by Prue Batten
‘I dread leaving her alone, even if she is at the nunnery …’
‘Pardon me, Sir and Lady.’ A heavily accented voice as deep as distant thunder spoke to us from the leafy shadows. We turned together. Sitting behind us was a Saracen, his turban a grey as slate colour, his robes the dour and dusty shade of the desert nomad. He had an iron grey, neatly trimmed beard and his eyes were as black as the coals from a fire. A woman of comparable age sat with him, her hair and half her face hidden under the folds of a dust-coloured hijab. Hennaed tattoos stained her hands in a filigree pattern and she smiled at me, her hazel eyes softening to crinkle at the corners.
‘I am Ibrahim and this is my wife, Haifa. Salaam,’ he touched his forehead and his chest and bowed his head. ‘I am a doctor from Acre and I am travelling back to my home. I leave at dawn tomorrow and shall be travelling through Toulouse. Is that close to where you wish your friend to go? She is welcome to join my wife and myself.’
I looked at the Saracen woman and found nothing but innate kindness in her eyes. Her hands had not led an idle life and she was Marais’ age, I guessed. She smiled and spoke, her voice like warm honey.
‘Salaam Alaykum, Lady. We are quite fluent in the tongue of the English so your friend would not be lonely and I should welcome the company of another woman.’
‘Alaykum as salaam,’ I replied.
Guy’s eyes opened a little wider at my response to these travellers. I had learned the Saracen tongue from the itinerants who visited Cazenay and felt an uncommon advantage over him as I thanked Haifa for her kind offer, saying that Marais’ younger brother lived in Toulouse and it would be perfect.
‘The lady we talk of is not English and only speaks Occitàn.’ Guy responded.
Ibrahim rattled off a comment in the tongue of Aquitaine, saying that Marais would be amongst friends and once again, if we wished for her to travel with them she was welcome.
‘Thank you,’ I returned in the same language. For me the deal was settled.
‘Have you men at arms?’ Guy had turned fully toward Ibrahim and I could see he was thinking the same thing, that Marais would be accommodated and we could continue on.
‘No. We trust in our God to protect us.’
‘But there are godless men on the road sir, and I am sure the Lady Ysabel would never forgive me if I allowed anything to happen to her friend. Would you be adverse to men at arms escorting you? I can provide you with men that I trust from my command.’
Ibrahim grimaced. ‘I find escorts attract as much trouble as they deflect. But if you think it will keep your lady friend safe then I cannot object. Perhaps we can eat together to seal our plans?’
Thus it was that Marais’ journey was organised. Guy went to the nunnery and retrieved my homesick servant and we all ate together as I introduced her to the suggestion she return to her home. At first she protested, my status and sex requiring her presence she said. But I worked away at her and gently convinced her that I would be safe in the care of the Moncrieff men. Eventually she agreed, more happily than we had hoped, and she and Haifa gossiped in Occitàn about their families, their homes and many other things and it seemed a plan made in heaven. Arrangements were made to meet at dawn at the town gates with our escort and we would watch Marais leave with her new friends. We would take the remaining men at arms and head north.
So it would seem I would now be alone with Guy of Gisborne, except for Wilfred and Harold, the remaining men, and who had known me since I was a little child. When I asked Gisborne later why he had left us with only two, he replied quite forthrightly.
‘Ibrahim, Haifa and Marais are elderly folk, not able to defend themselves easily in a difficult situation and no matter what Ibrahim may think about his God, the very fact that he and Haifa are Saracens is like to bring down the wrath of the ignorant upon them. Thus it seems a safe measure. We can look after ourselves.’
‘She’ll be dropping the next one afore I get back.’ Wilf answered my question as we trotted along what passed for a road between Tours and Le Mans.
‘You make it sound as if she’s a ewe popping a lamb,’ I laughed.
‘She might as well be,’ piped up Harry. ‘How many’s that now, Wilfy-boy?’
‘Enough of yer cheek.’ Wilf pushed his own horse against Harold’s and then turned to speak to me. ‘Lady Ysabel, we had thought we’m call the babe Alice, if a girl. After the Lady Alaïs, yer see. She were always good to us.’
‘Wilf, that is so kind and I think my mother would be honoured. For myself then and for my mother’s memory, I shall hope that a ewe lamb is popped!’
The journey was light-hearted in so many ways except for the dark cloud that hovered on the edge, Guy remaining quiet if watchful. Whether he approved of my repartee with the men, I knew not nor cared, for Wilfred and Harold had picked me off the ground often enough when I was younger and out hunting with my father’s entourage. Ponies suited to my size and with personalities larger than a destrier’s would buck me off frequently in those days. The men were quite a few years older than myself and bore the pressure of a hard life on their faces. Not for them wines and the warmth of furs. But they bore their social rank with equanimity and were good men.
I had made no real effort to draw Guy into our conversation. The men kept me occupied with their chatter and I minded not at all. It was enough that he rode by my side. His presence and the men’s talk filled the air around me, ameliorating the grief for Lady Alaïs that crouched in the back of my mind. In quieter moments, I recalled Gisborne’s hand at my elbow, a vague smile on his lips when I did something that amused him, and in my head I had whispered conversations with my mother, telling her these things. There was part of me that considered myself quite pathetic but I went back to the thoughts like a parched man to water.
The sun shone benignly, unlike Aquitaine where everything seemed bleached white. The more northerly we journeyed, the more subtle and beautiful the light became. Forests of flickering shadow and dancing leaf marked the edges of our path and the horses’ hooves crunched over a stony way worn into ruts and holes by those who went before us. But we met few travellers. At times it felt as if we were the only living things and then a bird would fly across our path, or a rabbit would hop past. Once a deer stood bathed in sunlight, watching us pass with a twitch of his ears.
But he leaped away as if the Furies were behind.
‘To me!’ Guy yelled.
Within a staggered heartbeat, the three rounceys surrounded me, Khazia dancing as the rumps of the horses pushed at her. I heard a whistle and an arrow flew past, lodging in a tree. I held tight to the reins with one hand, thanking God for the misericorde at my girdle. The metallic sigh that was the unsheathing of swords had already sharpened my anxiety like a whetstone.
Half a dozen felons ran toward us, swords raised, their mouths dark screaming circles as a terrified Khazia tried to spin.
‘Stay behind us, Ysabel!’
Guy’s voice yelled as he and the men pushed their battle-trained mounts forward. The horses reared, danced sideways, kicked out, even gnashed with their teeth and not once did a sword find a mark, my men’s powerful parries deflecting harsh blows. I held Khazia hard between my knees and longed for my own sword as I watched a brigand fall with half a shoulder gone and could not take my eyes away from the spouting blood.
‘Ysabel, Ysabel!’ Guy screamed. ‘Behind!’
I turned in the saddle and saw nothing but a sword lifting, sour breath gushing toward me in a noxious puff. Panic filled my veins with ice, fingers I didn’t know were mine pulled the blade from my girdle and threw it end over end into the man’s neck, his sword hand dropping its weapon as he tried to pull my knife from his throat. Blood spurted wildly, the attacker groaning with wet gurgles, Khazia shrieking as the man folded under her feet. My head felt as if it were wrapped in a cloud and I thought I would fall on top of the bloody carcass but Harry was by my side grinning.
‘Great stroke, milady! You’re a born soldier!’
>
‘Harry,’ I croaked. ‘God, Harry!’
He laughed and turned to fight off the remaining brigands. My three guards pushed forward, slashing until another of the ambushers had fallen. One more collapsed but I kept my eyes on Gisborne’s back, unwilling to see the damage my protectors wreaked. Two left, only two, four attackers dead or mortally wounded. The remainder threw down their swords and began to run and Wilfred was behind them, his horse cantering as he drew his sword back in a wide sweep, catching one in the thigh. It was callous butchery and I longed for it to stop.
‘Let him go!’ I screamed.
But as I shouted, I saw Wilfred arch back, his arms swinging wide, his sword dropping.
‘Jesus God,’ Guy called to Harry. ‘The archer! Pull back, back!’
But Harry’s horse reared and an arrow caught it in the neck. It spun around and before Harold could turn it again, another arrow shrieked in from the left and caught my old friend deep in the chest, another in his shoulder and a third in his arm.
‘No!’
I spurred Khazia forward across the glade and into the brush, filled with fury and grief. The hidden archer looked up at me as the mare burst through the leaves to tread about, hooves slicing into bone, muscle and sinew. Khazia’s shoes bruised and cut as the felon cried out in agony but hatred filled my soul as I screeched at him.
‘They were my friends, my friends!’
I threw myself off the horse as the man’s eyes stared into a forever horror, frozen in time, his last breath bubbling out in a red froth. I picked up his bow, a short Saracen one of a type I had handled in the past and turned back to Gisborne, but a movement behind him caused me to rip an arrow from the dead archer’s quiver with speed, nocking it to let it fly.
Oh God, Gisborne!
‘Fall, fall!’ I shouted.
He dropped forward without hesitation and my arrow caught the final rogue. The man screamed, a hideous high-pitched wail, reeling from the trees, pulling at the arrow embedded in his eye. It would have been a kindness to kill him but Guy galloped to my side as I leaped onto Khazia’s back. He grabbed her reins and pulled me after him and we fled the ambuscade.
‘We can’t leave them like that. We can’t!’ I sobbed. ‘They were my friends. They have children. Guy, please!’ We had stopped some leagues away and our horses’ sides puffed in and out like bellows. I sat as if I were a half-empty sack, drooping with shock as the image of Wilfred arching back on his horse, went through my mind over and over again.
‘What will happen to them if we leave them? I can’t do that. In the name of God I owe them a burial. For their families and for my father.’ I wiped a sleeve under my nose and rubbed my hand over my face. As I did, I noticed it was spattered with blood and cried out, holding it away from my body.
Gisborne jumped off his horse.
‘Here,’ he pulled me down by the waist and held me by the elbow as he passed me a cloth from his saddlebag. ‘Hold it and I’ll wet it from my flask and you can clean yourself.’
My hand shook as I held the fabric that proved to be a chemise. He placed his palm underneath to support it and I looked up at him as he did so.
‘I owe you thanks, Ysabel, for my life.’
His voice barely showed the emotion of what we had just been through. A slight hoarseness, but it’s depth smoothed like balm as he rubbed the damp cloth over my hand, removing the blood as tears rolled own my cheeks.
‘I’m sorry. I should stop crying but I find I can’t.’
‘It’s shock. You were very brave.’ He gave my hand a final wipe, lifted it to his mouth and kissed it. ‘Fearless. Wilf and Harry would have been proud.’
‘Fearless?’ My mouth stretched into a grimace. ‘We must go back. I won’t go on until we have done our best for them.’
‘I don’t agree. Wilf and Harry would understand, Ysabel. When you fall in the field of battle, you are lucky if you are buried.’
I took my hand back. ‘Then they shall be lucky. If I only give you one order whilst you are my father’s steward, it’s that we must go back.’
His face hardened and I wished it had not because it was as though every plank of the bridge between us had been axed. I lay my hand over his arm and squeezed.
‘Please, I beg you to understand. I am not being presumptuous by saying it is an order but if I have to use my father’s name, I shall.
‘I do understand, Ysabel. I understand that you have known Wilf and Harry for years and that you shared a life at one point. That you feel for their families. That it is your Christian duty. Don’t think I don’t understand. But what I know is that it will be foolhardy and dangerous.’ He left my hand on his arm, his own closing over it. ‘You need to remember that for you to die so soon after your mother would inevitably be the death of your father. Think on that.’
I hadn’t really thought my demise would affect my father one way or the other because he had been so vaguely affectionate in his treatment of me. Loving when he was with me, but when he was not, I barely heard from him.
‘But if my father had fallen, I would hope someone would bury him. If you fell, I would want the same for you.’
He slipped away from my grasp at that point and cupped his hands to give me a leg up into the saddle. He mounted his horse and made no comment at all and I felt chastened. Had I been too personal? I only spoke my mind after all. But I felt vindicated as we turned our horses and headed back the way we had fled.
I wished we had not.
Eight bloody and disfigured men lay in frozen death throes. Eight men who had wanted to kill us and steal everything we had. We had to move through them on foot to find Wilfred and Harold, Gisborne with his sword drawn, me with an arrow nocked into the Saracen bow.
Gisborne’s eyes were everywhere and I forbore to talk because we listened to every sound from the forest. Every rustle, every creak and crack. Besides, my breathing was so fast I doubt I could have uttered a word. I had never ever seen human death and the brutality of what lay around us was almost beyond my coping. I took a huge breath and Guy must have heard because he turned and in that one glance that passed between us, I felt fortified. I don’t know if he saw the fear in my eyes … panic where my mouth filled with bile and legs waved beneath my gown like strips of ribbon. All I saw in that quick glance was support, as if his arms were around me to guide me away from this hell.
But then I tripped and looking down, realised it was the felon Wilf had chased and whose leg he had almost severed, the limb at an obscene angle. I began to vomit until my sides ached and I had nothing left.
‘Deep breaths, Ysabel. Take deep breaths. Go to the copse and stay with your back turned until I find them.’ Gisborne’s fingers closed on my arm and he pulled me away.
I was disgusted with my weakness and shook my head.
‘No. This was my idea. Besides, here is Harry.’
He lay in his own blood. He had been stripped to his braies and everything he owned had been pulled from him. He had always worn a leather thong around his neck about which he twisted the golden hair of his wife and the white-blonde hair of his daughters in a glorious loveknot. It was an exceptional keepsake and I would have loved to return it to his family. Instead I reached for his hair which lay tangled in the grass, his basinet stolen, and using the sharp edge of the arrow, cut three locks for his family and placed them in the tiny leather purse at my waist. His eyes were wide but it was far too late to close them and I knew I would ever see that look of sadness.
‘Here’s Wilf,’ Guy bent down and rolled the near naked soldier over.
Thanks be to God his eyes were closed and it was obvious he had died instantly from a pierced heart. I cut his hair as well, because they had taken the iron wristlet he wore with his family’s names engraved. I remember he had taken that wristlet to the priest at Moncrieff, Brother John, a man of letters, and asked him to scratch the names of his family on it. The priest, only used to a goosequill, had done a remarkable job with the tip of a dagger and Wilf
had been so proud, showing it often to any who would look.
‘Who has taken everything?’ I looked around, my eyes focusing on nothing but leaf and tree, as if that would sustain me.
‘The cut-throat band to whom these others belong. They have taken our baggage horse as well, and the men’s rounceys and weapons. If we are lucky they will be long gone to whatever hell-hole they call home.’ Guy placed his hands under Wilf’s armpits and lifted him across his shoulder, laying him over the saddle of his own rouncey.
He tied him on and I could only watch.
‘We shall bury them away from here. We passed a stream on the way back and its sides were sandy and we can dig graves more easily. Besides, I think if we are to do this, it is best away from their murderers.’
He was right and I should have thought of it but my mind was sluggish and all I could do once Harry had been tied on board was take the reins of Khazia and lead her
It took us till dusk to bury them, covering them with dirt and stones. We left the graves unmarked for fear they would be opened by greedy passers-by and I was pleased that Guy had settled on a spot below the roots of birches that stood skirted by ferns. The burials barely showed and we were silent as we looked one last time before heading into the gloaming.
‘Guy?’ I could barely see him as we rode, but he answered.
‘Yes?’
‘Thank you.’
‘I owe you a debt,’ he replied.
‘You owe me nothing of any sort.’ I sensed him slipping away from me.
Don’t go.
‘A life debt is just that, and can only be paid up when I have saved your life in return. Until then I am most completely at your service.’
He invited no argument and yet I would not be dissuaded.
‘I wish you would forget it,’ I argued, but he moved the conversation to other things.
‘You shoot as well as any of the men. Where did you learn?’
‘I hunted at Cazenay. It was the only way one could have a little excitement in a mundane lady’s life and I became rather good at it.’ A brief image of my disgruntled suitors danced through the macabre events of the day.