The Love Knot (26 page)

'Hell's mouth, I want double wages for this!' declared Randal de Mohun as he rode past Oliver on his bay stallion, water spraying from the high-stepping hooves. 'No one said anything about being a fish!'

'If we win, you'll doubtless get them.'

De Mohun snorted and set about mustering his men. 'It will be us that will have to do the winning first.'

Oliver shook his head and went to seek Earl Robert for orders.

It was Candlemas: the feast of the purification of the Virgin, the ceremony based on the Roman worship of the Goddess Juno Februata, and Catrin was attending another childbirth amongst the soap-makers of the city, where she and Ethel had made a reputation for themselves. It was Aline Saponier's seventh confinement, and the baby came swiftly and smoothly into the world and immediately began bawling with lungs like a set of smithy bellows.

'A fine boy,' smiled Catrin, receiving him into the waiting sheet. 'You scarce needed a midwife at all, Mistress.'

'I'm told your skills make for an easy delivery,' Aline panted from the birthing stool. 'Has he got all his fingers and toes?'

'Whole in every sense of the word.' Catrin gently rubbed the infant in the towel then folded over the ends and gave him to his mother.

Aline's sweaty face creased with a surfeit of emotion as she peered into the baby's new-born, unprepossessing features. 'He's beautiful!' she sniffed, and started to weep.

'He is that, Mistress,' Catrin said diplomatically, as she knelt to cut the cord and competently delivered the afterbirth.

The other women of the household crowded round, cooing, touching and commenting. There were three aunts, a cousin, and a toothless grandmother, all present to help and bear witness, thus making the event a tremendous social occasion. Catrin was accustomed by now to such gatherings, but there had still been a couple of times when she could cheerfully have gagged the grandmother with a swaddling band.

One of the aunts trotted from the room to announce to the waiting household that a new son had been safely delivered. Catrin saw the mother cleaned up, made comfortable with linen pads and helped back into the freshly made family bed.

The grandmother mumbled into her gums and patted Catrin on the shoulder. 'You've not done so badly for one so young, who's never borne a babe herself,' she allowed.

'Thank you,' Catrin said sweetly.

'Heard about you from Mistress Hubert at the house on the end. She said as you and the old woman were competent.'

Catrin gave a preoccupied smile and set about returning her midwife's tools to her satchel, of which only the oil and the sharp knife had been required.

'But you came alone,' her assailant persisted.

'My companion is not well enough to make the journey into the city,' Catrin replied. 'The winter and her years weigh heavily on her.' She compressed her lips. Ethel had been sneezing all morning and, despite being crouched over the fire wrapped in both her green mantle and a cloak, had been shivering fit to slough the flesh from her bones.

'Aye, well, I'm nigh on three-score-and-ten winters myself and I've had a cough worse than a dog's bark,' said the old woman, not to be outdone. .'I tell you, sometimes it is as much as I can do to ease myself from my bed in a morning.'

Which Catrin took with a substantial pinch of salt. She glanced round. Two of the aunts were bathing the baby in a silver basin while the cousin aired its swaddling before the charcoal brazier. A serving maid went round the room lighting the candles from a long taper. Catrin noted that the light was provided not by spindly, tallow dips but proper, heavy wax candles, the kind that burned in the Countess's bower.

Seeing the direction of her gaze, the old woman went to an aumbry in the wall and returned with three more of the candles, their surfaces smooth and creamily glossed. 'Here, take these,' she said, 'in honour of the blessed Virgin whose feast it is.'

Catrin accepted them with pleasure. She knew how fond Ethel was of beeswax candles. The gifts and tokens that grateful householders presented were one of the more pleasant aspects of being a midwife.

Outside, the February daylight was dull grey, and the wind was sharp on Catrin's face. She tugged her hood up over her wimple and secured the clasp on her cloak, her teeth chattering with cold. The church of Saint Mary le Port rang out the hour of Nones and was joined by the bells of Saint Peter. She thought of Oliver and wondered what he was doing. Was he riding blue-fingered in the cold or had they reached their destination? Was there peace or bloodshed? Two weeks of silence on the matter had shredded her equilibrium. She had taken to biting her nails and, despite Ethel's assurances that he would return, she worried constantly.

Godard's dark shape loomed out of the shadows at the side of the Saponiers' dwelling and he fell into step beside her, as huge and solid as a walking wall. She was grateful for his presence and his taciturnity. Talk for talk's sake only set her teeth on edge, when all she longed for, and dreaded, was news of Earl Robert's army.

They walked along the path between the riverbank and the boundaries of Saint Peter's church. Fishing craft and galleys bobbed on the tide and seagulls wheeled like detached portions of cloud, their cries poignant and harsh.

A sea-going cog had docked at the castle's wharf to be unburdened of its cargo of casks and barrels. It was a scene re-enacted every day, and at first Catrin took small notice. But as she and Godard drew nearer, she saw that no one was working, that all the men were gathered around something on the ground. One of the younger labourers had staggered away and was vomiting into the water. Others had drawn cloaks and capes around their mouths.

Natural curiosity drew Catrin to go and look at what the men had found. She suspected that it was probably a porpoise or a whale. Such creatures were occasionally washed up along the river in the tidal flow and they were always a cause for wonder - and disgust if they were dead and their corpses had begun to rot. She craned her neck at the white thing she could see lying on the dock between the legs of the men. It seemed too small to be a porpoise, or even a baby whale — too insubstantial.

'Mistress, come away,' Godard said suddenly and grasped her arm, but it was too late for she had already seen the gleam of bone through shredded flesh and realised that the form they were all looking at was - or had been - human. A length of hemp rope was snagged around what had been one of its legs, and twisted around the rope was a rag of pink cloth, embroidered with a darker pink flower motif. Strands of hair still adhered to its skull, which had broken away from the body as the men had lifted it free from where it had lain, caught in the mesh of a lost fishing net. The colour, streaming with water, was the same hue as the red hair woven into the knot that Catrin had given to Oliver, but when dry it would be a lighter, more chestnut shade. Catrin felt bile rise in her own throat. Now she knew what had happened to Rohese de Bayvel.

'It is the Countess's sempstress,' she said jerkily to the gathered men. 'She vanished on Christmas Eve and no one knew what had become of her.' Her throat was so tight that it was hard to speak. 'For decency's sake, cover her and fetch a priest.'

Oliver positioned his shield on his left arm and drew his sword. All around him men were fretting their mounts and preparing for the charge. The bitter wind cut through his garments, still sodden from the crossing of the Fossedyke, but he was too focused on the coming battle to feel the cold. He had fought in skirmishes before but this was his first taste of a major engagement. It was the same for many of the men sizing each other up across the flat stretch of land to the west of the city. Despite the state of constant warfare in
England
, battles on a large scale were rare. All or nothing casts of the dice were impractical . . . unless, of course, the dice were loaded in your favour, or you were cornered and there was no other way out. Today, Earl Robert had the luck of the throw and Stephen was cornered, but both armies were evenly matched in number and fighting skill. It was not yet a foregone conclusion.

On the hill above, Oliver could see the banners on the keep walls, bravely fluttering the colours of Chester and Gloucester in defiance of Stephen's siege engines. Stephen himself had come roaring out of Lincoln with his entire army when he heard the news that the ford at the Fossedyke had been breached.

'He wasn't expecting our arrival on his threshold so soon and in such great numbers,' Gawin said scornfully, as Stephen's troops fell into hasty formation opposite their own.

Oliver nodded agreement. 'No, and because we've caught him unprepared, he's reacted with his gut.' He blew on his frozen fingers. 'If I was Stephen, I would stay behind the town defences and force us to bring the battle to him - make us charge up the hill. He's thrown away his advantage by facing us on the level.' He looked round at the solid position of his section of Robert's force on the left flank. The Earl had assembled most of the disinherited knights and barons in that sector. Opposing them were the forces of Stephen's earls and magnates - Richmond, Norfolk, Northampton, Surrey and Worcester. Rannulf of Chester held the centre, facing Stephen and his infantry, and Earl Robert had taken the right flank with the Welsh levies to face Stephen's Flemish mercenary troops.

Rhetoric was spouted and commanders rode up and down their lines, inciting the men, raising them to battle fever. Earl

Robert's voice was a strong, carrying baritone. In contrast, Stephen's voice was so thin and husky that one of his barons, Baldwin FitzGilbert, had to deputise.

Opposite Oliver, a challenge to joust went out from Stephen's magnates, who appeared to favour a formal opening to the

'Hah, as if they think it's a feast day,' growled Randal de Mohun in Oliver's ear. Although not one of the dispossessed, he had elected to fight with them — in the hopes of being given a fief of his own, Oliver suspected.

'To them, it is,' Oliver replied, without taking his eyes off the opposing line. He wondered if the man who had usurped Ashbury was numbered among the troops that Waleran of Worcester had brought on campaign. 'To them we are nothing but landless mercenaries, and that invitation is a mockery.' He watched the opposing knights prancing and prinking in their bright colours, and did not need the rhetoric of the battle captains to fuel the smoulder of his anger. It was to feed the ambition of the men he was facing that his brother had died and he had been made a rebel, dependent on his sword for his income. Well, by God, today he was going to earn his wages.

He pushed his way forward, offering to reply to the challenge to joust. Randal de Mohun lined up beside him, his lance couched.

'I'm going to rend holes in that fancy mail of theirs that no armourer will ever mend.' De Mohun licked his lips hungrily. His eyes were bright and his breathing swift.

Oliver looked at de Mohun. The mercenary had slackened the reins on all that vicious aggression lying beneath the surface. And why not? Oliver reached down to the fire in his own belly and allowed it to spread through his veins. A little behind him, he could hear Gawin breathing swiftly through his mouth. A glance showed him that the young man was trembling, but more with anger and excitement than fear.

'Ready?' Oliver asked.

'More than,' Gawin replied, and fretted his horse with rein and spur.

In front of them, their commander, Miles FitzWalter,

Sheriff of Gloucester, rose in his stirrups and bellowed aloud. 'Laissez Corree! Vanquez le Stor!'

Oliver clapped spurs to Hero's flanks and together with Gawin, de Mohun and thirty knights, thundered over the soft ground towards the posturing opposition. Instead of courteously drawing their blows and making a chivalrous play of the encounter, they attacked in earnest, their charge never slackening and their weapons driving for their enemies' vitals and punching through.

King Stephen's languid cavalry found themselves at the mercy of men carried forward on an impetus of rage and outrage. Each blow aimed was intended to disable or kill, rather than politely take for ransom - of which the latter had been custom throughout the war. No quarter was given. Steel bit, then bit deeper still. Earl Robert's left flank surged in the wake of the first, vicious charge and hammered home a second assault.

It did not matter that the numbers were about even; Stephen's men could not compete with the ferocity of their opponents. Oliver found himself fighting thin air, for no one would make a stand and meet him blow for blow. To a man, the five earls who should have held Earl Robert's cavalry at bay fled the field with their troops, leaving the men of Gloucester in control and Stephen hopelessly outflanked.

Catrin replaced the ordinary rush tapers of daily use with the fat wax candles that old Mistress Saponier had given to her. Light blossomed in Ethel's dwelling, clear, bright and perfumed with the honey smell of summer. Catrin inhaled deeply, trying to banish the stench of the wharfside discovery from her nostrils.

Propped up on two bolsters to ease her congested breathing, Ethel watched her from the bed. 'So she threw herself into the river,' she wheezed, as Catrin told her about Rohese. 'Well, 'tis no surprise. Too much pride to live with the shame.'

Catrin shuddered. 'But she was vain as well, and she liked the fine things of life. I cannot imagine that she would do that to herself. Besides, it was too soon. There was still a chance that she might have bled.'