Fulbert thoughtfully scratched his nose with a long brown finger. Hélie instantly recognized his quandary. He had three recalcitrant prisoners and eight men to guard them, and the obvious part of wisdom was to refuse. But a mercenary captain, particularly an impoverished one, was peculiarly dependent on his followers' good will, and he could not afford to deny their natural desire for new ale in a thirsty desert. He nodded reluctantly, but called off the two men of the rearguard, the only dry members of the troop, to tether Hélie's and Gino's mounts securely to two stout rope-scarred saplings that did duty as hitching-posts. Himself he remained in the saddle with Lady Durande's reins in his charge.
The routiers converged jubilantly on the open doorway. The woman, a hard-mouthed brawny peasant, did not shift from their way swiftly enough. With a howl of delight the foremost seized her and swung her about, planting a smacking kiss awry on her averted cheek. The woman, plainly accustomed to the hazards of ale-house keeping, hauled away to arm's length and dealt him such a clout with her knotted fist that his helmet clanged on the doorpost like a cracked bell. She wrenched free of his slackened grip as another hooting ruffian grabbed her from behind, and undaunted drove an expert elbow viciously under his short ribs, twisted round and cracked him shrewdly on the kneecap with her wooden-soled shoe. He screeched and rolled writhing on the bare ground.
What had begun as a rough jest was now not in the least amusing. The routiers flung themselves on the panting woman with no laughter in their faces, hauled her away from the door she tried to slam on them and speedily overpowered her, though she left marks of fists and feet and teeth upon them. The gawky boy ran bleating from the horses, brandishing a broom as spear, to be tripped, knocked sprawling, and stunned with his own clumsy weapon. The ale-wife, thrown to her knees with her arms twisted behind her, was sobbing now, but more in fury than fear; she still tried to screw her head round to bite at the arms that held her. Her kerchief was gone, her brown hair tumbled about cheek and shoulder from a loosened plait, and her soiled bodice had been wrenched from a white and comely shoulder.
One man set his hands to the torn cloth and ripped it further. She snapped at his wrist like a dog, and he jerked back, caught her hair and dragged her head back.
'A tumble!' yelled a knave gleefully. ‘Here's sport!'
‘Throw her down!'
‘Pay the bitch!' snarled her second victim, hobbling on his afflicted knee.
They hoisted her to her feet and thrust her through the doorway, tearing at her gown, hurling filthy jibes and promises at her. Fulbert sat his horse and smiled thinly at the noisy scrimmage.
'Stop the vile beasts!' blazed Durande.
'Why should I spoil sport—theirs or hers?'
Hélie jerked furiously at the thongs binding his wrists. Gazing straight into the ale-house's dark cave, he saw that the ruffians had the woman on the floor-rushes, her skirts over her head. Her shoe cracked on bone and a man yelped. Rage and disgust filled him. Durande flung a leg over the saddle on the off side, and Fulbert seized her arm and hauled her back by main force as she started to slide down. Then Hélie's frozen tongue loosened, and she stilled at his first word.
'In England rape before witnesses proves a costly sport!'
Fulbert, his hands fully occupied, turned an angry face on him. 'Costly?' he repeated, for once disconcerted. Inside the cottage they had pulled off the woman's shoes and pinned her with legs wide, and those not so engaged were disputing for first turn. The boy, blubbering a little, was struggling up on all fours, blood running down his face, and groping for his broom.
'The penalty is gelding.'
His mouth opened, and then snapped shut. He lunged his horse at the door, dragging Durande after him. His voice beat through the uproar. 'Baldwin! Giles! Hamon! Loose her! Out! Truss up your braies, you fool, before I kick your backside through your wishbone!' Their startled, resentful faces turned on him, and an aggrieved voice expostulated. In one pungent sentence he made known to them their probable fate. It cooled them. The gallows was a normal hazard of their trade, but they would not face the hangman's knife. They freed the woman, who snatched her skirts down from over her head and crouched snarling in the floor-rushes.
'At least we'll have the ale!' bawled a disappointed raptor, and they went at it with a yell of approval.
Fulbert drew Durande from the doorway and left them to it, smiling over the roars and laughter and crashing within. By the noise they were smashing every article of furniture in the place; Hélie could see benches overthrown and stools bounding. The walls quivered until the whitewash flaked; even the shocked thatch seemed to lift from its rafters. Men came whooping out with brimming mugs; one brought a dripping leather jack to Fulbert, who laughed and drank to their prowess. Nor was Hélie neglected; a magnanimous rascal thrust a mug under his disdainful nose, and at his rejection happily contrived to spill half its contents over his chest before hoisting the remainder to his own lips. Hélie would have given a year's rents for hand or foot free to knock his teeth down his gullet after it.
The situation was still unchancy. The woman had scrambled away from the wreckers and now stood by the door, hitching her gown perfunctorily together. Her face mottled red and white, quite uncowed, she was incoherently mingling threats and demands for payment. It only wanted some fool more vindictive than his fellows to kick the fire into the rushes, or to silence her too forcefully with a stool-leg. As Fulbert must be uneasily aware, there was still law in England, and a discredited and unemployed mercenary could not afford to forget it. He glanced from Hélie's face of grim contempt to the lady's grimmer one, and his voice cut through the tumult.
'Have you not drunk the barrel dry, you apprentice toss-pots? We have lingered too long!'
'Captain's wedding-day!' a ribald voice reminded from the dim ale house. 'Hey, lads, he has a right to be impatient!'
'Here's a new barrel untapped!' shouted another. 'Are we to leave it to profit this bitch?'
'Stave it in, Giles! Throw her in it!'
'Too good to waste on her, Jacques!'
'Hey, fetch it along to drink to the captain's marriage!'
A cheer greeted that happy inspiration, and the routiers trundled the barrel through the doorway. Past Fulbert's head Hélie caught the woman's venomous eye, nodded to the snivelling boy at her side, and jerked his head slightly backwards in the direction of Trevaine. She must know him, at least by description, and she might very well be moved by pure and sincere vindictiveness to set retribution in motion against Fulbert. She vouchsafed him no sign of comprehension or acquiescence, but continued to screech pungent curses in very adequate French. The assault on her property seemed to affront her more deeply than the assault on her person, and her occupation had endowed her with a rich and salty vocabulary.
The routiers seized a couple of long poles from her pile of timber, wove a cat's cradle of rope between them, tenderly nested the barrel within it and slung it between two of their mounts, which did not gladly accept the imposition. They upended one of the outside benches and heaved it through the thatch, and rammed the other through the flimsy wattle and daub wall, as a farewell gesture to their hostess. They got to horse in high good humour and, wafted on a beery gale of their own cheers, left her shaking her fists and shrieking maledictions after them.
‘May it boil in your bellies and melt your guts away! May it burn—'
They drowned her strident curses by bawling an indelicate ditty that scorched Hélie with fury and shame that a gently-bred virgin should be compelled to hear it, and jogged joyfully along the track to Whittleham, delighted with the entertainment she had offered.
The ale-barrel proved the most pestilential nuisance that ever incommoded a man in a hurry. It jammed at every bend, and the miserable track to Whittleham twisted like an inebriated snake; the horses baulked; the lashings slipped, and one pole sagged alarmingly under the burden and threatened to drop it into the dust at any moment. Fulbert tolerated it for less than a mile. At the first open space
by the wayside he reined in and halted the troop, accepting the inevitable with mingled exasperation and resignation.
‘We will bait the horses and drink that accursed ale,' he pronounced, and another cheer welcomed his decision. The barrel was trundled over to the shade of a spreading oak and set up in triumph, routiers affectionately slapping its rotund flanks. The horses were tethered in a shady patch of grass to one side of the little glade, and the three prisoners separately herded to its centre. Fulbert, jealously close to his bride's indifferent shoulder, jerked a thumb at Gino, who was hustled away, pushed down with his back to a tree's bole and roped to it.
Fulbert lounged closer to Hélie. ‘I appreciate the honour you do me by attending my marriage, Lord Hélie, but a reasonable man would be on his way home by now.'
‘You are not yet married.'
‘And you cherish hopes of snatching my bride from the marriage-bed? But you have your heiress, my lord. Consider my sore necessity, and leave me mine.’ He grinned at Hélie’s black frown, and beckoned Baldwin, with his hands full of tangled rope. 'Since you insist on discomfort.’
That was a minor matter in a long reckoning. Hélie submitted to being backed against the oak, and Baldwin passed a rope from one wrist to the other behind it and hauled tight. 'If he wasn’t so fat a ransom I’d say cut his throat,’ he growled over his shoulder to his captain.
'He goes free once I am surely wedded. My bride’s dower will compensate.’
'But he killed Herbert!’ protested Baldwin, sorting another end of rope from the remains of the barrel-sling.
'The stallion killed him. If you mourn him, mourn his clumsiness.’
'But the waste—’
'I cannot afford war with Trevaine, and still less a blood-feud with his successor!’ the mercenary candidly explained his lapse.
'You were of another mind when you set Herbert to murder me!’
'Lord Hélie, you insult me if you reckon that miserable bungle my work!’
During the dispute Durande had drifted a couple of paces aside from Fulbert, and stood rather forlornly, her head bent, beside a mass of straggling bushes. Hélie took a quick look at her while Baldwin sullenly passed another rope round his chest and a third about his thighs, making unnecessarily sure of him. Perhaps her high courage was weakening at last; she was but a maid of sixteen, and desolately helpless. As he watched her, hoping that she would look up and meet his eye, she put out a hand and plucked a leaf, rolling and shredding it in nervous fingers. At the tiny jerk and rustle Fulbert flung round. She dropped it and plucked another in an absent, aimless way, as though her hands must have something, however futile, to occupy them. A protective, compassionate fury burned in Hélie, exacerbated by his own helplessness to aid her. All he had done was to get himself ignominiously trussed up like a fowl for the spit.
'Take heart, my lady!’ said Fulbert bracingly. 'You will find me at least an improvement on Robert of Warby!’
She plucked another leaf, and bit her lip to steady it.
'Let her go, you ravishing bastard!’ snarled Hélie, torn to the vitals by her forlorn air and aimless hands.
'I cannot afford to. A troop takes a deal of supporting. And what advancement can be attained, when the King goes to war, by a captain without a troop?’ He turned to the lady, smiling at the first fissure in her hard composure. 'Reconcile yourself, my lady,’ he said amicably to her rigid back. 'I shall cherish you as my most valuable asset, and I swear you shall never be dismal. We should suit very well.’ He reached a hand to her arm.
She swung from the contamination of his touch. The only emotion in her face was cold contempt, that frosted her clear deep voice.
‘It will suit me very well to be a widow, and after this I need feel no compunction in making myself yours.’
A grisly silence stilled them. Not a routier dared to snigger, but gaped with eyes a-start and jaws dropped. Her words were neither boast nor threat, but a sure promise. Hélie locked his teeth on a fierce cheer, and felt his pulses bound in hot approval. Fulbert, for once deprived of speech, stared as blankly as a carved gargoyle for a long moment, before he achieved an unconvincing grin.
‘I must keep your hands from edged tools for a week or so, my fair bride.’
‘No need. I have but to plait a cord of my hair, and put it about your neck the first time you come to bed drunk.’
Hélie chuckled aloud. ‘And if he stays sober too long, lady, a firelog at the nape of his neck will lay him at your feet!’
‘That is worth remembering,’ she answered gravely, lifting her eyes for a moment to his grinning face. Another shredded leaf fell from her fingers.
‘By all Hell’s devils,’ swore Fulbert, ‘if I let myself be scared by a maid’s threats I shall be the laughing-stock of England!’ She plucked a leaf, and Fulbert regarded her back with a baffled look. Abducted maidens wept and pleaded, called on their kinsmen for vengeance or succumbed to violent hysterics; the most experienced raptor might wonder how to deal with one who coolly promised to murder him at the first opportunity. Fury flashed across his face, and then he caught at self-control and his customary attitude of unconcerned mockery. His men were listening with ears at stretch, nudging and whispering, and the ale-barrel stood unbroached and forgotten. He turned on them.
‘By Hell’s Gate, have you lugged that ale here to neglect it for a pair of insolent brats who would be rightly served if I took my belt to them? Fill up your guts with it in place of your courage, and let us be on the way!'
Sheepishly they set about breaking the barrel-head out. Fulbert stayed by the girl, so that he could be on her in one stride if she broke away, but she kept her back resolutely turned and occasionally plucked a leaf. But it was not aimless; no act of hers would be that. Hélie was the only person in a position to watch her hands. He saw, and turned head and eyes to the routiers busy at the barrel, lest he draw Fulbert's attention to her by a too-close regard.
The bush had thin straggling stems, small oval leaves, and round black berries. While her right hand occasionally worried a leaf, Durande's left hand deftly gathered the soft fruit, under the unobservant noses of Fulbert and his routiers. Hélie had no knowledge of simples and was ignorant of the virtues of that shrub, but he instantly divined her intentions and determined to further them. His heart-beats quickened slightly.
Fulbert's ruffians seemed to have lost some of their zest for unbought ale. They produced an assortment of mugs looted with it and plunged them into the barrel, but they kept turning dubious glances on their captain and his intended bride. After its recent agitation Hélie would have reckoned the ale scarcely drinkable, but apparently routiers were not fussy what they poured down their gullets. Fulbert grinned and rallied them, and if Hélie also suspected he was rallying himself, he did not betray it.
‘What, no toast to my happy nuptials?'
The man Baldwin answered for his fellows. ‘The lady has already accounted for one husband,' he said bluntly.
‘Not she!' Fulbert declared confidently. ‘I do not chance poison in my cup! Heart up, you poor stockfish! Any griping in my guts will not be of her procuring!'
Durande had turned from the bush, her closed hands by her sides. Briefly her eyes caught Hélie's, wide and dark in a pale tightly-controlled face. He acted.
‘You must have good reason to be so sure!' his hard voice cut through the beginnings of relieved laughter and checked it. Fulbert swung round.
‘What's that? Reason?' he demanded harshly.
‘You know her guiltless—for the best of reasons?'
For a heart-beat's space he thought he recognized honest bewilderment in Fulbert's face, and then sheer snarling fury extinguished all else. ‘You hell-spewed whelp, you dare accuse—No!'
From the corner of his eye he had glimpsed Durande's movement. He made an astonishing leap from a standing start, like a pouncing leopard. He seized her by one arm and swung her round and back from the bushes. She cried out and tried to wrench away, and as he loosed her, s
taggered sideways, tripped over her skirt, and lurched against the ale-barrel. One of her reaching arms splashed into the murky fluid. The barrel shifted slightly but withstood the impact, and many anxious hands steadied it. Fulbert advanced gallantly to aid the lady, and she swung her dripping arm wildly at his face, evaded him as he ducked, and dropped to her knees against the bush. She covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders shook.
It had been beautifully done. The routiers were grinning as they plunged again into the barrel and drank to their captain's nuptials. Fulbert was grinning as he accepted a mug slopping full of dubious fluid and downed half of it in acknowledgement of their indelicate congratulations. He strolled grinning to Hélie and raised the mug in ironical salute.
‘Did you reckon it worth trying, you poor silly brats?' he inquired with large and wounding tolerance. ‘And for your information, Lord Hélie, I did not poison Robert de Warby. Why the devil should I?'
‘The devil you serve might answer that!' Hélie answered savagely, but won no sign that his spur pricked home; no reaction, in fact, but a lifted eyebrow. Fulbert drained his mug, grimaced slightly, and pitched it neatly into a pair of eager hands. ‘I would not commend the brewing, nor has the journey improved it,' he remarked lightly, spitting to clear his tongue of sediment. He looked somewhat impatiently at his ruffians, who did not pretend to a like fastidiousness.
It was ebb tide in the barrel. The men scooped and slopped happily, their spirits rising as the ale sank. They drank to their captain, they drank to his bride, they drank to her dowry that would keep them in employment and ale through the foreseeable future. Growing magnanimous as their potations alleviated the discomforts of wet clothing, they even drank to Hélie for a bold young blunderer and the kind of adversary it was a pleasure to defeat. They were by no means inebriated, for their capacity was prodigious and their heads seasoned to the consistency of old oak, but they were enjoying themselves mightily. Fulbert regarded them resignedly. Hélie, who had some slight experience of routiers and the impossibility of denying them what they reckoned their rights, was maliciously delighted at his predicament.
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