"One year, a troop of players came to our village. I saw how people love a show, a spectacle. I saw how one man may dress and act as another and become a different person, even a woman. I remembered it all."
"You have your grandfather's memory."
Ranulf traced the red line of an old scar in the centre of her palm, a slow, tingling semi-caress that made her think of other things than her story.
"Were you a smith because of your grandfather?"
Blinking, Edith forced her attention back, down the years. "I was to be a midwife, like my mother. I helped her and my granddad and father. I was either with her, going to women in the villages, or at the forge."
"Not much time for play."
"Had you, as a page?"
"Not a bit," Ranulf chuckled, then he frowned. "I never thought of it till now. How old were you when you married?”
“Ten and four.”
“To Adam. Then you were widowed?”
She nodded.
“So you would be more independent and, as his widow, would be required to continue in his trade. Was that before the great death came?”
“Yes.”
“Then you were betrothed to another?”
“Yes, when I was ten and nine. To Peter, who brought new tools and another anvil to the forge.” Remembering, Edith felt herself blush. On the morning of their betrothal, Peter had laid her over that anvil and taken her that way, with her old, patched woollen skirts around her middle, to “seal the deal,” as he put it. It had been very early, before the rest of the village were stirring. The anvil had dug against her middle but even so, she had found her taking pleasurable. She had hoped Peter might do that again, but he never had, preferring to have her ride him. Save for that time when she had been sick and he had insisted....
“Did he die before you were married?” Ranulf broke into her less-than-happy thoughts.
“Peter drowned two nights before our marriage in our lord‘s fish-pond,” Edith admitted. That was all she wanted to say.
Ranulf studied her a moment, then he tugged her long plait of hair. "Do the women of the Indies wear their hair thus?"
Grateful for the respite, Edith answered, "So my granddad told me."
"And you remembered, because you loved him and you were his favourite, the one with whom he shared his adventures." Ranulf counted off on his fingers. "You had the silks, the knowledge of the east, the skill of a smith, the wisdom of a wise-woman. You put it together to make yourself a shield: Lady of the Lilies, the Princess of Cathay."
"The rich and the royal are never questioned," Edith said, raising her chin. Did he expect her to feel ashamed? "It worked well for us."
"It did indeed!"
"It gave us a chance at a new life."
"And how did that happen? Was it the pestilence that drove you out of your homes?”
So easy then for her to lie, to agree. It would avoid more questions. Edith opened her mouth to say yes.
"Our overlord feared illness," she heard herself say. "He saw how the great death came, striking all, spreading, sparing few."
"He abandoned you and fled," Ranulf said, his face rigid with distaste.
"He drove us." Edith was suddenly back inside the church at Warren Hemlet, feeling suffocated. A warm hand drew her outside again and a warm mouth kissed her cheek and chin, returning her to the present.
"Take a taste of ale." Ranulf shook a flask before her face. "You need say no more, unless you wish to." he squeezed her hand. "If you spot him again at a tourney, point him out. What he did was a shameless thing, without honour. What is his name?"
Edith shook her head, wary of admitting who it was. The habit of secrecy still held her, and Giles and Ranulf had once been close, after all. And she had a more urgent question, touching directly on herself. "But you understand?"
He smiled and hope blossomed again in her, warming her.
"I understand that your lord deserted you, expelled you and your fellow villagers off lands that you had held by custom for all your lives. I understand that you, my clever, bold little maid, used your wits and what you had to hand to make new lives for yourself and others."
"You approve?"
But that was too large a wish. She sensed rather than felt his slight withdrawal, even as he answered at once. “You did what you felt was needful.
“It must have taken careful preparation,” he went on, giving her no time to respond. “How many souls joined you? The whole village? Did you cut across fields to escape notice?”
“Yes and yes.” She wanted to ask again if he understood, but dare not in case he thought her tedious. Instead she told him of those villagers who had chosen to travel to other parts and stay there, for better terms. Those, who, when they passed through other hamlets, had found new lands to farm, lands deserted by all previous owners and tenants. She told of how they had found the war-horse Hector in the barn, starving and thirsty, and how she had hoped to give Hector's former master a drink, before she had to accept that he was dead—dead of the pestilence, like so many others.
"How did you come to jousts and the tourney?"
She wondered how she could explain. "For the show and the spectacle, where everything is bright," she said slowly. "Out in the world of farms and fields where we had lived, all seemed to be dying. What then, the purpose in planting, or in waiting for the harvest, or in gathering or making anything? The tourney, in contrast, seemed a world of fairy, untouched by death. Did you think only knights crave honour and glory?"
"Not any more." Ranulf kissed her scared hands. "Have your people changed much? Do they like it?"
Edith nodded, thinking of Teodwin.
"Will they miss it?"
"I do not know," Edith answered, thinking of herself. "They will not be forced into their old pasts, their old crafts?"
"Not by me." Ranulf made his words a vow. "Let their new talents show, for me."
He chuckled. "Did you expect me to protest? A true knight, one who fights, sees such changes on the battlefield every day: squires becoming knights, men-at-arms becoming captains. Why waste skill?"
He saw relief shine out in her face. She cared so much for her people, it touched him. As for the rest—he thought of the stricken village they had both seen, and of the half-starved "Many" with her deformed, dead infant. Edith had indeed done what was needed to survive.
"I love you," he said. "Nothing you have said, or will say, could change that."
It is not Edith's words but her actions that disconcert me.
He had no time to consider that thought—Edith had cast herself into her arms, saying a mass of exclamations in her own dialect, forgetting he understood not a word. He caught her against him, feeling her shivering, realizing then how much she had feared his reaction, his possible rejection.
"Hush, hush." Her terror appalled him—was he so much a judge? Did she not know by now that he meant what he said? He loved her.
I do, too, but not those lies. She has played us all and lied for weeks. To tell a lie is against all knightly conduct, but she has done so again and again. How now will I know, for sure, really for sure, that she is ever telling truth?
Chapter 28
Still she clung to him. He could feel her tears soaking into his tunic.
"Listen!"
He heard it, too: the silence. It hung over the churchyard, desolate as a soaring raven.
"Not good," he muttered. "We cannot wait for sunset, it seems. We should move on from here now."
Edith chewed anxiously on her lower lip, the first time he had seen that tell. "Maria will be able to walk, but she will be slow. She will not be able to dive and hide."
"I or Teodwin could go ahead." He disliked that plan, for it would mean them separating, in his experience always a fatal course in enemy country.
Enemy country. God's breath! This is what we have come to, in England!
"Can we not go together?" She knelt up, glancing about. “Is there a donkey or mule hereabouts we can have Ma
ria ride?”
A freckled, bearded face peeped out of the door of the priest’s house. “Edith? Should we not be going?" hissed Teodwin. "I worry for our youngsters and ‘Many’. She will be wondering where I am.”
“Is the baby quiet?” Edith whispered back.
Teodwin nodded and pushed open the door, to show Maria standing beside him with her baby in her arms. She was wincing as she shifted from side to side, clearly uncomfortable with standing, but she was dressed and ready to go.
Ranulf took charge. This was rather like being in Normandy or France: he had moved camps there, including womenfolk. Of course, he had soldiers in France, but he would have soldiers again, once he had slipped Edith and the others out of this settlement.
"Cover yourself," he told her, his woman, his prize. He gave her his cloak to do so, making a jest of it. "Another cloak you have cost me, eh?"
She blushed but took the garment meekly enough, tucking her long hair out of sight and wrapping it snugly around her distinctive, eye-catching costume, leaving the hood low over her head so it hid her face.
He pointed at the steward. "Is that tunic as bright turned inside out? 'Tis that, or smearing it with dung: the colour blazes too much."
Grumbling, Teodwin ducked back inside the hut.
"We make for the woods," Ranulf said. He nodded to Maria. "Can you carry your child?"
Maria glanced at her sleeping baby and brushed a fallen wisp of thatch from the infant's head: a "yes," so far as Ranulf was concerned.
He beckoned to the two women, relieved when they began to walk to him. The steward could catch them up but he wanted no freezing fits or hysterics. That ominous silence in the churchyard might not last too much longer.
A narrow strip of a path wove away from the village to the nearby woods. Looking over Edith’s head, he measured the distance to the cover of the limes and hazels to be the length of a bow-shot. It was too far, really, for comfort, but they had no choice.
"Edith." Her jerked his head to the trees, relieved when she did not ask again of any donkey—which would take too long to find—and set off at once. Maria waddled after her and he brought up the rear, his wits and nerves on edge with every step.
What was happening in that churchyard? What was going on in the castle, or the camp? Where the devil were his men? They should be searching for him. Or had they, like Sir Henry and his friends, been overwhelmed?
They passed a well, Edith giving a discernible shudder as she glanced down into the dark water. Did she remember the well at the pestilence-stricken village? A shadow flitted across the path ahead of her and she started forward, running toward the possible danger, the mad girl. Sprinting, he overtook Maria and her, almost colliding with a wandering pig that squealed a loud, ear-splitting indignation at being disturbed. He shooed the pig off, into a hut with an open door, and braced himself for running men and a hue-and-cry.
There was nothing: it was a false scare. Edith picked up the pace anew, striding by the entrance to another hut. At a third, she shook her head and put a finger to her lips. Ranulf spotted an elderly man sitting in the doorway of the hut, his toothless mouth wide in surprise. He copied Edith and put a finger to his mouth and the old man beamed happily.
Maria stumbled, catching her skirts against a discarded rake left in the middle of the track. Ranulf seized and steadied her, picked up the rake to fling it aside then kept it: it might make a handy weapon.
Behind him he heard a slight wheeze. Teodwin, his purple tunic turned inside out, had caught up with them.
One more to worry over....
Five paces ahead, Edith stopped and made a downward motion with her hands. As she crouched amidst old winter bracken and brambles, Teodwin strode neatly off the track behind a holly bush but Maria remained standing in the middle of the path, sturdy as a stone pillar and as conspicuous. Ranulf shepherded the maid to a nearby wooden rack, possibly used for drying clothes or for drying fish, and urged her to remain still. If she did not move and her babe did not cry, her outline might not be spotted by whoever was coming.
A troop of darting, running men broke cover onto the track.
"Stay!" Ranulf warned the maid as he hurtled into the trees. The troop had not seen Edith, crouched small by a bramble, or Maria, blended with the drying-rack, or even the elderly steward, squirming tight against the holly, his dulled purple tunic looking like patches of early berries. Sprinting away from all three, he began to make a massive tumult amidst the hazels and elders, desperate to draw the men into pursuing him.
"Get him!" Two yelled and crashed into the undergrowth, slashing wildly with ladles and spits—they were cook boys, he realized.
"The North!" He bawled his battle cry, snatching up a fallen crab apple from the dry, dusty grass and hurling it at the crashing youngsters.
The crab hit the lead youth in the face who had not had wit to avoid it: these were no warriors, they were beardless lads, probably servants from castle Fitneyclare.
A mob all the same, his instinct warned. He fixed on the small, quick-footed, red-head in the midst of the pack who was roaring orders and slung a windfall at him. Sharper than the rest, the red-head ducked and it smacked against his shielding arm.
The troop did not charge all at once, as they should have done if they were to have any chance against him. Instead, in a collision of arms and legs, they stopped, yowling insults.
Ranulf tossed the rake from hand to hand. His back prickled at the thought of more of these truant lads doubling back onto the track and finding Edith or her maid, but that his only concern.
"Go back." He spoke between the insults, without adding any of his own. "I have no quarrel with you."
The two spit boys gripped their spits harder and brandished them, glancing at the others for support. The wiry red-head, who had more sense, scowled but looked thoughtful.
Ranulf took a step back. The troop did not follow. He began to turn altogether, intending to walk west, away from the village and the track. A white dog bounded through grass and saplings, showing its teeth but whisking its tail. When he stood his ground the dog flopped panting into the leaf-litter. Ignoring the beast, he listened hard, catching the distinctive drum-beat of cantering horses.
War horses, he guessed, as the ground began to shake. Already the lads were tossing aside their branches and fleeing. Jinking from tree to tree to make a chase harder and an arrow in the back less likely, Ranulf pounded toward the track and Edith.
"The North!"
"Rothency!"
Giles, resplendent in shining mail and plate armour, with his helmet graced by new favours and trailing ribbons, rode down the wooded hillside in a burst of glowing colour. Behind him were his men, almost as shining and well-horsed.
Full arms against boys? The thought, which before Edith would not have been his, swept over him in a wave of cold, hard anger. As he sped to Edith, raised her and shielded her with his body, he knew what Giles would claim.
Sure enough, he did.
"Well met, Ran!" he hollered in a cheery fashion, standing on his stirrups as he churned down the slope of hazel saplings. "I have saved your skin today from these misbegotten miscreants!"
Tormenting scullery lads, he finds us by accident and claims a victory!
“I thank you,” Ranulf said coolly, sensing Edith’s turn of her head, turning her face away from Giles. Part of his anger was for her, too. Still, it seemed, she did not trust him enough to say how and why and when she knew Giles—as it was obvious she did. “I am in your debt, man,” he ground out.
"I know." Giles was as sweet as honey. He settled back into his saddle and extended his foot. "My Lady of Lilies? Pray come up upon my horse. Allow me to escort you to your tent."
Ranulf cupped Giles's foot: the mail scraped his hand but he was too furious to care. "She is with me."
"We should leave, my lord," Edith said quickly, her head down, still averting her face from Giles. "We are both most anxious, I know, to return to our people. If those gathere
d in the churchyard choose to move against the camp —”
"They are not with you now? You have been unchaperoned with him, my lady?"
"My steward is with us and my maid —”
Ranulf felt as if his brains were beginning to boil. “Peace, Giles,” he growled, relieving a little of his feelings by tossing the rake out into the woodland beyond the closing ranks of horses and men. “I wager you are worse than a terrier on a rat with these pin-points of courtesy.”
Giles smirked, his eyes wide with malicious pleasure. “You wanted to be sure of your prize, Ran?”
"Damn you!" He grabbed for the stallion’s reins, determined to pitch Giles off his horse. The bay snorted and tossed its head and Edith, hiding her face with the flaps of her hood cried urgently, “We should all go, at once! What is the news from the castle, Sir Giles? And what is happening in the village now? 'Tis most vital we know.”
"I know nothing of Fitneyclare, my lady. I was concerned for you."
Ranulf, with lights of rage flashing before his eyes, tried to curb his temper. "As I said before, she is with me. You will be satisfied with that, Giles, or 'fore God, I will know the reason why."
Without waiting for a reply, he held out his hand. Edith took it, giving his fingers a reassuring squeeze, although she also gave him a curious look, part-puzzlement, part defiance, he thought.
He did not consider long. Giles's men encircled about them were closing in. He did not want to stay in this shrinking trap.
"Come, girl," he called to Maria. "Come, sir steward, before that holly tree claims more threads from you."
Taking great care not to crush Edith's hand, he pushed past Giles's great brown nag and set off for the path.
He dare not strike me down, not with his men and Teodwin and Maria and who knows else in this wood as witnesses.
Part of him was amazed that matters stood in this poor way between him and Giles. Mostly he was glad to be off.
Edith hurried to keep up with Ranulf. She wanted to stop, to ask Maria if she was all right, if she wanted her to carry the baby. She glanced at Teodwin, relieved the high colour was creeping back into his face. She sensed Ranulf clutching her fingers as tenderly as if she was an infant while his face was as dark as storm-clouds.
Love and Chivalry: Four Medieval Historical Romances Page 103