In Pursuit of the Green Lion (16 page)

“The lance splinters remain embedded deep within it, madame, and he can neither walk nor ride. But he comes with his son, to see him married and the succession assured, before he gives up the ghost. He has done mighty deeds of chivalry; he will be remembered forever.”

“But what news of Sir Gilbert, who is with the Duke’s suite?” said Margaret anxiously. “When will he be coming home?”

“Sir Gilbert?” The man was silent a long time. Then he spoke again. “His son, Sir Hugo, is accompanying him. He’s gone mad with fever, the old man has. You’ll need to make everything ready for him here. Some say it’s the loss of his other son that’s done it. He’s lost the will to live. Though why, I don’t know. He still has the one, and that his heir, which is more than many have—”

Margaret couldn’t help it; she began to scream. It was like the eerie, thin, high scream that a coney utters only at the moment of death. It echoed among the dark arches of the hall again and again, until they led her away upstairs.

CHAPTER FIVE

I
T WAS A MELANCHOLY PROCESSION THAT wound its way through the village and up to the gate of the manor. The ragged column of foot soldiers dissolved as it met the crowd of villagers that stood by the road, and the sounds of joyful reunion mingled with the howls of those who had just discovered their loss. Sir Hugo rode on ahead, impassive on his gray palfrey, Robert leading his destrier on his right hand. Behind them a horse litter bore the lord of Brokesford Manor, heavily swaddled in fur rugs against the bone-shaking chills that had overcome him. Beside the litter rode Damien, bearing his master’s sword and shield and leading his saddled destrier, for all the world as if he might mount it once again.

Behind them a train of heavily laden sumpter horses guarded by mounted archers testified to the success of their expedition. Within the bundles lay tapestries and rugs, silver goblets and chests of gold coin, swords and mail, the spoils of the French lords and burgesses who had had the mischance of meeting up with them. The most fabulous piece, a great gold nef, had already been sold to the King for ready cash, along with the ransoms of three French squires and a knight banneret. The winds of politics had brought them home; they’d found a place on the ship bearing the turncoat Philip of Navarre to England to pledge homage to the English king as the rightful King of France; with any luck, the wind would bear a new lord of Brokesford back into France with an heir on the way. It was the old lord’s dying dream.

When the horn sounded and the gate was thrown open, Margaret could be seen in the low arch of the hall doorway, at the head of the manor folk who waited to receive the returning party. Wan and thin, she had resumed her deep black gown and surcoat. She looked barely strong enough to stand upright as her gaze scanned the returning horsemen, hoping that it was all a mistake and she’d see Gregory’s tall, familiar form somewhere there.

As the grooms ran forward to assist, Hugo gave curt orders to the horse soldiers, who dismounted to unhitch the horses from each end of the heavy litter.

“Don’t jar him, now,” he snapped as the soldiers hoisted the litter. The old lord’s face was gray with pain. The only sound he uttered was an involuntary groan as the litter was borne up the steps and deposited across two benches in the hall.

“Is everything in readiness?” Sir Hugo asked the steward.

“Yes, my lord.”

“He cannot be moved up the stairs. Have the great bed dismantled and reassembled here in the hall, behind a screen.”

“Immediately, my lord.” And six men were dispatched to bring the cumbersome object, piece by piece, through the narrow passage from the tower and down the steep corkscrew stairs, barely the width of a man, into the hall.

“So, Father, you shall soon be comfortable again,” Sir Hugo addressed the still figure on the litter. The poisoned wound had shriveled the old man’s body to the bone. His teeth, now prominent in the skull-like face, parted, and his shriveled lips stirred in a hint of a ghastly smile.

“Thus did the ancient lords of Brokesford dwell, in the hall, amid their people. It was a good custom. I am home again.”

“Yes, Father, home. And a hero.”

The horrible lips parted, and the old man’s voice was barely audible. “The box, Hugo. Don’t forget to give Dame Margaret the box.”

“No, Father, I won’t.”

“And Hugo, I will die happy if you fulfill the arrangements I have made with Sir Walter. Bring home his daughter as your noble bride, to get this house fair sons again.”

“Yes, Father, I will fulfill my duty and your wishes.” Was the father deceived, or had the humble tone that Sir Hugo habitually used with his sire faded, if just a little, to be replaced by a note of triumph? The old man was so weak, he found it hard to tell. Still, Hugo had attended to everything with great care. The sea voyage, the dreadful trip home. But the wound, which had seemed so small at the beginning, was draining his life away. At first slowly, and now swiftly.

Then, as he watched the dark arches of the hall swaying and shivering, high above the litter, he thought he heard something through the dreadful clattering and banging of the great bed being put together. It was a clear voice, thin and strong, that said: “I am here.”

“Thirsty—”his lips said, almost without sound.

“Yes,” she said, and he could feel wine, all cool from the cellar, make its way across his tongue. She laid his head back on the pillow, and he could feel the heavy fur coverlets being turned back.

“Get away, you, the surgeon’s been summoned from Bedford, and one of the Duke’s personal physicians is coming from London.”

“It will take the physician many days to get here, and I trust Mother Hilde’s wisdom better than any surgeon on earth. Step back, I say, and let me see it.” There was something authoritative in the voice, and he could feel the shifting and grumbling men move and give way and the voice move closer to him again. He began to shake again with the chill as the covers were pulled away, for he was clad in nothing but the heavy bandage around his side.

“Filthy,” the voice said, and he screamed as the bandage was pulled away.

“Malkyn, the pot in the kitchen, and the fresh cloths.”

“What are you doing—are you so vengeful that you want to kill him like this? I tell you, I’ll run you through if you harm him.”

“A hot poultice,” said the woman’s voice. “It draws the poison.” The heat and the pain mingled with the sound of hammers. For a coffin? So soon, a coffin? How long could he bear it, this pressure, and this pain, like a knight?

“See?”he heard her say, and he screamed again as the poultice was stripped away, and something dreadful burst inside, draining and stinking, and giving unspeakable relief.

“By God, there’s pints of it in there. How much can a man hold, and live?”

She spoke again. “That, I do not know. Look—here’s something black poking out.”

“Splinters. Splinters from the lance tip. I saw it from afar. He took the blow badly on his shield. Unlike him—so unlike him. The lance shattered here, at the edge of the breastplate—and the splinters went through the links of the mail beneath. He was unhorsed—Damien and Robert captured the French knight—but who would have thought all this could come from so small a wound?”

“Small, but deep—aha! I have it out.”

“Four inches, at least. There’s another.”

“I have it,” she said. And the infinite blackness sucked him down.

“Jesu!” The cry was terrible.

“D
EAD
. Y
OU’VE KILLED HIM
,” said Hugo to Margaret as the grooms clustered around them.

“No, he’s fainted, and he’ll live,” said Margaret, looking at Hugo with a curiously detached, cold, calm expression as she rebandaged the wound. “You can put him in the bed now,” she announced. And Broad Wat lifted the shrunken figure as carefully as he would a baby and laid him beneath the great canopy.

“How do you know he’ll live?” asked Hugo in a suspicious voice, his eyes narrow as he shifted them back and forth to take in the whole scene.

“I can feel it. Also, that’s one of the things I can see. The black shadow around him is thinning.”

Hugo stepped back and looked her up and down. The black gown gave her a pallor like a corpse. Her hollow, red-rimmed eyes looked at him as if he were an insect. He thought for a moment of hitting her, but backed up a step and crossed himself instead. She could see death. A witch. A witch between himself and the lordship. And arrogant as the Devil himself. She would sing a different song once he’d collected Gilbert’s property—his property now—and brought home his beautiful young bride. There wasn’t room for something like this in the house—not with a tender young girl, and his own sons. First he’d sequester her, then have her burned—no, that would mar his sons with scandal. He’d have her strangled secretly—that was neater and quieter.

And if the old man insisted on living now, why, he could just fade away later, the way God had intended him to do. After all, it was God’s will, the way he took that lance. In all the years he’d watched him, he’d never done anything like that. Of course, he’d had no sleep for days. He’d ridden all over the place like a madman, when the word came about Gilbert, searching and searching, as if that would do any good. No, it was all God’s work. God intended to pay Hugo back for his years and years of dutifulness to his grasping, dictatorial sire. It was entirely fair. God meant him at last to be rich, as befitted a man of his honor and lineage.

Then there were her brats, of course. It would be four or five years before he could sell their marriages. Yes, it was a good plan not to taint them by burning the mother, even if she was a witch. But wait—what good were a few hundred pounds compared to taking their whole inheritance? Ah, better and better—Hugo, you clever fellow, your brain is really working now. Get rid of her, and shut them up in a convent as soon as possible. How soon? After the wedding might be best. Might as well get it all settled quickly, while the old man was unconscious. Brilliant. And all part of God’s plan. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

He looked at the old man on the bed. He could hear his heavy breathing. Too bad, he thought. Do you know how I’ve hated you all these years? All the while I was bowing and scraping and laughing at your stupid jokes, I was hating you. You were too damned cheap with me—kept me on short rations—took all the best women for yourself first—kept me rotting here in the country, instead of letting me winter in London, where the fun is. Everything for the horses, nothing for Hugo. I’ve waited a long time for this. Now I’ve got a town house, Gilbert got it for me from that little witch. It was wrong for a commoner, a merchant, to own anything that good anyway. Well, it’s in the right hands now.

He looked away from the gray, shrunken form on the bed, and saw that Margaret was waiting for him. He was all politeness. There were many witnesses, and he was never less than a model of
courtoisie.

“Robert, get the box.” Robert removed himself and went to search in the baggage.

“Dame Margaret, I must inform you that your husband died a hero. He saved the Duke’s encampment, and possibly his life as well. It was at the siege of Verneuil; we burned the suburbs and divided into three parties, surrounding the town, to begin the assault on the walls the following morning. That night there was a counterattack through the walls by stealth, on the Duke’s own party. They strangled the sentries so silently that no one was roused. But they had not counted on Gilbert—he was up alone at night, writing with a little candle in a hooded lanthorn to conceal the light. The first thing that anyone heard was the de Vilers war cry, and as the camp roused, they saw him half clad, swinging his great two-handed sword in pursuit of the fleeing rogues. The Duke’s men pursued, and after the melee six corpses were found—all French—but not his. The following day we breached the city wall and slew every living thing in it. One tower held out another day, but fell at last. But Sir Gilbert was gone. His last words, they say, were ‘For God and King Edward!’ A noble death. Robert, what was it that Piers said he heard him cry out that night? I ask you to confirm that they were most admirable words.”

Robert seemed to hesitate; a debate was going on within him. Piers had been lost in the taking of the tower on the third day, but not before he had told Robert everything. It posed a bit of a problem. Should things be as they had been, or as they ought to have been?

“So?” prompted Sir Hugo.

“Well, um—actually, um—what I heard—or I thought I heard—I may not have remembered it all entirely—but—”

“Yes?”

“What he cried out was said to have sounded very like ‘You bastards, my manuscript!’”

And that is how Margaret knew, all of a sudden, that it wasn’t a mistake after all. He was really gone. She’d been hoping they’d made a mistake. And she’d been really sure they’d mixed him up with someone else—surer and surer as Sir Hugo told his story. But Robert—no, that was Gregory to the life, or rather, to the death. She put her hand over her heart to still its terrible pounding.

Hugo broke in quickly to cover this lapse of Robert’s. “The Duke has commended Gilbert’s courage and service, and says he will not forget. He sends you this remembrance of him. You’ll understand, he’s kept the notes of the campaign that Gilbert was writing. We’ve brought back his armor and personal effects.”

Robert had retrieved the little box, and silently handed it to Hugo. Hugo in turn proffered it to Margaret. Margaret was terrified to open it. For all she knew, it might be the dried and shriveled remains of a human heart, the great severed arteries gaping like toads’ mouths. Gregory’s heart, a loveless, unloving object of horror. The end of everything.

She opened the box a little and peeked in very carefully. So far, nothing horrible. Then a glimpse of white—paper. She opened it farther.

“It was the paper he was writing that night,” explained Robert, sensible of the drama of the moment.

Margaret unfolded it. It was a poem, or rather, the beginning of one. It was written in French.

“Margaret of the white hands,” it went, “you are queen of my heart—” And then there was a blot. A great big oblong blot, where the pen had been laid down in haste. And she suddenly saw everything, how it all must have been on that night, for there was hardly anything in the world that would make Gregory leave a blot, except Death himself.

He did love me, he really did, she thought as she began to sway. He couldn’t say it, so he was writing it. And my letter—it didn’t get there in time, and he never knew how I—As her knees crumpled Robert bore her up, while Hugo called for someone to attend her.

T
HAT NIGHT, WHEN
M
ARGARET
knelt in the chapel with her customary prayers for Master Kendall’s soul, she added to them prayers for Gilbert de Vilers’s as well. She was heavy from within from unspeakable grief, and dizzy from a nameless fear of a dreadful future. So few months for such terrible changes. So far from friends and home. So alone. And her girls—who would protect them now? And Gregory, her love, her great love, lost and gone, and his bones rotting in a foreign place. And she’d never been able to tell him what he’d come to mean to her. Regret twisted her heart.