The Black Thorne's Rose

by Susan King

  Whitehawke reined in quickly, jerking his mount’s head so violently that the animal neighed and raised up on its back legs. Chavant and the two guards pulled their mounts to a sharp halt.

  The green rider lifted a hand, fingers trimmed with budding twigs, in greeting. Rain obscured the details of his appearance, but did not dilute the terror he quickened in those who saw him. Now the distance of a bowshot, he cantered forward.

  A clap of thunder sounded again, muffled by the heavy spattering rain. The rider did not pause. Whitehawke and the others edged their agitated, prancing mounts backward. The hunting dog bared his teeth and growled, its menacing threat lost amid rain, and thunder, and horses thumping.

  “Fiend of hell!” Whitehawke screamed. “Begone from here!”

  Lowering his raised hand, the Green Knight leaned forward and urged his horse to a fast gallop, heading straight for the cluster of riders. They shouted in alarm and scattered as he ripped a path through the middle and shot toward the wall.

  Whitehawke spat a command, and the dog leaped after the green-shrouded horse. Chavant and the two guards turned to chase behind, rain and mud and fresh clods thrown out from fast hooves.

  The Green Knight neared the wall, leaping over the discarded stones that littered the ground. The unfinished end of the wall slanted down to the ground like a ramp, and the rider kneed his horse to take the incline in the pouring rain. The wall walk was slippery but very wide, and the horse climbed easily, cantering obediently over the layered straw and slate that covered the more complete, higher sections. The rider kept to one side, aware that the rubble which filled the hollow center of the walls had not yet settled and would not be stable.

  Glancing behind him, he saw the approach of the dog and, farther back, one guard. He rode on, meaning to risk the dangerous ride along the wall walk. He gambled that the superstitious earl would consider the keep damned and abandon it. ’Twould save months of ineffectual legal action and orders to desist, which Whitehawke would likely ignore.

  The hunting dog drew closer, frenzied enough to climb the ramped wall in the rain. Nipping at the green caparison cloth, wet and dragging low, the dog got a firm hold with his long teeth. Reaching to his belt, the rider pulled out his sword and sliced through the rain at the dog, who backed off abruptly. A clap of thunder boomed, followed by lightning, close and startling, its blue glint illuminating the green rider and the dog at the highest elevation of the wall.

  Ahead the wall played out straight and then curved right. Beyond the curve, a wide gap loomed where a tower was under construction. Just at the edge of the gap, a pile of rubble slanted down to the ground. The rider spurred his horse ahead, meaning to take the rocky incline. Deep thunder slammed through his ears, and lightning crackled, dangerously close. He heard men shouting, and turned to see the guard riding the top of the wall in pursuit, sword raised, the dog close behind.

  On the outer side of the wall, the tall framework of a pulley jutted up, its central wooden pole shaking in the driving rain. The Green Knight turned, just as a sharp needle of lightning hit the metal fittings of the pulley in a blue-white burst. The pulley careened into an unfinished portion of the wall.

  Weakened by the rubble filling and unmortared stones, the wall collapsed, slowly at first, then more rapidly, until it dissolved in a trembling, roaring crash. Bits of rock spun off from the avalanche, and a loose fragment smashed into the green rider’s head as he urged his horse down the rocky incline and away from the shattering wall.

  Slipping and slithering in the pouring rain, he reached the ground and spun the mount to gallop away from the great trembling heap of the wall. Riding past the fields, where the fires had been extinguished by rain, he disappeared into the dripping shadows of the forest.

  Nicholas accepted a refill of a golden, tart French wine from a steward, and glanced toward Whitehawke, who sat beside him at the largest table in the garden. Tossing back his silky white hair, Whitehawke slurped steaming fish soup and nodded at some comment Lady Julian had made.

  Smiling grimly as he sipped his wine, Nicholas hoped that the drink would dull the ache in his bruised head. He knew that his aunt was making a valiant effort to be polite this even. Though she could not abide the earl, she had arranged the hastily concocted garden supper because he was a guest at Hawksmoor.

  Alarice, Maude, Peter, and Hugh de Chavant were seated at the lord’s table, facing several long tables packed with knights and soldiers and servants. Nicholas settled back, attempting to listen to the three musicians who had been quickly scoured from the surrounding countryside. He could hardly hear the pipes and tabors above the din of the crowd.

  Whitehawke and Chavant, with dozens of men, had ridden unexpectedly into Hawksmoor earlier that afternoon. Fuming, swearing to slaughter the green bastard who rode the moors, Whitehawke had told Nicholas what had happened with no apparent sense of wrongdoing on his part. That land, he said, was his to build on as he chose. Refusing to speak further on the matter, Whitehawke claimed hunger and fatigue, and indicated that he expected a multiple-course meal in honor of his arrival, no matter that he had given no notice.

  Lady Julian had supervised the stewards and cooks in preparing a sumptuous summer feast in remarkably little time. She had invited the knights and ladies, Serjeants, and servants at Hawksmoor to attend, as well as Whitehawke’s own detachment of men. Nicholas, grinding his teeth in exasperation, had smiled politely and set himself to endure the feast for his aunt’s sake.

  Several tables had been arranged beside the orchard. Apple and pear trees crowded nearby, drifting leaves onto white tablecloths with each stirring breeze. The soft orange glow of resinous torches placed around the garden settled down over trees and flower beds, and over the heads and shoulders of the diners.

  A continual chain of servants ran to and from the kitchen buildings, carrying platters of roasted meats, fish pies, stewed vegetables, and sweet, delicate desserts, as well as tuns of red and pale wines and kegs of ale. Losing the heat of the day, the air was cool and moist from the recent rains, and fragrant with smoke and blossoms and savory foods.

  “Will you have the eels, my lord?” Alarice asked, tilting her head prettily. “They are lightly stewed with garlic.”

  Seated beside her, Whitehawke nodded. Alarice scooped up some of the slithery dish with a heel of bread and deposited it on Whitehawke’s square bread trencher. Since Lady Alarice was of a lower rank than the earl, she had served him each course.

  So far, Nicholas noted, Whitehawke had kept her busy. The earl had eaten generous servings of a spicy cheese dish, followed by coddled mustardy eggs, cabbage soup, a fish pie, boiled peas and turnips, and gingered plaice with a strawberry sauce. Though he had refused the venison and fruit pie, the smoked pork and the roast chicken, he had accepted herbed jelly and finely milled white bread. Now he dug into the garlicked eels with appetite, eating juicy bits with his fingers.

  “Wine, my lord?” Alarice asked.

  “Eh? What kind?” Whitehawke had drunk from each of the wines and thick ales that had been passed along the table, urging Alarice to pour for him each time another container appeared.

  “ ’Tis raisin wine, my lord,” Nicholas said, overhearing, as Alarice tilted a silver jug with both hands to pour the dark liquid into the earl’s cup.

  “Ah, raisin wine.” Whitehawke burped into his hand. “The best kind is clear as the tears of a nun, strong as a house of monks, and hits the throat like lightning,” he said. Sipping, he set down the goblet and looked at Nicholas. “I thought I saw a nun walking through your bailey earlier. An odd sight.”

  “There is a monk newly arrived as well,” Alarice added.

  Whitehawke raised a white eyebrow. “Does Hawksmoor become a religious house?”

  Nicholas sliced into a dish of stewed pears in wine sauce. “My lady aunt has commissioned some wall paintings in the chapel, sire. The monk came from Wistonbury to do them. The nun, his niece, assists him,” he answered.

  “Wisto
nbury?” Whitehawke frowned and reached for another sip of wine. “You would donate money to that abbey, even for painted decorations? The girl seemed a young one, I thought.”

  “Dame Agnes is the eldest sister to Nicholas’s wards,” Alarice offered. “She and her uncle have come to see the children.”

  Nicholas scowled at his cousin but said nothing.

  “What? Another de Ashbourne? Rogier was a fertile cock. The eldest girl was shut away, was she not?” Whitehawke used his knife to lift another bite of seasoned eel. “I should like to question her about the Lady Emlyn.”

  “I have already done so,” Lady Julian said firmly. “She lives a cloistered life, and did not even know her sister was missing. She is still missing, my lord?” she asked sweetly.

  Whitehawke grunted in wordless annoyance.

  “Do come to the chapel to see the paintings, my lord, before you leave Hawksmoor—when might that be?” Lady Alarice asked.

  “We depart on the morrow,” Whitehawke answered.

  “The weather holds fair, I think,” Alarice said. “I do hope the storms have passed, do you not agree, my lord?”

  Whitehawke gnashed his teeth and flared his nostrils. “The thunderstorms have been violent of late.”

  “Thunderstorms can be very destructive,” Nicholas said.

  “Oh!” Maude interrupted. “We heard the most dreadful tale of a monster sighted after a thunderstorm near Buckden, with the head of an ass, a human torso, and charred monstrous limbs like long roasted turnips.”

  “A monster? More like some unfortunate villein learned the folly of riding out in lightning,” Peter commented.

  Lady Julian slid a wooden bowl toward Whitehawke. “Try the mutton stew, my lord,” she said pleasantly. Nicholas raised his eyebrows; though he rarely saw maliciousness in his aunt, she seemed to reserve some for Whitehawke.

  The earl shot her a hard look. “I take no flesh meat. As you know, my lady.” He turned to Alarice. “But I will have some of the sallat,” he said, and received a serving of lettuce boiled with raisins and almonds.

  “The mutton is from Nicholas’s own flocks,” the countess said.

  “Of course it is,” Nicholas muttered. “With thousands of sheep, one hardly need purchase mutton on market day.”

  Whitehawke picked at the lettuce with his knife. “How fares your sheep farming, Nicholas?”

  “We have done well this year. My seneschal reports more than fifteen thousand sheep on our estate farms. A great deal of the cheese and butter this winter came from our sheep, and the castle and the surrounding villages have used all the tallow produced. We have had orders from York and Lancaster parchment makers for skins. And I have lent flocks out to several farmers, who are now ready to give them back.”

  “Keeping how many?”

  “I allowed them to keep half the lambs born during the two-year loan.”

  “Generous. But you set them up as sheep farmers that way.”

  “Aye.”

  “You will have too much competition in the wool market in a few years,” Whitehawke pronounced, and sipped his wine.

  “I think not. There is great demand for northern wool. But I will have farmers willing to aid my drovers when ’tis time for the flocks to be driven over the track south to market. And the whole area will benefit from the flourishing farms hereabouts.”

  “Hmmph. I have twenty-five thousand, last count.”

  “Impressive. All around Graymere, sire?”

  Whitehawke stifled a belch. “Not all. I had the sheep counted on land that is mine by title. The crown still delays my rights to Arnedale, but my men counted the head there anyway, or what they could get to. ’Tis a matter of time before those farms are mine again.”

  “My lord,” Lady Julian said, leaning forward. “That land belonged to my sister Blanche, and did not pass to you in the marriage arrangements. My father donated part of it to the monasteries, and the rest was my sister’s, outside her dowry. It should have passed to Nicholas. ’Tis no wonder you have had years worth of trouble claiming it.”

  Whitehawke glared at her. “There is no proof of what you say, my lady. That entire strip of land—the western side of the valley from Wistonbury Abbey to the river that cuts in front of Hawksmoor—became mine upon my marriage to Blanche. The Church stole it from me, and I mean to get it back. The royal secretaries have been years over the job of finding the documents. I am sore tempted to go to London and tear through the account rooms myself. Your father filed the deed with the king’s lawyers, Julian.”

  The countess drew a sharp breath to retort, but Nicholas laid a hand on his aunt’s sleeve and squeezed gently. “Sire,” he said, “that land, and those flocks, are the main support of two abbeys, and the livelihood of hundreds of villeins.”

  “The people will keep their living,” the earl answered. “But I will have the land and the profit that has been due me these many years. The high holy monks can go back to their herb gardens and books. They have no business in the wool market, or on my land!” His face grew darker with each word.

  Peter looked across Lady Alarice. “From what I have heard, my lord, this Green Man challenges your men to obtain their sheep counts and to travel the area at all.”

  Whitehawke stiffened. “God’s throat, Blackpoole, I have no desire to discuss that here,” he growled. “Enough to say the demon is soon vanquished.”

  Alarice gasped. “Demon, my lord?”

  “A devil prowls that land, my lady, in the guise of a Green Knight,” he said, smirking. “And I am determined to send him back to hell.”

  Peter leaned toward Chavant. “Mayhap the Green Man is seen about because he has acquired a taste for sheep. Try the mutton, Hugh.” He passed the dish along.

  Chavant licked his greasy lips. “The green bastard seems to have more of a craving for juicy little lambs, I think.”

  “Shut up, Hugh,” Whitehawke snapped.

  With a grunt, Whitehawke sat heavily on the bed and bent clumsily to pull off his boots. Nicholas, sipping hot spiced wine from a small wooden cup, leaned a shoulder against the wall. When they had left the feast, he had properly offered his father the use of his own bed for the night, and would have to search out a bed elsewhere.

  Leaning slightly, sunk down in the deep soft mattress, Whitehawke ran his meaty fingers through his snowy hair and stared into the firelight. Even in the reddish glow, his eyes were pale shards of blue ice.

  Nicholas could hear the faint whine of his father’s breathing, like the susurration of heavy silk. He had heard the sound before, when his father was tired, or had been out in cold or rainy weather.

  Whitehawke rubbed at his chest. “Did your steward see to that herbal potion?”

  “Lady Julian had an infusion made from the herbs you requested. ’Tis there on the table.”

  Whitehawke reached for the cup and sipped at the steaming liquid, rubbing his breastbone vigorously. “Beshrew me, the only good thing Blanche ever did was create this remedy for my chest ailment. I am never without a decoction of this stuff, now.” A raspy sigh turned to a deep belch. “My father had this same weakness of the lungs. ’Tis a trait of the de Hawkwoods.” He glanced meaningfully at Nicholas. “Unlikely that you will ever develop it.”

  Nicholas clenched a fist behind his back. “You speak ill of my mother’s honor, sire,” he said in a low tone.

  “At least we know who your mother is, since you crawled from that cursed space.” Nicholas took a step forward at the remark.

  Whitehawke laughed acidly. “Get no black mood on, now. I am too tired for it. We shall argue aplenty on the morrow, I am certain.” He coughed again, wheezily, and lay back on the pillows. “Send in a servant to help me undress. Some pretty chit,” he added, and rolled over, closing his eyes.

  Nicholas turned away, breathing deeply to master his anger. In a moment, he heard sloppy snores from the bed. Sighing, he dragged the curtains shut around the bed.

  Rubbing the back of his neck, Nicholas felt,
sudden and keen, his own exhaustion. He had been plagued with a headache for two days, from the bruising blow to his head. Though he knew that he needed rest, he did not relish the prospect of sleeping in the garrison tower with drunken soldiers, or on the floor of the great hall, which was littered with the pallets and blankets of the castle servants and Whitehawke’s men.

  He yawned. The narrow bed in the solar next to his chamber would do well for tonight.

  Pulling aside the curtain, he saw the small star of a low candle flame, guttering in a wooden dish on the table. He sighed impatiently. Emlyn—Dame Agnes, he thought sourly—must have come here during the garden supper, though Whitehawke’s presence should have discouraged her from moving about the castle.

  On other evenings he had been aware she was in the solar—the glow of candlelight through the thick weave of the red curtain, the scratch of brush or pen, a soft sigh, the quiet closing of the outer solar door. Some nights, he needed all of his self-control to keep from going through that curtain to be with her, to say what must soon be said between them.

  Now, blowing out the flame and plunging the little room into darkness except for moonlight, he wondered why she would have carelessly left a candle burning.

  Slender bars of moonlight slipped between the window shutters and fell across the room as he turned, yawning, toward the bed. He stopped in a half stretch.

  Emlyn lay curled beneath the blanket, one hand palm up on the pillow. A breath escaped him and his heart thudded suddenly. His first thought was to get her away from such close proximity to Whitehawke. Remembering that several blasts of the Judgment Horn could not wake his father tonight, he sank to one knee beside the low bed.

  She slept as deep and trusting as a child, lashes and brows dark against creamy skin, her mouth slightly open, her breathing gentle. The confining wimple was gone, and Nicholas touched the soft curling strands at her temple. In the pale light, her hair was a fine-spun, pearly silver. When she sighed and shifted beneath his fingertips, turning her head, her hair flooded over his hand, cool and fine as silk.