‘I am sorry,’ Brien said again. He looked closely at the speaker. ‘I know you – you are Thomas from the heron’s horn below Ewelme. You hold a virgate of me.’
‘Aye, that I did, but not now. Where my orchard was there are only burned stumps. My barn and all the stores are burned too. There is nothing left – nothing! ’
‘I will do what I can for you,’ Brien answered and called to Amauri de Beauprez to note the loss.
‘Can you make my son live?’ the man asked roughly, desperation giving him courage to speak. ‘What is it to me who sits on the throne? All I want is to farm my land in peace. ’
‘Do you own the land?’ Brien queried sharply. ‘You hold of me and it is I who have lost too. You will get other fields to keep when I have them to give.’
The fellow gave a derisive laugh. ‘Why should I till for others to reap? It used to be “one to rot and one to grow, one for pigeon and one for crow” but now it seems I sow seed for any man who chooses to rob me. The King’s men took all my harvest – and anyway I care not now with neither wife nor son to work for.’
‘We will find you work here.’
The man began to argue but Brien dismissed him curtly. He was sorry for the fellow but too taken up with a tide of anger so fierce that if he could have seized Martel at that moment he would have hanged him with his own hands.
His steward said gravely, ‘Swyncombe was the last manor but Huntercombe left to us. God knows how we shall fare when our present supplies are gone.’
‘If God knows He will no doubt see we are fed,’ Brien said with terse and bitter humour and then stopped abruptly. He would not have said such a thing a year ago. ‘Well, we still have the fields about Wallingford and there are plenty of fish in the river to say nothing of plundering our neighbours.’ He turned to Alfric, ‘Master priest, you may bide here until we can restore your church to you – though I doubt if we shall regain your relic.’
‘I thank you,’ Alfric said humbly, and then summoning up his courage he went on, ‘but I think I am not made for this world’s frights. Give me leave to go and hide myself in some holy house where I may find God’s peace.’
‘Go if you will.’ Brien stared round the circle of familiar faces. Their dependence on him was, he thought, the burden he shouldered every morning. He brought his gaze back to Alfric. ‘Go,’ he repeated more gently, ‘but do not expect to find any holy place that will be exempt from men’s greed – or their need. This war makes creatures of prey of us all. ’
He turned and went back up the stair aware that they were all watching him, aware of the change in himself, in this castle, the insidious effect of the anarchy that now was wrecking King Henry’s England.
When he had gone Amauri said, ‘I fear worse times are coming on us and there is nothing we can do to aid him. ’
‘Holy Cross,’ Roger interrupted, ‘what a pother about a poor priest and a cottar. They will not bring our master down.’
‘Will they not?’ De Beauprez looked at him and then beyond him into the dimness at the far end of the hall. Men were moving away now, Alfric had gone with the chaplain, Thomas the cottar with one of the serving men, and the steward sighed heavily. ‘Do you not see, my friend, what they have taken from him? ‘
Roger glanced at him, puzzled, and then shaking his head went to lay his pallet beside Bernard. But he was uneasy and did not sleep for a long time; when he did he dreamed of Martel and Philip of Gloucester and the stone cell where William of Ypres had kept him when he was held in Lewes Castle.
Brien did not sleep either until dawn was breaking outside, a cold wintry dawn with the snowflakes drifting past the narrow slit window. Once in the night, hearing him twisting and turning, Thurstin came from his pallet with a cup of wine. Brien took it, regarding the lad as he drank the red spiced liquid. ‘I’ll read for a while but you need your sleep. Take your pallet into the bower, boy.’
‘Very well, my lord, but you will call if you need me?’
‘Of course.’ Momentarily diverted from his own problems Brien smiled up at the young face, grave in the light of the candle he had lit from the low burning fire. ‘Thurstin, you have become too big a fellow to be my page. You’d best go as squire to Gilbert Basset, he will teach you a knight’s trade and make your father live again in his son.’
Thurstin flushed with pleasure but nevertheless he shook his head. ‘Not yet, my lord, I beg you. Let me stay a little longer. I am not yet sixteen.’
Amused and touched, Brien asked, ‘You do not wish to be a knight?’
‘Yes, my lord, in time, but now I would rather be with you. However ill matters should turn out, if you had to leave this castle, I would go with you.’
Brien’s smile widened. ‘Do you think Wallingford about to be seized then?’
Appreciating the humour of this Thurstin shook his head but he went on gravely, ‘No, only I can see that the Empress’s cause does not flourish and you will never leave serving her.’
Brien’s smile faded. ‘As you say, boy. Very well, you shall stay. Off with you now to the bower. ’
He saw the relief in the lad’s face and oddly derived some comfort from it but Thurstin’s words had only driven home their position more thoroughly and lying alone his thoughts began once again to torment him, the terrible anxiety for Maud like a sore that troubled him unceasingly. He did not know what to do and he wished Robert would return. Without Robert they seemed lost for they needed his strong leadership to knit them together. The problem revolved fruitlessly in his mind until as so often in these last weeks, he thrust it aside in favour of his own more intimate feelings, allowing them predominance if only as some sort of relief. He dwelt now on the love that had come to him in his maturer years. Thinking himself immune to such things, secure in his scholarly pursuits, his position, his responsibilities, it had assaulted him all the more strongly, and for a while he gave himself up to thoughts of Maud, recalling her beauty, every line of her face and figure.
Yet, as always, this desire for a woman he could not have became mere torment. He tried to read Augustine, remembering that saint’s early years, but Augustine urged him down a road he was not prepared to travel. Turning restlessly he realised it was the feast day of St. Ambrose, that learned doctor whose sweet reasonableness had first drawn Augustine towards the truth. After a long struggle Augustine had flung aside the needs of the body while he – after austerity he longed to embrace the desires of the flesh. If Maud had been any other than she was he might have taken her for his mistress and that would have been an end of it. If he had been a different man he might have lost his desire in the body of another woman, but neither of these were tenable and he was too clear sighted to waste his time indulging in ‘ifs’. And as he felt sleep descending on him he was driven at last to pray for deliverance from the unseen shackles that bound him.
In the morning he said farewell to Alfric. He pressed the little priest to stay until the weather was more clement but Alfric shook his head.
‘Forgive me, my lord. I would journey only to Wardon, to join the white monks there, and God will guide me.’
‘To Wardon?’ Brien thought of Waltheof and remembered their conversation so long ago in nearby Oxford – but Waltheof’s standards were not for him. He bade the priest take his greeting to the Prior but sent no message.
Alfric smiled. He looked oddly content now as if he were not afraid any more. ‘I will, my lord Brien, and I will pray for you all. It came to me last night that if a man possesses nothing there is more time to devote to the needs of others.’ He wrapped his mantle closely about him and picked up a stout stick. ‘They say the Thames is frozen solid this morning,’ he remarked cheerfully, ‘but I do not mind the cold. Pray tell my foster-brother I shall always remember him. ’
Brien nodded. ‘God go with you, Alfric.’
‘He will,’ Alfric said confidently and then as he turned to the door he added, ‘I remember when we were boys the river froze once and Ingelric and Robert D’Oyley c
limbed out of the tower of Oxford Castle and crossed the moat on foot – a boys’ lark and they were soundly beaten for it.’ He smiled reminiscently. ‘But I must be gone to make the most of the daylight. Farewell, my lord.’
He was at the door by the time the impact of his words reacted on Brien. He ran after the priest and caught him by the arm. ‘What did you say? Ingelric got out of the tower? How?’
Alfric looked startled. ‘It was just a prank. They wanted to show it could be done and let down a rope. It was too short and they had to jump but because of the frozen water they escaped the castle and spent the day hunting in the woods. I doubt the rabbits they brought back were worth the thrashing old Robert D’Oyley gave them. ’
‘No – no,’ Brien said absently. ‘But I must not keep you from your journey, Alfric.’
He watched the priest go, seeing surprising courage in that small determined figure tramping away through the snow, but it was Alfric’s words that were holding his attention. If Ingelric and D’Oyley had escaped from the castle once over the ice, it could be done again under the same circumstances – which prevailed now. Jesu, it was possible! Yet even so, how could it benefit the Lady for she surely could not be brought out the same way? He went up to his room and there threw himself down on his bed and stared up at the vaulting, his mind absorbed by the possibilities opened up by Alfric’s words. Would Ingelric or Robert think of it? Surely they must. If Alfric remembered, Ingelric would have even more cause to do so. And would they not devise some way to bring the Empress out? But – she was a woman and could not be expected to do what men could do.
Disappointment surged over him, almost immediately thrust aside by hope. She was a woman it was true, but by all the saints, what a woman! Had she not proved again and again that she could ride and hunt like a man? She was strong and determined and if anyone could do it she could.
He sprang from the bed, a sudden intuition sending him headlong down the stairs, shouting for Roger and twenty knights to accompany him. They hurried to obey, reaching for hauberks and helms and when he told them they were to comb the area between Abingdon and Wallingford every day that the Thames was frozen in case the Empress might escape, Roger’s jaw dropped. It was clear they all thought him out of his mind but he took them out into the grey snow-swept countryside on what Bernard privately told Roger he considered a fool’s errand.
On the fourth day of the freeze they were returning home as the early winter dusk began to fall, after another day of useless search. Behind Brien the men were silent, weary. The horses blew in the cold still air, their hooves breaking through the frost-encrusted snow. It was colder than ever but there was no sign of anyone from Oxford Castle. The landscape was deserted and he had nearly given up hope. Perhaps it had been a forlorn hope from the beginning. He had been to Abingdon each day to ask the Abbot if he had heard any news but there was none and this morning, tired and dispirited, he had not even gone there, merely ridden in wide circles across the area. They had seen nothing, no living thing.
It had been a crazy idea, he supposed, and he sensed the feeling of frustration in the men behind him. They wanted to be back in the castle sitting by the fire in the great hall, eating hot food, sheltered from this north-easterly wind that cut their faces and the driving snow that soaked their clothes.
As if sensing what was passing through his mind, Roger said, ‘The snow is still hard. Perhaps tomorrow – ’
‘Perhaps.’ Brien held the reins firmly as Puissance stumbled in a pocket of softer snow. He steadied the animal, not looking at Roger. Would he bring them out tomorrow? It seemed so unlikely that an escape would succeed, and envisaging her in that castle, surrendering at last to Stephen, rare tears of bitter remorse, of frustration and tearing anxiety sprang to his eyes. But he did not shed them. Keeping his eyes fixed on the white land ahead of him, his fingers gripped on the reins, he rode on in silence until he saw the massive grey bulk of his castle rising before them. There as the drawbridge was lowered he led his tired men in, the horses moving slowly, all alike ready for food and warmth.
In the inner bailey where the snow was trodden to a brown slush, he swung himself down, glad to see the light of the fires in the kitchen, smoke rising from the rough wooden buildings that housed his men and their families. He turned for the outer steps that led to the hall, his body aching, a leaden exhaustion as much mental as physical creeping over him. But even as he walked towards the steps he saw Amauri de Beauprez come out and – a thing he had never witnessed before – actually run to meet him.
Behind the steward was the burly figure of Gilbert Basset and with him, incredibly, the taller shape of Ingelric of Huntercombe carrying his young son on his shoulder.
It was de Beauprez who reached their castellan first. ‘My lord – my lord! Thank God you are returned. The Empress is come safe out of Oxford Castle – she is here! ’
CHAPTER 4
In the great chamber of Wallingford Castle the Empress sat by the fire warming her chilled hands. It was set by the wall, a hole rising through the stonework to let out the smoke – a new arrangement she had not seen before and which seemed so much better than the open fire in the centre of a room that could and did blow in all directions rather than through the opening in the roof designed for it. She sat thinking about the fire, the way it was designed, how much safer it was – anything to keep her mind from the fact that he had not come home. They told her he was out looking for her – had some intuitive instinct born of the unspoken love between them told him what she was planning, or had he known of the boyish escapade of his knight, Ingelric, that fair young giant who had been her strength through the awful hours of last night? Why did he not come now that it was growing dark? If he had been taken – now – when she was free it would be the cruellest blow fate had yet dealt her.
She had dismissed Ingelric’s wife whom the steward had sent to wait on her because she would be alone, because after last night’s extremity of fear, cold and desperate flight, she could no longer trust herself. She would never forget that ghastly moment when, dressed in white garments that would blend with the snow, she had been lowered by a rope from the tower. She could still feel the pain of it cutting into her armpits, the terror of the dark night, the fear of capture. Then Ingelric’s strong hands had her, Guy de Sablé and two other knights helped to free her from the rope and others above, unseen, pulled it back that none might see it. Then they had fled away across the ice, passing through the enemy lines. One guard, she was sure, had seen them, but he neither spoke nor gave the alarm. Their feet slipped and slid on the frozen river but they gained the far side and disappeared into the dark countryside. It had been snowing hard, a blizzard driving into their faces. In a short while her feet were soaking and stiff with cold, her clothes growing wetter and wetter. They had lost their way over and over again in the whirling snow and the darkness and it seemed a miracle when at last, long after daylight had come, they had found their way to Abingdon and the abbey there and warm food and fresh clothes-horses too to bring them here to Wallingford.
Her disappointment on finding him absent was overwhelming, though the steward assured her he must soon return. She had slept all the afternoon in Brien’s great bed, drawing comfort from the fact that he had lain here last night. The steward had bustled about sending the page to remove their lord’s gear into the empty bower, serving her food himself, supplying everything for her comfort, but the one thing she needed was still missing.
She took up the cup from her supper table and drank. It was a good wine, cool and clear as she liked it from the valley of the Rhône and she was reaching for some raisin biscuits to nibble with it when she heard a running step on the stair. She half rose, waited for the knock on the door and in sudden flaring hope bade the newcomer enter.
He stood in the entrance, snow on his clothes, his face grey with fatigue but alight now. She gave a little gasp and held out both hands, warm from the fire, and he came to her, his own half-frozen after the bitter day’s fruit
less search. Neither spoke, their hands clinging, as if no words could be adequate at such a moment.
Then he said, ‘Thank God – thank God you are safe. ’
‘I thought you were lost. They told me you were looking for me – how could you know?’
‘Something Ingelric’s half-brother remembered gave me hope, but never mind that now.’ He could not take his eyes from her, the flood of relief like the warmth of wine running through him. ‘I was afraid, Domina. By the living God, I was afraid for you.’
‘I am safe.’ Her fingers clung to his, caressing them. Only now, alone with him, did she show her own fear. ‘I was afraid too – I was never more afraid in all my life. When I was hanging over the black ice, when we were lost – ’ she broke off. ‘Stephen would show me no mercy now.’ She gave a rueful laugh. ‘He thinks me a veritable Medea.’
Tensely he said, ‘It would have been my fault. I should never have left you. If you knew how I have reproached myself – ’
‘But I am free and I will not have you blame yourself when Stephen took us all by surprise. Come, you are cold and hungry, I am sure. There is plenty here. Come and eat.’
The Lion's Legacy (Conqueror Trilogy Book 3) Page 21