Wildewood Revenge

by B. A. Morton

  “I can be extremely swift.” He returned her kiss, turning soft and gentle into hot and steamy within a couple of breaths. “I’d prefer not to, but under the circumstances one has to make sacrifices.”

  Chapter Thirty One

  They left an hour later with thick cloaks to guard against the night chill and John at their side. Miles and John were well armed and Miles ensured Grace had Edmund’s knife. Only Tom Pandy, Edmund and the Forester men were aware of their departure and they positioned themselves to keep watch until their safe return.

  The moonlight served them well. They travelled quickly past their Scottish sentries and on through the forest spread out to the South East of Wildewood. They followed hidden trails, which cut many miles off their journey and brought them to the outskirts of Ahlborett a little after midnight. They halted by the Danestone on the rise above the village and Miles dismounted, climbed the great prehistoric monolith and scanned the castle from this vantage point.

  Grace stared down at what could be seen of the village in the moonlight. It was unrecognisable to her. It still hugged the narrow road that snaked through the valley floor and the dwellings on the north of the road still sat precariously on steeply rising plots of land, which reached a pinnacle, before they dropped hazardously down to the river running behind the village. But the village itself was merely a collection of wooden and stone dwellings enveloped in darkness, slumbering. No sign of the sturdy stone houses she knew. No welcoming lights at the windows, no sign of the pub, the converted church or the village hall or school. There were no quaint cottages with lovingly tended gardens and flowers tumbling over dry stone walls.

  The castle which she knew only as a ruin, stood tall and proud with watch fires lit and guards on sentry duty at the main gate. If Grace still harboured doubts about the reality of her situation, they were instantly dispelled. This was medieval Ahlborett, of that there was no doubt.

  Reluctant to travel the main thoroughfare in case the sound of jingling harness might waken sleeping dogs, Miles led them with considerable care down the steep slope to the south of the great stone and skirted the village.

  The landscape changed as they approached the eastern edge of the village and Grace’s sense of direction became confused. The layout of the road here was unfamiliar. Many trees encroached from all sides and the road was merely a track wide enough to allow the passage of a cart, petering out to a pedestrian or single horse width before winding its way downhill to where the river could safely be forded during the summer months.

  Miles halted beneath the trees and they dismounted and secured their horses. He pressed his finger to his lips and beckoned for his companions to follow. It was a strange experience for Grace when she first caught sight of the tiny chapel of ease which stood on the very spot where her own cottage should be—would be. Somehow it didn’t seem to be as high from the path as her cottage was from the road, but as one had been built upon the other this explained the topographical difference. The building itself was small and built in the random stone that Grace recognised from the foundations of her cottage. This was the right place.

  “Where is the entrance to the crypt?” asked Miles quietly.

  Grace scanned the front of the building. The small entrance known to her was at the south west corner of the building and below the level of the cottage drive. Only the top lintel of the aperture had been visible above ground. She looked for it now and realised the aperture was in fact a tiny, glassless window opening and as the ground level was much lower now, she could see, positioned to the left of the window, stone steps leading down to a small wooden door. Her grandfather had been correct there truly was a crypt beneath the cottage and here it appeared in all its glory.

  “There,” she pointed. She squeezed past the men, excited by the prospect of what they might find. Miles held her back, placed a finger at her lips, and they stood silent for a moment listening to the stillness, straining to hear beyond it.

  “John, take a look about, see if there’s anyone resident, a monk or priest. We don’t want to alert the whole village with his cries of alarm.” John nodded and picked his way through the tangle of yew trees with remarkable ease for such a large man.

  “We shall await his return,” breathed Miles against her ear as he stood and took stock of the situation. “So, this is your home?”

  Grace considered her response, in light of his confused expression. “In a way yes, it’s complicated.”

  “Everything about you is complicated. I look forward to the time when you have the opportunity to uncomplicate matters. Now however, we have more pressing demands on our time.”

  A rustling to their right had Miles reaching for his dagger but it was merely John returning from his search.

  “There is indeed a priest. He’s in a room at the back of the chapel sleeping off a large flagon of wine. He’ll not awaken this night, but just in case I have barred the door.”

  “Good man, John. Come then, let us see what Gerard has hidden.”

  They crossed with care to the stone steps and Miles took the lead. He tried the door with no success and turned with a muttered curse to John who grinned and held aloft the ring of keys which he’d taken from the sleeping monk’s belt. Grace could barely contain her excitement. She’d been brought up on stories of this place, unsure of its actual existence. She wished her grandfather were there with her.

  The door opened on surprisingly well-oiled hinges to reveal stone steps continuing for a further six feet or so, which placed the floor of the crypt approximately twelve feet below ground. The invading moonlight barely saw them safely to the bottom of the steps before they were shrouded in inky blackness. There was a damp smell of earth and wet stone and Grace had the uncomfortable feeling they were somehow intruding.

  “There must be wall torches. Feel along the wall, John until we find them,” said Miles. Both men set off in opposite directions. There was much cursing and clattering about as they bumped into the unseen.

  Grace felt in her pocket and brought out the matches. She had to use them. She would explain later. She struck one match against the box and held the flare alight illuminating the room briefly.

  “Dear Lord ...!” exclaimed Miles. John took a hurried step back, and crossed himself in fear, at the sight of flame leaping from the end of Grace’s fingers. Grace ignored them and scanned the walls for the torches. She located one behind Miles but before she could light it, the match burnt her finger and she let it drop to the floor with a curse.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded into the darkness.

  “Never mind that,” hissed Grace. “Where are you? Hold out your hand.” She didn’t want to waste another match. She cast about in the darkness and he grasped her hand and pulled her to him. Rather roughly, she thought as she banged into his chest. She struck a second match and reaching up on her toes lit the torch. The room was slowly illuminated as the torch took hold. Miles looked at her questioningly. She shrugged and looked for the next torch. He could question her later.

  “John, get that door closed and see if you can cover the window we don’t want any light to spill out and alert whoever might be out there.” John nodded. He gave Grace a momentary glance before attending to the door.

  They turned then, and scanned the room. Still shadowy despite the torches, the large space occupied the full footprint of the chapel above. The vaulted stone ceiling was held aloft by stone pillars set at intervals along the periphery of the space. John laid one hand against the masonry in deference of a fellow craftsman’s work. One wall was made up of stone racks hewn out of the wall itself and edged by a mason’s hand. They ran floor to ceiling each being approximately four feet wide and arching to three feet high. Their depth into the wall; could only be guessed at six to seven feet, for on the racks were the caskets belonging to those interred within.

  Grace stifled a squeal and stepped back against Miles with such a start he was forced to steady her against his body to prevent them both from falling backwards
.

  “They’re already dead. They can’t hurt you,” he whispered.

  Grace slipped her hand in his and he squeezed it comfortingly. She wasn’t afraid of ghosts. There’d been enough strange goings on at the cottage to have cured her of any such fear. She’d regularly heard voices in the house; the young mother calling her child, the old man who would grumble at her grandfather’s dog to be quiet. The rooms were prone to sudden chills which caused the dogs to sit alert until the temperature returned to normal. So no, Grace was not afraid of ghosts, but the sight of all these caskets, and the knowledge she had lived scant feet away from them for most of her life, unnerved her.

  Not all of the niches were occupied, some remained eerily empty. Black voids waiting their turn to swallow the dead. The majority of the caskets were aged and decayed. Some had collapsed upon their occupants. Grace averted her eyes not wishing to see what might be visible through the splintered wood. One or two seemed more robust and had presumably spent less time in the place. She wondered at the state of the inhabitants, somehow the idea of skeletal remains seemed less frightening than those not completely decomposed. She wrinkled her nose but could detect no offending odour.

  Turning slowly, it took a moment for her to realise her preference for the skeletal, rather than fleshed occupant, was premature for the entire east wall was stacked floor to ceiling with skulls and thigh bones. She tightened her grip on Miles’ hand and he gave an involuntary wince.

  “You’ve got a good grip on you, Grace,” he said quietly. “I’m sure it will come in useful sometime, but just now I could do with my hand back in one piece.”

  She relaxed her grip but kept his hand. “What is this place?” she breathed. She’d never seen anything like it.

  “You know what it is.” He glanced at her strangely. “It’s a crypt, a charnel house, a place of the dead.”

  “But there are so many...”

  “Some have been interred here - he gestured to those in the caskets. And some have been brought here from a previous burial.”

  She looked again at the pile of bones. “Where are the rest of their bones? Why are there only skulls and thigh bones?”

  “That’s all that is necessary, my lady,” said John. “For the afterlife.”

  Grace shuddered.

  “So where is the treasure, Grace?” asked Miles, as a cursory inspection of the space revealed nothing but cobwebs and the remains of the dearly departed.

  “It must be here,” she exclaimed, as she recalled the reason for their presence and frantically scanned the room. “Why else would Gerard have been so concerned about Kirk Knowe?”

  She steered well away from the wall of the dead and the bone pile and peered into the shadowy corners of the subterranean vault. Beneath a mound of dusty robes she saw the glint of metal.

  “Look - look! Miles, what’s that?” she grasped the corner of the robe excitedly and yanked at it revealing what lay beneath and showering them all in suffocating dust in the process. “What is it?” she asked, as they all looked at the jumbled pile of tarnished metal.

  Miles squatted down and pulled at the nearest piece. “It’s armour.”

  “Is it Gerard’s armour?”

  Miles shook his head slowly. “No this is Saracen armour, taken from a dead man no doubt.”

  Crouching next to him, Grace ran her fingers gently over the surface. “A dead man, are you sure?”

  “If he were still alive then his armour would not be rusting here on the floor of a Northumbrian crypt.”

  “Has it come from the Holy Land? Is it part of Gerard’s haul?”

  “Probably,” replied Miles.

  Grace was disappointed. “I’d expected treasure to be exactly that, gold and jewels and precious things, not pickings off fallen men.”

  Miles smiled grimly. “It was certainly precious to its owner. Unfortunately not well made enough to save his life this time, but judging by the many dents and distortions it did its job well a number of times before.”

  “Did your armour have many dents?” she asked quietly.

  “My armour had so many holes you could have used it as a sieve, so many dents I had to breathe in just to put it on. Did Guy not tell you that I was the clumsiest knight on crusade?”

  “He did, but I didn’t believe him.”

  “You should have, I was glad to see the back of that armour.”

  In the background John shuffled his feet. “Time marches on, my lord, we must make haste if we are to be away before dawn.”

  John was right, it would soon be light again and they needed to be well away before the castle guard changed and Gerard got wind of their visit. Miles pulled the dusty robes clear of the corner, perhaps the treasure was concealed beneath the armour, but there was nothing but more armour and weapons. Lots of armour and lots of weapons and not all of it was Saracen. Miles carefully pulled at the uppermost pieces and stood back confused.

  “I don’t understand. This is English armour.”

  “My lord, look above the door.” John gestured to the racks above the entrance, which they’d not noticed on entry. Displayed neatly along the length of the space were perhaps thirty helmets some with plumes intact some without. Some carried the scars of terrible conflict, one was even cleaved in two; the two mangled halves alongside each other. Others seemed entire and unmarked.

  Miles spun about taking in the sight of the armour and the helmets, displayed like trophies, in this place of the dead. “What has gone on here?” he asked no one in particular. “Saracen trophies although unsavoury, are questionable, however ultimately understandable, but these are English trophies taken from fallen English knights.” He looked at the helmets again and his face displayed his revulsion. “Look, John, the colours of Gilbert of Broxham, a comrade who fought bravely and died for his king and his God. This is the work of a madman.”

  “Gerard?” asked Grace.

  “No, this is not the work of Gerard; I cannot believe that. Yes, he’s a fool and a greedy one at that. Yes, he’s tried to cheat the king, plotted against you and I. Committed murder to regain Wildewood, but this is different this...” He gestured with a sweep of his hand, “This is evil. This goes against the grain of every noble knight. Gerard is one of a long line who has held and maintained this land for the king, although he does not portray himself as honourable, in matters such as these, I can assure you that he is.”

  “Then, if not Gerard, who is responsible?” asked Grace.

  “Guy de Marchant is a man with no honour,” John said, simply.

  “Then we must ensure Guy is held to account. First we must find what we came for.” Miles scanned the room again. “Here is proof this place has been used to store artefacts from the Crusade, but Saracen armour will be of no interest to the king. The collection of the English armour needs further investigation before it can be fully understood. We must look more carefully, there has to be more.”

  They set about the place then, systematically checking each corner and each of the empty casket niches but there was nothing but bones and armour. Miles took one of the wall torches from its holder, walked the length of the wall of the dead and studied each casket. He paused at one engraved Fortune de Frouville’ and smiled.

  “John, help me,” he called as he handed the torch to Grace and reached up to pull the coffin from its perch. It took the two of them to dislodge the heavy casket and when it had been pulled more than halfway from its niche in the dead wall, its own weight brought it crashing to the flagstone floor where it split apart spilling its contents and causing all three to leap out of the way. The noise reverberated around the stone room and Grace dropped the torch and covered her ears. Good Lord, they would hear the din all the way to the castle. They waited in the eerie hushed silence that followed, until they were certain the only sound still to be heard, was their own pounding hearts. Miles stooped and held the torch aloft.

  Spilling out of the shattered coffin, cascading onto the stone flagged floor, sparkling and glitteri
ng in the flickering torchlight was treasure of the kind that Grace had only dreamt of, had only heard of in her grandfather’s stories. Gold plates and goblets littered the ground. Chains and necklaces tangled and twisted amongst the larger items. Statuettes and tiny marble and ivory carvings and a myriad of coins of all denominations, lay amongst religious artefacts, crucifix and bejewelled daggers and knives.

  John stared in stunned silence.

  “Oh bugger,” exclaimed Grace.

  “Indeed,” agreed Miles. “You were correct.” He pulled her to him and swung her around. “You were right all along. How did you know?”

  “I didn’t know, not really. It was just a guess, a wild guess.”

  Miles stooped and pulled an amber necklace from the treasure trove. He held it up to the torch and turned it to catch the light. “We have him,” he declared. “We have all the proof we need.”

  “My lord,” John hushed him urgently. “I hear horses in the distance, we must leave now.”

  “What about all of this?” Grace gestured at the mess they’d made. There was no time to put it back.

  “John, hurry to the horses, take them around to the ford make sure they remain safe and unseen, we will be right behind you.”

  John looked questioningly at him. “You need to come now.”

  “We are behind you, John, now go.” He caught at John’s arm as he made to leave. “If anything happens,” he added quietly, “Go straight back to Wildewood and get a message to Alex and Hugh.” John nodded reluctantly and slipped out of the door closing it behind him to prevent spillage of light.

  Miles pushed the necklace into the front of his leather jerkin and put out the torches.

  “You can’t take it with you,” said Grace. “If it’s proof then it needs to stay here, so the king’s man will find it. If you take it, then there’s no proof it was ever here, nothing to link it to Gerard.”

  “Come here,” he called. “We must leave now.” He reached for her in the dark and grasped her hand pulling her towards the moonlight that crept in through the narrow window. They both froze at the sound of voices nearby. The voices were alarmingly close and drawing nearer. They were going to be trapped.