Fulbert accepted the position and issued orders. Bread, cheese, cold meat and apples emerged from saddle-bags, and the men settled down to what would plainly be a prolonged halt. The mercenary again offered Hélie liberty for his promise not to escape, and after his rejection would have freed his hands to let him eat had he not coldly refused to break bread with him. Lady Durande sat bowed under the bush in an attitude of utter despair. After a fruitless attempt to rally her, he left her alone. The glade grew quiet, the traffic about the barrel diminished. The men sprawled munching, talking and laughing. Dice appeared. Flies buzzed about the ale. Hélie waited with intense curiosity for whatever Durande had devised to reach its appointed consummation.
A man near the barrel set down his mug, an expression of unease upon that part of his face visible between helmet and bristles. He thoughtfully rubbed his belly, and then swigged down more ale to dispel his qualms. They were not amenable to this treatment, for his unease rapidly grew to acute distress. He withdrew discreetly into the bushes, whence issued distressful sounds. Scarcely had he returned, wry-faced and adjusting his garments, to the grins and crude condolences of his comrades, than another was overtaken by similar pangs and retired into the undergrowth.
When a third ruffian succumbed to the same affliction men began to sit up and regard each other and the ale-barrel with uncomfortable surmise. Fluxes were common enough, and in camp and siege indeed slew more than enemy weapons, but this visitation coming so aptly upon its cue directed their minds towards its likeliest source. Man after man betrayed in his dismayed face that the mischief was at work in his entrails, and apprehensively looked upon the muddy liquid in the barrel.
‘Devil take it,’ said Baldwin plaintively, ‘I've often enough swilled new ale until my guts were awash without hurt! What's amiss with it?’ With a woeful yelp he joined the exodus to the bushes.
‘The ale-wife’s are curses of power, it is plain!’ Hélie tossed his mite into the discussion before anyone could recall Durande’s contact with the ale.
‘Curses?’ Fulbert rounded incredulously upon him.
‘These parts are notorious for witches. Have you provoked one?’
‘Witchcraft!’ yammered a knave, pressing both hands to his belly. ‘God save us, she said it would burn our guts out!’ Grey with terror, he too retreated in haste.
A clamour of fear and wrath arose. The berries were working their will upon all; only Fulbert, who had drunk but the one draught, was so far unaffected. Dread of sorcery gripped him as it did his men; white-faced he gazed helplessly about him. Then he raised a furious yell. Durande had vanished.
Hélie, who had watched her slip soundlessly round the berried bush while his alarm of witchcraft gripped their wits, smothered a grin. She was a lady of rare resource, and he was proud to have taken even a minor share in her exploit. Fulbert, shouting to his routiers, plunged into the undergrowth, leaving only a couple of men to guard their remaining captives. Hélie heard them threshing through the bushes, ranging in all directions for a sight of her or a trace of her passage, calling to and fro. Some came to the road and ran both ways along it. He heard no howl of triumph, and privately reckoned that unless she were utterly witless, a girl in grey-brown homespun could evade pursuit for a week in these woods. He exchanged grins with Gino. The guards scowled at both of them, and one dived for the bushes.
As the uselessness of their endeavours beat its way through their pride’s armour the routiers straggled back, angry and shamed and in physical misery. Durande’s juice was inexorable in their bowels, and in the torment of their outraged guts they had lost all their enthusiasm for their captain’s marriage.
A howl from one of the last stragglers drew a couple who were still capable of the effort towards the road, but it was no hunting-call to summon them after a sighted quarry. They returned lugging a senseless comrade by the heels, and dumped him near the barrel, indignantly calling to their fellows’ attention a swollen knot at the base of his skull and his lack of belt, sword and dagger. The demoiselle had not merely escaped them; she had lain in wait for a pursuer, clouted him down with an improvised club and armed herself, an unnatural procedure of which they righteously disapproved.
Fulbert returned last of all. Affliction had overtaken him likewise, by the sheen of sweat on his swarthy skin, yellow over pallor, and the extreme care of his carriage. He stood over the twitching body listening to the eloquence spilled about a woman who failed to comport herself with seemliness when abducted, a very angry man. His studied composure, his mocking humour, even normal prudence, had entirely deserted him. He turned viciously on his men, his voice biting like hot iron.
‘Hell's devils, where were your eyes? And your wits in your bellies, drowned in bewitched ale and voided in your dung? She is clear away! Your hogs' greed and folly has cost me the rump-end of a county!'
He had conveniently forgotten his own share in that lapse. They roused to snarl resentment, too wretched to do more. They humped dispiritedly about the glade like sick poultry, heeding naught but the griping misery devastating their inwards. Earthly weapons they would have scorned, but terror of witchcraft had reduced them to pithless cravens. Fulbert, whose courage was harder and whose own bowels were less direly afflicted, spat an appropriate obscenity at them and turned his menace on Hélie.
‘My ransom will be poor consolation,' that young man grinned provocatively. Fulbert lifted clenched fists, his face livid with fury, and for a breath's space Hélie expected a blow in the face. The mercenary restrained himself forcibly from that irretrievable insanity, breathing jerkily through distended nostrils. Over his shoulder Hélie saw Gino suddenly stiffen like a dog scenting a cony. Vastly interested, he watched him gather his legs under him, rise unimpeded to his feet, step casually round the tree he had been roped to and vanish. Delight rose in him like a fountain. He was suddenly enjoying this adventure mightily, and generously shared his enjoyment with Fulbert.
‘Now God be praised for all I have seen this day!' he proclaimed. ‘A ransom is small price for such a tale to tell!'
Fulbert choked. ‘By Hell's Gate, I—you—shut your mouth before I beat your teeth into it!'
Hélie continued mercilessly. ‘It is ill done to woo with spears and lose. Every greasy scullion and barefoot brat will snigger at sight of you. Minstrels will make songs of it—'
Fulbert, speechless and all but witless with sheer rage, jerked hack his arm and then checked his fist, not quite witless enough lo strike the Lord of Trevaine in the face. Hélie coolly went on.
‘All men will laugh themselves sick to hear of the ruthless mercenary, outwitted by a maid, while his routiers squat like ducks in a ditch—though they lay no eggs.’
That fetched a growl out of the miserable ruffians, and brought Fulbert to the verge of apoplexy. None had even noticed that Gino was missing, nor should while his tongue could command attention. Hélie stood against the tree with his tawny mane on end and his lion's eyes ablaze, discoursing righteousness.
‘There is meat here for a sermon had I the art of preaching. A noble heiress exchanged for an ale-barrel, and the flux as penance.’ A tethered horse tossed its head and whickered uneasily. He shook his head pitifully, and said gently to the congested face snarling into his, ‘I had expected—'
A wild screech tore the words apart. A horse squealed. Men started up. The horses plunged and stamped. Gino was perched like a monkey in Fulbert's own saddle, grinning like an imp from the pit as he slashed with Fulbert's whip. Then fingers touched Hélie's hand, the ropes successively tugged and fell slack, and as Gino stormed across the glade driving loose horses before him and screeching like a singed cat, Hélie lunged forward with a joyful roar. Overset routiers went rolling and scrambling. Hélie sprang upon Fulbert, his knotted fist swinging up in one ferocious blow under his breastbone that lifted him from his feet and his senses. Before he could fall Hélie snatched him up in a gleeful embrace, took two steps forward and pitched him head-foremost into the ale-barrel, which to
ppled in a tidal wave of ale.
Gino hauled Tancred back on his haunches beside him. Hélie vaulted into the saddle, caught the reins tossed to him, yelled derisively and plunged away. Three strides, and Durande was running alongside, flinging up her arms. He stooped, caught her round the body and with a grunt heaved her up before him in a flurry of skirts. She laughed and clutched his shoulder. They crashed through bushes and bracken, her hair flying across his face, loose horses squealing all about them and faint cries behind to quicken their laughter.
9
THE driven horses slowed of their own accord, and they pulled to a halt, laughing like children. Durande twisted from Hélie's hold, supple and finely-muscled as a boy, and took her palfrey by the bridle, stroking the muzzle that nudged at her breast. Hélie swung down and thankfully resumed his sword-belt, while Gino gathered reins over his shoulder and stowed away his recovered sling. The lady gravely presented to him the short sword she had won, but the dagger, a stout and unfeminine weapon, she attached to her own belt. Hélie made no comment; if she felt happier with steel under her hand she had reason. They grinned at each other.
"They will not pursue either fast or far,’ Hélie observed. 'What under Heaven did you put in the ale. Lady Durande?'
'Buckthorn.'
'Not harmful?'
'It will but purge them of all within save their sins.'
They tied up the reins of the captured horses and loosed them to find their own way home to Whittleham. The afflicted routiers might limp home or hunt them as they chose; light-heartedly the three found the track and cantered gently towards the ale-house at the crossroads.
'My compliments; it was an education to witness your chastisement of abductors,' Hélie said, freeing his wrists of the cut ends of rope and grinning at the lady like an urchin.
She glanced at him rather warily. 'It was no offence to your knightly pride?' she asked with the blunt honesty he had learned to expect of her.
'Oh, the rescuer rescued?' The thought had never entered his thick head. 'My dear girl, I would not have missed it for a year's rents!' And he bowed his head almost to his horse's mane in a rib-straining agony of laughter. When he had mopped his eyes with his sleeve enough to see, she was laughing too, her square strong face alight. Her wimple was gone, her hair disordered and her face smeared with earth, the deplorable gown dragged awry, splattered with ale and embellished with dirt and scraps of vegetation, but she had no heed for such matters, and in the sunlight her hair was living flame.
‘Lord of Heaven, yours was a nurse worth having!' he declared.
‘She was Oliver's, not mine,' she disclaimed.
His eyebrows lifted. ‘But she taught you her art?'
She shrugged. ‘She had use for an assistant, and I wished to learn. But she was a woman easier feared than loved, and even Lord Eustace used her respectfully.'
‘And your cousin?'
‘Oliver was her nurseling. His mother—my mother's sister— died at his birth, and she suckled him. Her own child died, and she gave him all her love. He was welcome to it!'
‘Why was she feared?' Hélie asked abruptly, all amusement suddenly gone as cold awareness touched his mind with a chill linger.
‘Folk called her witch.'
‘Was she?'
She considered it soberly, her dark eyes steady on his intent l ace. ‘I do not know. All I had of her was craft of simples. Beyond that was neither trust nor liking.'
So her clear honesty had sensed corruption of some sort. Hélie wondered momentarily whether witchcraft were becoming an obsession with him, but it was likely enough, and his spiritual nose seemed to have developed an extra sensitivity to that taint.
‘Why does it matter?' the girl asked; she had missed none of the varying expressions that crossed his face. With a swift shock of surprise he realized that all his entanglement in sorcery had happened since he spoke with her last night. Soberly he recounted it, and she heard him in silence. Then she cut straight to the heart of the matter.
‘So the devil-man poisoned Robert, and he is either Fulbert of Falaise or my cousin.'
‘I lay my wager on Fulbert. He tried to kill me, he was in the ruin this morning—and frankly, I do not think your cousin has the guts for murder.'
‘He is not valorous,' she agreed, unoffended, ‘if his adversary can strike back.’ Hélie had yet to see her show any feeling for her kinsmen but distaste. Her lips parted as though she would say more, but then the road opened to the clearing and the crossroads ale-house, and Hélie exclaimed aloud. Before its doorway stood the woman and the lad in vehement conversation with a traveller, a big tawny fellow with a bow thrust through his belt. He turned a familiar face to them and yelped in astonishment.
He came hastening to meet them as they dismounted, his face at once relieved and perturbed. Hélie tossed his reins to Gino, clapped him on the shoulder and briskly presented him.
'Lady Durande, my half-brother Stephen. What wind blew you here?'
'A devil's wind I reckon, Lord Hélie. But the woman said you were taken prisoner?'
'Behold me free again.' That tale was no matter now; the urgency that brought Stephen after him demanded his attention. Near at hand a sorry gelding stood head-down and dispirited, bridled but saddleless, his sweating sides betraying hard but not injudicious usage. Gino jerked an arm imperatively at the gawky boy, standing uselessly with his mouth ajar, and he shambled to them, took the bridles and led the horses to the open stable behind the house, where another nag was already standing. The woman had not moved, but watched with a hard and measuring eye. She had not sent the boy for aid, and she was no fool to have missed his signal; he could count these no friends of his, and waited until the boy was out of earshot.
'What is amiss, Stephen?'
Stephen grimaced. 'Dunno, Lord Hélie, but it stunk to my nose and I reckoned it best to follow you. After you'd rid out after the lady here—' he ducked a jerky little bow to Durande, '—Robert o' Warby's leman, the one that went wi' the old witch to meet the Devil, she hurries up to the cottage. Then she scuttles up-village to the mill and a jabber wi' the miller's wife. And afore she was past the forge on the way back, the miller's good-for-naught son goes riding the same road you took on his father's grey, and this the busiest season at the mill and even his feckless carcase needed! So feeling uneasy in my mind, I borrowed a nag and followed. Not that he's up to my weight, but he served.' He gave the gelding a disparaging glance. 'And all the more uneasy I got as I rode, for he’s asked about you along the way, which he’s no call to do unless he meant you mischief, you being no lord of his nor aught else to him. And work on the mill from cock-crow to full dark these days!’ He paused to draw breath and scowl at the ale-house.
'When I reaches here, there he is, a mug in his fist and in talk wi’ the ale-wife, and his nag yonder in the shed. And no sooner does he clap eyes on me than he drops his ale and ducks into the woods like a fox, which shows right enough he was up to no good! And yon thick-bottomed lump reckons she knows naught o’ him and turns dumb-stupid when I asks questions! I was about ready to clout her sulky head when you rides in, and thankful I was to see you!’
Hélie looked thoughtfully at the brawny woman, remembering her truculent courage. 'Now was the miller’s son bearing word for this ale-wife, or did he but halt for refreshment on the way?’
‘His nag is in the shed,’ Stephen pointed out shrewdly. ‘He’d not put it up if he did but swill the dust from his throttle.’
'It is past the dinner-hour; he might have stopped to bait.’ He looked again at the scowling woman, and the awkward lad who bad joined her, his wits racing. By challenging the two witches this morning he must have rung alarm through their whole foul company, and they might have deemed it urgent to send a messenger after Fulbert with warning. The woman here could be one of the sisterhood, admirably placed to gather and disseminate news. On the other hand the messenger, learning that Hélie had been captured by Fulbert, might well reckon it imprudent to overtake h
is master and deliver his warning before that dangerous witness.
He decided quickly. With no evidence one way or the other it would be folly to challenge this woman, and any female who remained undaunted when menaced by half a dozen routiers set on rape was most unlikely to render up information at his bidding. She had stepped inside the doorway, but as he approached she emerged, suspicious and wary. Some start had been made towards repairing the harm done; the benches had been righted, the furniture within set in place, the ale-sodden rushes raked outside into a reeking pile. Inside a lonely barrel stood on its trestle.
' ’Save you!’ Hélie greeted her in good English. She dropped a perfunctory curtsey and muttered some response. ‘Your ale direly afflicted the guts of those who stole it. For that buckthorn added by the lady here was responsible, but as they blamed your curses I warn you to be elsewhere when they return.’
A fleeting satisfaction, a mere tightening of her mouth, showed and was gone. She bobbed again, and jabbed the gawky youth with her elbow so that he offered a graceless bow. She forced a proper acknowledgement of his condescension from her unpractised tongue. ‘Indeed, good m’lord, I thanks you most grateful.’ She twisted her hands in her stained and crumpled apron. ‘I've not a drop fit to offer you, m’lord. Them randy bastards overset the barrel, and I've naught till I brews again.’
‘What did you provide the miller’s son from Warby?’ Stephen demanded harshly.
‘Dregs o’ the bottom. Ye’d not set them mucky drainings afore m’lord?’
‘What did he want here?’ Hélie asked, lifting a hand to quell Stephen.
‘A sup and a bite, m’lord.’
‘What was his errand?’
‘Dunno, m’lord. I buys my malt in Etherby mostly.’ Her rough red hands were still entwined in her apron, but she stood solidly on her two feet and faced him doggedly. The gawky youth had apparently been overtaken by complete paralysis, which had frozen him with mouth agape and eyes expressive as a pair of gooseberries. Hélie knew he would get no more out of them if he tried until the morrow’s noon, and he had no mind to exhaust his temper and prestige by attempting it. Neither would he grant them reason to despise him.
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