Free Chance by Nancy Springer Page A

Chance took his turn with the maul and wedge, but for the most part he watched from the shelter of the dungeon tower, waiting. Once his men had succeeded in loosening a stone, it was only a matter of time. In any event, Roddarc’s overthrow was only a matter of time.
    They made their entry, and widened and defended it during the night, and on the third day they stormed the keep. Roddarc met them at the top of the first spiral of stone steps.
    â€œChance,” he breathed. “They told me, but I did not believe them.”
    â€œWho else? Would you wish an enemy to have the slaying of you?”
    â€œMischance, I will have to call you now.”
    Roddarc raised his sword, and Chance struck with his cudgel, the commoner’s weapon of choice. All around them men fought hand to hand, with staffs and daggers, the renegades forcing the defenders back, opening the high, barred entry so that those outside could put up the scaling ladders to it; more rebels poured in by the moment. And Chance had not yet succeeded in touching Roddarc, nor had the lord harmed Chance, but with swift strokes of his sword he killed rebel after rebel as he and his few remaining men gave way. He was splendid, magnificent, as magnificent as he had been at Gallowstree Lea. Flung back at every charge, Chance could not come near him. Only sheer press of numbers forced Roddarc back.
    One more stone stairway led to the upper chambers, the lord’s last refuge. Roddarc leaped to a vantage on the stairs, planted his feet in the fighter’s stance and waited there with bloodied sword at the ready, and for a moment no rebel came near him.
    â€œWhy!” the lord panted at Chance. “That is all I want to know; just tell me why!”
    Chance’s anger rose up in him like the one-eyed monster in its fen at the center of the Wirral.
    â€œTyrant!” he roared. “You yourself are the rod that has always scarred me the worst, son of Riol! You with your sniveling and your so-called friendship—be an honest tyrant, would you, or no tyrant at all!”
    Rage flushed Roddarc’s face to the hairline, twisted his mouth, blazed in his eyes, and those who watched stepped back as if they had seen a revenant; for a moment it seemed as if Riol stood there.
    â€œWhere are your balls, whipping boy?” the lord taunted, and Chance lunged.
    Up that spiral stairway they fought, and this time Chance took cuts, and the lord took blows. Roddarc fought on alone; the last of his followers had been captured or slain. He slashed Chance on the head and nearly toppled him, but others stood ready to steady their leader, to drive back the lord; Chance and the others drove him back to the head of the stairs, then quickly halfway to the wall. But at the center of his lordly chamber Roddarc let his sword fall with a clash to the floor, kicked it toward Chance.
    â€œI’ll not be taken in a corner, like a brawler,” he said, standing lance straight. “Take that and use it, whipping boy.” The sword spun on the stone floor, then came to rest with a clatter against Chance’s feet. Chance stood as still as Roddarc, and a ring of rebels formed, watching.
    â€œTake it, bastard, and my dying curse on you! I’ll not be slain with a commoner’s weapon.”
    Chance picked up the sword, hefting it, accustoming his woodsman’s hand to the feel of this unfamiliar weapon. “And what is the curse?” he asked mildly.
    Roddarc smiled, a hard, dark smile. “Riol have you,” he said.
    Chance killed him with a single blow of the sword.
    Chance came to Halimeda in twilight, with a bloody wrapping on his head. The lady came out of the lodge and stood beneath an oak tree to meet him, the child in her arms, a question in her gaze. He met her eyes and nodded.
    â€œRoddarc is dead,” he said, “and he died well. The women are preparing his body for a lord’s burial.”
    â€œI thought it more likely, the