by Claudia Dain
"There is no horse for me," she said. What more needed to be said? No matter what he had vowed, there was no horse for her. She could not fly to Sunnandune, though she had often wished it.
"Do you have a horse that is not Warkham's?" he asked. "I will not steal from him, giving him cause in this battle we must face."
Nay, she did not have a horse of her own. She had come to Warkham in a cart sent by Richard and Isabel; cart and driver and accompanying knight had returned to Dornei long ago.
Hugh read the answer in her eyes.
"You ride with me, Elsbeth. You stay with me," he said. It was a promise.
The warmth of feeling that pulsed through her at his words shamed her. She should not need him. How had she come to need him?
"What of Denise?" she asked.
"Denise must stay," he said.
"Nay!" Denise said, clutching his hand.
"Aye, it must be so," he said to the child. "I have no just cause to take you from here. You must stay; Father Godfrey will attend you as best he may, and I will write your father and urge him to make another fostering for you. I can do naught else, Denise."
"You could if you wanted to!" she said, pushing away from him, rushing into the penetrating dark of Warkham. "You can do what you want. I know you can!" she shouted.
Guilt pulled hard at Elsbeth, and she turned her face from it. There was naught she could do. They could not take Denise with them. They had to leave Warkham, and if a rebellious and contrary girl could not understand that then she was to be pitied, but still they must go. Her own relief at being rescued from Warkham she did not look too closely upon.
"My lord, we must away," Raymond said, laying a hand on Hugh's shoulder.
"Aye, go. I will attend her and calm her," Father Godfrey said.
It seemed unlikely. Denise had never been overfond of Father Godfrey.
"My lord?" Raymond urged.
Hugh mounted with a sigh of frustration, and Raymond helped Elsbeth to mount behind his lord. It was a precarious perch as she was behind the high rise of his saddle, yet there was nothing to be done about it. Elsbeth hung on mightily as Hugh urged his mount forward, piercing the darkness of Warkham's bailey. Gautier had not returned, had not called his men down upon Hugh's head, but that could change in a moment. They had to leave or risk losing their very lives.
Raymond hesitated and called out softly to Hugh's back, "I will come anon. Do not slow for me. I come." And then he was gone, blending into the shadows of the bailey.
He knew where to find her. In the solar.
He entered, though it was not quite proper for him to do so, but these were not proper times. She sat upon a simple stool and looked into the fire. It flickered halfheartedly and only increased the shadows in the corners of the chamber. Denise, with her fair skin and light hair, lit the chamber like moonglow.
"I thought you were leaving," she said, looking down at her fingers, entwined upon themselves.
"I am leaving," he said, crossing to her and kneeling at her feet. She would not look at him.
"Go, then."
Raymond stood but did not leave.
"I will come back for you," he whispered.
Denise looked up at him, her eyes bright, and then they dulled and she shook her head. "You cannot make that promise. You go where he goes, and he goes away from Warkham."
"I will not serve Hugh forever," he said. "I know you hate it here. I will come and take you wherever you want to go."
"I want to go home," she said, her voice very small and tight.
"I am certain that you will go home. Hugh will write the letter to your father. You would aid yourself if you sent a letter of your own. Ask Father Godfrey if he will aid you."
"Why should he aid me?"
Raymond smiled and said, "Do you think he wants you about Warkham? You cannot be a favorite of his, your soul being so very rebellious."
Denise smiled slowly. "You are no more a favorite of his than I. I think you were chased out of Jerusalem for fear that you would foul the very air."
"The air of Jerusalem cannot be fouled; it is the air of God Himself. You would know that if you knew anything at all."
"I know that you are a very"—she was searching for the perfect insult, and then blurted out—"a very able squire. I think you shall be a wondrous knight."
Raymond said nothing. He and Denise looked into each other's eyes for a time, the fire dying a slow and quiet death, and then he grinned.
"You flatter me so that I will walk with you to the chapel, in search of Father Godfrey."
"And so that you will ask him to write the letter," she said with a grin.
"You are a very cunning damsel," he said as she stood up from her stool.
"Will you do it?" she asked as they walked toward the door.
"I will," he said.
"Then I do not think being called cunning is an insult."
Raymond laughed softly as they crossed the hall and said, "You are right. It is not."
Chapter 23
They rode through the night, the rain gone but for the rich moisture in the air. The stars glimmered out from behind the clouds, white and silver and blue in the black of night. They rode to Sunnandune, south and east of Warkham, leaving the sea and the River Nene behind them.
"Where are we bound?" she asked.
"To Ely," Hugh answered, "on the Ouse River. Yet we cannot fly that far in a single night. We will stop at Crowland Abbey for the night. Tomorrow will we reach Ely."
"Do you think he will follow?" she asked, turning to look behind her. Only Raymond rode behind, a stalwart heart who would not fall without hue and cry to mark it, nay, nor blood. He would fight hard for his lord.
"Aye, I think it in him. His will is thwarted. He cannot be pleased," Hugh said.
As Hugh's own will and quest had been thwarted. He had bargained for Sunnandune and had lost. How pleased could Hugh be at this turning?
"Where is he now, do you think?" she asked softy, more to herself than to Hugh. She could almost feel her father running behind them, like a wolf in the wood, running after them, hunting them.
Fear and the irresistible urge to run and hide swelled like the rising tide within her. This was what Denise had felt at being left in Warkham. Elsbeth knew that fear. She remembered it. It was no small thing, this fear of Warkham. It was no small fear to be a child, without voice, without power, without succor in Warkham Tower.
She remembered that, though she remembered little else of that time.
She had left Denise to that. She had left on a running horse with a strong knight to defend her. Denise had been robbed of aid so that Elsbeth might escape.
She was coming to understand an unpleasant truth about herself. She was a coward. What of Elsbeth, Prayer Warrior? All mist and cloud, a name built on whispers, a legend built on boggy marshland: a lie. An unpleasant truth, yet one she could not ignore as she had ignored Denise.
"Turn back," she said in her husband's ear. "Turn back to Warkham."
"Did I hear you aright?" he said, slowing his horse to a stop.
"Turn back," she said, laying a hand upon his arm. His arm was mighty. What had she to fear? "We cannot leave Denise. You know that we cannot, no matter what befalls us."
"You risk all, little one," he said.
"And you do not?"
"I am a warrior," he said. "It is my function and my desire to fight, risking all."
"And I am Elsbeth. Have you not heard of her? She is a prayer warrior of some merit. It is time she earned the name. Take me back," she said.
"I cannot put you in harm's way, little one," he said softly, laying his hand over her own. "If I die in this, what would Gautier do to you to get Sunnandune for his own? I cannot take you back to that."
Aye, there was much her father could do to her, but she would not think of that now.
"You will not die. You are a fearsome knight; does not the world know that for a truth? I have no fears which are greater than your might. I
t is for Denise that I fear now."
"What of Denise? She is safe there. No harm can befall her in that strong tower."
"It can," Elsbeth said. "We must go to her. Her fear is great."
"Her fear is not so great as it was," Raymond said. "I left her in the care of Father Godfrey. He is writing a letter to her father, begging her release from Warkham with all haste."
"Father Godfrey? Nay, we must return," Elsbeth said, all pretense of serenity flown. "Hugh, trust me as you have urged me time and again to trust you. We have little cause for trust between us, yet I have trusted you when all counsel has urged me down a different path. Give me now the same. Trust me. We must return to Warkham."
Trust her? All was lost because of her. His quest a failure, his good name in Jerusalem spent, his future torn from his grasp to lie in her half-closed hands. She had given him nothing that he wanted and had taken from him all that he had hoped to find, and now she asked for his trust.
His trust. To walk into a battle he could not win. Gautier would not fight him, that had been proved. Nay, Gautier would use the men of his holding to fight for him. Odds of a hundred to one, if Raymond were discounted. There was no winning here. This was not a matter of trust; it was of logic and of might and of men, yet she made it a matter of trust between them.
"Of course we must return," he said against all logic and all reason and all wisdom. Because Elsbeth asked it of him. Because she trusted him to make all right. Because she believed him able to meet all odds. Because she asked him, and in her eyes he saw all the victory he would ever need. "Come, Raymond. We ride for Warkham Tower."
* * *
He had come looking for her, of course. She was not very difficult to find, not if a man knew where to look. The solar was oft used, as were the kitchens, but the chapel was the favored place for young girls to find a place of seclusion. He did not mind the chapel; 'twas quiet and full of heavy dark. Nay, he liked the chapel well enough.
He watched her as she slept, her blond hair shining like a streak of moonlight in the candle's glow. Such pretty hair.
He reached out a hand to stroke her hair, a gentle touch, hardly touching her at all. Yet he did touch. He had the right.
She stirred and mumbled in her shallow steep.
He crouched down and swept his cloak over them both, a cocoon of dark warmth in the vaulting darkness of the chapel. She awoke with a sharp start, moving away from him instantly.
"Sleep on, Denise," he said. "I will warm you."
But she did not sleep on. She tensed, stiffening against him where he held her hip close to his own.
"Why are you here?" she whispered.
Gautier smiled in the dark. It was good that she whispered. She knew that what he wanted from her had to remain secret. In secret and in whispers he came to her. In secret and in whispers would she remember this night. "I am here to find a girl who needs comfort and warmth."
"I do not need anything," she said, squirming from his side. Unsuccessfully.
"Nay, you are chilled. I will warm you," he said, stroking her hair. Beautiful hair, soft and white, and her skin smelled like... flowers, like summer.
"I am not chilled," she said.
"You are, Denise, and you must not lie. 'Tis a sin to lie."
"I do not lie!"
"Yet you are cold. I can feel it," he said, running his hand over her body, over the slim and perfect line of her form, over the softness of her skin.
"I do not..." she said, stammering, her teeth chattering, her body beginning to tremble. "I do not want you here."
"Nay?" He grinned, holding her firmly. "Have I asked what you want? It is what I want which should concern you."
"I do not care what you want!" she said loudly, pushing at his hands.
"Then you are in sin, Denise, for a woman to show her lord anything but docility is sin. Obedience. Submission. This is the mark of a godly woman. Is it not your mission on this earth to be as holy as Christ Himself?"
"I know not," she said.
“The path to that righteous holiness," he said, continuing on as if she had not spoken, "is submission. You must obey your lord in all he says. You must submit to his will, Denise. That is what is required of you."
"I do not care!" she said, trying to find an opening in the cloak, her hands frantic within the long folds of the fabric.
"Yet you must," he said, running his hand down her smooth, straight form. "I must show you the right path in this. I will instruct." She was as slender as winter grass, supple and unmarked by disease or childbearing. Unblemished. Pure. Untouched.
Until now.
"Stop! Raymond!" she cried, her voice muffled by the cloak and the darkness, by the celestial reaches of the stone itself. There was no one to hear her. And if they did? He was lord here. His will was law. "Hugh! Hugh!" she cried.
Aye, she would cry for the Poulains. They had kept him from her, always at her side. Yet now they gone. Even Emma was gone, she had kept this girl shunted away in the solar, dirty and forgotten. But he had not forgotten her. He had only waited for his time. His time was now.
"Hugh? Hugh has fled. You are alone, except for God. He has not left you. He sees you even now. Cry instead to God, little one," he said, reaching between her legs to feel the hairless place of her womanhood. "Pray and see if your prayers are answered. If you are righteous, He will deliver you. Pray hard and pray long, that is my counsel. But I will tell you now what God will say. Submit. Submit and you will be blessed."
"God would not say that!" she screamed.
She struck out at him, a tiny flurry of hands and feet and screams. This was new. Never before had he been fought with such fierce terror. He did not find it worrisome. She was small and smooth; he could take her at his will with none to stop him. So it had always been. So it would be now.
The cloak whirled in a sudden cold gust, and then there was the stamp of sodden boots drawing nigh. The cloak was pulled from him, the shelter of dark stripped off. The light of the single chapel candle was blinding for an instant, and he blinked hard, shutting out the light and finding temporary solace in the dark. A tall shadow rose up against the stone shadows. Blond hair shimmered softly in the flickering light. It was the Poulain. Gautier would not have thought it. Should Hugh not even now be running from Gautier's anger and the long reach of his sword?
"Hugh!" Denise cried out, scrambling against him.
"Be gone," Gautier growled out at the intruders, holding her fast.
Denise bit his hand, crying out, "Let me go!"
Gautier stood, taking Denise with him by the back of her thin neck. Hugh stood with his squire at his side, his look dark and cold as surely he had never looked before. Elsbeth appeared from out of the shadows. She was holding a lighted taper before her, pushing the darkness from her and from them all. It made a circle of light that she carried like an angel into the blackest portion of hell.
Yet Gautier knew that for a lie. Elsbeth was the key to it all, the weak, soft spot upon which rested his victory. Gautier smiled at seeing Elsbeth.
"Help me!" cried Denise, twisting in Gautier's grasp. Never had any child before shown such fight. He did not know what to make of her.
"Release her," Hugh commanded, coming up to him and grasping hold of Denise to take her in his arms.
Gautier hesitated and then let Denise go; the fight now was for Elsbeth, and if Hugh did not see that, so much the better. The child threw herself at Hugh, who pushed her from him and away from his blade. It was in Elsbeth's waiting arms that she found the warmth and comfort Gautier had promised.
Gautier stood to face Hugh and his anger, watching him tighten his grip upon his sword. And then Gautier smiled. This would not be a fight of arms. This battle was all of hearts, and hearts were turned with words, not steel. Hugh was outmatched.
"Returned? You have met the bargain, then?" Gautier said softly. "You have won Sunnandune from her, as you said you would."
"This is not of Sunnandune. This is all of Denise.
What were you about with her?" Hugh asked.
"This is not of Sunnandune? All is of Sunnandune. Sunnandune is the key upon which all riches open. Do you care nothing for your knights, Hugh? They are ready. I have only to drop them into your hand," Gautier said softly, his smile relentless.
It was a temptation, Hugh could not deny it. So many knights, so much glory, so well received by Baldwin, the best man of the age, and all to be had for the price of forty virgates. It seemed a paltry price for so rich a prize.
"What of Denise?" Elsbeth said from behind Hugh, her voice rising to the smoky heights of the chapel. "You will not turn from that charge. Not with me, I cannot be tempted with a prize of many knights."
Hugh was jerked back from temptation at Elsbeth's words, and in his heart he thanked her. He would not be bought for so paltry a price as forty virgates.
Gautier turned to her and said easily, "I am about the training of this girl in the ways of a woman, though I do not answer to you, Elsbeth. Best you remember that."
"What training is it that takes place beneath the dark mantle of a cloak under the very rood of Christ?" Hugh said, shaking temptation from him, even as it clung to him like rain. With every shiver, he was doused yet again by visions of knights and glory and power. He did not know how to shake free of what permeated his very skin.
"I do not answer to you, Poulain," Gautier said, still grinning.
"Answer to this, then," Hugh said, twisting his sword to press it against Gautier's throat. His sword gleamed silver in the dim and holy light, throwing light and divine menace like the very sword of God.
"Will you kill me?" Gautier asked. "And lose all you came to find? I think you are wiser than that, Hugh. I know you well."
"You do not know me," Hugh said.
"Aye, I do. I chose you from among many, and I chose very carefully—the perfect man for my daughter. And the perfect man for me."
Hugh looked back at Elsbeth standing frozen in the center of the nave, the soft glow of the taper embracing her in light. She looked at him, her dark eyes wide and solemn, her arm tight about Denise.