By Sylvian Hamilton

by Max Gilbert

  'Do you want me to take the picture to her?'

  'Yes. I will write and tell her how we came by it, and if you will be my messenger I'll be in your debt.'

  'Not forgetting my charges,' said Straccan. They smiled at each other with perfect understanding. 'I'd like to see my daughter, while I'm here.'

  The lady was not at Arlen Castle but at her summer hall, which had no drawbridge. Its modest gate was guarded by men-at-arms and the largest hounds Straccan had ever seen: two enormous bandogs the size of small ponies, chained one at each side of the gate, straining at their collars and growling savagely, all white teeth and scarlet tongues. A thin dirty boy much marked by ringworm, sat by an iron winch from which chains ran to the dogs' collars. As Straccan approached, the boy turned the wheel and the dogs were reluctantly hauled aside. As he passed into the inner court, one threw back its head and bayed after him, a chilling deep-toned sound that echoed back and forth from the surrounding walls. A steward called a boy to escort him to the lady's solar above. There, a waiting woman looked up, harried, from piles of scattered garments and open clothes-chests trailing silks, velvets, cambrics and ribbons. She led him up a winding stair to a window, and pointed out across another inner yard.

  He found her at last in the stable, sitting in the straw in a tumble of soiled silks with a colt lying across her lap, its sides heaving as it drew in one painful breath after another, eyes bulging and suffused with blood, foam from its mouth everywhere. Her hands soothed the suffering creature and she bent to whisper in its ears, blowing her own breath into its red nostrils, regardless of the froth and muck on her gown and veil. The narrow long-fingered hands held the colt's shaking head and, as Straccan watched, it grew quieter. The stertorous gasping eased, the congested eyes closed and opened, closed and opened, bulging less and less.

  The woman wiped its nose and mouth with a wet cloth, taken from a bucket behind her, that reeked of wine, squeezing the cloth so that a trickle of liquid ran into the animal's mouth, keeping up a constant flow of whispered words, soft and soothing, just beyond Straccan's hearing. Suddenly the colt, which had appeared dead a moment before, sucked in two or three deep breaths and raised its head to look round. It lurched to its feet, staggered, half fell, regained its footing, stood trembling on its thin long legs and uttered a lamb-like bleat which was answered instantly by a shrill anxious whinny from another stall.

  'That's his mother,' she said. 'He'll be all right now. Milon!' A groom's head appeared over the partition. 'Take him to his mother.'

  Straccan stood aside to make room as the groom led the colt away. 'What was the matter?' he asked, extending a hand to pull the lady to her feet.

  'He began to cough, and couldn't stop,' she said, wiping her hands on the soiled silk of her skirts. 'Then he had one fit after another.'

  “I thought he was dying. What did you do?'

  'Oh,' she gave him a sideways smile, 'I talked him out of it. Who are you?'

  'My name is Straccan. I come from your brother, lady. Indirectly.'

  'Give me the icon.' she said. She had washed, and changed her clothes. Her skin glowed, flawless, in the candlelight and her pale silver-blonde hair escaped in slippery gleaming waves from a red gauze veil. She sat with Straccan alone over the remains of their meal at a small table in her solar while her women came and went, chattering like birds, giggling and filling the room with scents and colours.

  'The what?'

  'The picture.'

  He unbuckled the pouch at his belt, laid it on the table and took out the cylinder, handing it to her. She held it but did not open it.

  'There is also this,' he said, taking out the brief message the unfortunate Crimmon had carried, 'and this, from the Prioress of Holystone." He proffered Mother Rohese's letter. To his surprise, she cracked the seal and read the letter like any clerk.

  'I must reward you, Sir Richard, for all your aid and trouble.'

  'Prioress Rohese deserves your thanks, Lady. As for me, I ask only one thing.'

  'What?'

  'Tell me about the icon.'

  It was said to be a portrait of Christ's mother, she told him. It had been found in an ancient monastery in Egypt by an infidel king, the Emir Bahadur al-Munir, who gave it –in gratitude for the sparing of his life –to the Lionheart, King Richard. Richard, who valued nothing unless he could turn it to money to finance his crusade, sold it to the Grand Master of the Sovereign Order of Knights Templar. How it passed from his hands into those of his great-nephew was not dwelt on, but the lord of Skelrig wanted his sister to sell it for him; and she had a ready eager buyer.

  'I might outbid your buyer myself,' said Straccan, eating dates, 'if you would name your price.'

  'Are you so rash, Sir, as to outbid the king?'

  'Which king?'

  'The Lord John, of course.'

  'In that case, probably not. It would be a reckless man who tried to outdo His Grace in any matter.'

  She smiled and said nothing.

  'The Prioress of Holystone however is a formidable lady, and his kinswoman. She might reck to outbid His Grace,' said Straccan. 'Would you name a price for her?'

  'I would not. / am not his kinswoman, nor willing to incur his displeasure,' she said. She leaned to pour him more wine and the scent of her was heady indeed.

  'I doubt if even a king could be displeased with you, Lady,' Straccan heard himself say, dazzled.

  Riding away again, with a letter from the lady in his saddlebag for the prioress, he could not forget Julitta's face. It shone in his memory all day, and when he stopped for the night he realised that the whole day's long riding had passed unnoticed like a mere hour. He had left his pouch on the table in her solar and she had come after him with it herself, catching up with him at the gate; she took both his hands in hers, surely she didn't farewell every messenger like that? Her hands were cool and light, and at their touch he felt a little static shock and a sudden rush of uncomfortably sharp desire.

  In the morning, after an explicit sensual dream which he found hard to clear from his mind, he touched spurs lightly to his big bay's sides, eventually shaking off the dream's sticky memory in the leaping delight of hard riding. At Holystone before noon, he gave Julitta's letter to Mother Rohese.

  'A proper gratitude,' she said. 'Properly expressed. She has made over the revenues of her vineyard at Edgeley to the priory for a year.'

  'I hope that will comfort you for the loss of the portrait,' Straccan said. 'I did my best for you but it's to go to the king.'

  'Oh, him,' said she, dismissing her brother with a shrug. 'I might have guessed. It's said the lady is his very good friend.'

  For a moment Straccan didn't take her meaning, and then he did and was conscious of a decided pang.

  Chapter 10

  The first thing Gilla could remember was her mother holding her, walking up and down and singing softly. She'd been plucked up from her cot, screaming from a bad dream. Even now, years and years later, she could still remember bits of the dream: running along narrow stone passages, closing door after door behind her but knowing some awful Thing was on her heels until in a tiny room behind the last door of all she could go no further. Long bony brown fingers poked impossibly through the keyhole, picking the wood of the door away like bread, until a dreadful bark-skinned face leered through at her while the gnarled and twiggy fingers crumbled more and more door away to make a hole big enough for the witch to clamber through ...

  Her mother smelled of flowers and held her so safely nothing could hurt her, nothing could ever get her as long as Mama was there. But then Mama wasn't there any more, and Cilia's next memory was of a plump soft kindly woman in black and white robes, who took her hand and led her to a small covered cart full of cushions and drawn by two white mules. The swaying sleepy motion of the cart seemed to go on for days while the black and white woman and another in exactly the same clothes sat with her on the cushions in the tented space. Occasionally they got out to walk and stretch their legs a while
and to pee behind the bushes, but at last they reached this house, the Priory of Saint Catherine at Holystone, the only place Gilla could remember living in at all, for of her first home with her mother she had no memory, being only three years old when her mother died.

  Time passed, and the child laid down more memories as life took on shape and pattern, ordered by bells and peopled entirely by women in black and white, save for Sir Bernard, the nuns' priest, and Ambrose the bailiff, who was frequently glimpsed stumping along the passage to report to Prioress Hermengarde. Prioress Hermengarde was Gilla's great-aunt, sister to her mother's mother, and to her surprise Gilla learned that somewhere far away, over the sea--'Outremer' they called it –she had a father! No, pet, not like Sir Bernard, and no, certainly not like Bailiff Ambrose. Your father's a knight, a brave warrior fighting the Infidel. The Infidel are wicked heathens who captured God's Holy City, Jerusalem, and make slaves and prisoners of poor Christian pilgrims.

  Knights and heathens took their place in Gilla's mind-world, along with saints and angels, dragons and wizards, nuns, priests, peasants, horses and dogs. She longed for her father's return, but by now her mother's face was fading from her memory, overlaid by Aunt Prioress, dear Dame Domitia who told such splendid stories, and Dame Perdita who tucked Gilla into bed and fussed over her when she had the cough, or the spotted fever, or the earache.

  She was seven when her father came back. Sent for to the guest parlour, she saw the man waiting –a face almost blackened by sun but with blazingly blue eyes and a smile that broke over the little girl like a glorious sunrise as he swept her up into his embrace and held her close. His chin was scratchy, and when she pulled her face back she was horrified to see tears in his eyes and spilling down his cheeks.

  'Oh there, there,' comforted the child. 'Don't, don't cry! Everything will be all right!' And loved him with all her being. The little girls played in the priory orchard on fine afternoons, watched by a lay sister or one of the nuns. Dame Matilda would sometimes teach them a new game; Hoodman Blind had been such a success that their immoderate mirth brought sharp rebuke. Dame Margaret would sit under a tree and doze while they played. Dame Hawise had produced from her capacious pocket knucklebones from the priory's own mutton, which occupied them for days and could be played with in the cloister when it was too wet to go into the garden.

  Today it was Dame Margaret, nodding under a pear tree, more than half asleep, only just aware of their light voices and laughter on the edge of consciousness ... until there was silence, which the nun realised had lasted some time. She sat up and stared about, seeing the children standing by the orchard wall. Why so quiet? No one hurt, no one crying, but something not as it should be ... What? Yes!

  Only three little girls. Not four.

  'Where is Devorgilla?' she called.

  Three little faces turned to her, pale and worried, and three voices answered all together, mixed and muddled.

  'We were playing hide-and-seek ...'

  'Gilla climbed the tree.'

  'This one, here, by the wall.'

  'Someone sat on top of the wall and called her.'

  'He called Gilla's name, and she climbed higher ...'

  'And he pulled her up ..."

  'There were horses, we could hear them'

  'And she's gone, Dame.'

  “I shall go myself,' said the prioress. 'Dame Januaria will go with me, and Sir Bernard, and Ambrose. A message will not do. I must go'

  She sat in Chapter with her nuns, the officers of the community, the morning after Gilla's disappearance. They were all shocked and very distressed, but even more upset by the notion of Mother leaving to ride twenty-five miles to some petty farm at the edge of beyond, quite out in the wilds, and in this appalling weather. It had begun to rain in the night and blow hard, and looked as if it intended to rain and blow for ever.

  'The child was in our care,' said the prioress. 'I must tell her father myself and lose no more time about it.'

  Voices were raised in protest but the prioress stood and raised her hand, silencing them. 'I am going. There's no more to be said. Sub-Prioress Domitilla will take my place while I'm away. It will only be overnight; I shall be back tomorrow. Dame Januaria, get Sister Hawise to pack our bags, tell Sir Bernard to ready himself you'll find him in the mews with his mangy sparrowhawk--and tell Ambrose to put pillion-saddles on Sorrell and Roland.'

  Dame Januaria, who had no cushion of flesh on her bones and detested riding, whispered 'Yes, Mother,' and fled unhappily out of the room. The others crowded round the prioress, still protesting, several even weeping, but she shook them off as a mother cat shakes off her kittens, blessed them in total and marched to her room. There she took silver from a small coffer and put it in a worn leather purse buckled to her belt. She kicked off her sandals and rummaged in a chest for a pair of sturdy boots. A great hooded cloak over all, and she was ready.

  Presently the two horses clattered out of the priory gates, Sir Bernard with the Prioress behind him and the bailiff with Dame Januaria on a thick-legged mare. Rohese dreaded the meeting ahead and as they rode prayed non-stop for Gilla's safety. Business having taken Straccan to Nottingham, he called at Eleazar's narrow unobtrusive house to collect a sum due from a client, and found his money-man unhappy and worried. 'Haven't you heard? No, I see you haven't. News just came. That Pluvis, Master Gregory's man, he met with a dreadful accident. He's dead, Sir Richard.'

  'How? What happened?'

  'They found him, well, just bits really, not all of him, by the crossroads at a place called Shawl. Torn to pieces by wild beasts, so they say.'

  'What of his escort? He had two men-at-arms.'

  'Asleep in their beds, as he should have been too. They saw him to his room, and slept by the fire downstairs. How he came to be wandering about alone in the forest in the middle of the night, no one knows.'

  'Anyway,' said Straccan, 'what wild beasts? Wolves are no trouble at this time of year. Did he fall foul of a boar?' 'Wolves, boars, whatever it was it tore him to pieces. And in truth, they may say wolves, but they don't believe it. They think some evil spirit got him, they really do, they believe it! You Christians have some very odd notions.'

  'We do indeed,' said Straccan, tucking his money into the breast of his coat and fastening it. It had been a long day. He'd be glad to get home to Stirrup.

  By the time he reached home he was tired and hungry, and none too pleased to be dragged from his supper by the watchbell's clank, announcing the approach of strangers.

  'Who's coming?'

  'Looks like nuns,' said the watchman, frowning against the sun.

  'Nuns?' Straccan ran up the steps to look out. The three riders were close enough now to recognise. 'Open the gate,' he said, feeling sudden dread clamp round his heart as he went down to greet Prioress Rohese.

  Straccan shut his eyes, his mind crying, No, no! He clenched his fist and struck the wall, and again, bursting the skin and leaving blood on the stone. No, no! He leaned, shaking, on the table edge until the shocked stiffness of throat and tongue abated and he could speak, at first with his back to her, but then able to turn and look at her.

  'A monastery is not a prison, after all,' he said harshly. 'Nuns are not jailers. Why should little girls in a garden need warders?' 'That is generous,' the prioress said. She too was shaking, partly from weariness after the long fast ride and partly with relief, because he had, in the instant of knowledge, looked as if he might kill her.

  'Why Gilla?' he asked, as if to himself. 'Why was there a man on the wall? To steal fruit? But took a child instead, the nearest within hand's reach? There are children everywhere, far easier to steal than from behind a monastery wall. I'll ride to Holystone with you. I want to see for myself just where it happened, and how. Bane! Bane!'