Henry sucked in a breath. He could hear his heart pounding.
“Who knows how many others roam the countryside,” the captain continued. “Keep your wits about you. Report for guard duty on time. Don’t speak a word, else you’ll not see one denier when we reach Nottingham. With the luck of the saints, you won’t find yourself in an early grave.”
The men grumbled, but the captain gestured them to their work. Turning back to the smith’s man, he said, “That goes for you, too.”
*
Henry stood inside the door of Brewers looking round the tavern for sight of his old friends. Matilda’s strong ale permeated the smoky air cocooning him with comforting, familiar smells. He heard Jack’s voice and, as his eyes adjusted to the dim light given off by torch sconces, he recognized his silhouette at the bar. Jack stopped talking mid-sentence, his customer turning to see what had caught his eye. Henry strode into the room.
“Ma, look who’s here,” Jack shouted.
Matilda Brewer looked up from a conversation with another patron and lifted a mug to greet Henry. She was the best brewer between Stamford and Lincoln. She used to haggle with his father over prices while he and Jack loosed arrows at the cracked pottery she’d discarded behind the brewhouse. Those carefree days ended when Jack turned thirteen summers and began tending bar after his father passed.
“Sir Henry!” Every head in the place turned when Jack called out his name. Henry nodded to a half dozen merchants who’d known him for years. The wagon captain had arrived only moments ahead of him and gave him a cursory glance.
“How have you been, Jack?”
“I’ve no complaints.” Jack poured Henry an ale and placed it on the bar. “Saints be praised. What happened to that runt who left on pilgrimage three years past?”
“I was not a runt,” Henry protested as he sat.
“You were more than a head shorter than me. Still are!”
Henry laughed. Jack was the tallest man in Grantham, a good nose or two taller than King Richard. He’d once been skin and bones. No more. His tunic clung to muscular arms and broad shoulders developed by years of lifting his mother’s ale barrels.
“Drink up,” Jack shouted. “Everyone gets one on me to celebrate Sir Henry’s return. A hero’s welcome!”
Matilda Brewer glared at her son. She strode up to Henry and wrapped her arms around him. “Good to have you back, young sir. Your father, he was here but three days past. Visiting a young squire friend of yours who met with some foul deed.”
“Allan will live,” Henry said and Matilda made the sign of the cross. “If I learn the names of those thieves…”
“Did he have a look at them?” Jack asked.
“It was too dark.”
The tavern door opened and light streamed in. The accompanying breeze made the candles gutter and sent the smell of sweat and leather across the room. Matilda shielded her eyes, looking from the three new customers to Henry. “A shame, yes it is,” she said.
“Henry, I mean Sir Henry, tell us about Outremer.” Jack’s shout ensured everyone in the place knew a crusader knight graced their presence.
“…the Holy Land?”
“A pilgrim?”
“A knight?”
“Bless you!”
A spider skittered across the top of the bar. Jack smashed it with the palm of his hand. Henry’s hand came down on top of his, pinning it to the bar top. Jack gave him an odd look.
“The spiders in Outremer were the size of your hand. Furry, ugly creatures that came out at night. They had a sting that made many a grown man cry.”
Faces soured. Jack and his mother cringed. “You’re teasing us,” Jack said.
“No he isn’t,” an older man added with a grimace. “I heard ‘bout them from a soldier from Stamford.”
Matilda planted her hands on her large hips. “I need not hear of spiders, young Henry.”
“Then what? The heat? Or Saracens who poured from the hills hour upon hour. Thousands of them.” Henry closed his eyes. “Ear-shattering war cries. Trumpets blaring and drums. Oh God, the drums pounded day and night.”
Henry’s breaths grew short. Everyone else in the room held their own, waiting for him to speak. He opened his eyes, stared past Jack. He wanted to bury his face in his hands to blot out the memories, but only sat there frozen. Finally, he reached for his ale and gulped it down.
When he added no more to his story, an eager listener at the far end of the bar asked, “Did you kill many heathens, Sir Henry?”
“Give him a moment’s peace,” Matilda cried.
Henry’s breathing calmed and he crossed himself. His listeners mimicked him. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He tugged at the leather chain that held his wooden cross, and then gripped it. “Far too many.”
Silence stung the air louder than any thunderclap, but only for a moment. One man thumped his mug on the table. Then two, four, and soon every man and woman joined in. A huge cheer swept the room. Someone pounded Henry’s back; they slapped each other’s shoulders, cheering the crusaders, jeering the infidels, cursing Saladin.
Matilda filled Henry’s mug with more strong brew. She ran her hand along his forehead, cupped his cheek. “Bless you.”
Henry grabbed the mug with both hands and drank it down. He’d better take care, else he’d be the one in his cups and cursing the king’s brother.
His skin tingled. Across the room, the captain disappeared out the door. His companions remained. When Jack placed a trencher of chicken and bread down in front of him, Henry tipped his head towards the men, “Do you know them?”
“Not by name. There’s dozens passing through every week. Everyone knows the wagons stop the night at Westorby and at Greyton when they’re packed down with goods.” He studied Henry. “No one asks, in case you wondered. They drop their coin here on their return to Boston, keep the shops happy. One or two might drink too much, but they bring us no trouble.”
Jack had narrowed his eyes. His words were slow and deliberate. Caution, they said. You tread in dangerous waters. Henry could have been facing his father. Like Edward, these men had no desire to rouse Count John’s wrath. Am I wrong? Too harsh with my father? His head ached.
“To be young and innocent again, eh?” Jack said.
“I never thought it would be like this when I was a boy.” Henry picked up his brew. “To those good old days.” He sipped at the ale. Another merchant named Wooller waved him to an empty stool. The old man rambled on about market day. Fewer goods, higher costs.
At Henry’s back, the tavern door opened. “God’s blood, but could it be any hotter?”
That familiar voice again. Henry shivered, eyes drifting to the hearth. No fire there tonight, but just thinking of the marches in the desert made his skin heat. He twisted to see the face that went with that voice. “Imagine the hottest day in England and you still will not know the heat of the Holy Land.”
“Sir Henry.” It was Tuck, the ginger-haired guard from Boston.
Henry jerked upright, clenched his fist.
Tuck turned his palms up. He’d no intention of picking another fight. “Might we put Boston behind us, sir? No harm meant.” He thumbed the moisture from his sweaty brow. “As for the heat, I remember that godforsaken place as if it was yesterday.”
Henry saw Tuck’s fleeting glance at his companions. He’d had more to say, but chose not to.
Henry settled back in his chair. “You took the Cross?” he asked the short, stocky soldier. The other guards looked bored and huddled over their ales. They’d heard Tuck’s stories one time too many.
“Man-at-arms. Still alive, thanks be to God. Fought in Normandy and Poitou with Richard ere he became king.”
Henry’s heart pounded. Had Tuck known Stephan there? He swallowed a gulp of his ale. “From man-at-arms to a job escorting wagons from Boston. What brought you to England?”
“Fought against the French in the Vexin until the castellan at Gisors surrendered last month. I was tired of the figh
ting and decided to try my fortunes elsewhere. Prayed to the good Lord. He led me here.” Tuck crossed himself. “You must admit, those six months in Messina were the best of times.”
The best and the worst, Henry thought, as Tuck rattled off a story to eager listeners who gathered round. The lodgings, even the camps, were decent and good food and drink were plentiful. Whores, too, not that Henry had sampled any of the olive-skinned beauties. He wouldn’t have done that to Alys. And Stephan? His closest friend back then, nothing more though Henry couldn’t deny his feelings had been a tangle of conflicting emotions. Thinking of the time they’d lost was painful.
“I wasn’t certain we’d ever see Outremer,” Tuck added.
It was the lead-in Henry needed. He’d have placed a bet that Tuck’s outburst in Boston was from the drink. He liked the man and wanted to trust him. “And now we meet here, miles from the Holy Land. The cargo you guard—is there plenty of work for you? Must be dull after Outremer.”
“Dull is perfectly fine.”
Several men bid Henry goodnight insisting they’d expect more war stories in the future. Henry turned back to Tuck. “If you tire of this job, you must visit with me. I have a task or two you’d be well suited for, and there’d be little excitement…or danger.”
“I shall remember that, sir.”
Henry wandered up to the bar with his empty mug.
“Another brew?” Jack asked.
Henry waved off Jack’s offer. He leaned back against the bar and watched Tuck depart. “Keep your eye on him. If you hear anything let me know,” Henry told the brewer. He took Matilda’s hand and said, “Farewell, dear lady.”
“And where are you headed at this hour?” Matilda asked.
“Home.”
Matilda stomped her foot. “I won’t have it. You must stay here tonight.”
“There’s no need—”
“Stubborn men. Young or old. Don’t seem to matter.” Matilda pointed to a door and gave him a shove. At his back, Jack laughed. Matilda grumbled after her son. When Henry slowed, she pushed harder.
Leaving the tavern behind, he was struck by the smell of fresh rushes strewn on the floor. It was black as pitch, but Matilda brushed past him and within moments lit a candle.
“Pallets by the wall,” she said.
Henry laid one out under her watchful eye. When she returned to the tavern, he laid his swordbelt aside and removed his boots and hose. He stretched out, watching the flame flicker and thinking of Tuck. He wasn’t the same man arguing for Count John in Boston. The storehouse foreman Maes had been there that night.
You’re a smart one, Tuck. There was not a bit of deception in the man this evening. Whose side are you on? Playing a part? The more Henry thought on it, the more certain he was that the ruse had been in Boston. He’d just found a man on the inside of this operation whom he could trust.
Stephan brought Lune to a slow gait, the birch and oak surrounding him in a comforting and familiar way. This was where he’d spent his childhood. The tree canopy hung so thick overhead it seemed like night. Twisted limbs as wide as the girth of two horses bent and bowed with the breeze, appearing to wave at the travelers. One tree was so huge a man had to walk to one side to see past the thing.
A family of rabbits scurried across the road and into the dark woods. “Dinner?” Little John asked.
Elle and David’s wet nurse Cecili laughed, and Bea pretended not to. David had started to squirm in Cecili’s arm. He’d be ready for a meal at her breast soon.
With a wave of his arm that seemed to embrace the trees as old friends, Stephan said, “With the trees so close, there’s no clear shot. And I wouldn’t want you wandering too far off the road. You’d be lost in pitch blackness. Besides, we are almost at l’Aigle.”
Bea looked down the wooded path. “How far?”
“Less than two miles.”
Stephan admired the women. He’d not heard one complaint. Fifty miles each of the first two days, riding dawn until dusk. Almost half that many today. Tough on man, beast and woman. David squealed. And babe.
Little John started to say something, but he saw Bea and Elle studying the huge gnarled tree. Like them, he realized it served as a landmark.
Stephan slid down from Lune’s back.
“If we are so close, why have you dismounted? Not anxious to see your brother?” Bea teased.
Stephan smirked. Bea had warmed to him since the fire. She was friendly as long he didn’t broach the subject of his relationship with Henry. She wasn’t ready to accept that yet.
He strode up to the tree. “We called it the Old Man.” He ran his hand along the rough bark. “Here,” he said, pointing to markings on the west-facing side the others couldn’t see from the road.
Little John and Elle jumped down from their horses. Bea remained in the saddle but urged Bellefleur closer.
Little John eyed the figure carved into the tree. “Did you draw that?”
“My brother Geoff did. And then we burned its edges with the tip of a heated sword. Thankfully we did not set the whole forest on fire. Father would have been most displeased.”
“Geoff has quite the talent,” Bea said.
“It is beautiful,” Elle said, letting her fingers trace one wing of the creature captured in a moment in time. The eagle’s wings spread like it was in flight and spanned a third of the way around the tree. Elle stretched her arms to touch each wingtip.
Stephan had been near twelve that summer. It wasn’t soon after that he left to train in the Earl of Huntingdon’s household.
He looked in the direction of l’Aigle suddenly reminded he had little enthusiasm about seeing his conceited and overbearing brother Gilbert. Four years older, Gil gloated over his two younger brothers. Geoff, two years Stephan’s senior, and their parents made life bearable with Gil. But his parents were gone, and Geoff would not be here, having joined the priestly orders.
Stephan swung back into the saddle, released a deep sigh. He’d last seen Gil before he’d departed for Outremer. He’d no reason to expect the years would have mellowed the man. Staying a day might be bearable. On the morrow, he would deliver his message from Maes to the sheriff in York, and then be on the road to Greyton. He longed to see Henry again, but dreaded that their time together would be far too brief.
Elle and Little John cantered ahead. They’d gone no more than a quarter mile and then reined to a halt. Stephan knew the place he’d spent his youth was in their sights.
“Oh my,” Bea said when she stopped beside Elle.
Little John’s eyes were filled with wonder. “It looks like Queen Eleanor’s castle at Winchester. It’s huge.”
Castle l’Aigle rose before them on a motte. Not one tree stood for the half mile between the riders and the massive gatehouse. A stone curtain wall surrounded a bailey that looked big enough to hold the manor house and the village of Greyton. The keep dominated the view.
“Let’s not keep my brother waiting.”
Stephan saluted the guards on the gate tower as they approached the barbican. The gate was open, the portcullis nestled in the stone seating. With the others on his heels, he trotted into the bailey greeting shopkeepers and village folk who remembered him. Chickens squawked, scattering as they passed. Hand- and mule-drawn carts lined the roads. Servants and tradesmen haggled over goods outside thatched-roof shops and cottages, paused, smiling when they recognized him. The smell of fruit pies and pasties drifted through the open door of the castle kitchen.
At the inner gate, the chamberlain named Toly welcomed Stephan, obviously alerted by the guards that visitors were arriving. Three grooms hastened from the stables to handle the horses.
Stephan smiled, but Toly wore a stern look that didn’t match his round cherub cheeks and sparkling blue eyes. Grey-peppered dark hair fell to his broad shoulders.
“Toly, this is the Lady Beatrice of Cartholme and Lady Elle Weston,” Stephan said.
Toly bowed to the ladies and turned back to Stephan. “Master Ste
phan, it has been far too long since you’ve been to l’Aigle.”
Stephan breathed in the air, soaked in every sight and sound. He’d barely been on the edge of manhood when he’d left. There was an emptiness knowing his parents had passed long ago. The blue and white l’Aigle banner rippled against the keep and Stephan glanced up. The red eagle emblazoned on it looked to be in flight. Two standards fluttered from the tower. Stephan spotted Gil there staring down at him. Stephan shivered, but offered his brother a nod. Gil remained unmoving, and then disappeared from view without reciprocating. A splendid start. “Mayhap not long enough for my brother,” Stephan said.
Toly’s large hand covered the grin that curled his lips. Seconds later it was gone and he grew serious. “He will be pleased to see you. It has been a hard year.”
Well-fed and finely dressed people thronged the bailey. Shop fronts brimmed with goods. Surrounded by all this, how could Gil’s year have been onerous?
Toly lowered his head. “When his wife and child passed…” The old man made the sign of the cross.
“What? When was this?”
“Just before Christmastide.”
Stephan’s gaze flew back to the keep. All this, yet alone. A hard year… Stephan laid a finger on the ring Henry had given him, felt the filigree design. He’d thought his own life good and complete until he’d fallen in love. Henry brought him more than l’Aigle ever could, had it been his. He needed nothing but Henry’s love. And should he lose him? The loneliness would be unimaginable.
Toly cleared his throat. “Lord l'Aigle will be waiting in the solar. But you must be tired and hungry after your journey. I shall show you and your companions your rooms and will see that food and drink are set out.”
“I would like to make myself presentable before meeting your brother,” Bea said.
Stephan turned back to Toly. “See their every need is met.” He held his arm out for Bea and she took it gratefully. “Welcome to l’Aigle, my lady.”
*
After seeing Bea settled, Stephan crossed the aisled great hall fondly remembering Geoff lying on the floor to study and then draw pictures of the stone arches high overhead. The late-day sun flooded the room with light. The sight of the l’Aigle crest hanging above the dais made him swallow hard. He could almost hear his father’s voice engaging the manorial court or celebrating the harvest. Gil’s wedding feast had been here, too.
For King and Country (Battle Scars Book 2) Page 26