by Deryn Lake
And with this thought, Margaret went off to confer with Cogger about the wedding feast.
*
In the afternoon that Hamon brought Nichola to Sharndene, Oriel and Marcus walked in Byvelham woods for the last time. Hand in hand they went to the place where they could climb up and stand on a high ridge, looking out to the distant hills behind which lay the sea. They stood in silence, gazing at the view and thinking about their lives and the odd twist of fate that had brought about their meeting.
Eventually Oriel said, ‘Another path, another destiny, and everything might have been different. The child that I am to bear might never have been created.’
‘A child?’ answered Marcus. ‘You are carrying my child?’
‘It will be born in October, or thereabouts. It was conceived last winter on that bitterly cold day. Do you remember?’
But Marcus did not answer, his spectacular smile lighting his eyes and softening his face. ‘Something of my own at last,’ he said. ‘People who have no parents feel the need for that more than any other. I thank you, Oriel.’
He dropped to his knees before her and kissed the place where the baby grew. ‘I greet it with love,’ he added, looking up at her with an expression that she would remember for the rest of her life. ‘And I greet its mother also.’
He took her in his arms and they kissed each other solemnly, then made love most beautifully, like a ritual for dancers, as if each had a premonition that time had turned against them. Afterwards, they lay quietly, until the angle of the sun told them that it was the hour to return to the palace. Then they dressed and walked through the woods hand in hand.
‘You realise I was lost here only last night,’ said Marcus. ‘I wonder where the forge really is.’
‘What forge?’
‘In the fog I came across a smithy, the blacksmith standing by his furnace.’
Oriel gasped. ‘But there is no smithy here — and never has been. Though there is a foolish legend that the lost forge of St Dunstan sometimes appears in the valley, and that to look on his face means death.’
Marcus shivered violently. ‘But the smith did look at me, with eyes like suns.’
Oriel went pale. ‘It could not have been. You were mistaken. You imagined it.’
‘Yes,’ said Marcus slowly, ‘I probably did. For Colin saw nothing.’
But neither of them was convinced and there was a strange silence between them as they made their way to where Colin patiently sat, his tongue poking from his mouth in concentration, as from his blunt fingers a little wooden boat began to take shape.
*
No sooner had she clapped eyes on Nichola, no sooner had she sniffed the musky perfume so reminiscent of the sarcanet glove, than Margaret Sharndene knew at once that this was she. That Robert’s mistress, by some twisting irony of fate, had succeeded where all others had failed and had persuaded Hamon to offer her his hand in marriage. And it was not difficult to imagine how, at that. For here was a strumpet if ever she had seen one — long of leg and red of lip, and very merry of eye indeed. Margaret disliked her thoroughly. But still, it was amusing to see the performance coming from Robert, who, by adopting a terribly bluff manner, clasping the hands of all the men present and being over-attentive to the women, truly imagined that he had disguised the whole situation.
In a way Margaret felt sorry for him. She gave him a distant smile as he conversed with Oriel, who had ridden over from the palace with Marcus, and then turned her full attention to Hamon’s betrothed.
‘You have lived in Battle long?’ she asked.
‘Several years, Madam.’
‘So then you would know my husband?’
Nichola shot her a questioning look. ‘Everyone knows the Lord Bailiff.’
‘Quite. But some better than others, I dare say.’
The widow looked somewhat disconcerted. ‘I expect so.’ There was a fraught silence into which Hamon burst with, ‘My sister with child, I cannot get over it.’
Oriel went very pink and said, ‘It is not so surprising. I have been married since last year.’
‘Yes, but I had not thought ...’
His voice trailed away as he felt everyone turn to look, and it was left to Piers to drawl, ‘Fatherhood must be in the air. What do you say, Flaviel?’
‘It is probably the time of the year,’ answered Marcus calmly. ‘I believe that many a baby is sired during the winter months.’
‘I hope so,’ said Hamon, looking at Nichola so lovingly that Margaret felt her heart wrench.
‘I must try to be kind,’ she thought.
But she could not resist one final dig, one final hint to Nichola that she might know more than she was prepared to reveal. Leaning across the table she whispered confidentially, ‘My dear, Hamon has been a great womaniser in his day. That is why his father and I never forced him to marry. But, if I may advise you, should he start to wander when you are saddled with several babes and no longer able to give him all the attention he needs, try to ignore it. I am quite sure that he will come to heel again in time. It is a family characteristic.’
And with that, rewarded by Nichola’s thoroughly startled face, the Mistress of Sharndene set about forgetting the past and thinking only of the fulfilling times to come.
*
The guests finally departed from Sharndene into the blackness calling out to one another as they went their various ways, lighting torches of flame which could be seen bobbing about the valley for a while and then were gone, leaving nothing but the sleeping house and the swans skimming silently on an indigo moat.
Only Marcus rode alone and that by mischance. For Oriel, whose safe passage to her parents’ home and back had been the squire’s responsibility, had lost consciousness as they had crossed the drawbridge. He had only just saved her from falling to the wooden planks below, catching her as she slumped forward out of her saddle.
‘Don’t ...’ she had whispered. ‘Marcus ... the blacksmith.’
Then she lapsed into silence and he had had no choice but to carry her back into Sharndene and make his solitary way home.
Now, as he rode, Marcus’s thoughts turned, yet again, to the mystery of his parents and it occurred to him for the very first time that his mother could have pinned a ring to his hat in order that he might be recognised. This would mean one of two things: that the ring was so famous a child carrying it would be known at once, or that it held some particular significance for the boy’s father.
With a thrill of elation, Marcus realised that it must be the latter. The ring was cheap, a trinket, a bauble from a pedlar’s tray. Had it been a gift for his mother which she was returning with her son? But why there, in that small town in Gascony?
The answer came like the lifting of a veil. Of course! Why had he never thought of it before? Now that he realised, it was so obvious. He was Paul’s son; he was the flesh and blood of the man he loved more than any other. His mother had taken him there in order that the knight would find him.
Marcus shook his head and realised he was weeping. How clean it felt for those tears to course down into the blackness. He was a bastard and yet he was not. He had been brought up in his father’s house as respectably as any acknowledged son. And then Marcus thought of her, whoever she might have been, and what had prompted her to abandon her child in the middle of that narrow, crowded street, walking away from him and never daring to turn her head for a last look. He saw the place again: the jostling people, the high, gabled houses, the shopkeepers shouting their wares. And there, in the middle of it all, saw the son of Paul d’Estrange grubbing at his eyes and wondering when he would next smell that musky perfume that meant his mother was somewhere near.
Marcus narrowed his gaze, realising that he was almost at Bayndenn and that in the high wood above him a strange light was weaving amongst the trees, and that someone was walking there in the blackness.
‘Ho there!’ he called out. ‘Who is it? Is anything wrong?’
There was no reply and
Marcus had no option but to climb the rise swiftly and enter the intense shadow. The light had vanished and so he was unprepared when his horse suddenly reared in terror as, in the darkness, something lacerated its front legs. As he fought to keep his seat a pair of arms, strong as bars, grabbed Marcus from behind, pulling him down to the earth below.
He never saw who attacked him, had no time to do more than reach for his sword, before a crushing blow smashed his skull and he sunk to the ground in silence. After that there was no noise at all except for feet running through the woods, a horse hurrying away into the darkness; and Marcus’s mount steadily cropping the grasses, accompanied only by the cries of a distant barn owl.
Sixteen
The seasons changed; the earth and the sun continued their great conversation; high summer triumphed in the valleys and hills; and in Oriel’s womb her baby danced in a dark, silent world.
It was only now, now that some months had passed since Marcus had vanished, that she had begun to accept the fact that he must be dead, that somewhere in the forest — still, as yet, undiscovered by the search-parties — he lay rotting. That all the sweet, strong youth of him had started to decompose and return to the earth on which he had once walked.
At the beginning she had thought him on a mission for the archbishop, a mission so secret that he had been able to tell no one. And then came the bleak idea that he had deserted her, that all his sweet words had been falsehoods and that because she was with child he had run away to escape the consequences. Then something Colin had said had made her change her mind. He had looked at her with eyes like sheet-ice and had announced, ‘Piers killed Marcus. He told him to count his days.’
‘My brother said that?’ Oriel had exclaimed.
‘Yes.’ Colin had hesitated, then said, ‘Please may I tell you about something else too?’
‘What is it?’
‘The kitchen lads keep teasing me. Patting my back and saying that I knew what it was for after all. That I understood how to keep myself warm on a winter’s night. What does it mean?’
He had been so earnest and Oriel’s heart had bled for him that he should be the butt of the cruel and the ignorant. For answer she had taken his hand and laid it on her stomach. ‘There, do you feel that? Do you feel how round it is getting?’
‘Yes. Why is it doing that?’
‘A baby is growing in there. Just as the mares in the stables have foals growing within them.’
‘How did it get there?’
Oriel hesitated and then said, ‘Marcus put it there by loving me.’
Colin said nothing and she went on, ‘But that is a secret we must tell no one. Not even John; particularly not John. Colin, we must pretend to all the world that you are the father of this child.’
He had suddenly looked wise. ‘Perhaps I am because I love you just as much as Marcus did.’
She had smiled and answered, ‘If you want to think so.’
They had been happy for a while after that but Oriel had been unable to forget Colin’s words and now she rode in her litter, her pregnancy too far advanced to allow her to go on horseback, through the green and gold of the valley in late summer, on her way to see Piers. To her right she saw the colours of the fields — the amber of harvested corn, the emerald shoots of winter grain, the dark red soil of the fallow field.
There was an odd sensation in her head as, just for a moment, she raced across the sands beside an aquamarine sea, listening to the laughter of her two companions, and watching a brown hand reach out to seize her bridle. Then the laughter grew louder as the owner of the hand drew level with her.
‘Marcus!’ she shouted, only to see the curious expressions of those leading the litter horses. She had been day-dreaming again but this time she had actually called out.
‘Are you not well, my lady?’ asked her servant, drawing alongside and peering anxiously through the litter’s opened curtains.
Pretending faintness to cover her embarrassment, Oriel put her hand to her brow murmuring, ‘Just a little tired,’ and remained quiet for the rest of the journey. But on going down the track to Mouleshale such a weird assortment of noises greeted her ears as the little cavalcade turned towards the house that Oriel found herself exclaiming out loud again, this time in surprise.
Above the din and overwhelming everything else by its sheer ferocity, came the yells of a baby. For Juliana had produced a bouncing daughter.
Beneath this raucous cry could be heard the sound of a gittern, not played very well, and the high-pitched shriek of laughter. Between these bursts of giggling were rendered occasional snatches of song, from the tone of which it could be deduced that Piers, slightly drunk, had found himself an extremely youthful companion. On a lower key altogether to this ill-matched clamour came an occasional moan from the mistress of the house, presumably driven crazy by the uproar around her.
In the hall Piers, growing fatter with good living, lay back upon a sheepskin rug, clad in extremely tight hose and a long velvet robe which gaped at the front; while fawning attendance upon him and gurgling with delight was the prettiest boy Oriel had ever seen.
‘This is Crispin, my protégé,’ announced Piers.
Ignoring the youth, Oriel said, ‘I have come here to speak to you privately. May I do so?’
Piers nodded, saying, ‘Crispin is privy to my secrets.’
Reluctantly Oriel continued, ‘Colin tells me that you threatened Marcus Flaviel. How much do you know about his disappearance?’
There was a momentary pause and then Piers said, ‘I know nothing about it. But it is perfectly obvious to me that the man has returned to Gascony.’
‘And why would he do that?’
The black pearl eyes looked slowly up and down Oriel’s swollen shape. ‘Why indeed, dear sister? Did he have something to hide, perhaps? Something that he could not conceal much longer?’
Oriel’s heart began to thud but she maintained a calm exterior. ‘Piers, I believe Marcus is dead.’
‘Then if that is a fact, good riddance. But let me tell you one thing. If he is finished — and I personally do not believe he is — I can assure you that I am not responsible. Much as I would have loved to strike the death-blow I can swear that somebody else robbed me of the pleasure.’
She believed him. Detestable though Piers was there was a certain look on the handsome face — now growing somewhat debauched and bloated — that she knew from childhood. It meant he was telling the truth.
She sat down hard, ‘Then who did?’
Piers stood up, gesturing abruptly for Crispin to leave them. ‘I repeat, I do not accept he has been killed. I think he has run away. And do you know why ...’ Piers lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘because he is the father of your child, Oriel. I have never believed your story that it was sired by the half-wit.’
She could not bring herself to answer and turning silently, Oriel left the hall, trembling while her attendants lifted her clumsily into the litter, to take her back to the palace and the imminent birth that she awaited.
*
The wood at Bayndenn had been a lake of foaming blue earlier in the year, but now its triumph was over and there was only the glow of late summer to reflect in the dreamy waters of the dew-pond that lay so still beneath the drooping branches of a golden beech.
In all that place no bird sang, or so it seemed to Isabel de Bayndenn where she sat by the edge of the water, staring joylessly at her reflection in the mirrorlike surface. No birds to sing, no hope to grasp, no pleasure left in her entire life. Everything destroyed by her certain and sure discovery that Adam — poor sad Adam whom she had tried to transform into something he could never hope to be — had finally slipped out of reality and into madness.
With the knowledge she had grown suddenly old. The flesh of her beautiful and shapely thighs had begun to sag, lines and wrinkles had appeared like a mushroom crop upon her face and her lively eyes had lost their lustre and grown glazed, peering out at the world from above two unsightly bags.
Then had come the final blow. Exactly seven days ago, sitting in the very spot in which she was now and staring at her reflection with just the same despair, she had seen something glint beneath the water’s surface. Putting in her hand she had drawn out a corroded ring which, at first, had meant nothing to her, but which, when she had taken it home to clean, she had recognised with a thrill of fear. It had been the property of Marcus de Flaviel.
That it had been thrown into the water to escape discovery she had no doubt. And the more she stared at the ring, the more she had become convinced that Flaviel had been murdered on her land and his body subsequently removed; the ring, which had probably come off during a struggle, hurled hurriedly into the pond to be hidden for ever. But that event had not come about for now she had found it and had guessed its secret.
Isabel remembered the night of the great snowfall. Remembered how she and Adam had watched the valley transform to a crystal fairyland; remembered seeing the purity of the landscape and contrasting it with the blackness of Adam’s heart as he had spoken of Oriel and the Gascon squire.
And now Isabel sat alone, turning Marcus’s ring in her hand, and staring into the waters of the dew-pond, seeming hardly to breathe.
The day began to fade, shadows falling over the valley and a mist coming up from the sparkling river and lying over the lowland in little fingers of grey, and the dew-pond turned, first, the colour of jade and then the deeper, more mysterious, shade of green jasper.
With a last sad sigh Isabel, without moving more than her arm, threw Marcus’s ring back into the silent waters. A great ripple formed, then slowly died away until nothing was left at all, and the pond returned to its former glassy state.
Very slowly she got to her feet and climbed laboriously up the incline beyond the wood. Very much as she had suspected, Adam, a shadow long as a giant’s before him, was plodding up from the river valley. She watched him in silence, thinking how perfect he was, how beautiful still. How, as if to compensate for the deterioration of his brain, his physique continued splendid, devoid of fat and packed hard with muscle.