by Grace Ingram
‘Master Guy, I—word’s come me feyther’s mortal sick o’ lung-fever in Collingford. I—I begs you—gi’ me leave—let me go to him this last time. Please, Master Guy—’
‘Surely. I’m deeply sorry. Collingford? That’s near five leagues, isn’t it? Borrow Dusty and my old saddle, or you’ll not be there before night.’
Oswin’s face of unbelief showed how little hope he had had of permission, and he stammered, ‘Oh, Master Guy—I —you—God bless you—I swear I’ll serve you true—’
‘Be off, and my prayers with you. Tell the gate-guard you are on my errand, and stay while you’re needed.’
He mentioned the matter to no one, aware that he would be mocked for softness if it were known. A servant had no right to a family if it interfered with his lord’s convenience. But it was no inconvenience for Guy to dress and undress himself, and Oswin’s absence went unremarked by his betters. A groom sidled up to tell Guy the next day that the father had died in the night and would be buried next morning. The sons must keep the death-watch, so Guy reckoned he need not look for Oswin much before noon.
After a rainy dawn the sky cleared, and Lord Reynald led the three knights out hawking. He had no marshland for the finest fowling, but partridges or a hare would make a change from the monotony of salt meat. Guy took the Slut for a brief run in the woods and then shut her up again, thankful that their enforced separation would be over in a day or two. He went indoors, collected the senior sergeant of the garrison and set about inspecting all the mail and weapons in the armoury for repairs and alterations.
He heard the hawking party ride back but paid little attention. The sergeant, divided between respect for one who knew as much as Guy did and contempt for the way he had learned, grew the more sulky as his excuses for neglect grew the more threadbare. Guy was going over a hauberk with him link by link when a woman’s voice called urgently from outside.
‘Master Guy? Where’s Master Guy?’
‘Here—the armoury!’ He started for the door; that was Agnes, and they had scarcely spoken to each other since their quarrel.
She flung across the guardroom and grabbed his sleeve. ‘Come—oh come quick, Master Guy!’ she gasped, dragging at his arm.
Catching alarm from her, he yielded to her hands. ‘What is it?’
‘Oswin! If you wants a live servant stop it quick—they’ll beat him to death—’
Guy broke from her across the room, took the steps outside in three bounds and raced across the muddy grass. The whistle and thwack of a whip were followed by a scream, and he hurled himself at the throng about the whipping-post. Weight and speed carried him through, and he reached the ring’s centre as the trooper with the whip swung it round for another blow. Guy’s clenched fist struck his arm down, and he wrenched the whip from his slackened grip and thrust him off with such force that he rolled over in the mud.
Oswin sagged against the post, his head down between his upraised arms. Blood ran down his bare back, but a quick glance told Guy that he had taken no more than a dozen strokes. He turned to confront Lord Reynald, coiling up the lash that left red stains on his fingers.
‘What’s this you do to my servant, my lord?’ he demanded.
‘You bastard whelp, you dare interfere yet again?’
‘What’s his fault?’
‘Absent two days without leave, and taking a horse from my stables. Give that whip back to Giles to finish his punishment!’
‘You punish my servant without referring to me? I gave him leave.’
‘I telled him so—I telled m’lord. Master Guy!’ Oswin sobbed behind him.
‘He’d no leave from me, and I command here!’
‘My lord, if you gave me the man to be my servant, who else should grant it? Any fault is mine.’
‘The horse—what of the horse?’ Lord Reynald’s face was ashen, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.
‘The horse is mine to lend.’ Guy tossed down the whip and jerked his head at the nearest sergeant. ‘Take him down.’
The man jumped to obey, and Oswin sank against the post when his wrists were released, sobbing as the movement caught at his raw weals. Giles picked up the whip and proffered it to Lord Reynald, who snatched it and struck him across the face with its coils. He yelped and reeled. Lord Reynald stared at Guy, his hand twitching on the whip as though he would strike him also, and Guy faced him until he suddenly swung on his heel and stalked away. The onlookers slowly dispersed in a gabble of excited talk; the sport was over, and more than they had reckoned on witnessing.
Agnes had stayed, and with her the groom who usually tended Guy’s horses. They moved to support Oswin, who was recovering somewhat; he let go of the post and stood up, shivering and hanging his head. Rain spattered at them, and he flinched. Guy looked at him in concern. The man was not robust.
‘Get him under cover,’ he ordered, nodding at the nearest building, a forage-shed. He left them to it and hurried back to the keep to find Lady Mabel. Anticipating his needs, she was half-way down the hall stairs, her hands full of old linen and a jar of ointment. ‘I’ll see to him,’ he said, took them from her with a word of thanks, and sped back to the forage-shed.
He approached the door along the side of the building. It was a flimsy wattle structure, and much of the clay filling had cracked and fallen away from the withies. The voices came as sharply as if he had been inside it, and checked him in mid-stride.
‘—If he hasn’t guessed already, he’s bound to find out now!’ Oswin whimpered.
‘What could I do? Who else could ha’ stopped it?’
‘But he’ll know—’
‘Never sees nothing, that one, till it’s thrust under his nose.’ ‘We’ll have to run—’
‘Haven’t I said so for near a year now?’
‘But if we’re took—’
‘What if that big blond bastard tells his father you ’n’ me’ve took up again?’
‘He’s not that bad—’
‘What’s he care? “Get him under cover” he says, and then off he goes to his dinner!’
Reflecting ruefully that listeners proverbially heard no good of themselves, Guy took three strides along the wall and turned in at the doorway.
A Basilisk whose gaze turned men to stone could hardly have had greater effect. Oswin was sprawled across a heap of hay. Agnes knelt beside him with a bowl of water and a rag, washing the blood from his back. Her hand was petrified in the act of lifting the wet cloth, and the tinkle of a single drop falling back into the bowl rang sharply in the hush.
Guy looked at the two of them, the embodiment of consternation and guilt, and frowned as he realized how blind he had been. Probably every other person in Warby had known about the lovers, and laughed at him behind his back. Wilfully blind he had been, for he had known from the first that only fear of Lord Reynald had constrained Agnes to share his bed. He was too embarrassed and angry at his own folly to say anything, so he knelt at Oswin’s other side and began sorting his pieces of linen.
Oswin twisted round to stare up at him. ‘You-you heard—’
‘Enough.’
Agnes dropped the rag, and it splashed into the bowl. ‘I was his woman long before I had to be yours! ’ she announced belligerently, catching Oswin’s hand. The man was too shocked and sick to have any fight left in him, but she was vixen enough for both.
‘No concern of mine,’ Guy retorted. ‘I’ve dismissed you from my bed. D’you think I’d ever have taken you to it if I’d known?’ Her attitude freed him from any obligation to make the apologies he owed. He turned his attention to Oswin, but she exclaimed and flung her arms over the man’s shoulders, fending him off in a protective fury.
‘No—you shan’t—’
‘Don’t be a fool. What d’you reckon these are for?’
The weals had almost ceased to bleed, were already drying. He pushed away her hand with the bloody rag. He worked off the stiff piece of bladder fastened over the ointment jar’s mouth, and
scooped out three fingerfuls of aromatic green grease, wound-herbs pounded to paste and mingled with clarified hog’s lard. Oswin flinched from his touch, but Guy smoothed the stuff along each darkening ridge, and he relaxed a little, though his eyes still watched him fearfully over his shoulder. The girl hovered, jealously maternal, holding his hand. Guy spread a piece of linen over his back and bound it into place with what looked like worn-out swaddling-bands. A forge-worker of necessity became adept at tending wounds and burns.
‘Could have been worse,’ he observed as he tied the last knot, ‘but you’ll sleep on your belly for a week.’ He covered the jar again and gathered up the remaining linen, conscious always of their scared eyes. Neither offered any thanks, and he knew nothing he might say or do would diminish their suspicion and fear. His mouth tightened and his thick brows drew together. He bore them no ill-will, indeed a measure of sympathy. He stood up, towering over them as they crouched at his feet, his size and frown intimidating beyond his intention or desire. Yet he turned at the door to offer encouragement, however futile, because he knew the memory of their faces would be with him long enough.
‘Running might be your best course,’ he told them, ‘but choose your time and chance. Good luck go with you both. You’ll need it.’
Away from Agnes’s wounding tongue, he found his concern for the misery he had caused her and Oswin pressing harder on his conscience. It nagged him to the dinner table, and to quieten it he poured down the first cupful of wine before he had swallowed more than a couple of mouthfuls of spiced beef. Irritably he wished that Gertrude would choose a dish into which a man might set his teeth, and sent a second cupful to join the first.
‘Where’s Agnes?’ demanded Lord Reynald suddenly, looking along the board.
‘Tending her paramour, my lord.’
The bitterness in Guy’s voice brought a grin to his sire’s face. ‘So you know that now?’
‘Yes. And you knew it when you gave her to me.’
‘All Warby knew it.’
‘Then—’ He checked himself angrily; to ask the obvious only amused half the folk at the table.
‘She’s learned to bed at my bidding. You’ve learned you may fancy a wench but that’s no warrant she’ll fancy you.’
‘And you should learn that taking your pleasure in tormenting others makes all who know you hate you!’ Guy blazed.
For an instant something looked at him out of Lord Reynald’s eyes that made him think of a beast in a trap; then he grinned again. ‘Fear’s what counts, whelp. What does hate matter if folk fear to cross you? You’ve a deal to learn yet.’
‘Teach him!’ cried Rohese. ‘You’ll not let such insolence pass?’
‘Who bade you give tongue?’
‘He hasn’t learned yet either to fear or obey you, my lord,’ she persisted.
‘Nor have you, by the way you dispute with me!’ he snarled at her.
She flinched and subsided, flashing a glance of hatred at Guy, who reached for his winecup again, aware that he was resorting more and more readily to that anodyne. A grisly silence gripped them, in which the champing of jaws sounded unnaturally loud, and it lasted until the servants went round with water and towels at the end of the first course.
‘What’s keeping that wench?’ Lord Reynald demanded, looking again at the empty place beside Sir James. ‘It’s an insult to my board to delay so long.’ He jerked his head at his own servant behind his chair. ‘You, Hamel, fetch her here!’
‘Aye, m’lord.’ The man limped out. He was gone a long time; the second course was almost over when he lifted the curtain and came up the hall, and the sight of his face hit Guy like a blow in the belly, muzzy as he was after all he had drunk. The man halted at the dais step, out of reach. ‘M’lord, she’s gone. Her and Oswin both.’
‘Gone? Gone where?’
‘Dunno, m’lord. Gate-guard says as Oswin took Master Guy’s Dusty down to village to see old Ernulf the cattle-doctor. Horse was lame.’
‘And the wench?’
‘She went out before him, to burn a candle in the church.’
‘They’ve run! By the Horns, they’ve run, and stolen the horse to carry them!’ Lord Reynald leaped up, jolting the heavy table-board and sending his winecup rolling across it. ‘Saddle up! Edric, two couple of your hounds in leash! They’ve best part of an hour’s start!’
Knights, soldiers and grooms clattered down to the bailey. Guy was swept along, his wits fogged but his legs steady enough. He found himself in the saddle alongside Conan, listening to Lord Reynald rating the grey-faced gate-guard, who knew better than to offer a word in self-defence. He wondered how Oswin had provided his excuse, but grooms knew many tricks for temporarily laming a horse; a tail-hair tied about a pastern for one. But the man must be mad; a bare hour’s start would never be enough, mounted double with Agnes on poor Dusty, already tired from the morning’s journey. Then the wine-fogs parted. Not mad, but desperate; in their fear they had taken his parting words for a threat.
The hunt was organized; the household knights, Conan and his troop, Lord Reynald, and Edric the huntsman loping afoot with the hounds in leash, his cased bow thrust under the back of his belt. Guy had no wish to join them, but go he must; he might be able to mitigate the runaways’ punishment when they were taken. So he rocked along with the others down the miry track to the village, the wine mercifully blurring his remorse and his disgust at his companions’ eagerness.
A peasant summoned from the fields to Lord Reynald’s stirrup disclosed that Oswin and Agnes had taken the road south-east to Etherby, and they cantered after them. The huntsman paddled ahead, slipping and slithering; the horses sloshed along, the mire sucking at their hooves. The mud was too wet and well-trodden to hold tracks, and when they entered the woods and could no longer leave the way to use the verge, conditions became worse.
‘They’ll be making for Etherby and the Gloucester road,’ pronounced Sir Gerard.
‘We’ll overtake them before they’re half-way,’ said Conan. ‘But ugh, here’s more rain.’
It swept down, beating in their faces, trickling down necks and spines, soaking wool and leather, and the wind that drove it numbed them to the bone.
‘No scent for the hounds to follow,’ said Sir James. ‘And the brutes cannot keep up in this mire.’
They were struggling belly-deep, their fur clogged and heavy, and the huntsman was labouring too. ‘Keep them up! ’ Lord Reynald yelled. ‘They’ll pull down the game when we sight it!’
His face under the spattered mud was crazed with cruelty, and the same fierce lust marked all the rest of the company pursuing the greatest prey, man himself. Even Sir James, so courteous to his equals, was eager, demonstrating a knight’s inability to grant his inferiors full human status. Guy flinched. No hope that any protest he made would be heeded.
They reached the fork where a little-used track angled south-west, and churned past it towards Etherby. The wine was out of Guy’s wits now. He was miserably sober, his hands frozen on the reins and his feet in the stirrups. The rain hammered at them, dissolving the road; men, horses and dogs were so drenched in mud they were all of one colour with the track itself, but no one proposed giving up.
A horse whinnied greeting nearby, and they reined in. Round the next bend came Dusty, plodding wearily towards his stable and manger. He greeted them eagerly, with lifted head and quickened pace. The reins were fastened to the pommel, the stirrups looped up so they would not thump against his barrel.
‘They’ve turned him loose and gone on afoot!’ exclaimed Sir Gerard.
‘Hiding in the woods most likely,’ said Sir James. He peered about him, blinking as the rain beat into his face. ‘We’ve lost them.’
‘Put the hounds on the trail!’ ordered Lord Reynald.
‘M’lord,’ Edric declared firmly but respectfully, ‘in this wet they’re useless. The scent’s washed out.’
‘What do we do then?’ Sir Gerard queried. ‘Push on to Etherby?’
/> ‘They can’t lie up for long without fire or shelter,’ observed Sir James. ‘They’ll have to break cover.’
‘Neither can we wait in ambush outside Etherby for a week,’ Sir Gerard pointed out sourly.
‘Let them go!’ Guy protested. ‘Here’s my horse back unharmed, and what are a groom and a wench when all’s said?’
‘You bleat like a calf!’ his sire declared. ‘Let them go! Thieves and runaways? We’d not have a servant left unless we made an example of these!’
‘It’s my horse,’ Guy persisted, ‘And my servant too. If I’m ready to—’
‘By the Horns, they’ll not go free to boast they bested me! I’ll hang the man by the heels from the battlements and give the slut to the men-at-arms!’
‘Summerford! ’ cried Edric, with all the force of an oath.
‘What?’ several voices exclaimed.
‘M’lord, I’ll wager my head on it. They knew we’d hunt ’em towards Etherby, so they turns the nag loose on this road and doubles back to Summerford. Aiming to reach the Fosse Way by the old track, see, while we’re chasing off this road.’
‘Summerford this time of year, after all the rain we’ve had? Drown themselves most likely,’ commented Sir James, turning his horse about after Lord Reynald’s.
Back to the fork they squelched, and turned into the track that led south-west. It twisted like a loose string, thickets encroached on it and branches clawed at their heads, but because it was so little used the surface of sodden leaf-mould made easier going and they pushed the horses to a canter. They had not gone far when Edric checked.
‘M’lord! ’ He indicated a crooked hawthorn. A couple of twigs were freshly snapped and dangled loosely, and caught on a spike were some wisps of blue wool. ‘Here’s where they broke through. That’s Agnes’s blue gown.’
‘So you were right. After them!’
On they went through the rain, under the leafless trees, straggling in single file. Guy, riding behind Lord Reynald, vainly sought for some way of stopping the hunt, some way of sparing the desperate lovers. Desperate they must be to risk the ford in a rainy February; it was reckoned passable only in the driest days of summer, and now the rivers were running bank-full. The miles fell behind them. Now and again Edric found further traces that proved he had been right, footprints in wet earth or shreds of cloth snagged on thorns.