Wild Wood

by Posie Graeme-Evans

  “Honeysuckle!”

  And it occurs to Jesse Marley that this scent has traveled to her from long, long ago. The scent of childhood? That makes her happy, and it makes her sad. Her childhood is a mystery now. So is Hundredfield.

  This place. How can she have drawn it?

  The fear she denied when she first saw the tower, standing alone at the top of the hill, seeps back.

  What does it mean? What does any of this mean?

  13

  A COLD RIDE we had from Alnwick, Maugris and I, and the silence of the wasteland matched our mood.

  “I could sleep on twelve-month rushes so long as my feet were turned to the fire.” Maugris looked happy enough, though the skin of his face was red from the cold, as mine must have been also; twenty-eight at his next name day to my twenty-six, yet sinew contained in bags of skin was all he and I had become.

  I thought of Rosa and how all life withers. “Perhaps there will be a feast for the prodigals when we return?”

  “Only if Godefroi forgets your bad behavior.”

  “For a place by the fire I might forget his.”

  It was good to laugh. We were riding on frozen tracks as the country began its climb. It would have been safer to stay at Alnwick for the twelve days and all the festivities of Christmas and ride out after the New Year feast, but we had seen few abroad in these dark days.

  “Will the child have been born?”

  Maugris shaded his eyes against the iron sky as if he could see the keep already. “Perhaps.”

  The image of beauty fades. I could not recall the lines of Flore’s face, though I remembered her eyes. The blue of pale, clear water.

  “One more night, please, God. Just one.” Maugris crossed himself, as I did. “And pray the freeze holds.”

  “Amen to that.”

  There was a moon to guide us as the day waned. Rising, she cast light across the hills and glens as we made camp below the fells in a valley we knew. A day’s ride from Hundredfield, we had used this place before on our way home because there was a cave large enough to bring horses in for the night, and we could light a fire with no fear it would be seen. The cave was defensible too, since it looked over the valley below and was guarded by the sheer cliff above.

  The garrison quartermaster at Alnwick had given us food for the journey, twice-baked bread and salt fish—one hard, the other dry—and skins of strong ale. After a time, the beer made the food taste better, and it brought sleep as we lay beside the fire.

  I had taught myself long since not to dream, yet now, as I wrapped the riding cloak around my body and surrendered to the dark, such things came as, even now, it is difficult to speak of.

  There was blood and I waded through it as if it were the water in a pool. But as I washed my body in some man’s death, hands grasped my ankles and dragged me down.

  I was plunged into a void that flickered with flame, and through it all a child cried out, high and desperate.

  I could not breathe, I could not wake. If I tried to scream I knew none would hear me, and the taste of iron filled my mouth until, at last, I voided a tide of rust that would not stop and grew greater with each spasm. Trees grew up where the vomit fell, with branches that reached and clasped and folded me tight, as if bark were my winding cloth.

  “Brother.”

  The world was shaking, the leaves, the tree.

  “Bayard!”

  Sweat ran into my eyes. I could not open them.

  But I did. To see that I lay beside the fire among our fighters, and Maugris had his hand on my shoulder.

  And if my brother had been a different kind of man, I would have clung to him as I once had, long ago, when as boys we slept in Alnwick’s great hall for the first time. Alone.

  Maugris pointed. “Tell me what you see.”

  I shaded my eyes. “There are no men.”

  We had ridden along the river track, and the bridge to the keep lay before us. Beyond, the great gate was shut, the drawbridge drawn up tight. I voiced what we both thought. “Why would there be no guards?”

  Maugris shortened the reins on his horse as, nervous, it stepped this way and that. “What is Godefroi doing? It is broad day.”

  “Perhaps he is dead. Be careful.” I pointed at his restless mount. “He thinks you want to jump the gap.”

  Maugris glared at me. “To speak of death tempts fate.”

  We were both tired so I did not reply. I pulled out the hunting horn in my saddlebag.

  “Why did you bring that?” But my brother’s expression lifted.

  I tipped my head to the forest. “Hunting. Venison for Christmas.” I held it up. “Shall I raise the guard?”

  Maugris reined back, allowing Helios room as I kicked forward.

  Putting the horn to my mouth, I blew. Out of practice; the first note was an embarrassing fart. Behind, trying not to laugh, the men snorted. I guffawed anyway and even Maugris smiled.

  I tried again, and a keening whine blew clear.

  Nothing stirred over the water.

  “Again.”

  Twice more I blew the horn.

  We watched, all of us. There was nothing to see.

  “If we can get across the river, there’s the postern.”

  Maugris was right, but we had no boat, and though a postern gate was in the outer wall of the gardens below the keep, it would be barred on the inside.

  “Perhaps there is sickness in the keep?”

  Maugris nodded. “The sweat, maybe.”

  Weakened by hunger, people died fast, and sickness spread from house to house faster than a man could walk; no one knew what caused it. Maugris turned his horse in a tight circle, staring back at the gate. “If they have the pestilence, Godefroi will certainly have ordered Hundredfield closed.”

  I said nothing. Selflessness was not Godefroi’s strength. “So shall I ride to the village? They may know more.”

  Maugris’s face must have mirrored my own disappointment. “Try once more.”

  And so I blew the horn a final time.

  I waited until the echo died, then turned Helios.

  We heard a shout.

  A man’s head topped the battlements; I saw his helmet gleam as he waved an arm. I did not know his face.

  Maugris cupped his hands. “Drop the bridge.”

  Another head appeared, then the two disappeared.

  The crash of chain as the drawbridge came down was never more welcome than on that day. And as the mouth to the castle yard dropped open, the gates drawn back inside, we saw the inner ward. It was empty of the usual bustle of men and women, dogs and horses.

  Behind us, the men muttered.

  I murmured, “Ride on?”

  “Yes.” But Maugris dropped the visor on his helmet and eased his sword from its scabbard.

  I turned in my saddle. “Form up.” Behind, Rauf gave the signal to draw steel.

  Without haste the column rode under the great gate and into the inner ward, Maugris at the head, me at the rear. The men who dropped the gate had vanished.

  As Maugris called out the halt, I gave the signal to mass the horses.

  “What do you think?” He spoke in a murmur.

  “Secure the gate. Then the keep.”

  Maugris nodded. “Agreed. Gate or keep?”

  A smile for the benefit of the men and I replied, “The keep. Perhaps I can make peace with Godefroi.”

  “Take half the troop, then. Use the horn if you need to.”

  Iron struck sparks as we rode across the cobbles in orderly array, but the stables and the kitchens, the barns and outbuildings, were as the village had been all those months before; eyes were behind those doors and shutters. I felt them, but we heard no calls of welcome, no voices happy at our return. Ahead, the tower of the keep seemed almost to lean down, like a tree beaten over in a storm. A trick of the light, but strange—as if the very building implored our help, and I will not deny I remembered the dream.

  I held up an arm and the troop stopped. A wal
l and a narrow gate protected the way to the tower, and here was a difficult decision.

  Beyond, the lowest part of the keep had arrow slits facing the way we were to ride, and above, the height of three men, were larger windows. Too high to reach without siege ladders.

  Godefroi’s chamber was higher still, two stories below the cap-house at the top of the tower. We had to first pass under the gate to where a path climbed to a flight of steps. Only then could we approach the door that was set into the wall, far above the ground.

  Since the gate was narrow, a horseman could only ride through it alone, and if men lay in wait on the other side, or behind the arrow loops inside the tower, he faced a quick death. The defenses of the keep had been well planned; Fulk knew the business of war.

  I beckoned Rauf forward. “What do you think?”

  “Tamas and three of us could keep the loops busy.” Wiry, and strong as bent yew, Tamas was the best archer we had.

  I considered what Rauf had said. Only a steady archer could shoot directly into such a narrow target, but rapid fire might intimidate the men inside. Might.

  “Where would you stand?” Beyond the gate there was no cover.

  “Leave our horses, run through, and you follow. Strike first and keep shooting, cover your back and those who ride after you.”

  At least the light was behind us. Shooting into the sun from the keep would not be easy. I nodded. “Pick your men.” I waited as two others were selected—Edwin, the youngest in our troop, and Walter, the survivor of more seasons of fighting than even Maugris had seen. Good choices.

  I sketched a cross in the air as the archers dismounted. “Now!”

  Screaming, the four ran forward as I both spurred Helios and held him hard, building power in his haunches, trusting the others to follow.

  On the far side of the gate, arrows sliced past my head as I let Helios run. The stallion’s strength and heart propelled me to the foot of the tower in two breaths—the longest breaths I had ever taken—and I flung from the saddle and up the stairs, the others at my heels. Hard against the walls, we were under the flight of the defenders’ arrows, but the murder hole was above our heads and . . .

  “Stop!” I shouted through the tumult of yelling men and milling, riderless horses.

  The only arrows were ours. Nothing had come from the keep.

  The silence, as it fell, was eerie.

  I beckoned Rauf and the archers closer. They came forward with arrows nocked, but when I tried the door latch, I could not move it; inside, the bar was in the keeper.

  “My ax.” Three crosswise layers of oak were bound with iron and studded with great nails. To destroy the structure well enough to fire the wood would take time, and though the keep seemed deserted, I had no faith that was true.

  Rauf found my ax and ran to place it in my hand, but before I could take a swing, someone called out, “Wait!”

  Inside, the bar scraped back.

  I ran back down the steps with the men and stood with the archers as they brought their bows to bear on the door as it opened. A man stood in the doorway, blinking. He was as pale as the walls behind and I did not know who he was.

  “Hold!” A bellow to our men. “Your name!”

  “Robert, sir. I am your brother’s reeve.”

  “Are you ill, Robert?” I craned to peer for assailants behind him in the tower.

  “No.”

  “Lord Godefroi and his wife?”

  The man crossed himself. “The keep has no sickness.” He hesitated. “But come out of the cold, sir. Lord Godefroi is in his chamber.” Something crossed his face, too fast to understand what the expression meant.

  “Rauf, take the men to the stables.” But I waved an arm behind my back, and the men at my shoulder rushed the door, swords raised.

  “Mercy!” Robert gulped.

  I ran up the steps and gestured for the man to precede me. “Then lead us to my brother.”

  In its own narrow tower, the staircase scaled the height of the main keep. Supported by a stone pillar into which the treads locked, it was wide enough to swing a sword, but the advantage would always be with those coming down. Since Godefroi’s chamber was three ranges of rooms above, we stepped cautiously behind the reeve. The only sound was our boots, and the wind—it haunted the stair tower always, a lonely voice from the hills.

  “There.” Robert pointed at Godefroi’s door. I came up close behind, my sword nudging his back. “Brother?”

  Breath silvering the air, we waited.

  “Godefroi?” The door, a dumb slab of oak, had no story to tell. I stood close against the reeve, my eyes fixed on his. “Is there more to say?”

  “Lord Godefroi has not come out of his chamber since . . .” The man swallowed and shook his head.

  I took him by the shoulder and twisted my sword against the knuckles in his spine. He yelped. Perhaps I was cruel, though I would not have called it that then. “What has happened here?”

  “Sir!” Rauf beckoned me to the door.

  I shoved Robert toward Tamas and laid my head against the wood. Nothing. And then, something. A sound I did not recognize. I thought it an animal, whimpering.

  Was the door barred? I did not know. Stepping back, I pivoted, dropped one shoulder, and charged. After two bruising attempts, the latch burst from the jamb, the impact so great I fell into the room.

  On the great bed my brother sat. Like the Madonna cradling her dead son, Godefroi held his wife across his lap, her head resting against his shoulder.

  Tears streaked his face as he sobbed. The woman’s clothes were stiff with blood, and she was dead.

  14

  BUT YOUR wife must be washed, brother.” Maugris spoke gently to Godefroi. “She cannot be taken to the chapel until”—Maugris coughed—“until all is made decent.” When there was no response, he looked at me.

  I said, “It is true. It will be best if you allow your lady this service. She shall be afforded every honor.”

  Godefroi did not answer. He held Flore closer.

  Maugris and I exchanged a glance. I had sent Rauf to find him, and in the minutes since he had arrived, I had tried to persuade Godefroi to surrender Flore’s body; but he would not permit me to touch her and still would not speak.

  Both of us stared at the corpse. Maugris’s face worked with pity, and perhaps I was shocked also. Death among men is a normal thing; if there is blood and suffering, it is something that happens quickly under an open sky, and we were trained to it. But the secret death of women as a child is born strikes to the heart.

  “Reeve.” Maugris controlled his voice, but I knew why he struggled to speak.

  We both remembered our mother. She had died birthing a dead child. Our sister. We arrived too late to see her face or the baby before they were enclosed together in her coffin.

  I said quietly, “Go, Robert. Bring help.”

  Godefroi would not look at us, nor did he speak. If we approached, he flinched.

  Even when the servants crept out of hiding, it was no different. Three girls, hastily chosen by the reeve, had gathered outside Godefroi’s chamber. They would not come inside, though we heard Robert arguing with them.

  I beckoned him. “Why was Lady Flore left without help?” It was impossible to believe Godefroi would have been in the birthing chamber. He must have found her afterward.

  The man’s expression changed. “Margaretta was with her mistress. She was the only one. That was the choice of the Lady Flore.”

  Maugris glowered. “The girl is still at Hundredfield?”

  The reeve looked helpless. “She is—was—the only servant the lady would allow. And Lord Godefroi—”

  A disgusted mutter from my brother. “Lust. What a fool it makes of us all.” He caught my eye.

  Oh, I knew what Maugris would have done. After Swinson was beaten, he would have slit the girl’s throat as an example and dumped her body outside the walls for Alois to find.

  “Thank you, Robert.” I nodded as if I under
stood what he was saying, though far too much was strange in this birth. “How long since . . .” I hesitated to say she died.

  The man did not look at me. “It was at dawn.”

  “And the child?”

  Robert’s face cleared a little. He said with some relief, “The child is alive.”

  “Boy or girl?”

  “Bayard!” Maugris called me to the bed, and I waved for Robert to wait outside.

  Godefroi still stared at me as if I were a stranger, and as Maugris drew me aside, he whispered, “The body will be stiff very soon. She must be laid out or it will be too late.”

  I nodded and moved closer. “Godefroi, we have women outside to attend the Lady Flore.”

  “No!” Heaving the girl’s corpse up from the bed, Godefroi stumbled as he tried to carry Flore away and—perhaps from weakness—the body began to slide from his grasp.

  Maugris and I surged forward. Flore’s flesh was cold when we caught her and that was a shock enough, though God knew we both understood what death was.

  Godefroi gave up. His arms dropped and he stood back, his face as remote as hers, as we lifted Flore’s body and placed it carefully on the bed.

  Maugris cleared his throat. “The servants will do all that is suitable for the Lady Flore and dress her also.” He flicked his eyes to the coffers. They had been pulled back along one wall to make room for two cradles, one large and elaborate, one a simple box on rockers.

  But I understood. I opened the lid on the first coffer, but there were only bedcoverings and linen bath sheets inside. In the second were gowns as well as veils and folded cloaks. One of the dresses was especially fine. I showed the garment to Godefroi. “This will honor her.”

  Godefroi stared at what I held. The blue-black of deep night, the gown was brocaded damask, with sleeves and a bodice faced with cloth of silver. “She wore that for her marriage to me.” His face turned gray.