The two men lay peering over the edge of a low, crumbling wall, looking down a sharp slope at the garrison below. Row after row of long, low buildings met their eyes. Behind the barracks, to the watchers’ left, were the stables for the horses; in front of them, the night watch stood talking or drinking coffee before a blazing fire. Two sentinels paced back and forth between cornering guardhouses, with the pickets of the mounted patrols just beyond.
It was now full night. The rising moon was exactly halved, with long bars of smoky cloud passing at intervals across it. The resulting twilight was neither pale nor pitch, but a sporadic intermingling of both. Whether moonlight or deepest shadow fell across the creatures of earth, seemed entirely a matter of chance.
Neither help nor hindrance, Michael thought. But he expected no more.
Thus far their journey had gone without incident, though the real difficulty and danger lay ahead. Yet the largest part of what he fought in that moment was not fear, but a fatigue that bordered on despair. It was a sore trial to have ridden so far, and lived in darkness so long, only to arrive weary and unsure at the time of greatest need, when courage and decisive action were most critical.
As he looked down at the garrison, and on to the Castle in the distance, he felt again his own frailty and insignificance. Rustic proverbs about weakness overcoming strength, and water (in time) eroding the hardest stone, brought little comfort. For Mary and his mother were imprisoned by the hands of men. Proverbs and faith would not free them, only active human resistance. His heart beat heavily against the cold ground. He knew what he must do.
“How do we slip past them?” he asked Purceville.
It was a formidable question. For behind the stables the stone rose sheer, a bony ridge forming one margin of the high peninsula on which the Castle was set: a long and difficult climb at best, to an uncertain end. It also forced them to leave the horse behind, and to abandon all thoughts of mounted escape.
To the fore of the compound as well, there seemed little hope of stealth. The only road in passed directly in front of it, full in the glare of the watchfire. Beyond it, to the right, lay only a narrow stretch of rough greenbelt, then again the ground rose, rocky and untenable. Perhaps they might creep along in the far shadows, where the uneven turf met stone. But one false step, one noisy balk on the part of the animal, already restive, and they were as good as caught.
Stephen stared directly at him. “We don’t.”
Michael felt his blood run cold. “Stephen! You’re not thinking of betraying---”