The Morning Gift

by The Morning Gift (retail) (epub)

  “All of them? Stunta? Pampi? Wyrm?”

  “All,” said Kakkr. Stephen’s commitments were now so massive he was prepared to strip entire parishes of their workforce, especially in East Anglia which had shown so little loyalty to him. “There’s only women and children and me.”

  Matilda had heard none of this. She was in terror. The thought of Adeliza suffering violence was not bearable. She had sent Adeliza to it. She had caused the whole thing by her wickedness. She had kissed the mercenary and immediately God had brought this terrible thing on her in punishment. “We’ve got to get her out.”

  The mercenary looked down at her. “We can’t. Look, it would take days to get the sheriff’s men even if there are any now and even if we were in a position to call them in. Help from another village would take time. These men are marauders. When they’ve taken what they want they’ll go on somewhere else.” He hoped it was true.

  “She’ll be dead by then.”

  “She’s probably dead already.”

  Matilda began to run between the huts towards the keep. The mercenary threw himself into a tackle to stop her and they struggled in the snow. He put his hand over her mouth to stop her shouting. “All right. All right.”

  She kicked, then lay still and he removed his hand.

  “We’ve got to get her out.”

  “I said, all right.”

  He looked up to see that some of the women had come back from hiding and were staring at them.

  “No time for them sort of games, bor,” came Wilberta’s voice disapprovingly. “We wants our island back.”

  They were the able-bodied women of the village, the ones he had taught to shoot, who had come back for their crossbows, Tuna, Maggi, Milly, Wilberta and Badda. The others had taken the children by a back route to the peat-workings on the Fleam to put them in the hut there before they died of cold. “And what were you going to do?” he asked them.

  “Pick them off one by one.” It was a good, if dangerous, idea. But he doubted if Matilda would wear it. She was prepared to make an assault on the keep all by herself to get Adeliza out.

  Before anything they must get out of the cold themselves. He led them to Shudda’s hut which overlooked the green and where the embers of a fire threw out some warmth. The women’s figures were bulky and rustled with the straw-padded petticoats they wore in winter. He crossed to the window which faced the keep and shifted the reed blind over it. The keep’s unfinished dimensions and jagged top storey made it ugly. There was light coming through the arrow slit he could see on the first storey: they had a fire in there and candles.

  “One of the buggers is in the hall,” Maggi told him. “We circled back through Wulfholes and we could hear him moving about and breaking things.”

  He told Kakkr to watch the keep and moved back to the door leading on to the green. Over the other side the hall looked unfamiliar in its desertion. The gates were in deep shadow but above and behind them he saw a pale light pass a window. They were right. So there was a sentry down at the Waits, one or more ransacking the hall and the rest in the keep with the steward and the girl.

  “What you want us to do, bor?” asked Wilberta. “We could shoot that one down at the Waits, no trouble.” They had put the responsibility for returning their island to them on him. He sighed. You set out to rescue one woman and you ended up with a gaggle of them.

  Still, these were fenwomen – wildfowlers, anglers, rowers – for whom the demarcation between the distaff and spear side was not so sharply drawn as in other communities. And he himself had taught them to be arbalists.

  “Have you kept in practice?”

  They had, they told him. Since the men had been taken away they’d been using the crossbow regularly to bring down geese and duck.

  “Maggi’s wholly good,” said Milly generously.

  “We’ve got to get her out,” said Matilda.

  He went back to look at the keep entrance. Even unfinished, the place was formidable and the only way in was by the door. It was set high in the first storey with a movable, outside staircase leading up to it. At the top the staircase had a landing a foot below the sill of the door so that when it opened the admitter was standing higher than whoever sought admittance. And both would be outlined against the light from inside. The only cover within bowshot was Fenchel’s lodge which still stood on site this side of the moat.

  He did some hard thinking. The sentry down by the Waits could go on living a bit longer, but the ransacker in the hall had to go because the hall overlooked the green and they would need to move along the green.

  “All right, men, here’s what we’ll do…”

  Kakkr was sent down to scout the sentry at the Waits. “Give a duck call if he moves.” The job of retrieving her crossbow and his from the sled in the Swallen was given to Matilda and Maggi.

  He couldn’t dare spare the time to wait for them to come back, so, with Badda and Milly, the most agile, to show him the way, he left the others on guard and began the trek round the south side of the island to the back of the hall.

  What worried him most was the men’s identity. Had they been sent to Dungesey by de Mandeville who would come after them if they didn’t return? Had they been sent by anybody else who would also come after them? On the whole he thought it unlikely. Dungesey was unlikely to be on a plunderer’s map. To judge from their inefficiency they were a band of freelance robbers who’d happened to see the keep. That damned keep – he cursed his own part in locating it. It was like a lighthouse. And any time now Stephen could remember it and come back to finish it.

  He’d have to kill them all. None of these men could be allowed to escape to bring others back in a revenge raid.

  When they were behind the hall they stood in the shadow of Wulfholes’ trees and heard muffled banging; the man was overturning barrels in the undercroft. It was going to be easy. “Give me your bow, Badda.” They took him up through the apple tun to the drain in the wall; its grid was up and probably hadn’t been down in years. “Stay here.” He crawled through, sliding easily on the ice, and then ran as fast as he could round the hall and took up a position in the shadow of the gates facing the hall door.

  His shoulder was better but he cursed himself for not having practised more; there would be no trouble killing the man at this range, the tricky bit would be killing him so that he didn’t scream. He loaded and felt his back protest. He sighted slowly, moving the bow up so that it covered the steps and then the door at the top. Then he waited.

  There was a faint but steady light behind one of the windows high up at the end of the hall. The man had a rushlight, not a candle; a candle flickered. What the hell did it matter what he was carrying? The glow moved along the windows. The door opened and a man came out on the steps, draped with stolen goods. Christ, he had a frying pan and some saucepans strung over his shoulder, with the frying pan covering his heart. Willem stopped thinking and changed the trajectory and shot him in the forehead instead. The man dropped without a sound but the pans clanged on the steps and one of them bounced down hitting every flight.

  Willem ran and caught it at the bottom and raced up the stairs to stand at the top. He reloaded, his head twitching from the direction of the Waits to the keep. The noise would have alerted Ely, let alone the island. But nothing happened. After a while Willem bent down and relieved the body of its goods and dragged it into the hall. Five to go.

  Matilda and Maggi crept along the Washes behind the Driftway until Matilda said, “About here.” They climbed up the bank and slowly obtruded their heads above its top. Matilda had miscalculated; they were still within sight of the sentry, or would have been if he’d been looking in their direction. The sentry was in full mail and with the nasal on his helmet which made every soldier sinister. He was stamping to keep warm and every so often taking a swig from the bottle he held in his left hand: his right was on his sword hilt.

  From the direction of the hall came a faint clanging, like different sized gongs being struck.
The sentry swung round and drew his sword. Maggi took her bow over her head and she slid back down the bank to load it. Matilda shook her head at her; the night had gone silent again and the sentry relaxed.

  Matilda joined Maggi and they began creeping again until Matilda recognised the spot where she had kissed the mercenary. One kiss and God had punished her like this. It wasn’t fair.

  She nodded and they climbed the bank again, this time they were round the bend from the Waits and the sled was underneath. Matilda went down to it and Maggi stood on the top with the bow pointing towards the island. There was a professionalism about Maggi which reminded her of the mercenary. She picked up his crossbow and then hers and they went back the way they’d come. As they re-entered the village Maggi pointed back at the sentry: “He’s young and he’s scared.”

  “What difference does that make?” He was Fitz Payn and he had Adeliza.

  “Makes a difference to him, I reckon.”

  At the hut they waited for Badda, Milly and the mercenary; when they came they left it and, keeping to the shadow of the huts, moved to the extreme south of the village, the point opposite Fenchel’s lodge. The snow reflected back the brilliant moonlight so that the keep stared down on an arena lit for its benefit. Only the yew trees in the middle of the green made stiff, aggressive patterns of shadow. There might be a watcher in the keep or there might not. They’d soon know.

  He kept his voice low. “Remember, don’t panic if it takes a long time. Sooner or later they’re going to open that door and somebody’s going to stand on the threshold. Wait. Don’t loose off too soon. All right, men.”

  He tapped Maggi on the shoulder and she began to run across the intervening space to the lodge. The rustling of her petticoat sounded like a waterfall. The mercenary kept his eyes on the keep. She struggled with the hut door which faced the keep; it had frozen into place and the snow piled up at its foot resisted it. She bent down to scrabble at it. “Mother, open the door to her,” prayed Matilda. The mercenary looked across to see what was delaying Maggi and saw that her footprints had made a succession of clear, black dots across the snow. Christ, he’d forgotten they’d leave tracks. These were as explicit as signals. Well, it was too late now; if the men in the tower were drunk enough and incompetent enough they’d think the prints were old. “She’s in.”

  He patted Wilberta on her stout back and she bustled off, carrying her crossbow like a basket. There was a clattering as the quiver on her shoulder bounced and jostled the quarrels. God Almighty, if the marauders let them get away with this they deserved to die. One by one the other three followed and still there was no sound or stir. The mercenary and Matilda were left. “Go with them,” he pleaded. She shook her head. “It needs two of us.” It needed a bloody sight more than that. What he should have done was knock her unconscious at the start and carry her off to the coast.

  “And she’s of my household,” said Matilda de Risle.

  The keep glared down at them as they ran to the shelter of Hogwood and then dashed to the moat, approaching the keep from the back. They slid across the ice and began the climb up the steep motte, slipping, grabbing frozen tufts of grass, panting. At last they stood pressed against the great stones of the keep’s base. Wind had cleared the platform and they were able to circle to the steps without leaving prints.

  As they got to the steps the screaming began.

  Perhaps they had gagged her and not taken out the gag until then; perhaps they hadn’t hurt her until then. At first it was a woman’s terrified screams of disbelief at what was happening to her. As they continued they degenerated into animal howls that went skipping over the Fens like pebbles, alarming sleeping ducks, dislodging owls from branches and sending herons flapping to safer nests.

  “A fire arrow.” Matilda was clawing at his arm. “Get it. Burn the place down. Stop it.”

  He grabbed her and pulled her into the darkness under the staircase. “She’d burn to death.”

  “She’d rather. Listen. She’d rather be dead. I know.”

  “And I know.” He shook her with fury. “You don’t know you’re better dead. You survived and you’re glad. Aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” He stopped shaking her. “But I can’t bear it.”

  “You’ve got to and she’s got to.” It was a hell of a place and a hell of a time and a hell of a way, he thought, for her to tell him she loved him, for even if she didn’t know it, that’s what she’d done. “Now shut up.”

  The screaming had become automatic now, terrible regulated squawks as if it was a habit she would never break. Matilda covered her ears. He detached his mind from it except as it affected his plan. It would bring the man from the Waits. He wouldn’t want to miss the fun. The bleating of the goat attracted the wolf.

  And so it did. Underneath the screams came the call of a mallard.

  Crouched in the lowest angle of the steps they could see the figure emerge from the Causeway. It paused as it drew level with the hall and whistled for the fellow it presumed to be still in there. The mercenary bit his teeth together; he hadn’t had time to do more than drag the body into the hall. But the man didn’t go inside. He came on, unconsciously keeping step with the noises that pulsed out of the keep. He was level with Fenchel’s lodge and the deep track running up to its door was at his feet, but his head was directed at the source of the screams and he stepped through it.

  He passed out of the mercenary’s sight, cut off by the gradient of the motte, but his retreating back was now in line with the door of Fenchel’s lodge. It opened as he began his ascent of the steps cut in the incline and five bulky figures – Wilberta’s the bulkiest – emerged and shut the door behind them. From here on the mercenary would only be able to tell what was happening by watching them.

  They could hear the man puffing as he came up, and on the hygienic air came his smell and a whiff of wine from his breath. The steps shook and rattled above their heads as he clambered up them to the door. They heard pounding and his voice: “Open up. Don’t leave me out of it.” He sounded young and jolly as if wanting to join a party. The steps vibrated as he pounded again.

  The five figures by the hut ranged themselves in front of it. If the boy turned he would see them. “Aim,” breathed Willem. One by one the crossbows came up and the figures became a line of little statuettes.

  There was fumbling at the door above them and bars were drawn out of sockets. “Breathe in,” begged Willem. “Don’t think.”

  The hinge grated as the door swung back. “Loose.”

  The statuettes didn’t move. In Willem’s unsynchronised time they seemed to have frozen. “Loose.”

  Raggedly they fired. Chwwt-pt. Chwwt-pt, chwwt chwwt chwwt, pt pt pt. The triggers released Willem; he was up the steps while the man from the Waits was still falling with two bolts in his back. The man who had come to let him in stared at Willem as if affronted before he slid down the door which had swung back on him and held him up with the quarrel sticking in his sternum. Three to go.

  Willem kicked him out of the way. Matilda was behind him. He stepped into the keep. The place smelled like an inn and was at blood heat. Willem saw that the three men in it were drunk; only one was on his feet and coming towards them. Willem shot him and leaped sideways to give Matilda a clear shot at the man slumped on a bench against the far wall but he felt his arm jog something: Matilda had been too close behind him and he’d hit the side of her crossbow. He registered the noise of a quarrel going into a wall.

  There was no time to change direction. He had already aimed himself at the third man who was half-naked and still lying on top of Adeliza, soporific with orgasm and drink. Willem dropped his crossbow, drew his knife, lifted the man’s head back by his hair and cut his throat.

  The other man had reacted fast and had charged for the wall opposite the bed where his sheathed knife hung from a belt on a hook. Matilda was clinging on to his right arm in an effort to stop him and being dragged along the floor.

  “Drop,
” screamed Willem and threw his knife at the man. It was slippy with blood and hit the man’s shoulder, but a quarrel aimed from the doorway did better, entering the back of his neck. Milly, still heaving from her rush up the motte, lowered her bow. “How’s that, bor?”

  Matilda scrambled for the bed. Adeliza kept on screaming even after they’d covered her up and taken her down to the hall. Willem found Steward Peter doubled up and stuffed down Matilda’s garderobe chute. He had been tortured for the mythical gold – his fingers were burned at their ends – but it was the gag they had put into his mouth which had suffocated and killed him.

  * * *

  Early next morning Kakkr took a pickaxe and hacked out a grave for the steward in the frozen earth of the graveyard. Matilda stood at its foot and spoke the words with the five other women arbalists bunched around her as if the experience of the night before had bonded the six of them together.

  The other dead had no such ceremony. Willem and Kakkr dragged their bodies to a disused latrine near Hogwood and buried them. Maggi had been right: the sentry at the Waits had been very young.

  Later the mercenary took a bath in the hall’s smoke house next to the kitchen, using the vat in which old Shudda usually cleaned the grease from her fleeces. Little globules of grease floated on the steaming water but Willem didn’t mind. He peeled material off skin which hadn’t seen light for weeks, clambered in and stayed there the whole morning while the Dungesey women, preparing a celebratory feast, barged back and forth, making crude jokes, scrubbing his back and pouring in near-scalding buckets of water and dropping in soapwort, mint, sweet balm and thyme until he smelled like something between a stew and herbal tea. He didn’t mind this much either; privacy was rare in his life and baths on active service were taken in public. He snarled to keep them happy, but most of the time he soaked in bliss and deep thought.

  Whether he could persuade Matilda to leave the island or not, it needed defending. It had already suffered its fair share of death and atrocity, but with the war and de Mandeville God alone knew how much more was on its way. If he and Kakkr and some of the stronger women between them could dislodge the unfinished course of upper stones of the keep, leaving the undercroft and first storey only, and then plant quick-growing willow around its base it could be camouflaged a bit. The fact that there was such a tall rise would attract attention in this stretch of fenland, which was a curse, but it could also act as a watchtower, which was a blessing.