by Anita Mills
“I am going also.”
“Nay, you are not—I’d not take a girl with an army. You will stay here and take care that you do not lose the babe you would have me fight for.” He shook his head, muttering, “Aye, and I pray ’tis a son you carry. I’d not have you cheat me as your mother and grand mother have done.”
“’Twill be a son,” she promised. “Save my husband, and I will bear a son to rule Nantes, and Rivaux.”
30
Bone-weary from three fruitless days in the saddle, Guy set a plodding pace for the return to Rivaux. When word had come that Belesme laid siege to Belvois, he had gathered Brian and every man he could spare to go to his people’s aid, but even as Guy and his men crossed the river that wound between the two estates, Belesme had inexplicably pulled back and faded into the woods, taking his ragged army into deep underbrush that made pursuit dangerous and difficult. Once again, the dispossessed Belesme had struck in the heart of Normandy with impunity.
“’Tis strange that Count Robert would draw back from a smaller force,” Brian mused aloud, putting into words the thought that had perplexed Guy since Belvois.
“Aye.”
“Mayhap he grows overcautious with age,” the younger man went on.
“Belesme? Nay—never. But I own he surprised me. If you do not count the occupants of the house he burned, he left no dead.” Almost by rote, Guy said a silent prayer for the three people who’d burned in their thatched wattle-and-daub hut, and then crossed himself. Jesu, peasant or no, ’twas not a way he’d choose to depart this world.
“Aye,” Brian murmured agreement. “I’d expected him to burn the fields and all the villeins’ huts if he could not take the place. Mayhap we surprised him early.”
“How long does it take to set torches to drying grass?” Guy responded rhetorically. “Nay, if he burned them not, ’twas because he had no wish to do it.”
“Well, I cannot make sense of it, but then, I know not the man.”
“I knew him once, and I cannot make sense of it either. Given what was between us before Tinchebrai, I’d expected him to face me at Belvois.”
“Mayhap he knew not how many men we brought.”
“He knew. If there is naught else that Belesme knows, ’tis how to count those against him—how else can he choose where he raids so well? He does but strike heavy blows and run. Still, I’d thought he would have tried to ruin me though my lands at the least.”
Curiosity got the better of Brian. He half-turned in his saddle to ask, “But what can be between the two of you? He cannot blame you for his losses—nay, ’tis my father he hates.”
“He wanted Cat for revenge on Roger de Brione, I think. He asked Curthose to send her to Mabille, but Curthose gave her to me instead.”
“I should hope he did—e’en my uncle Curthose was not such a fool as that. Jesu, Cat to Belesme? And when he was wed at that? Nay, there’d have been none to stand for it.”
Guy leaned forward in his saddle and tried to ease the aching in his back. Unlike Brian FitzHenry, who seemed able to sleep astride a horse, he’d had no sleep in three days, and his mind was beginning to reflect it. It seemed he could not even carry the same thought long, and the puzzle over Belesme’s strange maneuver defied understanding to the point where he’d not think on it any longer. He wanted to be at Rivaux, he wanted his bed, and he wanted Catherine—aye, above all, he wanted Cat.
“Art too tired to sit your horse,” Brian muttered. “Were I you, I’d stop here for the night and lay my pallet on the ground.”
“’Tis still daylight. Nay, but I’d sleep in a bed this night.”
“Mayhap you are right. I could use a comely wench to warm my bones after this ride.”
“Not in my keep. There are but Hedda and the kitchen girls, and Cat would not like it if you were to lay one of them.”
“Do you never think of it?”
Despite his overwhelming weariness, Guy looked over at Brian suspiciously, wondering why he would ask. But in the month since Brian had offered his service to protect Rivaux, Guy had discovered much to like in his former rival. Besides, he had nothing to hide.
“I’d not tell Cat,” Brian prompted.
“’Twould make no difference if you did.” For a moment, Catherine’s face seemed to float before him as it often did as he drifted into sleep, and Guy’s longing intensified until he could scarce bear it. “Nay,” he answered finally, “I’d do nothing to destroy what is between us.” He caught Brian’s skeptical look and nodded. “If I burn, I burn alone until she is come back from Nantes.”
“Art besotted then.”
“For a man reported to lay every willing wench who breathes, I’ve not seen you try it at Rivaux.”
“Nay,” Brian sighed. “I gave up all my vices at one time, but ’tis a hard task trying to be worthy for someone.” A rueful grin spread across his round face, and despite his own fatigue, a twinkle sprang to his brown eyes. “Aye, I did not say I meant to. I suppose if you can be true, then so can I.”
“Do I know the lady?” Guy felt compelled to ask.
“’Tis of no import—she’d not have me, anyway.”
“Cat?”
“Nay.”
They fell to silence, each lost in his own thoughts. Guy’s turned again to Catherine as he wondered how she fared at Nantes. On his return to Rivaux, William had reported that she already had Gilbert enthralled with her beauty and docility. Guy could not help smiling at the report—his Cat docile? Aye, and the old man was plying her with gifts to ease her homesickness, offering in a letter to keep her for the winter, saying, “She is the delight of my life, the joy of my old age.” His dotage, more like, Guy snorted to himself. Nay, he’d not have Cat stay away from Rivaux one day longer than necessary. Even now he prayed that the harassment of Belvois was but Belesme’s halfhearted last attempt to wreak havoc ere he withdrew again into France. Word placed his summer’s death count high, with scores of villages burned and razed, hundreds of peasants burned or hacked to pieces to satisfy his blood lust, and dozens of knights captured and tortured to slow deaths. Nay, mayhap he was but on his way back to France and would not take the time to outwait Belvois.
Guy’s horse picked up its pace on its own, a sign that they were nearing Rivaux itself. Jogged from his reverie, Guy realized he’d not even noted that they’d reached the wide shallows of the river that ran between his lands. God’s bones, but it would be good to eat hot food and sleep in a feather bed again. And he hoped William had been able to keep every man working in his absence, for he liked not feeling vulnerable in his own keep.
The water was swift over the rocky bed, swirling around his horse’s knees as he urged the animal across. The cold wetness seeped through his boots and soaked the bottom of his braichs where they were tucked in, chilling him, but he did not care—he was nearly home and the feather bed beckoned. Beside him, he heard Brian cursing that he was ruining his boots and had not a pair to spare.
Reining in on the opposite bank, they waited for the forty men who rode with them to finish the crossing. Guy looked to Rivaux, to the outer wall and the piles of quarried stone. Aye, there’d been a few more feet of it done, as near as he could tell. But it was still daylight and work had stopped—William must be getting softer than he’d suspected, if he did not glean every minute’s work from his men. Using his pommel for leverage, Guy rose in his saddle to look more closely. There was no sound of carpenters at work inside, nor was there any sign of activity at all, he had to admit as he listened.
The short hairs at the back of his neck prickled in warning and he raised his hand for silence as the others joined him. Craning his neck toward the fields, he could see they were undisturbed. Haystacks raked from the harvests dotted the land like silent sentries among neatly defined patches of gold thatch and green grass. Uneasy, he looked for the wisps of smoke from the cooking fires in the huts, and was reassured to see some. He was overtired, he guessed, and his mind would deceive him into fear. Sniffing dee
ply, he smelled bread from his own ovens and dismissed his fears. Aye, a weary body made him foolish.
As if by silent signal, the draw that spanned his ditch creaked downward, opening the stockade itself. Guy spurred on almost eagerly now, not waiting for Brian or any of the others. The men behind him, sensing the nearness of their own ease, whipped their own tired mounts in a near-race for the gate. The wooden platform bounced beneath the pounding hooves and the iron supports banged noisily as they poured three abreast across the bridge and into the inner bailey. Silent ostlers moved to grasp reins from the riders while the bridge raised behind them, securing Rivaux from the world they’d left.
Guy had removed his helmet and was in the process of dismounting when he noted the stranger who held his horse. And out of the corner of his eye he could see the crossbowmen who stepped from behind Catherine’s new kitchen and bakery. Turning around, he saw more of them posted above him on the stockade wall itself, crouched from outside view. His whole body felt numb as he slowly turned back to his own square tower. There in the wide, arched doorway stood Robert of Belesme.
“Nay, do not think to fight, Guy of Rivaux,” Belesme told him even as Guy’s hand crept to the hilt of Doomslayer. “You would be cut down ere you could clear the scabbard.”
“Where are my people?” Guy demanded, his heart racing as he contemplated his chances. But the bridge behind him was closing, making escape impossible. They were doomed, every Rivaux man in the keep, and he’d led them blindly to their deaths. Impotent rage, directed at himself for being a fool and at Belesme for what he would do to them, made Guy reckless. Still partially shielded by his horse, he grasped his sword and prayed he could reach Belesme before he was cut down. Lunging forward, he gave the shout, “For Rivaux and St. Stephen! For Rivaux and St. Stephen!” They had not a chance, but he’d invoke the name of the martyr and die fighting rather than be skinned or boiled in his own keep.
Half a dozen green-shirted men tried to grasp him from behind, while the bowmen held their fire, but he shook them off, nearly carrying one fellow with him. He almost reached Belesme, thinking irrationally that he was as big as, if not bigger than, the older count now. Robert made no move to evade him, but stood watching him with those strange green eyes of his, until Guy raised Doomslayer to strike. The last words he heard were, “Take him, Piers,” as he fell to the ground.
“Would you have me place him with the others?” Piers de Sols asked his lord as he knelt beside Guy’s inert body.
Robert of Belesme stepped forward to move Guy with the toe of his boot, and then, satisfied that he was indeed unconscious, he dropped to his knees to examine where Piers had hit him with the rock. Expertly he lifted the young man’s eyelids to study his pupils, and then he rolled him over to feel the lump that was already forming beneath the thick black hair. Having seen every nuance of a man’s progress toward death, he considered himself an authority on whether someone would live or not. Apparently satisfied, he rose and wiped his bloody hands on his green tunic.
“Nay, I’d have him brought to me when he wakens. Disarm him and tend the cut on his head.
Guy came to consciousness slowly, aware first of the woman who hummed softly at his bedside while she changed the cool rags on his brow, and then of the awful ache that threatened to split the back of his head. Stirring gingerly, he could tell he was in his own feather bed, and as his cognitive powers returned, he began to wonder if he’d been dreaming, if his head pained from some other injury. His hand crept to the back of his head and he felt the lump there. The place was tender beneath blood-matted hair. Ever so slowly, he opened his eyes to stare at the woman who hovered over him. Her eyes were as green as Belesme’s.
“Nay, do not move too quickly,” she cautioned him. Then, seeing his confusion, she leaned closer to explain, “I am Mabille.”
Mabille. The witch of Belesme, the woman who had borne Count Robert in what some said was a pact with the devil. The woman said to be so vile she lay with her own son after she poisoned his father for him. She appeared to float above him like a faery creature slow to age, with smooth white skin and red hair that mingled with silver. He stared blankly and tried to understand how it was that she tended him. His eyes traveled warily around the room, taking in the details of his own chamber. Aye, he was in his own bed.”
Drink this—’twill ease the pain.” The bed ropes creaked as she sat beside him and reached to lift his head. “And, nay, ’tis not poison.”
“Still, I’d not drink it.”
Her laugh was almost musical as she lifted the cup to his lips. “Do you truly think I’d waste the time to stitch your head beneath that black thatch you call hair if I mean to poison you?”
“I’d think you meant to save me for Robert’s knife,” he answered candidly. He tried to rise and push her hand away, but fell back from the intense pain in his head.
“I am not unskilled in simples. Drink it.” This time, she slid her arm behind him. “Piers, hold him,” she ordered a man who sat nearby on a stool. “Now, we’d have you mended enough to see my son, Lord Guy,” she almost crooned as she held the cup again to his lips and coaxed, “I swear to you ’twill not harm you.”
The man Piers came closer and braced Guy with his arm, asking, “Do you want me to force it down him?”
“Nay,” she answered, “he will drink.”
Despite all he had ever heard of her, Guy saw none of her reputed evil in the green eyes that met his. But then, she would be full of guile, he supposed wearily. Aye, and a swift poisoning would be preferable to the death he knew Robert of Belesme would inflict on him, for even in his befuddled state he could remember the tales of how Fuld Nevers had been skinned alive. He nodded and took a deep sip of the bitter liquid.
“Aaarggh,” he managed with a shudder. “What is it?”
“’Tis for pain. Lay him back, Piers.” She leaned to set the cup on the bedside bench and then sat back to watch him. “I’d not harm you, Guy of Rivaux,” she murmured softly.
Telling himself he was in the midst of an awful dream, Guy closed his eyes and leaned back. The bitter mixture she’d given him pitched and rolled in his stomach for a time and then he felt strangely calm. His eyes were heavy and his mind floated as though it were separate from his body. He tried to open his eyes and focus on her, but her streaked red hair hung like a veil over him, blotting out her features save for the green eyes that watched him.
“You have poisoned me,” he muttered thickly with a tongue that barely worked. The last thing he remembered at all was the feel of her cold hands smoothing his rumpled hair back from his face.
Mabille of Belesme rose finally and collected the assortment of medicinal herbs and little pots she’d brought with her. “He will not wake before the morrow, but I’d not leave him unguarded.”
“How fares he?”
Mabille turned around at the sound of her son’s voice and found him standing at the unbarred door. “You surprise me, Robert. I’d thought you to be below with the prisoners.”
“I mean to spare them.” He shrugged at her expression of disbelief and added, “But I have told the men they can have any they find beyond these walls.”
“He took a hard blow with the rock—his head must be like steel.”
“Would you have expected it to be otherwise?”
“Nay, but it surprised me that he tried to fight.”
“I knew he would not do otherwise,” Robert told her proudly. Moving to the side of the bed, he looked down where Guy lay curled like a giant child. “I asked how he fared.”
“Well enough. He woke and I gave him some of the bark you stole from that Eastern trader outside Gisors. It aids the pain.”
He lifted a black eyebrow and looked up. “And he drank it?”
“Aye—’twas better in his eyes to be poisoned than what he believes you would do to him.”
Curious, he studied the younger man’s face for a time before he reached his scarred hands to touch hair as black as his own. His f
ingers traced the fine, straight profile and the high, defined cheekbones, and a slight smile formed at the disfigured side of his face. “Nay, I’d not harm him.”
31
He was a prisoner in his own keep, attended by Belesme’s men rather than his own, and yet Guy found himself treated as befitted his rank. Mabille herself tended his head and brewed the potions that eased his pain once he woke the second time, but she steadfastly refused to answer any of his questions about the men and women who lived at Rivaux. “Nay, but Robert will tell you in his time, Lord Guy,” was all she would say.
“But I would at least know how the old one—how William de Comminges fares,” he persisted. “And the man called Brian also.”
“What are they to you?” she asked finally.
“William has been with me since my birth.”
“And the other one?”
Well aware of Robert of Belesme’s bitter hatred for Brian’s father, Guy deemed it best to avoid that relationship. “Brian comes from Wales to serve me. I’d not have him harmed either.”
“Wales. Aye, Robert had lands there once, but those lands were taken,” she remembered bitterly. “Shrewsbury he was, and King Henry disinherited him, saying he was traitor to the crown, that he made Wales a fief of his own.”
“I fought at Shrewsbury and throughout the marches, but the Welsh rebel there still.”
“And they always will if Henry thinks to rule them from Rouen—or even London.” A smile curved what had once been a generous mouth. “Aye, we have heard of your deeds in France.”
“My lord of Belesme would have him brought down,” someone called to Piers de Sols through the door, sending a shiver of apprehension through Guy’s body.
If even one-tenth of the stories about Belesme’s legendary cruelty were true, it would not be unlike him to have made certain his prisoner was well enough to endure hours or days of torture. Aye, Guy had seen evidence of his blood lust himself and had listened as Rivaux’s survivors from the earlier raid had told of the slow deaths of those who’d been taken. Belesme did but play with him, drawing out the manner of Guy’s dying, letting him think he would be allowed to live, Guy was certain, and yet somehow that did not explain Mabille’s gentleness.