by K. M. Grant
“I need reminding of nothing,” said Kamil, fixing de Scabious with an ominously inscrutable expression.
“No, indeed,” said the constable nervously. “Let’s hope not, at any rate.” He turned away and kicked aside the underblankets, which were blotted with blood and hair.
Eventually de Scabious grabbed a passing boy. “You,” he ordered. “Carry this saddlery to my lodgings. There’s a groat in it.” He loaded the boy up and, without another word to Kamil, disappeared, with the boy dawdling behind him.
As soon as the constable was out of sight, Kamil threw back his hood. “Red Horse!” he exclaimed. “Hosanna! Do you still know me?” Hosanna fixed Kamil with his clouded eyes and rested his torn mouth on his arm. Kamil was overwhelmed. He took Hosanna’s face between his hands and pressed his forehead against the white star still shining fair against the chestnut. Kamil’s black hair and Hosanna’s russet forelock ruffled together in the breeze, and neither moved for some time.
When he felt calmer, Kamil encouraged Hosanna to walk on. “We’ll find a ship straightaway,” he said, “and leave this benighted country before war breaks out. Hal knows that Richard is alive. The de Granvilles don’t need my letter. I can leave with a clear conscience.” He began to guide the horse through the narrow streets.
Now that Kamil could see them clearly, Hosanna’s wounds made him burn with indignation. “We Arabs at least know how to treat our horses,” he muttered. People stared at them, and while Kamil was not surprised, he was alarmed by the attention. “Try to hurry,” he urged. “One of those Genoese ships will take us.”
They reached the quayside, and Kamil began to negotiate a passage. Terrible comments, which Kamil tried to ignore, were passed about the state of the red horse, and as he concluded his bargain with the shipmaster he felt sharp fists on his back. Turning around, he found himself accosted by the gray horse’s weeping mistress. “Where’s my horse?” she sobbed. “What have you done with him? Is this what happened to your last one?”
Kamil did not try to explain. “Your horse is here somewhere,” he said easily. “But I no longer want him. Here”—he fumbled in his pouch—“take this.” He handed over one hundred shillings, not even bothering to count it out. The girl fell back in amazement, then grabbed the money, hid it under her skirt, and fled.
The shipmaster looked on with both concern and amusement. “Lovers’ tiff?” he asked. “The horse looks like he has borne the brunt.”
Kamil thrust more money at him. “I want to board now,” he said.
The master looked into the wind. “Good timing,” he said. “We’ll be out of here in less than an hour.”
Taking hold of the silken rope, Kamil began to lead Hosanna forward. He was smiling as he remembered how Hal’s plans had come to nothing because his black horse was a coward. Not so Hosanna, who, Kamil knew very well, would load onto any ship in any circumstances. “Come,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
Hosanna moved obediently, but when they reached the gangplank, he stopped.
“Come,” Kamil repeated, tenderly rubbing Hosanna’s blood-caked, velvet nose. But Hosanna remained steadfast. Kamil leaned down and picked up a hoof to place it on the ramp. Maybe the horse’s wounds had rattled his nerves. But while Hosanna raised his foot willingly enough, he would put it down only on dry land.
The shipmaster watched the procedure with interest. “I saw one of these cowards just yesterday,” he said. “A boy with a black animal. It wouldn’t load either. Horse training isn’t what it used to be. Now, shall we use a whip, or shall I get the sailors to bump him on? He looks such a miserable animal we could probably carry him if you insist on taking him, although it doesn’t seem worth the trouble to me.”
Kamil tried to remain calm. He dropped the rope, unsure what to do, particularly as Hosanna was drooping, finding it difficult to stand. The horse leaned against Kamil’s breast, causing Richard’s letter, inside his tunic, to crackle. Kamil stroked the horse’s ears, and Hosanna sighed, closing his tired eyes.
“What’s it to be, then?” demanded the ship’s captain. “We must get going. Shall we manhandle him on, even though he looks only good for the slaughterhouse?”
Kamil shook his head. Most reluctantly, hardly believing what was happening, he turned away from the sea. Immediately Hosanna hobbled after him.
“You, foreigner,” the shipmaster shouted, throwing back Kamil’s money, “treat your next horse better.” The sailors laughed as the young man’s cheeks flamed.
Hosanna walked quietly now.
“I’m not going without you,” Kamil murmured. “So I shall just have to wait.”
They walked out of the town and up a sandy track for about half a mile. It was steep, and they took their time. Where the sand gave way to grass, Kamil, not knowing what else to do, turned inland until the gurgling of a stream was louder than the drag of the waves. Here he found several good-sized sheep sheds amid the yellow gorse, all of which appeared to be abandoned. One of these would do for tonight. Hosanna was beginning to stiffen up.
Once inside the shed Kamil extracted a bowl from his bag and went outside to fill it with water. Then he stripped off his silk tunic, tore it up, and used it to wash Hosanna’s wounds, first his mouth, then his back, then the crisscrossed stripes sliced into his skin by the thin switch. The water was changed many times as it went from clear to pink to red, but finally Kamil was satisfied and laid out ointments he had brought from the Orient. Choosing carefully, he spread some over the horse’s body.
Hosanna stood all the while, his eyes following Kamil’s every move. As his old friend worked, he sighed, and several times Kamil had to push down a lump in his throat. I am growing sentimental, he thought as he covered Hosanna in his cloak and busied himself finding twigs for a fire. He blew on the flames and watched Hosanna as he rested.
We’ll go to Hartslove, Kamil decided. It seems I must. But even cleaned up, the horse was in a poor way. They would have to move slowly. No matter. Now that he had what he wanted, Kamil began to lose any sense of urgency. The red horse was his, bargained for, not stolen.
At dusk he checked the horse’s wounds again. There would be scars, but they would heal. As the sun vanished they stood together at the shed opening looking up as the night sky rolled itself out. When darkness fell, Kamil sat cross-legged, and Hosanna, in a gesture of supreme trust, lay down, put his head in Kamil’s lap, and went to sleep.
The horse spent all the next day in or near the stream, allowing the cold water to massage his legs and cool his bruises. Kamil sat on the bank or stood in the water too, gently separating each hair of matted forelock, mane, and tail, and washing off the last remaining sweat and filth. Hosanna drank deeply, curling his lips as the water stung the raw patches on his gums and flooded the bloody indentations on the roof of his mouth.
At about midday both he and Kamil heard the bell of Whitby Abbey calling the monks to sing the office. Hosanna raised his head. Kamil knew he should pray too, but somehow, in this strange country, it did not feel right. Instead, with some misgivings he set off back to the town to get provisions and equipment for the journey, leaving Hosanna dozing among the sheep sheds.
But all was well. A whinny greeted his return. Already the cloudiness was lifting from the horse’s eyes, and Kamil, sharing the bread he had bought, felt hopeful and glad.
As the sun rose the following morning he twisted a thin length of hide to make a bitless bridle and fashioned a saddle from an old sheepskin and a leather strip. “I can’t use my colored cord and ride with no saddle at all,” he said to Hosanna. “From what I can see, it is not a very English way to go about things.” He was anxious to move on, for he did not want to bump into de Scabious or the mercenaries. Packing away anything that marked him as a Saracen, he made sure that when he and Hosanna set off, nothing, except perhaps the color of his own skin and the very distinctive red of the horse’s coat, looked out of the ordinary.
They walked in companionable silence, covering only a
few miles to begin with. However, after a day or two, his wounds markedly improving and the spring sun warm on his back, Hosanna began to lose the terrible shrunken look that pain brings with it. Only then did Kamil vault lightly on and begin the long climb to the top of the moors.
It was a glorious journey. Up in the clear air Hosanna recovered his strength almost by the hour, and his spirits rose. With no audience except the curlews and the hawks, Kamil pretended that they were back in the desert, he a powerful emir and Hosanna his noble charger. And surely this is not a pipe dream, Kamil thought. He would deliver the letter, and after that the de Granvilles would feel obliged to help him get home. He would make a new life for himself in Palestine. He watched a buzzard circle on broad, motionless wings, its plaintive cry and heavy flight reminding him of Richard. Yes. Hosanna had been right to refuse the ship’s gangplank. Now he could claim Hosanna, not just by bargaining right, but with honor.
As they covered the miles, for the first time Kamil was able to think of his dead adoptive father without bitterness. That evening at sunset, he asked Hosanna to perform an old trick he had taught him just before the last battle of the crusade. At the appropriate command Hosanna reared, striking out as if at an enemy. As he plunged back to earth Kamil was filled with gratitude, and that night when he heard once again the distant toll of an abbey bell he bowed his head and lifted his own heart and mind to Allah.
11
Ellie often heard abbey bells, but they brought her no comfort, for they could not answer the question that nagged her all the time as the days dragged on: Where was Gavin? Was he really not even going to come for her? Old Nurse, watching Ellie’s youthful freshness wither and her brow crease, grew mournful. “I really am a ball and chain,” she said one evening as the girl stared out at the sun setting over the woods miles below. The snow was gone, and the trees were showing their buds. “I know you. If it was not for me, you would find a way out of here.”
Ellie stopped staring. “You are a comfort and support,” she said wearily. “Please, Old Nurse. Don’t torture yourself. How could I leave, anyway, with Will locked in the cellar and Sacramenta locked in the stables? And how could we leave Hosanna with Constable de Scabious? It’s not you who is preventing me from trying to escape. It is everybody else, too.”
Old Nurse sighed. The old Ellie was slowly diminishing. This new Ellie did not run up the tower steps or walk with a spring in her step. She looked beaten, almost submissive.
“Come,” Old Nurse said. “Come and try to sleep.”
Ellie obeyed, but long after the old woman was snoring, her eyes were still wide open, so she got up and drew a thick cloak around her. The night was clear, and from the window’s height she felt close to the stars. Will must be freezing, she thought, and hated herself for being warm. She could hear raucous laughter below her and the sound of barrels being rolled over cobbles. The sergeant was having a party celebrating the constable’s continued absence.
Early the next morning she dressed and went out to the courtyard. The soldiers lay in heaps. The party had clearly been a good one. Ellie wandered about. She was forbidden to visit Sacramenta, but when she saw Gethin alone in the armory, she ventured inside and sat down near the fire. The youth was concentrating hard as he stitched a bridle. He did not speak, but every now and again stole a glance. Ellie looked so like his dead sister. She was certainly as pale. The only color about her was the green jasper necklace. He cut his thread thoughtfully and hung the bridle on a hook. It didn’t feel right to him, somebody looking so sad. He sat down again. Then with purely animal instincts, he got up, rummaged in a corner, and found a large brown blanket. Tossing it over Ellie’s head, he swiftly wrapped her in it and picked her up.
At first she resisted, but Gethin was strong. He waited until she stopped thrashing about, then seized a lantern and swung her over his shoulders. Without saying a word, he carried her straight across the courtyard and glanced quickly around before opening the door of the stables and slipping inside. Sacramenta whickered, and Gethin clicked his tongue at her. Finding herself on the floor, Ellie emerged blinking, stared up at Gethin, then got to her feet, poised for flight. But suddenly realizing where she was, her face lit up. In an instant she found Sacramenta and buried herself in the mare’s mane.
Gethin said nothing, but after he had taken the animals, two by two, to drink at the trough and finished his work, he brought the blanket over and waited. Reluctantly giving Sacramenta a last kiss, Ellie lay down and allowed herself to be rolled up again, and once she was safely back in the armory, Gethin was pleased to see that she had more color in her cheeks. He shook out the blanket, put it back in the corner, and began to repair a broken saddletree.
But Ellie did not leave. A far more daring idea was forming in her head. The soldiers were still snoring. Frightened of alarming the boy so that he would never allow her into the armory again, Ellie was, nevertheless, determined. Wrapping the blanket round herself once more, she stood by the door and whispered, “Cellar!”
Gethin’s ruddy cheeks became even ruddier, and his broad face evinced a mixture of fear and apology as he shook his head. He pointed to the floor. The pottage pan that had contained Will’s breakfast had already been collected. There was no reason to go to the cellar again.
“Please,” breathed Ellie, and she smiled at him, a smile of such heartfelt pleading that it would have melted the resolve of somebody much less susceptible than Gethin.
He wrenched his eyes away from hers but although every cell in his body told him “NO,” he could not bear to refuse. He peered out of the armory. Deep shadow still covered the wall behind which Will was imprisoned. It might be possible. Taking a shaky breath, he tried to steady his heart. Never in his life had he contemplated such disobedience to orders. Never. Then suddenly blowing out his cheeks, he seized Ellie and again set off across the courtyard, this time almost at a run.
Just outside the cellar door he had misgivings, wondering if she would be prepared for the conditions in which men shut up other men. But Ellie, nervous that he would change his mind, was already slipping down. She agonized as he fumbled with the key, then nearly retched as he opened the door and the smell wafted out. But she did not stop. Silent as a ghost, she vanished inside. Gethin shut the door and locked it. By the time he got back to the armory, he was green.
Ellie had to put her hands over her mouth to stop herself from gagging. The air was suffocatingly thick, and without light she was completely disorientated. When she felt able, she took her hands away from her face and gingerly put her arms out in front of her.
“Will, it’s me,” she whispered, trying not to breathe. “Gethin let me in. Will? Will? Where are you?”
She felt for the wall, and recoiled at the water running down it. Slowly she made her way around the cell, sliding through the slime, her heart crashing in her ears. She made her way around twice. Then she began to shiver uncontrollably. Will was not here. He definitely was not here. Oh God, what had they done with him? Beside herself and not caring what the soldiers might do to her, Ellie slithered back to the door and raised her fists to beat on it. She must know where Will was. Surely they could not keep that from her. But she only hit the door once before pure animal fear made her whip around. Drafts like icicles were fingering her ankles and creeping up her legs. She thrust out her hands to ward away some unseen, unspeakable evil.
“Help me, Mother of God,” she cried silently into the darkness. “Oh help me, Mother of God.”
As her panic rose she dropped the blanket and began to fumble madly around again, not looking for Will this time, not looking for anything except escape from something she felt was about to envelop and smother her. The draft caught the bottom of her dress and made it flap. Faster and faster, Ellie scrabbled around the cellar, crouching lower and lower until her frantic fingers suddenly found themselves scratching not against stone but against thin air. She was brought up short. Trying to control the tremors in her legs, she made her fingers scratch again. And
again and yet again.
What she could feel was a broad crack where the stones were haphazardly pulled together. If she pushed her finger through … yes, oh YES! That was where the draft was coming from, not from some demonic creature’s jaws, but from a hole.
Weak with relief, Ellie leaned her head against the wall, oblivious of the slime that oozed onto her hair. She almost laughed out loud. There was no evil beast, just a gap through which fresh air was pouring. Gingerly she pushed her hand inside, and immediately a small cascade of rock landed near her feet. She moved her arm up and down. This was not even a hole, it was a tunnel, and if Will was not in the cell, this was the reason why.
At that moment she heard the door opening again. In an instant she pulled her arm back. Making no sound, she stumbled toward the light, snatching up the blanket from the floor as she went. The door must not open any farther, for she had no idea how far she could trust Gethin. She reached him just in time. His face was red and strained. He was not regretting his kindness, but he would not rest until Ellie was back in her chamber, and when she presented herself with such alacrity, his relief was palpable. In silence the girl wrapped herself in the now vile and stinking blanket, and Gethin, after relocking the door, quickly slung her over his shoulder and hurried away.
They were inside the armory before they realized they were not alone. Elric’s mother had drawn up a stool in front of the fire. “I’ve brought laundry,” she said to Gethin. “There are clean blankets here.” She smiled at him, but her smile faded when Ellie dropped to the floor. Gethin stood quite still, frightened out of his wits. However, Ellie knew at once what she should do. Walking straight up to Morwenna, she held out the blanket.
“I apologize about the mess,” she said. “I was not feeling very well and came down to use the sewer, but I slipped and fell in. I’m so sorry to cause you extra work.” She gave a tentative gesture of pleading.