by Grace Ingram
Guy’s protestations in Conan’s defence brought a coolness between himself and his stepmother, sorrowing and furious for her attendant’s end. Overbearing all objections, she had seen her buried in consecrated ground between her husband and son, asserting, as indeed none could refute, that she had been deranged with grief when she cast herself from the battlements. She had always loathed Conan, and dismissed Guy’s exoneration of the mercenary so savagely that he abandoned further attempts to convince her. After two days of strain and resentment he discharged himself from the bower and returned to his chamber off the hall.
Conan lent him an arm down the stair and steadied him as far as his bed. The relationship between them had warmed. Guy was the only person who did not shun the mercenary, and Conan lingered in his company as though he found comfort in it. Guy lay flat, breathing hard after the effort, and Conan sat on the bed by his feet, apparently studying the tattered rushes. The Slut gently thumped her tail. Guy reached out to fondle her head, his gaze on the mercenary’s profile, almost as gaunt as his own.
Conan had been free of tongue; now he scarcely opened his mouth. He had gone his way contemptuous of his fellows’ opinions, and now flinched from their condemnation. He had despised Guy as an artisan thrust upon men of knightly breeding, and he stayed here because no one else would tolerate his presence. Sensing the scrutiny, he glanced up, his light-grey eyes unnaturally bright in their shadowed sockets.
‘God help you, man!’ Guy burst out, lifting on an elbow. ‘It was not your fault!’
‘It was.’
‘It was an accident—’
‘I killed her.’ He looked down again at the rushes, scuffling them with one foot. ‘If I had not tormented her when she was Gerard’s wife, she would have turned to me as her friend, and in the end married me.’
Guy had not reckoned back to first causes, but that undoubted truth struck him dumb. He could only stare at the man who must live with that realization.
‘Damnation makes monsters of us,’ the lifeless voice broke their silence. ‘Hire your sword, and you are doomed to hell-fire, so in defiance and revenge you set yourself to earn it. If burn you must, as well burn for every crime man may commit, and vie with your comrades in evil. So you smother your conscience under a weight of sin until it is dead, and you’re another routier who would slit his mother’s throat for a silver penny.’
Guy wondered sharply whether he would have done better, kicked out of his home at fifteen with an old sword and a worn-out horse for his only patrimony. He had never thought to feel so much sympathy for this damned soul, and though he wondered how bitterly Conan would hate him for hearing his self-betrayal when he regained command of his silence, his need was to ease his burden by confession.
‘She was my enemy’s wife, another woman I wanted to lay, to drag into the muck with me—oh God! I made her afraid of me—mocked and tormented her—my perverse pleasure—’ He caught his breath on something like a sob. Guy sat up and put out a hand, and Conan clutched it so that his bones ground together. ‘Then she was free, and not any woman but the one—and now she’s dead I know she was the only woman—no other ever—my love.’
‘God comfort you,’ Guy said helplessly.
‘How? I’m damned.’
‘Pray for Christ’s mercy, Sir Conan. No man is past redemption who repents.’
‘Is that what they taught you in the monastery?’
‘Yes. And it’s a priest you need.’
‘What should any priest do but consign me to perdition before he’s heard the half?’ Conan demanded, heaved himself from the bed and plunged past the curtain.
Guy’s strength came steadily bade to him, but not as fast as he desired. Impatiently he measured the milestones; the day he could dress unassisted; the hours he could spend on a stool beside the fire, or on sunny days in a bright window-splay, wrapped against the outer air; meal-times when he could walk to the table and set his teeth into solid fare.
A mild afternoon in late March tempted him to his first excursion outdoors, and he sat on a mounting-block by the gate, his cloak pulled closely about him, watching all that went on in the bailey and lifting his face to the sun while he gathered breath and strength to return. Lord Reynald and Sir James, drawn forth by the fine weather, had taken the hounds out upon a report of a pair of wolves prowling about the lambing-fold. Conan had led his troop on a foray towards Etherby. He did not neglect his duty to his men, but their growls had come to Guy’s hearing; not only did he no longer indulge in rape himself but he would not permit any man of his to molest a woman.
Guy stretched out his legs. The bailey’s mud was drying, and fresh grass springing in the less trampled places. Sparrows hopped and chirped. The Slut regarded them tolerantly, stretched nose on paws at his side, and blinked lazily when they fluttered within inches of her muzzle. Doves strutted and crooned along the battlements. Some servants’ children were playing tag about the stables. Hooves thumped on wood, and a stallion bugled. Hens were scratching on the midden. By this hour the day’s work was over for all but the kitchen servants with supper to prepare, and hardly an adult moved in the bailey. From the guardroom came a muted rumble of voices.
The sentinel on the gatehouse roof called a warning, and with a scrape and clatter the guard turned out. Beyond the gate Guy heard dogs barking, trampling hooves and jingling harness. The hunters were returning. For strangers the watchman would have sounded his horn. Guy sat where he was, listening to the windlass creak and the chains rattle as the drawbridge was lowered. The planks reverberated, roused grooms came running from stables and huts, dog-boys from the kennels and scullions from the kitchen. The pack streamed in, vociferous at homecoming, Edric the huntsman stalking in their midst with spear and whip.
Wulfrune and Rohese had emerged also from their brew-house to greet Lord Reynald, the foremost rider through the gateway. Behind him on a dispirited nag came the last man Guy had ever expected to see in Warby. He sprang up, his face lighting, and in joyous surprise greeted him by the last name that should have passed his lips.
‘Father!’
Kenric swung stiffly down, transfigured by thankfulness. ‘God be praised!’ he cried, and ran to seize him in a bear’s embrace. ‘Guy, dear lad!’ They hugged each other, and then Kenric caught him by the shoulders and held him off to inspect him. ‘We had word you were dying,’ he said. ‘I had not hoped—but God is good.’ He released Guy, and the Slut, greeting an old friend, reared up to set her paws on his shoulders and lick his cheek. He slapped her flank and laughed. ‘Hey, old lass!’ His voice shook slightly.
‘Who is this man,’ Lord Reynald demanded, ‘that you call by the name which should be mine?’
The hairs tingled erect along Guy’s spine. He looked up into a mask of menace. ‘My lord, my mother’s husband.’
‘You call him “Father”?’
‘He has been that from my birth.’
‘What’s he here for? To claim you?’
‘My lord,’ said Kenric, his brow creasing in puzzlement, ‘we heard our lad was sick to death. His mother has been ailing all winter, fretting for him. To ease her grief I must come, if I were too late to do more than pray by his grave.’ He turned to smile at Guy. ‘I’m heart-glad that’s not needful, and I can take back joyful word of you.’
‘He’s not your lad!’ exclaimed Lord Reynald. ‘He’s mine!’
‘Aye, and withheld from you,’ Wulfrune croaked with malice.
‘And it’s plain which father he prefers,’ Rohese added.
‘You robbed me!’ Lord Reynald cried, looking from Guy to Kenric. ‘It’s you he loves! My son!’ He abruptly swung his leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground. The Slut growled, and Guy slipped his fingers under her collar to restrain her. Edric moved up behind his lord, his eyes watchful, his favourite black hound at his heels. ‘Even that ugly bitch of yours snarls at me and licks his face!’
‘She has known him from a pup, my lord.’
‘He stole my son—
’
‘In law a bastard is his mother’s alone—’
‘Stole my son, and bred him up an artisan to shame me and my blood!’
‘My lord,’ Kenric protested reasonably, ‘you begot his body, and at the last he has followed that blood in him. But to me he is my first-born, the son of my heart.’
‘Your heart? By the Horns, I’m minded to cut the heart out of you!’
Guy stepped between them and held his voice level with an effort, as he made his appeal to the last shred of reason behind that livid face. ‘My lord and father, remember, I chose to be your son. Yet I owe a duty to the man who bred me up. Let him return safely to my mother, and you will have my undying gratitude and service.’
For a breath’s space he thought he had won. He dared not look at Kenric, who had realized his peril and stood as if carved from wood, but fixed his gaze on his sire’s indecisive face. Then Wulfrune snickered.
‘Let him go, when he kept your whelp for his own? Where’s vengeance? Where’s manhood?’
‘A cheap price he offers, and for love of that peasant, not you!’ Rohese jeered.
Lord Reynald’s face whitened, and his lips lifted in a snarl. In desperation Guy loosed the Slut. ‘Take!’
She launched herself. Edric leaped between her and his lord, his spear driving. It crunched through her ribs from side to side, and before he could brace its butt against earth her weight bore him down, her teeth slashed short his screech, and they rolled over together in a scarlet welter. His legs kicked twice, like a frog’s, and were still. The Slut turned her gaze to Guy, and her tail twitched; then her eyes filmed, her head sank, she shuddered and was gone.
Stunned with horror, Guy wasted precious moments staring; then he uttered a hoarse yell and flung himself before Kenric to shield him. Lord Reynald shrieked an order, there was a rush of feet, hands grappled him and dragged him aside, resisting all the way. Horses squealed and reared, alarmed by the scent of blood. Excited dogs surged barking about them, and Edric’s black hound came nosing to his side, lifted his head and howled desolately.
‘My lord—’ Kenric gasped, confronting madness and a knife.
‘Son of your heart, is he?’
The knife went in and up, under the ribs’ arch. Kenric stared astonished. His head jerked back, his knees buckled, and he dropped, dead before he hit the ground. Lord Reynald went down with him. On his knees he slashed and groped and wrenched, then straightened and hurled a dripping red lump to the pack. One leaped to snatch it, snapped and gulped. The rest surged about him in a snarling worry, and the fight raged across the bailey towards the kennels.
A hideous trance held everyone moveless and speechless.
But for the hounds’ uproar there was silence under the sky. Guy stared at Kenric’s body. The surprise had already gone from his face as it settled into the familiar emptiness of death. The black hound howled again, the cry piercing to the void of his belly, and but for the hold on his arms he would have collapsed where he stood.
Sir James, the hue of tallow, lifted a hand to cross himself. The spell broke. A kennel-boy dropped senseless upon his face among the dogs, a groom broke away to vomit. Wulfrune cackled.
Lord Reynald, red to the elbows, the skirt of his tunic dripping, stood back, white as curd. He looked from Guy to the bodies, and then kicked the mourning dog so that it fled to the kennels yelping. When he spoke a line of froth gathered between his lips and teeth.
‘You loosed your bitch on me! You’d spill your father’s blood!’
Strength came back to Guy. He braced himself to stand steady in the men’s hold, and spoke for all to hear.
‘You begot my body, but this was my father, whom I loved and honoured! Now make an end, for it shames me to live with your blood in me!’
‘Spill it from him!’ Rohese shrieked.
Lord Reynald lifted the knife, and then threw it down. ‘You’re my son! Mine! Spill what’s mine?’ He slapped her from him with his bloody hand so that she staggered and fell, and then snatched up the whip he had dropped. ‘It’s a father’s right to chastise his own!’ He gestured to the whipping-post.
The men-at-arms dragged Guy to it, fighting all the way, the one thought in his mind to break free and drive his own dagger into his sire’s guts. It took half a dozen of them to pin him down while they dragged tunic and shirt over his head, and to force him against the post, haul his arms up and fasten the shackles.
He stopped struggling as the iron clamped down, and braced himself against the smooth-worn wood. His wits still spun in unbelief that this was really happening as he pressed his head against the post and clenched his teeth. The wind struck coldly across his bare shoulders, and he could not prevent his muscles from shivering as weakness asserted itself again.
‘No! No! No!’
With the screech a small body hurtled across the grass. Guy twisted his neck and opened his eyes in time to see Roger’s head take Lord Reynald in the belly with the impact of a mangonel missile as his hands clawed for the whip. He yelled and folded forward, flinging one aimless blow that sent the boy spinning into the circle of spectators, and fell to his knees, hugging his middle with both arms.
Lady Mabel flung round between him and Guy with a sweep of skirts. ‘Will you murder both your sons, monster?’
He groaned lamentably, his face distorted with agony. ‘Oh—oh—the whelp—unnatural—oh—’ He rocked back and forth, retched and turned green. ‘Murderous—the rat’s killed—argh!’ He vomited, collapsed sideways, and lay with his knees drawn up, clutching his belly and whimpering.
Wulfrune and Rohese rushed to him. The girl knelt and tried to raise him, but he groaned protest.
‘Hell’s curse on the little parricide!’ Wulfrune snarled.
Another voice shouted from the gate, and Conan’s stallion trampled through the circle, scattering men and women before his hooves. The mercenary took one comprehensive glance about him and wasted no time asking questions.
‘You and you, carry your lord in to his bed. Stop screeching and go tend him, you hag—out of my sight!’ His savage gesture sent the women scuttling after the servants, who lifted Lord Reynald and staggered off with him to the keep. He dropped from the saddle beside the whipping-post, wrenched the bar from the shackles and flung an arm about Guy as he reeled free, steadying him while he shuddered with shock and reaction. ‘Who was he?’ he asked with a jerk of his head.
‘My father—’
The grip tightened, and Guy felt him draw in a hard breath. He lifted his face, surprised by the tear-tracks drying chill on his cheeks, and braced himself. Conan released him, caught up Lord Reynald’s whip and turned on the crowd, swinging it back so that the lash snaked behind him for a slash.
‘God’s Blood, have none of you work to do, goggling here frog-eyed? Go!’
They fled. Guy’s knees melted beneath him. He sank down against the post and bowed his head between them, while above him Conan raged at Sir James.
‘What were you about? You stood with no more wits nor guts than a wooden image and never tried to stop him?’
‘It’s no duty of mine to interfere with anything my lord—’
‘Here’s foul murder—’
‘God’s Head, you to squawk at murder? And what was he but a low-born craftsman when all’s said?’
‘And his son?’
‘A lord has a right to do as he wills with his own.’
‘To flog a knight like a thieving serf? An insult to all knighthood!’
‘That oaf a knight, still sweating from the forge? It was no concern of mine. I repeat, my lord had the right —’
‘Afraid to open your mouth, you lily-livered rat!’
‘God’s Head, you’ll meet me—’
‘I’ll happily put steel through your belly when I’ve nothing more urgent to do!’
Skirts brushed Guy’s shoulder, and small cold hands seized his arm. He lifted his head, and automatically reached to enfold Roger, sobbing and wheezing together. He
looked up. Lady Mabel stood over him, regarding Sir James as though she had never seen him before.
‘Enough! Is this a time for challenges?’
‘This excommunicate routier miscalled—’
‘Enough, I say!’
Roger clung to Guy’s shoulders. ‘He didn’t do it—you’re not hurt—I did stop him—’
‘I owe you my life, little brother,’ Guy said. His voice would scarcely obey him. The child shivered and sobbed, pressing closer, his tears wet against Guy’s skin.
‘Oh, oh, oh, what will he do to us now?’
‘At this moment I’ve no doubt he’s in his bed clutching at his belly,’ said Lady Mabel bracingly. ‘He’ll not harm either of you.’
Guy lifted his head to meet her gaze. ‘Would you—?’
‘Leave all here to me, my lady,’ said Conan.
She hesitated. Guy started to struggle up, hampered by Roger’s grappling hold, and the routier bent to lift him off. The child shrank from him and clutched tighter. Lady Mabel moved impulsively to come between them, and Conan straightened.
‘You did well, boy. You’re twice the man already that this dumb stockfish could be. Now stand on your own two feet like the valiant brat you are.’
He gaped up, rigid in Guy’s arms, his breath wheezing. Then he stood erect beside his mother, who nodded the first approval she had ever bestowed on the mercenary. Guy heaved to his feet and gestured to the keep. She went briskly across the grass, and Sir James roused himself to escort her.
‘Made a leak in that bladder of self-righteousness,’ Conan observed. ‘Here, don’t stand half-stripped in this wind or you’ll be sick again.’
Guy had not realized how chilled he had become; he was so clumsy that Conan had to help him. But when Roger passed him his belt with knife and purse he came to life and clawed out the gilded spurs to hurl them upon the dunghill. Conan caught his wrist and forced his arm down.