[Stephen Attebrook 11] - Missing

by Jason Vail

  He vanished again, to reappear at the bow, where he hauled up the stone anchor. With that aboard, Harry lifted himself onto a thwart and ran out a pair of oars.

  Stephen’s fingers fidgeted as he worried whether Harry could row without legs; they were important in allowing a rower to brace against the pull. But Harry turned the bow and made headway against the current toward Stephen and Gilbert.

  Stephen clambered down the cut in the bank and grasped the bow when it came into reach. He tossed Harry his cloak, since there were goosepimples along Harry’s chest and arms and he was shivering. His lips were bluish, too.

  “Well done, Harry,” Gilbert said above.

  “Of course, it was,” Harry said. “Did you think I couldn’t manage?”

  “I, er, no,” Gilbert said. “I mean, I expected you could.”

  “Hmmph,” Harry grunted. To Stephen he said, “Have you ever been down the river before? On it, I mean. Not beside it.”

  “No,” Stephen said, turning to Gilbert for their satchels.

  “You’ll find it an enjoyable experience.”

  Harry climbed down from the thwart and reclined at the back of the boat by its rudder. “Easier on your bum than riding. Gilbert! Hurry down! You get to row first!”

  “We’ll be taking turns, I trust,” Gilbert said, inching his way down the cut with more care than Harry and Stephen had done, since it was steep.

  “You and Stephen, maybe,” Harry said. “I’m the steersman. I’m more suited to this vital job than as a mere oarsman.”

  Chapter 10

  It was quiet on the river. They floated by the cathedral, which frowned down on them, imposing and untroubled by the violence around it. Indeed, all the houses around the cathedral had escaped damage. That made sense. The bishop of Worcester, Walter de Cantiloupe, was a supporter of the barons and those houses belonged to men attached to the cathedral. As the boat slipped by the edifice, Stephen wondered if the bishop had played any role in enabling Ferrers’ men to take the castle, which was just downriver from the cathedral.

  The town fell into the distance and swans and ducks loitered near the banks in greater profusion where they could not be annoyed by men. A kestrel streaked overhead. A kingfisher, resplendent in blue and orange, wobbled momentarily on a stem of tall grass. It spotted a rival kingfisher and swept away to defend its territory. The main sounds were birds calling, the sigh of a gentle wind that stirred the grass, and the lapping of the water on the boat’s sides.

  The banks were high and it was impossible to get a good view of the fields on either side. Now and then a cow could be seen at the top of the bank. Once, a dog watched them pass beneath. Later, they drifted by a boy fishing, and further downstream they came upon two men collecting a fish trap filled with the catch of the day, which they dumped in the bottom of their boat and returned the trap to the water.

  It was hard to believe in this tranquil stretch of the great river that just upstream there were dead people lying in the ruins of their homes, the survivors wandering through the rubble despairing at having lost friends, relatives and their means of livelihood, while armies looking for trouble prowled the countryside. Where were Ferrers and Montfort going? What were they up to? What was Lord Edward doing and what did he intend? Stephen wished he had answers to these questions. And his anxiety gave rise to worries about what lay ahead for them in Gloucester and the future of Halton Priors. He wondered how Ida was doing.

  His legs hurt as well as his mind, and he tried to send his thoughts elsewhere by taking over the rowing from Gilbert, who surrendered the oars with relief, although he let the current do most of the work, and found a place near the bow.

  Stephen worked harder than Gilbert, heedless of the pain of his legs, and within less than two hours, Harry pointed over Stephen’s shoulder and said, “Look there!”

  Stephen swung toward the direction of Harry’s finger. A white stone church could be seen on the east bank surrounded by elms. A large stone manor house stood not far from the church. Its fresh limewash and slate roof suggested the owner was a rich man.

  “I recognize this place,” Harry said. “I’ve been here before.”

  “When could that have been?” Gilbert asked. “I thought you were a farm boy.”

  “Well, I was for a time, before I moved to Hereford,” Harry said. “I found work on the river from time to time.” The river in question had to be the Wye, which flowed through Hereford to the mouth of the Severn. “We delivered a load of Welsh cowhides to Chepstow. The captain took on a shipment of wine, which we carried up to Bewdley.” He smiled with a trace of bitterness. “It was for the Spicers. We dented a cask in the unloading, and he refused to pay for it.”

  Stephen nodded. That would be John le Spicer, the younger. Spicer had a shop at the top of Broad Street in Ludlow where he sold spices, herbal remedies and wine. Bewdley was the port on the Severn where the people of Ludlow sent and received goods transported by water. The River Teme, which flowed around Ludlow, was too shallow and had too many rapids for cargo boats.

  “Who dented the cask?” Gilbert asked.

  “What do you want to know for?”

  “Was it you?”

  Harry’s mouth turned downward. “Yeah. It was. That whiny bastard was the reason I lost my pay and had to walk back to Hereford.”

  Harry waved toward the church. “We should put in here.”

  “Why?” Stephen said, in the middle of a stroke.

  “Because that mouth in the bow is dying from hunger and thirst. So am I. Besides, there was a good healer here, or was the last time I stopped here. It’s been fifteen or more years, but maybe she’s still alive. You need someone to look at your legs, the way you’ve been grimacing for the last hour.”

  “It is the effort of rowing,” Stephen said. “Can’t you see how hard I’ve been working to get you to Gloucester as soon as possible?”

  “You can’t fool me,” Harry said. “You’re in pain.” He turned the tiller so the boat swung left, where a flat-bottomed ferry boat was tied up at a cut up the bank. “Anyway, I am the captain of this tub. You don’t have a say in the matter.”

  “Who elected you captain?” Gilbert asked.

  “I elected myself. It couldn’t have been you. You sank the last boat you commanded,” Harry said, referring to the fact that Gilbert had lost a rowboat on the River Thames. That he had run the London Bridge on a falling tide when the flow between the bridge’s stone piers made for treacherous rapids was not taken into account. “And Lord Stephen is too much of a gentleman to stoop to such low work.”

  The boat’s bow struck sand at the bottom of the bank.

  “Go fetch us dinner and the healer woman,” Harry said to Gilbert. “And be quick about it.”

  Stephen dragged the boat farther onto the sand so that Harry could climb out without getting wet. He limped to the top of the bank, where he could see Gilbert heading toward a collection of thatched roofs. He lay down on his back, knees up to avoid placing his legs on the grass; even slight pressure from the grass sent lances of pain up his legs.

  “Let’s get the rest of those stockings off,” Harry said when he came up the bank. He removed Stephen’s boots and cut away the ravaged stockings. He tossed the remnants aside. “No blisters yet. That’s a good sign. That fellow who died from infection had blisters. You may yet live.”

  Gilbert returned sometime later with a satchel of food and a woman.

  The village was called Kempsey, and the large manor house turned out to be the country retreat of the bishop of Worcester. Gilbert learned this on the way back from the village with Sisilla, the healer. She was the granddaughter of the woman Harry remembered. The older woman, though still alive, was too frail to leave her garden. Sisilla performed all the home visits now.

  “I assume you are the patient?” Sisilla briskly asked Stephen. She was striking, the sort of woman certain to get a second look from men gathered outside taverns, with long black hair that she wore in a single braid that
dangled down her back, the sign of an unmarried woman.

  Stephen raised a hand in answer. He sat up to get to his feet, but Sisilla pushed him back.

  “Lie still,” she said. She lifted his bad foot by the ankle to examine the burns, which were a fiery red. She set that foot down and did the same to Stephen’s right foot. “So, walking on hot coals, were we?”

  “Something like that,” Stephen said. “We’ve just come from Worcester. The barons’ forces burned it yesterday. We had to walk through some of the fires to get out.”

  “We heard about Worcester,” Sisilla said. She extracted a clay pot from her satchel, dipped two fingers in it and came out with glistening fingers, some type of thick oily liquid. “Hold still. This will hurt a bit.”

  “A bit” was an understatement. It hurt a lot when she swabbed the oil on Stephen’s burns. He clenched his teeth to keep from making any noise and held as still as he could.

  “What is that smell?” Stephen asked, for the ointment had a particular aroma that he could not place. Most ointments made the nose curl, but this was fragrant, like a flower.

  “Essence of lavender,” Sisilla said. “I’m sorry that I have nothing at the moment for the pain.”

  “What pain?” Stephen asked, feigning nonchalance.

  She rubbed a bit harder on Stephen’s leg than she had before, and he winced. “That pain.”

  “There,” Sisilla said when she finished. She handed him the pot. “Put some on morning and evening until the redness and pain go away.” She looked up the river toward Worcester. “Was it bad?”

  “Many were killed,” Stephen said. “I think the whole town burned. It seemed like it, anyway. We got out as soon as we could, so I don’t know for sure.”

  Sisilla smiled without humor. “That army came through here this morning.”

  “We heard they had gone south.”

  “To Gloucester,” she said. “At least that’s what I heard some of them say where they were heading.”

  “Any looting or burning here?”

  She laughed, again without humor. “This village belongs to the bishop. He’s on the side of the barons, and he came down with the army to ensure that nothing happened here. He’s over there now, if you want to talk to him.” She waved at the manor house. “So we were safe. For now. Which side are you on?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Stephen equivocated. He didn’t want to say in case she backed the other side and ran off to summon the local watch to take them in hand.

  “How did it happen?” she asked, indicating Stephen’s bad foot.

  He told her the story of how he had been defending a castle in Spain and a Moor had chopped off part of his left foot with an axe.

  Sisilla nodded. “Men usually die of a wound like that. You were lucky.” She looked at Harry. “And you were luckier still.”

  “It didn’t feel like lucky for quite a while. But lately?” Harry shrugged.

  “And you,” Sisilla said to Stephen, “does your foot give you much trouble?”

  Stephen did not answer right away. He hadn’t given his foot much thought since he got back from Windsor with Ida more than a month ago. It was almost as if he had forgotten about the injury.

  “No trouble, really,” he said. “Not nearly as much as I had expected.”

  “Good.” Sisilla dug into her satchel again for another clay pot. “The scars can be a problem, I know. They can be stiff and hard. Put this on the scars at night before you go to bed. It will help soften them.” She pointed at Harry. “You, too.”

  Stephen accepted the pot. “How much do we owe you?”

  “A penny should do it.” She smiled and stood up. “For another half-penny I can bring you stockings to replace those rags. They won’t be quite what you’re used to in quality, but a man of your station cannot go about half-dressed.”

  Sisilla returned with the stockings as they were finishing the food Gilbert had bought in the village.

  Instead of heading straight back, Sisilla sat on the bank by Stephen.

  The new stockings were blue and worn a bit white at the knees, but without any patches or holes. Stephen waited for a moment, expecting her to leave so he could decently put them on. When she didn’t leave and knowing he could not afford to waste any more time, he pulled the stockings up and tied the tops to the linen cord holding up his underwear. He felt a bit embarrassed by this but she seemingly did not.

  “There is one more thing you might want to know,” Sisilla said, watching with interest as Harry maneuvered lithely over the thwarts to the stern of the boat. “The army is making for Tewkesbury today. I heard some officers ordering riders ahead to find a place to camp. In case you want to avoid them.”

  “You think I want to avoid them?”

  “I don’t think you are as confused about your loyalties as you make out.” Changing the subject, she said, “That’s a stolen boat, isn’t it.”

  “Sadly, that’s true.”

  “I hope it finds its way back to its owner someday.”

  “Perhaps it may.”

  Harry waved at Stephen from his place by the rudder. “Come on. Are you going to wait for the sun to go down?”

  “You let him talk to you like that?” Sisilla asked.

  “I can’t stop him,” Stephen said. “Harry is a force of nature.”

  “He’s not your man?”

  “He’s nobody’s man. Say, you wouldn’t happen to know how far it is to Gloucester from here on the river, would you?”

  “Twenty-five miles? Something like that.”

  “Thanks for everything.”

  She nodded, face grave.

  Stephen clambered down the bank to the boat. He pushed it into the river and climbed aboard. He sat at the oars and, backing one oar while rowing forward with the other, turned the prow downstream.

  Sisilla was still watching them as the boat rounded a bend in the river and she passed out of sight.

  Chapter 11

  They found the enemy army three hours later.

  The first sign was a column of black smoke just beginning to rise in the near distance. It could have been someone burning rubbish, but as they drew closer, thick smoke began roiling skyward, the indication of a furious blaze. Flames could be seen behind a screen of trees beneath a castle on a gentle rise; armed men on the wall walk were watching the fire.

  “Looks like a house on fire,” Harry said, squinting ahead and offering his expert opinion.

  Stephen twisted around to see if Harry’s opinion was correct. It was hard to tell at first, but as they slipped closer, it was clear Harry was somewhat right. A thatch-roofed building, which had to be a barn from the size of it, was ablaze. The sound of crackling thatch and wood could be heard out on the river.

  There were armed men all about the burning barn and more loitering at a cut in the bank that looked to be a ferry crossing. A flat-bottomed boat was tied up on the opposite bank at a similar cut and a number of people stood around it with horses and cows, watching the fire and the soldiers.

  “Steer close to there,” Stephen ordered Harry, indicating the people with the horses and cows.

  Harry turned the tiller and the boat glided up to the spectators on the safe side of the river. Stephen held the boat steady against the current.

  “How far to Tewkesbury?” he called to the people on the bank.

  “A mile,” a man holding one of the cows by a rope halter called back.

  “You best get your beasts as far away as possible, in case they find some boats and come after them,” Stephen said.

  “Any idea what’s going on?” one of the others called back. “Who are those people?”

  “It’s a barons’ army,” Stephen replied. “They sacked Worcester yesterday, and are heading for Gloucester now.”

  The man’s mouth dropped with alarm. “I don’t want to be here, if what you say is true, let alone Gloucester, then.” He tugged on the lead rope and led a cow away, trailed by a woman, two small boys and a little girl.
Other spectators began streaming away as well.

  “Neither do we,” Stephen said under his breath as he turned the bow downstream and dug the oars in.

  “I suppose that’s that,” Gilbert sighed as the boat pulled away from the spectacle of the burning barn. “With a rebel army in Gloucester, I doubt there’s anything we can do.”

  “Well,” Stephen said, “if we beat the army there, we’ll have time to make some inquiries. That army can’t reach Gloucester before tomorrow, and I doubt the town fathers will let them in to run wild in the streets. Who knows what we might turn up?”

  “And what’s your fancy idea for beating the army to Gloucester?” Harry asked.

  “We row through the night,” Stephen said. “You can take a turn, too.”

  Harry thought Stephen was joking, but he was dead serious. Using the anchor rope, Stephen tied Harry to the rowing bench. So secured, Harry was able to generate a good bit of force with the oars, while Stephen settled gratefully into the bow as Gilbert manned the tiller.

  “I don’t like this idea,” Harry said. “What if the boat sinks? I’ll go down with it! Look at these miserable knots! Impossible to untie in a hurry!”

  “Then we’ll have to hope the boat doesn’t sink,” Gilbert said.

  “With you aboard, that’s a real and present danger,” Harry said.

  Gilbert grasped the upper strake and rocked the boat as he stood partly up.

  “Hey!” Harry said. “Keep your seat, you fool!”

  “I feel the need to relieve myself,” Gilbert said. “Since we are in a hurry now, I shall have to do so over the side.”

  “You can hold it to Gloucester, surely,” Harry said.

  “How long till we get there?” Gilbert asked Stephen.

  “Midnight, I expect,” Stephen said. “Maybe later. Depends on whether you two can stop wasting your precious breath on argument and conserve it for work. What’s the matter with you, Harry? Can’t you row any faster than this?”