A Place Beyond Courage (57 page)
‘The morrow then.’ Benet wiped at a persistent trickle of blood oozing from a cut on his chin. He gave John an intense look. ‘What now?’
As they left the battlements, John gave the order to stand the men down apart from a token guard. ‘I’ll be damned if I’m going to surrender,’ he growled.
‘Then it’s a fight to the death,’ Benet said blankly.
John removed his helm and pushed down his coif and arming cap. ‘No. That would be of benefit to no one but Stephen. When Henry does arrive he will need his field commanders and experienced troops.’
Benet eyed the determined set of John’s lips and his mood lightened a little. His lord intended survival then, and wasn’t expecting them all to go down in a final welter of gory heroics.
‘We came in at night, we leave at night.’ John rubbed his scar. ‘On the morrow they can have this place. Nothing we do will prevent it now. Let all the men eat and drink well tonight and prepare themselves. Whatever supplies we leave behind must be ruined so that Stephen cannot use them. Burn what we can, have the men use the barrels of salt pork and fish for their latrine. Scatter caltrops across the hall floor and set gin traps in the barn. Wherever they walk, I want them to find trouble.’
Benet gave a grim smile. ‘Yes, my lord.’
Rubbing her arms, Sybilla fetched her cloak and, drawing it around her shoulders, sat before the hearth in her chamber. The September night was chilly and she felt as if cold fingers were stroking her bones. She threw another branch on the fire and watched the flames lick around the wood. It was pear from a rotten tree in the orchard and the wood carried a subtle fragrance that, as it burned, reminded her of other autumn nights. She carried a golden memory of sitting before the fire with John that first autumn of their marriage, roasting apples on the flames, drizzling them with honey, laughing as they tried to catch the drips and getting very sticky. Cleaning each other up. Sybilla smiled for a moment, but the memory, like a snatch of flame on a log, didn’t last.
She had been in the saddle most of the day, returning from Salisbury, but although she was tired, she couldn’t sleep because her thoughts were churning like an estuary mill when the tide was in. Newbury had been under siege for two months and she knew John must be growing ever more desperate. Occasionally he had managed to send a man over the palisade at night with a message and she had had her own scouts ride out to report from a distance on the state of the fight. Stephen obviously wasn’t going to give up and march away; he was settled in for the duration. Determined to do something, she had gone to Patrick to beg him to aid John, but the interview had been unproductive.
Patrick had been furious that she had dared the roads with the King’s Flemings in the vicinity, and he had given her request short shrift.
‘I cannot send aid to Newbury,’ he had said, raking his hand through his hair. ‘I’ve already spared as much as I can. I have to look to the defence of Salisbury.’
‘But if the King takes Newbury, the road to Wallingford will be open,’ she had protested.
‘In that case Henry will have to come,’ he had answered and then cleared his throat. ‘Look, John’s brave and I admire his stand, but that’s his task: to stand. He chose it. I have to protect Salisbury and my lands for my son.’ He cast a glance towards the corner of the room where a nurse was playing with a sturdy infant just learning to walk.
‘And what of my son?’ she demanded. ‘What of William?’
Patrick gave her a perplexed look. ‘You have another. He is not the only string to your bow. He’s not even the heir to Ludgershall.’
‘And that is all you think he is? Another string to my bow and expendable?’
‘To put it in a commander’s terms, yes. Ask your husband. He’d agree with me.’
She had felt like striking him but knew it would do no good except to confirm to him that she was a foolish, hysterical woman. ‘How can I ask my husband when I do not know if I will see him again? At least give him and me that chance.’
She had seen the blankness fill his gaze. Even if she tore her hair, wept and clutched at his knees, she would not move him. ‘I cannot, and were John in my position, he would give my wife the same answer. What I can do for you and your other children is offer you protection should the worst happen. As your nearest kin I am responsible for your welfare should you be widowed.’
In hindsight and knowing Patrick, Sybilla could see he had been trying to be reasonable, but at the time, she had called him a
nithing
, one of the English words borrowed from her father and his father before, meaning someone lacking all honour, someone who was literally nothing, and she had stormed out of Salisbury in enraged tears.
nithing
, one of the English words borrowed from her father and his father before, meaning someone lacking all honour, someone who was literally nothing, and she had stormed out of Salisbury in enraged tears.
Now she set the poker in the fire and stirred the flaking, greying branch to show living embers of aromatic red. It had been a pointless exercise, she realised it now, but she had had to try.
A sudden rustle of straw and an anguished squeak proclaimed the hunting success of the now adolescent Lion. She watched him slink along in the semi-darkness near the shuttered windows, a mouse twitching in his jaws, his lithe body the colour of autumn leaves. Doublet had been stretched out by the hearth, and had lifted her grey muzzle at the sound. Her eyes were dimming and she might be too stiff for the hunt these days, but her hearing remained sharp. Awoken, she eased to her feet and limped to the door.
Sybilla rose too, pushed her feet into her shoes and went to let her out. The night was dark and the wind blustered with spatters of rain. Leaves rattled across the ward like lost souls. Doublet made her way down the steps and into the courtyard and Sybilla followed, shivering, arms folded inside her cloak. She began to regret not summoning one of her women to take the dog out. As she hopped from one foot to the other, Doublet barked and swung her nose towards the gate. The guards on duty made shrift to swing it open and she saw the troop enter the courtyard, the gleam of mail here and there illuminated by torch.
‘John?’ she breathed. ‘Dear God, John!’
Frantically wagging her tail, Doublet limped across the ward as fast as she could and threw herself in ecstasy at him as he dismounted from a firelit Serjean. He spoke to the dog and the familiar voice wrenched through Sybilla. Suddenly she too was dashing across the ward and flinging herself upon him. She bounced off the rivets of his mail shirt and was pulled back into his arms. His kiss was as hard as the steel, the grip of his hands too.
‘Oh God, oh God!’ she gasped as he released her. ‘I thought I wasn’t going to—’ Her throat closed.
‘You should know that not even the Devil would have me. He took a taste once and spat me out of hell.’ His own voice was gruff. He pulled her to him once more, his hand at the back of her neck beneath her hair, and kissed her again. When their lips finally parted, he held her away to look her up and down.
Sybilla suddenly realised she was standing before him clad in her chemise and open cloak, her hair streaming down for all to see. She gasped again, this time with embarrassed laughter, and became aware that several of John’s knights were watching the exchange and grinning, some of them with open admiration. Hastily she folded her cloak around herself. ‘Will you all want food and drink? Shall I rouse the household?’
‘No,’ he answered. ‘Dawn will do and the men can bed down in the hall and make shrift for themselves for tonight. We ate and drank well before we set out. A bath wouldn’t come amiss. I would hate to mire the bed.’ He gave her his quick, knowing smile. ‘Or you.’
Dewed with perspiration, panting, overwhelmed, Sybilla felt as if she had been caught outside and far from shelter in the middle of a violent thunderstorm and struck by lightning. The pleasure after two months of abstinence had been swift, jagged and intense - the first time. The second had been slower but no less powerful, and the third . . . She raised herself up to look at John. He was lying with his arm bent across his eyes, his chest and flanks still heaving and his body as wet as hers. He hadn’t spoken of Newbury or what his arrival presaged. All had been submerged in the physical. She sensed that were he capable, he would still be at the centre of the storm - hiding. That’s why his arm was across his face.
She left the bed and going to the tub, soaked a cloth in the by now tepid water and wiped herself down, then returned to the bed to do the same for him. His taut stomach muscles contracted at the first cold touch, and he unbent his arm and looked at her.
‘Is it very bad?’ she asked.
‘It could be worse,’ he said flatly. ‘Is there any wine? I’m thirsty.’
‘I’m not surprised.’ She fetched cup and flagon from the sideboard.
He took the wine she poured for him, drank it down and held out the cup to be refilled. Having done so, Sybilla knelt on the bed and faced him. ‘Tamkin told me that Stephen had taken William into his own tent,’ she said.
A strange expression flickered across his face - fear, she would have said in another man. Apprehension certainly. ‘Tamkin is here?’
Sybilla nodded. ‘Only just. We almost lost him to blood loss and the wound fever.’ She told him what had happened. ‘He’s recovered now. I sent him to Marlborough to sing for the garrison there and take messages. He rode on Martel’s horse, naturally.’
‘And all he said about William was that Stephen had him?’
‘Yes, although I know he wasn’t telling me everything, even as I can see that you are wondering how much you can escape without telling me. Whatever it is, I would know, no matter how bad.’
His expression grew bleak. After a long pause he said, ‘Newbury is lost. We had run out of arrows and the men were exhausted. Stephen nearly breached us yesterday. We couldn’t have fought off another assault so I gave the order to abandon the keep. We crept out after dark like thieves. There was nothing else I could have done except die at sunrise. The road to Wallingford is open, and Hamstead too should Stephen choose to come this way. On the morrow I’m pulling back to Marlborough and defending from there. It’s my strongest keep.’
She gave a stiff nod. That was sensible. She could understand him being set down by defeat because he hated to lose, but knew there had to be more to it than that. ‘What else is there?’
His face turned to stone. ‘You do not want to know.’
‘It’s William, isn’t it?’ Her stomach began to churn. ‘You haven’t mentioned him once, and Tamkin was very careful about what he said too. Tell me!’
He swallowed and looked away.
‘Tell me!’ She pounded the coverlet with a clenched fist.
‘If you must know,’ he said in a hard, flat voice, ‘Martel put a noose around his chest and hoisted him up on a gibbet. They threatened to kill him before the eyes of the garrison unless we yielded the keep.’
She let out a gasp and stared at him, appalled.
‘I told them to do as they pleased - that he mattered not and I had the wherewithal to beget more sons. So Martel kindled a fire under him. I believe he thought it might break me because of what happened at Wherwell.’
Sybilla’s gorge rose. She clapped a hand across her mouth.
‘Stephen put a stop to it. Had the fire doused and William brought down unharmed, thank Christ. He’s been with the King ever since.’
She swallowed hard but it was no use. She dived for the chamberpot and hung over it, retching.
John rose from the bed. ‘Sybilla . . .’
She gestured him vigorously away.
Wearily he began to dress. ‘I gambled William’s life on the King’s soft heart and I won, but the odds were too close for grace. If William hates me for it then so be it, and if you do too - well, I made my choice. If you want separate chambers at Marlborough, I’ll make arrangements.’
Sybilla shuddered on all fours. ‘I want my son in my arms, whole and unharmed,’ she gasped. She deliberately used the word ‘my’ rather than ‘our’. She wasn’t sure John deserved that acknowledgement.
He buckled his belt and quietly left the room. She heard the heaviness of his usually light tread and sensed the weight on him. She was burdened herself and struggling. Did she hate him for doing what he had done? For saying what he had said, even if it was in bluff? She staggered back to the bed and collapsed upon it. Her stomach still quivered. She was numb and burning at the same time. She wanted to cry but the tears wouldn’t come. Curling up amid the sheets that still bore a vestige of warmth from their bodies, she closed her eyes.
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