The Love Knot (10 page)

Randal clicked his tongue and shook his head. 'Godless,' he muttered, 'the world is burning, Oliver.'

They were the right words, but spoken without any degree of sincerity. 'Yes, godless,' Oliver repeated. 'Where have you ridden from?'

Randal gave an irritable twitch of his shoulders. 'We were employed further up the march but we were not being paid regular wages so we left. Rumour has it that Earl Robert does well by his troops.'

'You look well enough paid to me.'

Randal snorted. 'We persuaded His Lordship at swordpoint to open his money chest before we left, and we've found casual employment along the way.' He stepped closer to Oliver and lightly punched his bicep. 'You told me to halt in the name of Robert of Gloucester. Do I take it that you are in his service already?'

Somewhat reluctantly, Oliver nodded.

'Hah, then you can recommend me to him. You know from experience the kind of fighter I am, and I've twelve trained men at my back, eager and ready to do his bidding.'

Oliver knew that Earl Robert would be only too pleased to employ the likes of Randal de Mohun. Seasoned warriors with good equipment were both invaluable and hard to find. In effect they could, and did, sell themselves to the highest bidder. While Oliver had no strong liking for de Mohun, he did owe the man his life.

'I will be glad to recommend you to Earl Robert,' he said, but without any warmth. 'Bring your men into the compound.' He stood aside so that the gateway was open and made a sweeping gesture with his hand. 'One thing though,' he said, as de Mohun turned with alacrity to his horse, 'as a token of goodwill and the quicker to be quit of this place, perhaps your men could assist mine to bury the dead.'

De Mohun's dark eyes narrowed and the white grin lost some of its width. But it did not disappear altogether. 'Why not,' he said, and faced his men. 'It is the least we can do, isn't it, lads?'

'So you stayed in the Holy Land for two more years?' De Mohun whistled. 'Penance enough for ten lifetimes I would say.'

Oliver smiled bleakly and watched the ferry approach from the opposite side of the river. Sunset glimmered on the Severn, turning the water to a sheet of beaten copper. Midges danced on its surface, and fish plopped in sudden ripples of white-gold. After the sight and stench of death, the fragrance and peace were incongruous but soothing. 'In the end, the penance was coming home,' he said, but more to himself than to de Mohun. 'In Rome and Compostella, in Antioch and Nazareth and Jerusalem, I did not have to tread the same ground that I had trodden with Emma.'

De Mohun gave a single grunt which eloquently said without words what he thought of such reasoning.

'I didn't spend all the time on my knees. I took service with King Fulke of Jerusalem for a time and joined his bodyguard.' Oliver heard the defensiveness in his own voice and tightened his lips. He owed de Mohun neither explanation nor excuses and was irritated to find himself giving both.

De Mohun punched him on the arm again, reminding Oliver that it had been one of the soldier's irritating habits from their earlier acquaintance. 'That's more like it,' he declared. 'Did you see much fighting?'

'Enough.' Oliver pointed to a small curved scar on his jawline. 'Someone tried to barber me with a scimitar in one skirmish.' He did not add that it had been a fellow soldier during the throes of an ugly tavern brawl.

De Mohun grinned. 'Aye, well, you were always one for a fight, Pascal.'

Oliver did not return the grin. What de Mohun said was true, and probably the reason that they had stayed together for six months. Picking fights had been a way of venting his anger at Emma's death, and he had half hoped that the sweep of an Arab blade would send him to join her. Looking back now, it was immature and foolish, but at the time it had seemed a simple solution.

'What about the women? Kept yourself cosy with a little dancing girl, eh?'

Oliver watched the approach of the ferry and willed its keeper to haul it in faster to their side of the bank. 'What do you think?'

'Don't be a miserly bastard. Go on, tell me.'

'There's nothing to tell that you don't already know for yourself.' Oliver rose to attend to his horse as the ferry pulled mercifully closer.

'All right then. What about the women at Bristol? Are there enough for my men? I don't want them falling out over whose turn it is.'

Oliver concealed a grimace of distaste within his mouth. He was indebted to this man for his life, and de Mohun had helped to dig the graves with a strong and willing arm. 'There are enough women,' he said, thinking of the outskirts of the camp where the whores plied their trade in exchange for their daily bread. 'You'll find what you want.'

Yet again, de Mohun thumped Oliver's shoulder. 'Fortune favours the bold, eh?'

Grasping the grey's bridle and leading him down to the water's edge, Oliver harboured his own thoughts about the favours of fortune and fate.

Richard stood quietly beside Catrin as his mother's shrouded body was lowered into the grave. He threw the obligatory handful of soil into the hole with everyone else, and at the end tossed in the chaplet of gillyflowers that Catrin gave to him. Then he wiped his fingers down his tunic and abruptly turned away.

Catrin watched him with folded lips and a frown in her eyes, for she did not know how to reach him. That part of his life had been shut away, but Catrin could almost see it hammering on the door to be let out. Until it was, she did not think that Richard would have any peace. Running after him, she set her arm around his shoulders.

'It's all right,' she murmured. 'I understand.'

Richard shook his head. 'No, you don't.' He kicked at the ground.

'Then tell me, so that I do.'

He looked up at her, his eyes dark with misery. 'I can't.' 'Well, when you can, I'm ready to listen,' Catrin said gently.

He fought with himself for a moment, his throat working, then he blurted out, 'I wished them both dead. I saw them go into the bedchamber together and set the dog across the door, and I wished them both dead. Then I went into the forest to practise with my bow, and when I returned the soldiers were there. It's all my fault.'

'Oh, Richard, sweeting, of course it isn't!' Catrin was appalled, but she understood his guilt all too well. If she had not turned her back on Lewis on that last morning and refused him her lips, perhaps he would still be alive now. Knowing that such thoughts were foolish did not prevent her from thinking them in moments of melancholy. She tightened her arm around the child's shoulders. 'If it was possible for wishes to harm people, then there wouldn't be anyone left in the world at all. How many times have you said "Devil take you" to me when you've been in a bad mood - oh, behind my back I know,' she added with a laugh that was tight in her throat, 'but I'm still here, aren't I?'

'Yes, but . . .'

'No buts. I know that you did not like some of your mama's "friends" but you have no more power to put a death wish on someone than . . . than that pile of dung over there has to grow legs and walk and talk!'

Richard grimaced and wriggled free of her embrace. 'But I still wished it.'

'Then confess it to a priest and put it behind you. If you want to explain it to your mother, perhaps you could go and pray at her graveside. I'm sure she will hear you.'

Richard's expression grew thoughtful. 'Do you think so?'

'I am sure of it,' Catrin said in a strong, positive tone.

'Can I go and tell her now?'

Catrin stopped and turned round so that they were facing the graveyard. 'The sooner the better,' she said. 'Do you want me to come with you?'

He shook his head. 'I'll be all right on my own.'

She watched him retrace his steps, and compressed her lips to steady the wobble of her chin. Distance made him seem smaller and more vulnerable. She wanted to run after him and wrap him in her arms, but held back, respecting his pride and privacy. Strange and sad to think that for the first time in his life, he had his mother to himself.

The time Richard spent at Amice's graveside was obviously a catharsis for the boy. That night, as the women prepared for bed, he seemed relaxed and sleepy rather than strung with exhaustion. Catrin still made him drink Etheldreda's potion after she had tucked him beneath the linen sheet and woven blanket on his pallet.

'No dreams,' she promised, crossing her fingers behind her back and trying not to imagine how the Countess's women would react to a second disturbed night in a row.

Richard handed the cup to her and lay back on the pillow. 'Can I sleep in the squires' dorter with Thomas tomorrow? He said that I could.'

Catrin smoothed the dark hair from his brow. 'You seem to have made a friend in him, don't you?' she murmured.

'He's going to teach me to throw a spear tomorrow.' There was relish in Richard's voice which did nothing to soothe the alarm his statement had roused in Catrin.

'On your own?'

'Oh no, with the other squires and one of the Earl's serjeants. I can go, can't I?' Alarm filled Richard's own voice. 'I don't have to stay here with all these women?'

Catrin did not know whether to be annoyed or amused. A typical male, she thought, wishing that she was one too and could abandon the bower for the freedom of a grassy field and a lesson in spear throwing. At least he would be occupied and benefiting from the experience. 'No,' she said with a smile, 'you don't have to stay.'

'And I can sleep in the dorter?'

'The Earl will have to be asked about that, and the Countess too, but I cannot see that they will object. On the morrow, I will ask them. Time for rest now.' She arranged the blanket over his shoulder and gave his hair a final smooth. Then she went to prepare herself for bed. By the time she had removed her wimple and gown, he was sound asleep.

'Bless him,' said Edon, glancing his way with a soft look. 'Let us hope he sleeps sound tonight.'

'Etheldreda said that her potion would ease his slumber.'

'Then it will. She might look like a hag, but she knows her nostrums. Do you want me to comb out your hair?'

It was on the tip of Catrin's tongue to say that she could manage. Since Lewis had died, no one had touched her hair. Lewis had loved to comb it and then spread it over his lean, brown hands. In those days she had scented it with rosemary and jasmine, and dressed her braids with bright ribbons and bindings. 'If you wish,' she said. At least it was clean. Before Amice's funeral that afternoon, she had begged a small container of the Countess's scented soap, purloined a pail of warm water from the kitchens, and scrubbed herself from crown to toe. A mark of respect to the dead, she had told the others when they looked at her askance, but it had been more than that, the cleansing almost a self-baptism as she began another life.

Unfastening the strip of leather at the tail of her plait, she pulled her fingers through her braid to loosen the twists, then sat still for Edon to do the rest.

'Your hair's quite pretty to say that it's black,' Edon remarked as she began to draw the comb down through Catrin's tresses. 'I wish mine was as shiny.' She fingered one of her own locks. 'Still, I should not complain. Mine is fair, and that's the sort that all the troubadours worship. Geoffrey says it reminds him of a cornfield rippling in the wind.' She gave her head a small toss.

Catrin remembered Lewis saying that her hair put him in mind of black silk, but she kept her silence. She had no intention of using her dead husband to compete with the paragon Geoffrey. Besides, it was true that to conform to the romantic ideal of beauty, a woman needed hair the colour of a parsnip, eyes of insipid pale blue, and a nature as sweet as a nectar-filled flower. Possessing none of these traits, Catrin had long since learned to live with what she had, and good luck to those more fortunate.

Still, it was pleasant to have someone dress her hair, and when Edon finished Catrin reciprocated gladly.

At the far end of the room, Rohese de Bayvel and another young woman were performing the same task for each other, whispering and giggling.

Edon cast a glance in their direction. 'Rumour has it that Rohese has a lover among the castle knights,' she murmured, leaning back at the tug of the comb, 'but no one knows who it is. I asked Geoffrey, but he said he had no truck with women's gossip.'

'No,' Catrin said drily.

'I wonder who it could be.' Edon caught her full lower lip in her teeth. 'She was betrothed until last year, but he changed allegiance and married someone from Stephen's party. For all her airs and graces, she has but a small dowry.'

Catrin was disgusted to find herself enjoying these details at Rohese's expense. The atmosphere of the bower, the pleasure in gossip was insidious and harmful. 'Finished,' she said with a last smoothing stroke of the comb, and handed it back to Edon in a manner that was almost brusque.

Edon seemed not to notice. She stowed the comb in her small personal coffer of carved beech wood. 'Did you see old Etheldreda give her that flask? Any guess that it's a love philtre. Ethel must have sold one to nearly every woman in the keep by now.'

Catrin shook her head. 'I would not want a man if I had to resort to love potions to make him desire me.'

Edon reddened slightly, making Catrin suspect that her companion had not been above slipping a little persuasion into Geoffrey the Wonderful's wine. Involuntarily she raised her hand to touch the cord at her throat. Women's magic. Maiden, Mother and Crone.