemark'”.
One of the guards struck Lemark hard with a gloved hand, muttering something. Lemark started to fall but the other guard pulled him back up by his hair.
The Duke stood up and walked around Lemark, looking at the man's well-worn boots and dirty clothes. He showed all the signs of heavy battle. There was drying blood on his shirt that was not his own. There were dark bruises on the man's face. Blood oozed from a gash on his forehead. There were slashes on his cloak where its owner had used it to befoul a blade.
Lemark could hear screaming and looked towards an open window. The Duke followed his thoughts.
“Just a few of your former colleagues.” the Duke said, “I am afraid that Lionruge Castle doesn't have the facilities to feed a hundred rebels in these hard times.”
Lemark bowed his head as he remembered his comrades in arms. A rough hand pulled it back up to face the Duke.
“You,” the Duke continued, “will have a different fate. But first, I wish to offer you some advice.”
The Duke returned to his chair.
“If you try this again, and, believe me, you won't have the chance, I would recommend two things.” The Duke smirked. “First, I suggest that you choose the winning side. It does you no good to place a bolt close to its mark and then find yourself captured with your employer in retreat.
“Second, do not miss. You see, when the rightful Duke is stung in the arm by a lucky archer in the employ of a stupid upstart Baron, he tends to get upset. It would be better to kill him… I almost said ‘the next time', but for you, there will be no next time.”
The priest, who had been standing behind the Duke, bent over and whispered into the Duke's ear. The Duke laughed. “The good Father has concerns for your soul.”
The Duke turned to the priest. “I think we should send him on his way to hell without too much delay. You may say your prayers if you wish, but I doubt if it will do him any good.”
The Duke waved his hands to the guards. “Take him away. I don't expect him to live until sundown, but I would like to drop by and see how his death progresses as soon as I finish lunch. Do try to keep him alive until I get there.”
The guards pulled Lemark to his feet and marched him quickly from the room. He stumbled on the rugs, but they dragged him away before he regained his footing. The priest followed them down the hall, mumbling prayers.
Stealthy figures followed them at a safe distance.
They marched Lemark down the spiral stone staircases several levels, and as they passed the ground level, the screams out in the courtyard were much louder. The sounds faded as they descended into the dungeon.
As the guards dragged Lemark down the fifth flight of stairs, a pair of swordsmen left the shadows of a passageway and quickly came up behind them. Two more crept down the stairs from above and joined them. They wore no mail and on their feet were soft leather hunting boots that made no noise. They each had a crossbow slung over their shoulders.
They came up behind Lemark, his captors, and the priest as the passageway turned down to another flight of stairs.
There was a sudden movement and the two guards lay dead. The priest fell to his knees and started to pray loudly. Lemark, who had fallen to the stone floor when his guards stopped supporting him, found himself pulled to a standing position. His rescuers cut his bonds and pressed a sword into his hand.
The priest blubbered even louder. “Shut up, you old fool.” A woman said. “We won't kill you unless you start making too much noise.” The priest breathed in deeply, holding his breath and his prayers stopped. He stepped backwards as though to blend in with the wall, his eyes full of fear.
“Ilenna!” Lemark cried out in disbelief. “You are not…”
“Not dead?” she answered. She pulled back her cowl and shook loose her short-cropped dirty-blond hair. She was as tall as the men that surrounded her and dressed the same. The men with Ilenna laughed.
Lemark recognized them as Luc, Tomas, and Roland, the brothers of Baron Marchant.
“But how? What are you doing here?”
“Baron Marchant heard you were a captive.” Ilenna explained, “We decided to take a chance and see if you could be saved. The Duke's army is scattered and his battalions have not yet reformed. We slipped in before dawn during the confusion and we have been looking for you since.”
“Then, the Baron lives?”
“He lives, but the Duke's flanking movement almost killed us all.” Roland said.
“I still don't know where de La Roc was hiding those horsemen.” Ilenna said, “The scouts all missed them, and the runes didn't show them as actors on the field.”
“It's good then, that my brother didn't trust your runes.” Tomas said.
“He held back part of his force in reserve, or we'd all be dead.”
“Enough of this gossip! Marchant waits in the forest.” Ilenna said. “We have to get out of here. We left a trail of dead men getting in here and eventually someone will discover them.”
She turned back and started up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Two of the men took Lemark between them and he put his arms over their shoulders. They helped him up the stairs, but they could not keep up with Ilenna.
Before they reached the ground level, Ilenna stopped and looked down a passageway.
“Shush,” she whispered, “someone is coming.”
There was no place to hide. The men pressed themselves against the wall of the stairway and gripped their swords. Ilenna threw down her heavy bag and began to fumble in it for something.
“Ilenna!” Roland called to her, softly. “Come down here. You cannot fight them alone.”
“Wait! I have something here, if I can only find it.” She continued to toss through the bag. She pulled out several objects and set them aside. She finally pulled a small brass object.
“Here!” she said. The object was shaped like large turtle. She pulled the head off and Lemark realized that it was a bottle and the turtle's head was stopper. Ilenna got to her hands and knees and crawled to the center of the passageway. Lemark could clearly hear the stomp of marching feet and syncopated clink of armor.
She poured something from the bottle and crawled back quickly. At the edge of the passageway, she picked up a wooden stick and pulled off a glass cap revealing the red phosphorus that coated the end of the wood. She struck the phosphorus end smartly against the wall and it burst into flames. Ilenna threw the flaming stick into the pile of powder on the floor and then ran back to the men.
The stick burned low for a moment on the pile of powder where it started to hiss. It then flared in a bright blue-green flame and a thick green smoke rose to the ceiling of the passageway. The tramping soldiers in the hallway started to yell and several ran forward towards the bright flame. Immediately they started coughing and one fell to his knees and passed out. The others ran back.
“It is a poisonous smoke!” one of them yelled, “Get back!”
Ilenna took the collar of her cloak and wrapped it so it covered her mouth and nose. She indicated that the others should do the same and they complied.
“Run quickly and try not to breathe and you will be safe.” She said. The heavy cloth of the cloak muffled her voice.
She ran up the stairs, followed by Roland. Tomas and Luc each took one of Lemark's arms and they took off up the stairway. Lemark tried not to breathe, but the effort of running forced his brutalized body to gasp for air. He coughed as the bitter smoke sifted through the cloak and burned his lungs.
By the time they made it to the ground level, there was no trace of the smoke in the air.
They looked out onto the inner courtyard. About 50 yards away was the open portcullis and the outer grounds. They could see that the wooden drawbridge was down and supplies were coming into the castle on ox drawn carts.
The courtyard contained several dozen heavily armed soldiers, members of the Duke's personal guard. At one end, there was a pile of dead bodies lying on the blood stained sand. A team of peasants was loading the bodies onto a cart.
“I hope you have something in that bag that will fly us across that courtyard to freedom.” Lemark said with a wry grin on his face. He was feeling better now that freedom was in sight, even if his chances of surviving the day were not good. As he spoke, the Duke came out into one of the drum towers that formed the corners of the castle's curtain walls.
“We're in luck,” she said, “We may get to kill the Duke, yet!”
“It was your quarrel that got me into this trouble.” protested Lemark.
“If it wasn't for you and your magic bolts, I'd be sound asleep on that cart with my friends.” He pointed to the cart of dead men.
“Here,” she said, putting Lemark's arm over her shoulder. “We'll just walk out to the portcullis. No one will trouble a wounded soldier being helped by his nurse.”
“You three wander after us.” She said to the brothers. “As long as we don't run and attract attention to ourselves, we will be ignored.”
The plan was a good one, as far as it went. Ilenna and Lemark strolled across the courtyard, under the noses of the Duke and his men. The brothers laughed and told jokes as they followed them. It was just as Ilenna said – the guards ignored them.
They calm strolled about half way across the courtyard. The priest, who they had left in the dungeon, ran out into the courtyard yelling “Murder! Murder! The Prisoner has escaped!”
The men of the guard all turned towards him. The peasants stopped their grim work to watch. The priest ran about 20 paces into the yard and turned calling to the Duke's guardsmen.
“They have escaped! They murdered the guards! Stop them!” He pointed directly at the Ilenna and the escaping men. “There they are! Stop them!”
The guardsmen did not move. Quick wits were not part of their job description. Ilenna and Lemark ignored the screaming priest and walked slowly towards the gate. The brothers quickened their pace and looked at their feet as they walked.
“There,” yelled one of the guard captains after a moment of consideration. He pointed towards the escapees. “Stop them.”
The guardsmen started to run, drawing their swords. The brothers ran towards the gateway. Their swords were already drawn and they dispatched the gate guards with a few quick flashes of steel. There were no other soldiers at the gate.
Tomas looked out across drawbridge and down the road. He waived and a small company of horsemen pulled out of the cover of the forest.
“Hold on!” Tomas yelled to his brothers. “The Baron sees us. He is coming.”
Ilenna pulled Lemark along. He did his best to run with her. His protesting muscles were starting to loosen up and they were soon running to the gateway.
As they made it through the portcullis, Roland let fly a quarrel that struck one of the guard captains in the throat. Tomas let fly another that found its mark and the brothers were firing off bolts as quickly as they could pull up the strap and claw to cock their weapons.
With several of their men down and no cover to approach the gate, the guardsmen fell back and hid as well as they could from the deadly bolts. The priest was still in the courtyard yelling. He suddenly realized that he was the only target left and started to run back to the passage from which he had emerged. Roland put a quarrel into one of his buttocks, but the priest didn't slow down.
With the thunder of hooves, Baron Marchant rode his gray stallion up across the wooden drawbridge to meet them. The nobleman was smiling in his joy at seeing the escapees. A company of well-armed riders followed him. “Hail and well met!” he called. He put out his hand to pull Lemark up. Other riders were coming over the drawbridge.
“Wait!” called Ilenna. She reached under her cloak and pulled out a hickory crossbow quarrel with ptarmigan feathers and a razor sharp bronze tip. There were runes on it.
“Another magic quarrel?” asked Lemark, sardonically.
“I did a better job this time. I took my time. That's wolf's blood on the death rune.” Ilenna pointed to a darkly carved rune.
Lemark looked back through the gateway at the battlements. The Duke was there yelling down at his men.
“It has to be 150 yards. I can't hit his eye at this range. I don't think I can even hit the wall he's standing on.”
“Here,” Baron Marchant said, offering Lemark his own crossbow. “Give this a try. I have never been able to hit anything with this fancy machine. Maybe an expert can make something of it.”
The crossbow was new and beautifully designed. It had an excess of ornamentation that Lemark would not have chosen, but the stock was heavy dogwood and the bow was laminated yew and oak strips bent into a beautiful recurve. He hefted it and then sighted down notch. It was a good piece.
Placing the quarrel in the bow and moving the clip over it, he cranked back the belt and claw until it reached back over the sear. He nocked the quarrel. He unhooked the claw and moved it and the belt aside.
Sighting down the quarrel, he tried to find a target. “This will never work.” He muttered under his breath.
The Duke's captains had finally organized an attack and a large company of men, under the cover of oaken shields was advancing towards the gate.
“Hurry,” the Baron said. “They are coming.”
Lemark found the Duke de La Roc. He was standing on the battlement looking directly at him. The white-bandaged left arm in a sling marked him as the Duke. Lemark could hear more horses coming across the drawbridge. He set the tip of the bolt against the distant image of the Duke. He raised the aim up a few degrees. Breathing out he squeezed the lock and the quarrel flew from its resting place. The force from the stock against his shoulder told him that it was a good shot, full of force, if not accurate.
“Get on the horse.” the Baron said.
No one moved. All the men watched the bolt's flight. It went at incredible speed with hardly any arc, the brightly colored fletching visible only because they were all sighting down its path. It seemed to hang for a second over the castle and then dipped down fast. The Duke jerked back, put his hand to his face and then fell backwards.
There was a cheer from the men and Lemark grabbed at the Baron's arm.
The Baron pulled him onto the back of the gray stallion, turned the gray, and led the retreat across the fields towards the forest. Ilenna and the brothers, already mounted, galloped alongside them. Men road up to Lemark, and patted him on the back with words of praise and congratulations.
A few seconds later, a hundred of the Duke's cavalry galloped through the gate and were crossing the drawbridge. More men on foot raced after them. The bray of horns sounded to the north and a large company of well-armed men raced down the road to join the Duke's guardsmen. An army was pursuing the Baron and the escapees.
As the Baron approached the forest, he raised his sword in a prearranged signal. A hundred bowmen jumped up from cover and filled the air with arrows aimed at the pursuers. Horses screamed and men went down. The men on foot stopped running in spite of the exhortations of their officers.
Five hundred men on horseback, who were hiding in the forest, charged forward. The battle for the castle was underway. The Duke's unorganized men met the Baron's reorganized army. The Duke was dead and this time the Baron would be the victor.
Lemark slid off the Baron's horse and the Baron road to join his men in the Duke's rout. Lemark sat on a stump with his head between his knees. He was exhausted and in pain. Ilenna dismounted and sat next to him.
“I told the Baron that you could do it.” She said. “He didn't want me to go with his brothers to look for you, but I insisted. The runes told me that no other man but you could kill the Duke. They said you would persevere.”
Lemark laughed, aloud. The laugh started as a low chuckle, but he coughed in pain and grabbed his side.
Still chuckling he said, “You and your runes and wolf's blood and magical quarrels.”
“Didn't you see?” she asked. “The magic worked. You killed the Duke.
The quarrel was true. It hit his eye, just as the spell was designed.”
“There was no magic.” He said. “There was only a good bow, a straight bolt, no breeze, and a great deal of luck.”
“Luck!” she said. “I was up all night with that quarrel. I marked it with the sacred runes. I named it with the Duke's secret name. I used wolf's blood in the death rune. It could not miss. It had the force of the whole universe behind it.”
“Luck,” he answered, “That's all it was, just luck. Didn't you see?”
“I saw it hit the Duke in the eye.” She answered. “My magic and your good arm killed the Duke.”
“No, it was just luck. I saw it. The magic didn't work.”
“Of course it worked.”
“No, it didn't hit him in the left eye.”
“I saw it. I'm not blind.”
“Think about it. You saw the Duke hit?”
“Yes I did.”
“And he put his hand up to his face?”
“Yes, I saw that.”
“His left arm was in a sling. He put his right hand up to the right eye.”
Ilenna did not say a thing.
“You see? I hit him, but I hit him in the wrong eye!”
Ilenna started to protest, but Lemark was too week to argue any more.
He put up his hand to silence her.
“Just blind luck.” He said.
The End