No Dark Place (22 page)

It was not a day to travel.

The following day was still overcast and rainy, but the wind had died down considerably. At midday
Hugh decided that it would not be unreasonable of him to ask Nigel’s knights to attempt the weather.

He would have preferred to send them back to Somerford and travel on to Winchester alone, but he had promised Cristen that he wouldn’t do that.

Thomas was sick. He protested that he was perfectly able to ride, but his skin was flushed and hot and he obviously had a fever. Since he absolutely refused to be left behind, Hugh felt he had no option but to remain yet another day at Evesham.

Two days suffering the reproachful looks of Lady Alyce and the unabashed curiosity of his cousin Juliana were a penance he supposed he deserved, but it wasn’t pleasant.

Finally the weather lifted and Thomas’s fever abated. Hugh was actually in the courtyard, preparing to leave, when a messenger from Earl Robert came galloping into the outer bailey with news for Simon.

Hugh went back into the castle to find out what was happening.

“I bring you good news, my lord,” the messenger was saying triumphantly as Hugh entered the hall. “Earl Robert wishes me to tell you that Miles, Constable of Gloucester, has led an army to Wallingford and defeated and captured the garrisons that the king left there to hold Brian fitz Count in check!”

Simon was delighted. “That is great news indeed!”

I knew it
, Hugh thought disgustedly.
Stephen should never have left Wallingford until he had taken it
.

He thought of the ruination of Malmesbury, of the
devastation that Stephen’s army was wreaking around Trowbridge, had already wreaked at Wallingford. Now Miles had also laid waste to Wallingford and was marching back west, to destroy as many of Stephen’s strongholds as he could while the king was tied up at Trowbridge.

The empress had only been in England a little over a month, and already the damage was extensive.

“Sit down,” Simon was urging Gloucester’s man. “Have something to eat and tell us everything that you know.” He turned to Hugh and motioned imperatively. “Join us, Hugh. You will be interested to hear this tale.”

Hugh hesitated briefly, then nodded.

He supposed he could leave for Winchester tomorrow.

Hugh actually did manage to ride away from Evesham the following day. The weather was decent, Thomas was well, and no messengers came galloping in with war news.

They had reached Burford when Rufus lost a shoe. By the time Hugh had located a blacksmith and had the stallion reshod to his satisfaction, it was late afternoon. Reluctantly, he decided that they might as well spend the night at the local inn and start off again once more in the morning. If they rode hard all day, they would reach Winchester by evening.

In the morning, as Hugh and his escort of knights were having a morning meal of bread and ale in the
taproom of the inn where they had spent the night, they heard the first rumor that Miles of Gloucester was heading for Worcester.

The garrison at Worcester was loyal to Stephen and the rumor was that Miles intended to sack the city and take the castle for the empress.

Hugh froze when he heard those words.

His mother’s convent was in Worcester.

When finally he could get his lips to move, he turned to Thomas and said, “There’s been a change in plans. We’re riding back to Worcester.”

Thomas took one look at Hugh’s face and all of his questions died. “All right, Hugh,” he said.

Hugh stood up. “We’re leaving now.”

The three knights had to run to keep up with him as he strode out of the taproom.

H
ugh and his escort were yet some ten miles from Worcester when they saw the first signs that the rumors of imminent attack had been true.

Livestock were loose upon the road. Sheep wandered aimlessly along the forest path, and within the trees they saw domestic pigs rooting for food. At one point, a loose horse galloped past them, nostrils flaring, eyes showing white with fear.

Then they saw the refugees. Men, women, and children carrying their belongings on their backs streamed along the road in search of refuge in some manor, castle, abbey, or town where they could remain until they judged it was safe to return to their despoiled city.

The news Hugh gathered from the fleeing residents was not encouraging. The attack against Worcester’s walls had come early in the morning, with Gloucester’s troops finally breaking into the city on its north side. The soldiers had driven off all the town’s livestock, murdered and maimed its inhabitants, and set fire to the town.

“They kidnapped many of our women, too,” one
of the refugees told Hugh indignantly. “They even took some of the nuns from the convent!”

Hugh felt his blood grow cold.

Isabel would tell them who she was
, he thought, desperately trying to reassure himself.
They wouldn’t dare harm a sister of Simon of Evesham!

But the refugees said that the soldiers were drunk. Who knew what could happen during the rape and pillage of a city by drunken troops?

Hugh urged Rufus into a gallop, impelled by a sense of urgency that would not be denied.

He had to get to Worcester and find his mother.

They encountered no soldiers as they drew near to the city.

The raiders must have finished their work and gone
, Hugh thought grimly.

He smelled the burning even before Worcester’s walls came into view.

Hugh and his escort entered the city through the battered-down north gate. Everywhere they looked there was devastation. Fires raged on every street. Groups of citizens had organized to put them out, and Hugh and his small company passed by lines of firefighters throwing water on the roaring flames. The women and children who had remained in the city helped to pass the buckets along. The wet smoldering ashes of a number of houses testified to the fact that the firefighters had already been successful in some places.

Hugh asked one of the women passing buckets if she could tell him the location of the Benedictine convent. She directed him to the south of the city.

Hugh tried not to think as he and Nigel’s three knights rode through the streets of the devastated city. The fear that he was too late, that his mother might be…

I won’t think of it
, he told himself sternly.
In just a few more minutes I will know for sure
.

As soon as they rode past the unoccupied convent gatehouse and into the small Benedictine enclave, it became brutally clear that even the sanctity of this holy place had been violated. Fires raged at all the wooden outbuildings and the nuns, dressed in smoke-stained habits, scurried about trying to put them out. They were assisted by a number of men of the town.

In a voice that he tried to keep steady, Hugh asked one of the nuns if she knew aught of Isabel de Leon.

“I haven’t seen her,” the nun said distractedly. “You had better speak to the prioress.” And she directed him to the church.

“You go, Hugh,” Thomas said. “We’ll stay here and help with the fires.”

Hugh nodded and turned Rufus in the direction of the convent church.

The day was growing dark and the interior of the church was dim as Hugh came in. He stopped for a moment inside the doorway to let his eyes
grow accustomed to the lack of light. After a moment he saw a nun, standing still as a statue in the center of the nave.

Hugh looked slowly around the church.

The altar was empty. No gold candlesticks. No gold tabernacle. No gold chalices. The rug that had covered the altar steps was gone, exposing the lighter-colored wood that it had once hidden. Even the stations of the cross, which had once hung upon the stone walls, were gone.

Perhaps the nuns hid everything
, Hugh thought. But from the desolate look of the still and silent figure in the middle of the nave, he did not think so.

Hugh removed his helmet and walked slowly toward the solitary prioress. She watched him come without comment. He stopped in front of her and instinctively bowed his head. She looked at him, waiting. Her face, framed by her wimple, was smooth and pale, the color of her eyes indecipherable in the dim light of the church. Her age could have been anywhere from fifty to seventy.

Hugh said quietly, “Reverend Mother, I have come in search of Isabel de Leon. Can you tell me where I might find her?”

“She’s not here,” the prioress said.

Hugh stopped breathing.

“Her brother came and fetched her away the day before the attack,” the prioress went on.

Hugh felt momentarily dizzy, so intense was his relief.

Thank you, God
, he thought.

He inhaled deeply, willing the world to steady itself around him.

“I am glad to hear that,” he said.

“Lord Simon offered to escort all of the sisters to safety, but I refused.” The prioress’s voice was bitter with self-recrimination. “I felt that we could not desert the city at such a time, that it was our duty to remain. If we gathered together in the church, I was certain we would be safe. The soldiers might steal from us, I thought, but surely they would respect the habit of a nun.”

“They did not?” Hugh asked in the same quiet voice he had used before.

“They were drunk and wild,” the prioress said. “They took all of our sacred objects and—as if that were not bad enough!—they took some of our novices, those that were young and well-favored.” For the first time her voice quivered. “They laughed at me when I protested.”

Hugh did not know what to say.

“It was well that Isabel left when she did,” the prioress said. “She is no longer young, but she would not have been ignored by those crazed men.”

“I am so sorry, Reverend Mother,” Hugh said. “You have been through a terrible ordeal. Is there aught I can do to help you?”

For the first time the prioress seemed to register Hugh’s face. She stared at him and her eyes widened.

“You look like Isabel,” she said in wonder.

“Aye,” Hugh replied. He inhaled deeply, then, slowly and carefully, he let the breath out. “I am her son.”

“Her son?” the prioress echoed. “The one who was lost when her husband was killed?”

“Aye,” said Hugh again.

The prioress looked at him thoughtfully. She did not reply.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Reverend Mother?” Hugh repeated.

She roused herself from her contemplation of his face. “No,” she said. “I think your need is to see your mother.”

Hugh drew another long, steadying breath. “Aye,” he said starkly. “I think you are right.”

It was almost evening and Hugh decided it would be wise to wait until the following day before setting out for Evesham. He had no desire to run into a band of drunk and rowdy soldiers in the dark.

He and his men worked far into the night helping to put out the fires in the convent outbuildings. After a few hours’ rest on the floor of the guest hall, which had been stripped bare even of its bedding, they rose to a dark and overcast sky.

The stench and desolation of Worcester the day after the attack was depressing in the extreme. Anger against Gloucester was running at fever pitch in the town, but Hugh was not naive enough to think that
Gloucester’s men were the only ones capable of such savagery. He had seen Malmesbury when Stephen had finished with it. He knew what the countryside around Trowbridge must look like with the king laying siege to the castle.

It was the face of war.

Hugh had been trained in the arts of war since he was a young child. He was a knight. War should be his natural milieu.

But Hugh had also been brought up by Ralf Corbaille, who had taught him that the first duty of a knight was to protect the powerless.

The citizens of Worcester had been powerless yesterday. The garrison had defended the castle, but there had been no one to protect the people in the streets or the nuns in the convent.

They were burying the dead as Hugh and his escort rode out of the ruined city and headed northwest toward Evesham.

It is time for me to see her
.

This was the thought that ran through Hugh’s mind during the whole of the cold, damp ride to Evesham.

If something had happened to her at Worcester, I might have lost my chance ever to see her again
.

As they rode along, Thomas and the other two knights talked together about what they had seen in Worcester.

Hugh rode in silence.

Seven miles before Evesham, a sharp shaft of pain stabbed through the left side of his head.

Please
, he thought despairingly.
Not now
.

But the pain continued. As before, it seemed to emanate from a single throbbing muscle in his neck, shooting up behind his eye and into his forehead.

He made the knights stop so that he could drink the barley water Cristen had given him and take her betony potion.

The day had continued dark and overcast, but still it seemed too bright to Hugh. He closed his left eye.

“What is it, Hugh?” he heard Thomas ask him anxiously.

There was no way he could disguise his distress. He was going to have to lie down the moment they reached Evesham.

Pray God that he didn’t throw up.

“I have a headache,” he said, his voice short and staccato-sounding.

He felt Thomas looking at him.

“Can you go on?” the young knight asked. “Do you want to stop for a while?”

Hugh thought briefly of stopping until the headache had passed. But it could last for eight hours and the air smelled of rain. Concealing his disability from those at Evesham did not seem worth hours of making the knights and the horses camp out in the cold and the rain.

He wished, for the hundredth time since he had left Somerford, that Cristen had let him travel alone.

“No,” he said. “I will be all right.”

“Can you see? Do you want me to take your reins?” Thomas asked next.

Hugh, who knew he could trust Rufus, said once again that he would be all right.

The headache raged for the remainder of the ride, but even though Hugh’s stomach was queasy, he did not feel as if he were going to throw up.

Cristen’s medications must be having some effect.

It began to rain and the knights pulled their hoods over their heads and rode on.

At last the walls of Evesham came into view. Hugh removed his helmet and was once more recognized by the men at the gate and allowed to enter.

In the outer bailey he met Philip Demain, who was leading a large black stallion in the direction of the stable. The horse’s coat was wet from the rain.

Philip stopped dead when he saw Hugh.

The pain was like the edge of a sword repeatedly stabbing through the left side of Hugh’s head.

“What are you doing here?” Philip demanded.

Hugh half closed his left eye. Standing there, Philip looked tall and blond and splendid, rather like the archangel Michael guarding the gates of paradise from sinners, Hugh thought a little hysterically. He managed to say, “I have come to see my mother.”

The two men regarded each other through the falling rain.

Philip frowned. “You look peculiar.”

“He’s ill,” Thomas said.

Hugh felt his stomach heave.

No
, he thought. He closed his eyes and forced the nausea down.

Sweat broke out on his forehead.

“You had better come with me,” he heard Philip saying in a clipped tone.

Stableboys appeared out of nowhere to take their horses, and Philip turned to lead the way to the castle.

Hugh dismounted and once more his stomach heaved.

Thomas said worriedly, “Do you want to take my arm, Hugh?”

“No,” Hugh said.

Putting one foot after the other, he crossed the bailey, fighting nausea the whole way.

He lost his battle in the inner courtyard. Abruptly he turned away from the others, bent over, and began to retch.

“I’m sorry,” he said when it was over. He was trembling with pain and exhaustion and humiliation.

He felt an arm come around his shoulders. “Don’t worry about it,” Thomas’s voice said in his ear. “Let’s just get you to bed.”

They went up the castle ramp and into the Great Hall.

Philip sent a page to fetch Lady Alyce.

Hugh held himself very straight. The taste of bile was in his mouth and he was horribly afraid that the nausea was coming back.

He could feel Philip looking at him, but he kept his eyes trained on the fireplace.

At last Lady Alyce came sedately down the stairs. Hugh watched her cross the floor in his direction.

“Back again?” she asked him sweetly.

Philip spoke before Hugh could reply. “He’s ill, my lady. Perhaps you could show him to a bedroom.”

“Ill?” Alyce looked at her husband’s nephew suspiciously.

“Aye, my lady,” Thomas said respectfully.

“What’s wrong with you?” Alyce asked Hugh.

“I have a headache and it makes me sick to my stomach,” Hugh said.

“He vomited in the courtyard,” Philip informed the lady of the castle.

“Oh dear.” Alyce’s motherly instincts awoke. “You had better come with me, Hugh. I’ll get a squire to disarm you.”

The last thing Hugh wanted was some strange boy hovering over him.

Thomas said, “I’ll take care of him, my lady. There’s no need to call one of your squires.”

Hugh felt a flash of gratitude.

“Very well,” the lady Alyce said. “Come with me.”

They crossed the floor to the stairs and followed her up to the next level. The door to the ladies’ solar was partially open and the sound of feminine voices drifted out into the passageway as they went by.

Hugh wondered if his mother was inside.