by Grace Ingram
‘Put that rake down. God’s Head, d’you think I didn’t know you were here?’
Guy flushed and set it in its place. ‘Your pardon, my lord. I did not know who approached.’
‘And I’ll acquit you of breaking your word to me, since you didn’t know Helvie was here.’ He accepted the stool Elswyth offered and extended his spurred boots to the fire. ‘Couldn’t make the ride to Trevaine, eh? I had it all from your stepmother.’
‘She and my brother are safe, my lord?’
‘My marshal set out with them to Bristol the next day, with orders to see them on the first ship to Southampton. Should be in Bristol by now.’
Guy sighed in relief. ‘My lord, I am more grateful than I can say.’
Lord Henry smiled somewhat grimly. ‘The devil’s own gall you had, sending them to me. How did you know I’d not clap them into prison for hostages or ransom?’
‘Because you did not hang me at your boundary, my lord,’ Guy answered with a grin. ‘A sweeter vengeance to set them on their way, beyond Lord Reynald’s reach?’
‘I don’t war on women and brats. A sickly one that, but valiant.’ He became aware that he had not granted his hearers leave to sit, and gestured impatiently. There were only three stools, so Guy subsided on to the rushes, where he was subjected to close scrutiny by eyes like Helvie’s. ‘You look like death warmed up yourself, but you’ve had over a week to mend, and I reckoned I’d ride over.’
‘You’ve not come alone, my lord?’
‘Left my escort on the road. Don’t cluck, woman. Surely I can ride where I please inside my own demesne? And I want no witnesses to tattle afterwards. I’ve a proposal to put to you, young man.’
‘My lord ?’ A pulse began to throb in Guy’s throat.
‘Come with me to Trevaine, and I’ll furnish you with horse, mail, sword and gear and set you on the way to Bristol, for your sworn oath to give up all thought of my daughter.’
Guy rose to his feet to give answer. ‘You are too late, my lord.’
Lord Henry’s stool went clattering. ‘Too late ? What’s that mean?’
‘Helvie and I are pledged to each other.’
He turned on his daughter, his face engorged. ‘Has he had your maidenhead?’
‘No, my lord. He has never attempted it.’
‘My lady’s honour is mine. I shall not touch her until we are wedded.’
‘And I will marry no other man,’ Helvie stated with a flat certainty that forbade contradiction.
Lord Henry looked from one to the other, the anger dying in his face. ‘So it’s worse than I thought,’ he pronounced heavily.
‘Worse?’ Elswyth caught him up.
‘Any lout can fill a wench’s belly with his bastard. It’s the man who fills her heart and mind she holds to—aye, even if you kill him at her feet.’
‘You’ll not—’ Helvie’s hand lifted to her throat.
Her sire shot her an irritated glance. ‘I’m not such a fool. I don’t want you to hate me forever. But I’ll not consent. I’ve nothing against you in person, understand? Daresay you’ll go far. But I’ll not have your father’s blood mingle with mine in my grandsons.’
‘I cannot blame you for that,’ Guy answered. ‘If I could spill it from my own veins—’
He checked and flung up his head at a confused trampling in the woods. The door crashed open, and Wulfric fell inside, gasping so that he could scarcely jerk out warning. ‘Warby—on you—run!’
Guy grabbed Helvie and thrust her towards the door as the noise of horsemen crashing through thickets resolved itself into a clatter of hooves on stone. Lord Henry was in the doorway before him, settling his helmet on his head and swinging his swordbelt about him; as he stepped into the space, dark against the firelight, an arrow streaked at him, missed his head so narrowly that he ducked, and thudded into the far wall. He loosed an oath, jumped back and slammed the door on a glimpse of mailed men running across the garden.
‘Too late!’ gasped Wulfric, leaning against the wall to catch his breath.
Helvie broke from Guy’s hold to seize and string her bow. Elswyth already had her spear in hand. Guy looked about him for a weapon. The best that presented itself was a spade, its pointed head shod with iron. A clamour of yells and jeers and threats swelled about the cottage, and axes and swords began beating at the door. He leaped at the bed, tumbled blankets and pillows aside, and heaved frantically at a foot-post. Wulfric joined him. Lord Henry abandoned his heroic stand before the door, whose planking was already splintered into jagged shapes of darkness. They tugged the bed forward between them in uneven jerks.
The door gave way with a squeal of tortured wood. Helvie shot instantly into the gap, and a man yelped. Guy let go the bedpost, caught up a blanket from under his feet, and stooped to the fire beside him. He grabbed the bubbling pot from the tripod, swung it up with the blanket to shield his hands and hurled the seething pottage upon the scrimmage thrusting through the doorway. Men recoiled screeching, clawing at scalded faces and searing garments. The pot clattered across the floor, the women joined their strength to the effort and the up-ended bed crashed against the doorframe, filling half the wall on either side. They wedged it with the chest and stood looking at each other.
‘How by all Hell’s craft—?’ growled Lord Henry.
‘Fire-arrows—signal,’ Wulfric croaked. ‘I was on waste—saw first from Trevaine—then Devil’s Ring. Ran-all way—but they’d horses—overtook—’
‘We were the bait in the trap,’ Guy said grimly, realizing why Lord Reynald had made no move to re-take him. He could have captured his son whenever he chose; he had waited for the greater quarry to walk into his snare, and now the noose was drawn close.
‘Henry de Trevaine!’ shouted the voice he knew, high and wild with a triumph that lifted every hair in Guy’s skin. ‘Come out to my vengeance! Come out with your woman and your bastard and mine!’
‘God damn you to everlasting Hell-fire!’ Lord Henry bellowed, swinging back his sword as though he saw his enemy within reach.
‘We’re lost,’ Wulfric said hopelessly, straightening from the wall and moving towards the women. ‘Stay close by me. It will be quick, I promise.’ He drew his knife. ‘Ah, Elswyth, Elswyth!’
Guy’s eyes went to and fro, his wits scurried like a trapped rodent as he sought a way out of the snare. ‘Don’t be a fool, man!’ he snarled. ‘We’re not yet—’
‘Henry de Trevaine! Come out before we fire the house! Come out or roast!’
Outside was a confusion of footsteps and voices. The axes had ceased beating at the barricaded door. Guy peered through one of the window-slits under the thatch, well back from a chance thrust, and saw dark figures moving under the moon. Flint chinked on steel, again and again, and then a small flame spurted low on the ground, outlining black legs and leaning bodies. Cold sweat ran along his spine. He looked about him urgently, at the doorway blocked by the bed, the one room, the narrow windows that offered no way out to any body larger than a small child’s. The noose was tight. He looked into Helvie’s face, colourless but steadfast, and she gazed gravely back and moved a little towards him, mutely asking that he should deal her the death-blow.
Lord Henry stood irresolute, his sword-point grounded; with no foe to smite he had no idea what to do. Wulfric waited between the two women, knife ready, and though Guy had called him a fool for resorting too speedily to that expedient, he knew well it might yet be needful. He crushed down rising panic. Outside a howl of glee greeted a kindled blaze, weapons poked and tore at the thatch over the door, and the first ominous crackling sounded. Trickles of smoke began to ooze under the rafters.
‘There’s the byre!’ Elswyth said suddenly. ‘We could break through!’
The byre was under the same roof, but its door was at the further end. Lord Henry leaped at the partition and hacked with his sword at the clay-covered withies. The cow within, that had been lowing uneasily since the attack began, bellowed in fear.
&n
bsp; ‘They’ve thought o’ that!’ said Wulfric, but none the less he joined his efforts to Lord Henry’s. Clay fragments scattered. Men yelled to each other; they were covering the byre door ready for a sally. The thatch was well alight now, roaring high, and shreds of flaming straw sprinkled down, setting the rushes afire. Elswyth and Helvie leaped at them with broom and rake to clear the floor. The smoke coiled in the rafters, catching Guy’s throat and eyes, and as the partition gave way Lord Reynald could be heard shouting orders above the cow’s bawling.
Lord Henry turned from the gap. ‘There’s nothing for it but to kill our women and die fighting,’ he said heavily.
‘No!’ Guy said violently, and rags of a desperate plan fluttered into his mind. ‘Loose the cow and drive her out! I’ll break a way through the wall!’ he gasped, and poised his spade.
With his weight behind the blade the wattle and daub filling made little resistance. He chopped at the fill between the studs, aimed and purposeful blows that broke out the spiles, and again above the groundsill to take out the whole panel. It bowed and fell inwards.
Wulfric, snatching at the plan in his mind, scrambled through into the byre, where the cow bellowed and plunged, frantic with fear, and hens flapped and squawked insanely under the flaring thatch. He loosed the beast and flung wide the door. A horse would have balked, but she stampeded through to freedom, and men skipped aside from her horns and hooves. The hens erupted in a storm of feathers.
‘You first, my lord, to defend the women,’ Guy commanded quietly under the tumult, and Lord Henry stooped to crawl through. Elswyth and Helvie scrambled after, tearing their skirts past projecting snags. Wulfric, having shown himself in the byre doorway, slammed the plank door in the attackers’ faces and dived out, and Guy followed last of all, flinging himself under a rain of sparks and rolling clear with the spade still clutched in his hand. The others were already running, Helvie hanging back a little for him to emerge.
A man shouted and came at him, spear poised. He threw himself forward under it and on to his feet, swinging the spade horizontally at shoulder-height. It crunched full across the man’s extended throat and threw him against the burning wall where the crackling thatch showered sparks and embers. Guy snatched up the spear as it dropped and fled across the irregular garden, moonshine and firelight combining to guide his feet. An arrow whistled past and screeched on stone, curses and hunting-yells and a scurry of feet followed, and he heard the howl and clatter of a heavy fall through the outcry of demented hens and the cow’s diminished bellows as she crashed away through the woods. Then blackness engulfed him, branches whipped at his head, and a hard hand gripped his arm and drew him on under the trees, away from the clearing and the ineffectual pursuit.
Guy caught his breath and drew his sleeve across his face. Singed hair broke away as he touched it, and smarting spots told him where sparks had touched his skin. Others moved in the darkness; as his eyes adjusted to it he saw they were all safely away, and gasped in thankfulness. Helvie moved mutely to his side. Heedless of her sire’s presence, he kissed her and set an arm about her, drawing her close. He turned to look back. The cottage was all ablaze, the roof already consumed to the rafters that thrust blackened ribs among the flames. Elswyth made some sound of protest, and Lord Henry put his mailed arm round her shoulders.
‘I’ll build it for you again, Elswyth, and better than before!’
The red glare probed after them through the half-leaved trees. Wulfric tugged again at Guy’s arm. The enemy trampled and shouted on the woods’ edge, but without enthusiasm, and somewhere Lord Reynald was shrilling orders and oaths.
‘Let’s go,’ growled Wulfric.
‘My horse—’ Lord Henry objected.
‘They’ve took him, and Helvie’s palfrey too.’
‘We’ll not get far without horses, nor will I leave mine in their vile hands,’ proclaimed the knight who would call for his mount to traverse a hundred yards.
‘There’s my Dusty,’ Guy said, and indeed they were near the spot where he was tethered; he could hear him kicking and whinnying. ‘I’ll get him.’
Dusty, alarmed by the uproar, the scent of smoke and the glare of fire, whickered pleasure, tugging at the rope. Guy calmed him and led him back, and found Lord Henry unreconciled to his own loss.
‘What manner of beast’s that for a knight to ride? I’ll have my own, not crawl home afoot while Warby boasts of having unhorsed me! One quick charge—’
He lifted his sword and started forward. Guy and Wulfric converged to block his way, knowing he would thrust them aside.
‘Father, no! There are too many—’
Guy put by the sword with his spear. ‘Let us try, my lord, while you guard the women.’ He saw him swell, his mouth open to blast him for presumption, and added hastily, ‘Your mail takes the light to betray you.’ He thrust Dusty’s bridle into his left hand.
‘Guy—’
‘Wait here.’ He kissed her quickly and followed Wulfric between the trees without staying for argument. They dodged from trunk to trunk, skirted bramble-patches and hawthorn-thickets, flitted across gaps of pulsing light. The cottage flamed from end to end, its walls crumbling to bright ruin, an acrid stink of burned bacon charging its smoke. Lord Reynald was sitting his fidgety horse in the glare, screeching to his men to search out the fugitives, outlined against the blaze that edged his mail with sparkles of red light.
Wulfric jerked a thumb at the ten or twelve horses milling restively at the garden’s edge, herded by a couple of men on foot who were hard-worked to control them. ‘See ? Get us all killed, that fool will, if we don’t watch out. There’s Helvie’s mare.’
Guy considered. The horse-holders, each struggling with several bridles, could be felled easily enough, whereupon the brutes would infallibly bolt headlong. The palfrey and Lord Henry’s mount were fast tethered. But now the other men were gathering from the useless search despite Lord Reynald’s curses, already making for their mounts, and by the noises amid the trees several horsemen were advancing along the path.
‘Only get ourselves chopped down,’ Wulfric muttered.
A yell pealed across the garden. ‘Trevaine! Trevaine!’ A tight group of three riders erupted from the dark, charging straight across the clearing at Lord Reynald, lifted swords catching the light. Lord Henry’s voice shouted back, ‘Trevaine!’ Guy saw him burst from the woods to join his escort, drawn to their lord’s rescue by the fire-glare and tumult, and uttered a fervent curse.
‘Come! ’
He leaped at the nearer horse-holder, and rammed his spear-point between crunching rib-bones. The fellow grunted and folded forward, loosing the bridles he held. Horses milled and reared about him, a hoof grazed his arm, his ears filled with squeals of fear and anger. Then they broke away, into the scrimmage by the blaze as the light drew them. Wulfric’s man uttered a half-yell that broke to a gurgle, staggered and dropped. Guy threw down the spear to tug desperately at looped reins in the dark, and snapped off the branch to free them. Wulfric cursed beside him as Lord Henry’s stallion plunged and kicked to join the others; then they were both running across the garden, each dragging a reluctant horse.
The loose horses had broken up the fight; it surged and milled in the blaze that lighted tossing manes and rolling eyes, burnished metal and yelling faces. Guy glimpsed Helvie, perched astride his Dusty and following her father, who had caught one of the runaways by the bridle and was already heaving himself into the saddle. Other men were catching mounts, joining in the struggle. Lord Reynald was battling like a cornered weasel with a Trevaine squire. It was past time to be gone.
‘Trevaine!’ bellowed Lord Henry. ‘To me, Trevaine!’
‘This way!’ Guy shouted. ‘Helvie! Helvie! Back to the woods!’
She veered aside for him, and he hauled her palfrey to a halt for her. Something whistled and thwacked into flesh beside him, and the stallion ran free. Wulfric was on his knees among the cabbage-plants, an arrow’s flights between his shoulders;
as Guy turned he vomited black blood and fell on his face.
‘Guy—oh quickly—’
One of the squires had cut his way out of the worry; the other two were down. Lord Henry was fighting the strange stallion, an arrow standing in his sword-arm; at twenty yards’ range no mail was proof against a shaft. He recognized impossible odds. ‘Helvie! Elswyth! Run for it!’ he shouted, backing his horse to cover as the squire joined him. Elswyth came running from under the trees, skirts kilted, and he leaned to hoist her to his crupper. The archer, one still point in the shifting turmoil, drew and loosed again, and the skytearing scream of a wounded horse filled Guy’s brain. Dusty reared and collapsed.
Guy ran. Helvie had thrown herself clear and was rolling beyond the threshing hooves. As he reached her she struggled up. The palfrey squealed terror at the smell of blood, but Guy had the bridle and dragged her head down, hauled Helvie to him by the arm and heaved her bodily into the saddle. She righted herself and found the stirrups. He thrust the reins into her hands.
‘Guy—up behind—’
‘Ride!’
He struck the mare’s haunch with the edge of his hand, and she bolted straight into the woods. Lord Henry raised a yell and plunged after her, the squire at his back and his own loose stallion running with them. Helvie’s despairing cry rang in Guy’s ears as enemies drove at him.
He had to spring back or be trampled. The stallion reared black against the firelight, shod hooves glinting, and his furious squeal flecked foam across Guy’s face. He caught his heel against an upthrust of stone and sprawled backwards on soft earth. They were all about him, yelling threats and curses, abandoning nobler quarry to escape unpursued as they thumped from their saddles and wrenched him to his knees with his arms twisted behind him.
All his strength ran out of Guy like wine from a staved cask, and but for the hands holding him he would have fallen on his face. Numbness paralysed body and wits. It was no matter what happened to him. Helvie was safe and he was spent. Then the men fell silent, and there was no sound but the dying crackle of the fire, the snorts and jingles of restive horses, and the distant crashing of Lord Henry’s retreat. Lord Reynald, standing over him, spoke flatly.