by Grace Ingram
Guy contemplated that ugly truth, and shivered. Once the dead men had been peasants, toiling to scratch a living from their fields. Marauders had brought them to this wretched end. Men of spirit turned outlaw, those without it begged bread at monastery gates. He said a prayer for the dead and for all victims of the ceaseless strife, and Conan grinned mockery as he crossed himself. Then another thought came to him.
‘How many would you say there were?’
‘A score at least.’
‘That’s more than one band. Two or three maybe, joined to attack us.’
Conan looked curiously at him. ‘Now how do you know that?’
‘And if they took trouble to bring such force together, it was planned against us, not the first chance-met passers-by.’
Lord Reynald and Sir Gerard came spattering along the line to inspect it, and they all glanced back; above the leafless trees crows and kites were spiralling down to their meal. ‘You should have saved a prisoner or two for an example,’ he complained again. His face was very pale, twitching nervously, and his mount sidled and fretted under him until he swung it about and trotted back in a hail of flying mud.
‘Watch yourself, boy,’ Conan said quietly. ‘He’s smelled blood.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’ll go weeks, even months, as you’ve known him, and you start to reckon he’s a man you can deal with like any other. Then he gets blood in his nostrils, and he’s a fox loose in a hen-roost killing everything that squawks. You’ve a habit of defying him to his face. When the fit’s on him, be wary.’
Guy frowned. ‘Why should you trouble to warn me?’
‘Devil fry me if I know, whelp. Reluctance to lose a pupil who does me credit before I’ve completed his education, most likely.’
‘Very likely!’
He shrugged. ‘As you please. But before you came Rohese was his favourite, and I saw him thrash her half-way to death for less impudence than you use.’
Guy nodded. ‘My thanks,’ he acknowledged grudgingly, unwilling to owe so little gratitude to the mercenary, and for the remainder of their journey noted Lord Reynald’s edged temper and the way even his knights avoided causing him annoyance
3
After Eustace’s sudden death on August 17th, 1173, Stephen relinquished the struggle, and Henry succeeded him peacefully the following year as Henry II.
Chapter 12
Existence without wine being too hideous a prospect to contemplate, Lord Reynald was obliged to abandon his principles and send Sir James with a wagon and an escort and a bag of silver pennies to Gloucester to procure it. The thought of actually paying for it preyed upon him so that whenever he sat down to a meal he complained, and his digestion suffered as much as his temper. Griping pains in his belly sent him for two days to his bed and the potions Wulfrune administered. She and Rohese spent much of their time brewing them in a hut in the bailey.
During their absence in the south the old priest had one morning been found dead in his bed by his housekeeper. Guy was sorry; he had liked the old man, though he was too weary and frail to make any stand against those who practised a faith opposed to his. Lord Reynald would make no move to replace him, and it might well be months before the Bishop discovered the need. The witches could rejoice. The peasants must trudge to Thorgastone to hear Mass or receive the Sacraments. Lord Reynald sourly permitted his servants to do the same, but refused to let his family or household knights venture over Trevaine’s boundary. Guy chafed under the prohibition. A day was ill-begun unless one attended Mass, and he felt his soul was sliding nearer and nearer to perdition. He had another annoyance; the Slut was on heat, and must be shut away by day in an empty stable, round whose door all the loose dogs in Warby gathered whining and scrabbling. In the normal way he would have chosen the best hound and mated her, but if by any chance he won knighthood and might escape from Warby he could not afford to be handicapped by a bitch heavy in whelp or suckling pups.
The eve of Candlemas came. Guy discovered that it was a major festival in the witches’ calendar. Christians kindled candles in honour of the Light of the World, presented in the Temple and hailed by Simeon. The witches kindled the need-fire without the use of cold iron for the fertility of men and beasts. Lord Reynald, abandoning prudence, gave orders after supper that all fires and lights must be extinguished until the unhallowed flame was brought from the Devil’s Ring to light them. No one dared remonstrate. Folk huddled to mutter prayers and charms, and prophesy God’s vengeance on Warby for the blasphemy.
Guy stood in the hall as the twilight died, feeling that every separate hair on his flesh prickled upright. The last embers of the hall fire, that had never gone out as long as he had known it, winked dully under a veil of ashes, and a raw chill breathed from the walls. The servants had stacked tables and benches and crept out. Guy’s head was swimming slightly. He had drunk deeply, but not deeply enough to drown his misgivings. Once again he had rejected initiation into witchcraft, and Lord Reynald had followed persuasion and promises with threats that set him considering ways of escape. Only the lure of knighthood held him under the same roof.
Wulfrune’s staff was tapping down the stair, and he scowled into the ashes. Then a squeal from below jerked his head round. Feet pattered up, stumbling in haste. A cackle from the old woman, another squeal, and Roger dived under the curtain, tripped and caught himself, and hurtled across the room to Guy. He flung his arms round his waist and clung with all his strength.
‘I won’t! I won’t!’ he shrieked.
Guy held him and looked over his head at Lord Reynald in pursuit. ‘My lord—’
‘Give the brat to me.’
‘I won’t be a witch!’
‘You’ll do as you are bidden, whelp!’ Lord Reynald reached for him, and Guy twisted to interpose a shoulder.
‘I won’t be given to the Devil! Guy, Guy, don’t let him! No!’ As his father stretched out his hand, he screamed and grappled tighter, winding his legs about Guy’s so that he staggered, recovered and swung him away.
‘He’s my son, and he owes me obedience!’
‘Not at his soul’s cost, my lord,’ Guy answered, all at once cold-sober. He tightened his hold on the frantic child whose breath was whistling inside his puny ribs.
‘No! No! I won’t burn in Hell-fire!’
‘That’s a Christian fable. There’s nothing to fear, I tell you. You’ll see them dance the wheel of fire, and the runners carry the flame, and share the feast. You don’t think I’d let harm come to my own?’ Lord Reynald cajoled.
‘No! No!’
‘You’re mine to do as I will—’
‘He’s a baptized Christian child and his soul’s not yours to claim,’ Guy defied him.
‘You’re my son too, and I bid you—’ He snatched his hand back and recoiled. The Slut snarled once in warning and crouched a little, her hindquarters gathered to leap. ‘You monster, will you set that killer on me?’
‘My lord!’ There was a slight scuffle in the doorway, where Wulfrune leaned grinning on her staff, and Lady Mabel sent her staggering. The rushes swirled as she darted between her husband and her child. ‘You’ll not take my son!’
‘I’ve a father’s right—’
‘He’s my son, and by God and His Mother, if you try to destroy his soul I’ll destroy you!’
‘You dare—’
‘All these years I’ve honoured my marriage-vows as well as any woman yoked to you might, but if you try to make a witch of Roger I’ll get word to my brothers that I’ll endure you no longer.’
Guy stared at her. His own loathing was a pale ghost beside Lady Mabel’s living hatred. Then he felt Roger’s grip tighten, and caught up the child in alarm. All his body was tense as a drawn bow with the effort of breathing, his face blue and the cords in his neck standing out.
‘There’s no question this night of taking him anywhere,’ he pronounced.
‘Sweet Saviour, you’ll kill your own son yet!’ Lady Mabel cried,
reaching to him.
‘What’s such a puling little milksop worth to a man?’ Lord Reynald snorted, and stormed out.
Guy cradled his half-brother in his arms, shaking his head as Lady Mabel would have taken him. ‘I’ll carry him up for you,’ he offered, and trod carefully up the dark stair to the bower, where he helped to strip the child, to massage his chest and prop him up on pillows in his parents’ bed. His heart thudded as though it would burst out of his body, his hands were claws on Guy’s wrists, and he could not for some time swallow the potion his mother hastened to pour out. She looked across him at Guy, her face haggard.
‘I’ve never known it so bad,’ she whispered.
‘My lady, it’s his fear of Lord Reynald working on his body,’ Guy answered softly. ‘He’s too frail for his mind to contain it.’
‘D’you think I don’t know—that I haven’t seen?’ Roger’s eyes opened wide, fixed with strain and fear, and she crooned mother-words to soothe him. ‘All’s well now, my lamb, my little love. Nothing to fear, you’re safe with me. Nothing to be afraid of now, my darling.’
Gradually the spasm released him, and he huddled wheezing in the bed, his lungs still creaking with a sound like a kitten’s mewing. A faint stir jerked Guy’s head round. Just inside the doorway stood Matilda, clutching a bedcover about herself, her face screwed up with distress. Discovered, she hesitated and then pattered close. ‘Roger?’ she whispered doubtfully. ‘He—will he die?’
‘Not this time, my heart,’ Guy said gently. He saw how her blue toes curled into the wolfskin rug. ‘Go back to your bed, child. You’re cold.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m frightened. Everyone’s frightened.’ Guy scooped her up into his arms, tucking the bedcover round her as he had once done with small sisters. He glanced at Lady Mabel and moved to the curtained door. All the candles had been doused in obedience to Lord Reynald’s decree, and a shutter was open to admit thin moonshine and cold air. The women were not abed; they huddled together in the light, and a fearful whimper rose from them as Guy and Lady Mabel came out. The least alarm would set hysteria running through them like fire through dead grass.
‘This won’t do,’ she muttered, drew a hard breath and stalked among them.
Later it would be the oddest memory of that night, but at the time it seemed wholly reasonable that he should sit beside his stepmother in the bower with most of the household gathered about them, his sword propped against a chest for a crucifix, and repeat for the scared folk’s comfort the Psalms and prayers he had learned in the monastery. The roll of the Latin, God’s own language to the ignorant, came between them and their fears. Roger slept in exhaustion; Matilda slept across Guy’s knees; Philip slept leaning against his mother, and as dread quieted, others slid to the rushes or stumbled to pallets and slept too. Guy’s voice grew hoarse, repetition staled his words, and at last he fell silent.
Lady Mabel rose and picked her way between bodies to look in on her son. Returning, she nodded reassurance to Guy’s anxious glance. She wiped her eyes with a corner of her kerchief. He had never known her weep before, and shifted uncomfortably.
‘I haven’t thanked you,’ she murmured. ‘You’ve been true brother to Roger, true son to me.’
She was hardly more than two years his elder, three at most, but he did not smile. ‘My lady, I’ve deep respect for your goodness and courage.’
‘Oh, I’m not afraid of him. I never was. That’s why he married me.’
‘My lady?’
‘He was benighted in my father’s hold once. It’s near Hernforth. He saw I despised him, and that made him set his fancy on me, to compel me to his will. He threatened my father with the curse he’d set on Henry of Trevaine, that his sons would die childless before him, for who’d ally himself with Satan? So he agreed.’
Guy freed his hand to cross himself, and the child shifted and sighed against him. ‘And you consented, my lady?’
She shrugged. ‘I’d been betrothed to a lad I’d known and loved all my life. He died. Fool that I was, I thought nothing mattered after that, and what choice has a girl but to obey her father? When my three brothers found the knot tied, they’d have killed him had I not withstood them, for I had consented. So—’ she gave him a wintry grin—‘they vowed to kill him at my asking, or when they learned of my death. That’s my shield.’
‘And your own valour.’
‘We’ve lived at armed truce for years. I tried, you know. Maybe there’d have been a chance, but for Wulfrune and Rohese. At times I’ve even pitied him; he’s the most wretched soul in this wretched hold. But I’ve come to the end.’
‘Roger?’
‘He’ll destroy him, soul and body. Wulfrune is set on another generation of witches ruling here. She hated me from the first. I cheated her over Roger. Her grandchild the miller’s daughter was with child at the same time, and I’m sure she meant me to die in childbirth so that slut could suckle my son. But once in Hernforth I claimed I could not endure the journey back, and bore him there and nursed him myself.’
Guy nodded. The ignorant firmly believed that a child sucked in its soul with the milk of mother or nurse, which made her moral character of paramount importance. ‘My lady, Wulfrune claims descent from the English lords of these parts, before the first William seized England, and reckons herself rightful heir to all. That’s at the root of her malice.’
‘I did not know it. And for that she has destroyed my lord, and would destroy Roger? No. I’ve kept my marriage-vows as best I could, but from now I’ll think only of my son.’
‘Count me your man in that, my lady.’
She stood up. All about them seemed sprawled in sleep, but doubtless some were feigning, speculating why the lady and her stepson talked so long and earnestly. She gave Guy no more than a nod, and returned to Roger.
Guy had never felt more wakeful. He carried Matilda to her bed and covered her, too deeply asleep now to stir, and then trod up the stairs to the roof. The night tingled with frost, and the moon sailed among stars. The sentinel was leaning over the western battlements, and he started almost out of his skin when Guy appeared silently beside him. He flinched as the Slut sniffed at him.
‘M-master Guy!’
‘God save you, Jehan.’
‘Over yonder, see! ’ He pointed towards Thorgastone Waste, and Guy saw the glow of a great blaze. Peering, he thought he could distinguish separate sparks whirling in a pattern about it, torches carried by the dancers. It was Candlemas night, he realized, the Feast of Lights, older than the faith he lived by.
He stood a long time, heedless of the chill invading his body, until the ring fragmented, scattering the lights. One came dancing across the dark waste, threading the paths like a fiery moth, followed more slowly by a cluster of three or four. It dipped into the valley, and as it reached the ford Guy could discern the black spider-shape of the man carrying it. He splashed across thigh-deep, all the scuttering ripples flaked with flame, and jogged up the slope, through the village and at last, stumbling with weariness, to the castle gate that swung wide to let him in. He gave one wild cry, swinging the flare about his head, and Guy knew him for Edric the huntsman. Men and women scurried to kindle tapers from his torch. It was nearly spent, and he shouldered through the throng to the keep. Guy did not descend to see him thrust the need-fire into the kindling heaped in the hall hearth to receive it. He got to his bed in haste, to take no part in Lord Reynald’s celebrations.
Flat days went by, marked only by small events. Conan’s arm healed, so he and Guy practised sword-play again. Rohese sought his company with a stubbornness that took no heed of repulsion. Her waist was still slender, but others who could reckon causes were eyeing it. The miller discovered that his youngest daughter was with child and thrust her from his door, setting tongues clacking. He had accepted her eldest sister’s bastard complaisantly enough, but possibly the prospect of another belly to fill was too much for his parsimony.
Sir James returned from Gloucester with wi
ne, salt and news that set Lord Reynald cursing. Duke Henry, with more battle-craft than men of twice his years, had made no attempt to relieve Wallingford, but had struck instead at Malmesbury, Stephen’s outpost against Bristol and Gloucester. He had seized the town and invested the castle, so that Stephen had been compelled to raise the siege of Wallingford and march to relieve his own. The two armies had confronted each other across the flood-swollen Avon, icy rain beating in the faces of the King’s men, whose hands were so numb that they could scarcely grasp their weapons. Their hearts had been numb too, for they had refused battle. Unable to depend on his barons’ allegiance, Stephen had offered a truce. That was as much as Sir James had learned, but he had had to dodge back along by-ways, for the countryside was infested by marauders of both parties.
When all reports had been made, the wine stored in the undercroft and the escort dismissed, a trooper accosted Guy behind the stables.
‘What is it?’
‘I was to tell you, Master Guy, the week afore Advent your sister Gunhild was safely delivered of a fine son, and they christened him Guy.’
‘Thanks be to God! That’s fair news. Have you any more of my kin?’
‘No, Master Guy. A Bristol merchant told me, and I passed word back as you was in fine fettle and showed the makings of a valiant knight.’ He grinned and saluted again to soften the impertinence, and Guy fished a couple of pennies out of his purse and dismissed him.
He continued on his way, wondering how to convey a birth-gift to his namesake, and whether he would ever again set eyes on his family. A longing for the close-knotted kindred and the busy town-world seized him, and he doubted for a moment that knighthood was worth the cost. Then he thrust away homesickness and went to the smithy to bespeak the smith’s time after dinner to shoe his destrier.
He was telling the smith what a craftsman thought of his fumble-fisted, ale-rusted standards when he observed Oswin hovering, with a face of fear and misery that took him instantly to the man.
‘What is it?’