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No one was by the portcullis, save Tupper? But that made no sense. What was going on here? His fear grew. He and his men watched, amazed, as the old iron portcullis slowly rose, the sound of the chain loud in the still air. Somehow, Tupper had found the strength to turn that huge winch. Tupper managed to winch the portcullis high enough for Gilpin to crawl under. After a moment, the portcullis winched up smoothly, the huge chain flying upward. When Garron rode into the outer bailey, he saw Tupper, scrawny as a dead chicken, staring hard at him. Then he shouted, a lovely full-bodied yell that reached the North Sea. “Young Lord Garron! Aye, ’tis you, my boy, ye’re home at last! Oh aye, ’tis a wonder! Bless all the saints’ burned bones!”
“Aye, ’tis I, Tupper.” As he spoke, Garron was searching the outer bailey for danger, but he saw only what should be there—the barren strip of land twenty feet wide with rusted sharp spikes stuck up three feet into the air, ready to shred an enemy if he managed to get over the outer castle walls. If the enemy managed to get across those twenty feet, he was faced with another high stone wall and another iron portcullis.
Tupper cupped his mouth and yelled at the top of his aged lungs, “Eller, winch up the portcullis! ’Tis Lord Garron home again! Aye, I know it’s him! We’re saved!”
Saved? It was nearly full dark now, dark clouds thick overhead, hiding the stars. Garron saw nothing but shadows. His fear fair to choked him now.
Damocles felt his tension, snorted and reared. Garron leaned forward to pat his neck. “We’re home, lad. Go easy, we’ll find out what’s happened quickly now.” They waited for Eller, the armorer, Garron remembered, to winch up the smaller portcullis, then rode single file into the vast inner bailey, ringed with soldiers barracks set into the walls, an apple and pear orchard fenced in to the side, a large space for the kitchen garden, pens and byres for the animals, stables for the horses, all dominated by the huge stone keep that rose forty feet into the evening air. His keep.
But there were no people in the inner bailey, an area that should be mad with activity any time of day. There were no lights pouring from the keep, no voices, no screaming children, no flocks of chickens squawking and flying about, no dogs barking their heads off, no cattle lowing in their sheds, no pigs rutting and snorting about in their byre.
He didn’t see a single soldier. He didn’t see any sign of life at all.
Garron dismounted slowly, handing Damocles’ reins to Gilpin. There wasn’t a single lit rush torch anywhere he could see, only dark shadows, grim and thick. It was utterly quiet, as if everyone within this vast keep was dead, and he and his men and Tupper and Eller were the only ones alive, and their hours were numbered. He heard Gilpin draw in his breath, knew his men were becoming more alarmed.
Suddenly he saw several shadows move in the darkness.
He called out, “I am Lord Garron. I am home now. I mean none of you any harm. Whoever is here, come out now. Tupper! Eller, come to me!”
Gilpin whispered, “There is no one, my lord. There’s naught but ghosts here.”
Aleric drew his sword, Hobbs and Pali drew theirs as well. They formed a circle, their backs to Garron. Garron heard Pali sniff, then whisper, “Something is very wrong, Garron. Did a plague strike? Why don’t your people come out?”
“For some reason, they’re afraid.” Garron shouted again, “Tupper! Eller! Come to me!”
The old man finally came out of the shadows, shuffling as fast as he could, panting, his back more bowed than when Garron had left so long ago, his clothes filthy and ragged, but he was smiling, showing two remaining teeth. Garron took the old man’s arms in his big hands and pulled him close. He looked down into that old, weathered face and saw tears in his eyes. He said, “It is good to see you, Tupper. I am very glad you are alive.”
“And I, ye, Lord Garron. Ah, bain’t life odd, my lord? You become stronger and larger and I shrink down into nearly nothing. It’s a fine man ye’ve become, strong and straight. Jes’ look, I don’t come to yer shoulder.”
So small he was, Garron thought, so very slight, a fist to his shoulder, and he’d be dead. Sometimes, Garron thought, life was more than one could bear. He said, “You’re not nothing, Tupper—you managed to winch up the portcullis, no mean feat. Thank you. Tell me what is wrong here. Where are all our people? All my brother’s soldiers, where are they?”
Tupper shook his head violently, the tufts of gray hair so dirty they didn’t move on his head. “Since it’s dark, my lord, ye can’t see it—’tis the Retribution, my lord,” he whispered, deadening fear in his voice. “The Retribution,” he repeated, softer still. “All is destroyed, naught but splinters and death. We buried so many—the little ones were the hardest—the stench of death still lingers if ye breathe deeply.”
Splinters? Death? Garron wanted to explode. By all St. Hermione’s teeth, what damned Retribution? What was Tupper talking about? He didn’t want to yell at the old man, and so he drew a deep breath and said, his voice low and calm, “Tell me. Tell me about this Retribution. Was it a plague?”
“Aye, it were a plague, but a human sort.” Before the old man could say more, a shadow detached itself from a doorway and straggled toward them. It was a woman, as old and bent as Tupper.
“My lord?” Her voice was thin and quavery. “My sweet little boy? Garron? Tupper, you’re standing with him, is it really our boy? Eller, I see you hanging back. Come here to me. Tupper, tell me, is it our boy?”
“Aye, Miggins, ’tis he and he’s proud and strong. Jest ye look at him, here to save us.”
And Garron remembered her, of course. How could she still be alive? “Is it really you, Miggins?”
“Aye, my boy.”
Eller, the armorer, so thin he could hide behind a sapling trunk, hovered over Miggins, his hand on her thin shoulder. He wasn’t all that old, but he looked beaten down, gaunt, his face leached of color, as if he knew life was over and he was simply waiting for death to haul him off.
Miggins pulled out a stub of a lit candle from behind her back and she held it high to shine it on his face as she walked slowly to him. He saw that her gown was filthy and torn. She shuffled along, indeed an old woman. So thin, her cheeks sunken in, like the two men’s. She stared up at him, studied his face.
“Aye, jest look at ye, yer so big now. Ye were gone so many years, and they weren’t all bad, those years, and they passed quickly, as years are wont to do as the years press down on ye. At least Tupper and Eller and I still cling to the earth rather than lie dead beneath it with all the others.” Then she smiled at him and gave him a curtsey.
“Why didn’t you come to me sooner?” Garron asked as he lifted her to her feet and embraced her.
The old woman said, “Ye might not have been my boy and ye’d have taken my candle and burned off my nose.”
“Your nose is safe, Miggins. I am here now. You and Eller and Tupper must tell me what has happened. Where are all the soldiers? Where are all my people?”
Miggins craned her neck back so she could look up at him again, holding her candle high. “Ye have yer sweet mother’s face, but not her eyes, no, you have his eyes, but I see no madness there, thank Saint Rupert’s clean heart. Ah, now I can see him in you, that jaw, stubborn as a stoat’s, that jaw, and yer strong neck, but pray God what’s him is only on the outside—no rot in yer soul. Poor Lord Arthur, his insides were very like yer father. Ye aren’t like yer father or yer brother, are ye, Lord Garron?”
