The Love Knot (27 page)

Ethel gave her a shrewd look. 'There but for the grace of God,' she said, her cracked voice soft. 'Was that how it was for you?'

Catrin drew a sharp breath at Ethel's uncanny intuition. For a moment she was cast back to the days immediately following Lewis's death. She saw an image of herself standing on Chepstow's battlements at dusk, staring down into the sleek, dark waters of the river Wye. 'I didn't drown myself,' she said tautly. 'I thought about it, I admit, but only for an instant.'

'An instant is all that it takes, one slip of the foot on a wet stone.' Ethel closed her eyes.

Catrin gave a little shiver. 'How did you know?'

'Your fear, the way you spoke. I sensed a link with water . . . dark water, flowing fast.' Her voice sank to a mumble. 'And I saw a man too, dark of hair and eye.'

Catrin felt cold to her marrow. 'Lewis,' she whispered.

Ethel spoke again, a single word, clear and bright as the candle flame. 'Beware.'

Catrin went forward to the bed, intent on asking her what she meant, but Ethel did not answer except by way of a chesty snore.

Lincoln
Castle
was ablaze with light as the leaders of the Empress's army celebrated their victory. Lincoln town was ablaze too - with fire - as the common troops plundered the wealth of the citizens who had made an error of judgement in choosing Stephen as their protector.

Oliver had declined to follow Randal de Mohun into the streets of Lincoln in search of gain. To fight men on a battlefield was one thing. To harry women and children out of their houses, steal their goods and burn their dwellings, was another matter entirely. In every woman's face, he would have seen Catrin's, in every child's, Richard's. All war was dark, but this part stank as well, and Oliver remained within the castle precincts, his single act of plunder the appropriation of a flagon of the finest Gascon wine intended for the high table.

Despite his distaste, he was in high spirits. The ease of their victory and the capture of Stephen himself meant that the tide had well and truly turned in the Empress's favour. If the impetus continued, then he would be lord of his own lands before many more months were out. It was a hope worth toasting in the rich, dark wine. He would celebrate the next Christmas feast at Ashbury's high table as his father and his brother had done: with a gilded wassail tree, great rejoicing and Catrin crowned in evergreen at his side.

For the moment, he was content with a simple trestle at the side of the hall and the company of Geoffrey FitzMar and a handful of other knights who had declined to venture into the town. They relived the battle blow by blow, as they had each seen it, exalting in the moment when Stephen, abandoned by his earls, abandoned by his mercenaries, had stood alone, swinging his Dane axe at all comers, until finally downed by a lucky blow to the helm which had stunned him for long enough to be taken and bound. He was now locked in one of the upper rooms. His wounds had been tended, he was treated with courtesy, but guarded so heavily that not even a spider could crawl under his door without being noticed.

'I'm to stand my turn of duty later,' Geoffrey said, declining Oliver's offer of wine. 'I'll need a clear head.'

'Hah, he's unlikely to break free, is he?' scoffed one of the others.

'Mayhap not, but Earl Robert's just as unlikely to tolerate a drunkard on duty.'

Oliver's own turn of duty was set for the following dawn. He could afford to drink but not to the point of inebriation. Filling his cup for the third and final time, he handed the flask to the others to finish. Despite his desire to see Stephen overthrown, he had to admire the man's bravery and his dignified conduct in defeat. Perhaps for the first time in his reign, Stephen was displaying the qualities of a king - although that still did not give him the right to be one.

'To victory.' He raised his cup. 'May it sweeten daily.'

'Victory,' Geoffrey repeated, and swallowed the last of his own wine. Wiping his mouth he looked around. 'Where's Gawin tonight?'

Oliver shook his head. 'In the town with de Mohun.'

Geoffrey picked his helm off the table and rose to his feet. 'I'm glad my duty to the Earl keeps me here tonight,' he said grimly. 'We are told that the townsfolk need teaching a lesson but I have no stomach for being a tutor.' He rumpled his free hand through his tawny curls and frowned. 'In truth, I would not have thought Gawin of that ilk either.'

'He isn't,' Oliver defended, without meeting his friend's gaze. 'He is just unsettled at the moment. I tried to make him stay but he would have none of it, not with de Mohun dangling the promise of treasure before his eyes.'

'Yes, well, one day de Mohun is going to trim his sails that bit too close to the wind.' Disgust curled Geoffrey's lip. 'Why you tolerate his company, God alone knows.'

'God alone does,' Oliver answered heavily, thinking of a bare mountain road near Jerusalem and the man to whom misfortune had made him indebted.

Reversing his sword, Gawin hacked open the lock with the hilt, shoved back the heavy oak lid and gazed into a coffer crammed with pieces of scrap silver ready for melting down. The house belonged to a goldsmith and the pickings were rich. He lifted the coffer, which was about the size and weight of a young pig, and staggered outside to the waiting pack horse.

Houses were burning, filling the sky with a lurid red light, the heat and gush of sparks making it seem to Gawin that he was standing in the mouth of hell. He felt that way too, but as if he was the sinner, not the people on whom this punishment was being visited. With a grim will, he shook off his doubts. Even if he was a sinner, he was going to be a rich one. That coffer of silver was worth a year's wages, and it was only the tip of the plunder. In the dwelling next door, he could hear de Mohun's men at work, prising up the hearth bricks in search of hidden wealth. No one had challenged them. The citizens had more sense than to resist mercenaries and had fled to take shelter in the churches or remote outbuildings of no interest to the looters.

Gawin led his horse back inside the house so that no one would steal his find and set about hacking open a second coffer a clothing chest by its size. The lock quickly gave but the

lid refused to open, as if held down from the inside. Gawin wedged his sword beneath the lid and heard a muffled cry of terror. Withdrawing the sword, he grasped the wooden edge in both hands and wrenched it back.

A young woman screamed and cowered down, her hands over her head. She had long fair hair tied back with a strip of braid. Her features were delicate, just beginning to emerge from the roundness of adolescence. Tear streaks had left clean white tracks through the grime on her face and she wore the ragged, threadbare dress of a servant.

'Stand up!' Gawin commanded. He flickered a glance around, but there was no evidence of anyone else in the house. For whatever reason, she had been left behind to take her chance with the routiers. Protectiveness and rage warred within him. 'I said stand up!' he snarled, when she did not move and, lunging forward, he seized her arm.

Sobbing, screaming, she lurched to her feet, and Gawin saw the reason why she had been unable to flee. She had a deformity of the hip that made it nigh on impossible to walk, let alone run, all her weight taken upon one side.

'Christ, are you witless, girl, as well as a cripple?' he demanded, his anger making him cruel.

She shook her head and wailed all the louder, her dirty blond hair tumbling around her face. He could feel the swift rise and fall of her shoulder against his arm as she breathed, the starved slightness of her bones. All the guilt and rage from Christmas flooded over him. He wanted to strike her to the ground and yet he held his hand. Perhaps if he saved her life it would somehow redress the balance that had been lost when Rohese disappeared. 'Can you sit a horse?'

She looked at him with frightened eyes and whimpered.

'Christ Jesu, I don't have the time,' Gawin said and, swinging her up in his arms, turned towards his mount. Then he stopped dead. She screamed, then buried her face against the mesh of his hauberk.

'Now then, what have we here?' Randal de Mohun shouldered through the doorway and, with feigned nonchalance, eyed Gawin and the girl. 'A wench, eh? Aren't you the lucky one?'

Gawin tightened his grip on her gown. 'She's mine,' he said quietly.

De Mohun entered the room and walked around the horse's rump. His gaze flickered to the ornately carved coffer strapped to the saddle and, behind it, a fine piece of blue Flemish wool. 'It's share and share alike amongst us, my lad,' he answered, in a tone equally quiet. 'The lass and the other loot both.'

The girl wept and huddled into Gawin's neck. He could feel her hair against his jaw, feel the terror in the bone-hard grip of her fingers. 'I'm not one of you,' he said. 'Your code is not mine.'

De Mohun narrowed his eyes. 'Then you should not be here, lad. Sheep that run with wolves end up being devoured.' Almost casually, he drew his sword.

Gawin uncurled the girl's clinging fingers from around his neck. She slumped to the ground, sobbing and screaming, as he drew his own blade. 'You promised Oliver that you would watch out for me!' he said, mouth open, breath coming hard.

'So I did, and I have kept my word, have I not? Every step of the way.'

Gawin licked his lips. 'Take the silver then. Do what you want with it, but leave the girl. You wouldn't want her, she's a useless cripple.'

De Mohun raised his sword and scratched his chin gently with the side of the hilt. 'You have a point there, and I can't say as I'm not tempted, but if I break the rule for you, then I'll have to break it for anyone who takes the whim to keep something for himself and that's not good for discipline. I tell you what.' He lowered the hilt and pointed it at Gawin. 'You can have first turn at her, and we'll let her live when we've all done.'

Gawin almost retched. What would remain of the girl after a dozen men had taken their turn would be worse than death. 'Just take the silver and be content. You can buy all the women you want without resorting to rape!' He braced his sword, protecting himself and the young woman.

De Mohun grimaced. 'You don't understand, do you? Buying anything is a blasphemy to me.' The flames from the burning houses around them gleamed on his sword as the blade came up.

Since there was no proof as to how Rohese de Bayvel had died, her death was recorded as a tragic accident and she was buried with all haste and ceremony in the grounds of Saint Peter's, her funeral attended by the Countess and all the ladies of the bower.

Edon FitzMar saturated her linen kerchief with tears and was so distressed that it fell to Catrin to make her a soothing tisane.

'I cannot believe it,' Edon wept, cuddling her small son on her knee. 'I thought that she had just run off.'

Not thought but wished, Catrin guessed, and in that endeavour, Edon was the same as everyone else. 'At least she has been found and granted Christian burial,' she said, mouthing the platitude with a grimace at her own hypocrisy. Perhaps the not knowing had been kinder than the reality.

'I wish Geoffrey was here.' Edon nuzzled the top of her baby's head.

Catrin nodded and thought of Oliver. They heard occasional reports from the Countess's messengers, but the information that filtered through was scant and did not mention the individual names that each woman wanted to hear. Geoffrey FitzMar and Oliver Pascal were minor cogs in the great mill wheels of Earl Robert's army. 'At least you have a keepsake,' she said, looking at the infant.

'Who might never see his father again,' Edon sniffed, and fresh tears sprang to her eyes. Cursing Edon's sensitivity and her own thoughtless tongue, Catrin urged more of the tisane on the young woman, soothed her with more platitudes and, as soon as it was possible, made her escape. She had a good excuse; Ethel's winter ague had thickened on her chest and she had a fever. Catrin did not like to leave her for too long.

Agatha, the laundress, was sitting with Ethel. Now and then she moistened the old woman's lips with a spoonful of watered wine, but there was little more she could do for her. Ethel hovered on the periphery of consciousness and each breath she drew made deep hollows of effort beneath her rib cage.

'I've sent for the priest,' Agatha sniffed, her double chins wobbling. She blotted her eyes on her gown. 'I'm not a healer but I know the signs, poor soul.'

Catrin gave the laundress a mute look and, sitting down at Ethel's side, took the old woman's good hand between hers, dismayed at how swiftly her condition had deteriorated. 'Ethel?'

The eyelids fluttered and the fingers found a squeeze of life. 'Catrin ...' Ethel swallowed, the sound a dry rattle.

'I'm here. Save your strength, Agatha has sent for the priest.'

Ethel's face contorted. 'Don't need a priest, you know that.'

' Yes, but the rest of the world would rather see you shriven.'

Ethel made a wheezing sound that might have been a laugh or just a struggle for breath. Then she grasped Catrin's sleeve and strained towards her. 'He will ruin you if you are not careful.' She licked her lips. 'I dreamed of a man on a bay horse. He is a danger to you and to Oliver. Take great care.' The effort left her panting for breath, her lips blue.

'Lie still, Ethel, don't . . .'

But Ethel struggled against Catrin's restraining words and hands. 'There was water and darkness. You must not go near him!'