The Love Knot (39 page)

Henry leaned over the side of the ship. 'What's "death to our enemy" in English, Oliver?'

Oliver looked at the livid marks the shield rim had imprinted on his palm. 'Deoth til urum feondum,' he said, with intensity but no enthusiasm.

Henry cupped his hands and bellowed the words across the water. Very few members of the attacking force spoke English, but Henry yelled the command just the same.

Oliver watched him and wished for just a spark of that innocent vivacity. He supposed that to possess it, you had to be nine years old and supremely confident of your position in the world, items which had been missing from his own baggage for longer than he could remember.

Once Earl Robert's forces had claimed the harbour, Oliver's waiting was over. Shield on his left arm, sword in his right, he was one of the first ashore and into the town. The inhabitants cowered behind their bolted doors as the battle for control of Wareham raged through the streets towards the castle.

Oliver was a man possessed, all the pent-up rage and bitterness of the past few months flooding out upon the blade of his sword. Geoffrey FitzMar tried to stay with him but fell back, defeated by Oliver's sheer ferocity.

'Christ, man, do you want to die?' he roared, avoiding the swing of a mace and ducking behind his shield.

'Why not?' Oliver spared breath to respond and, slashing his own opponent out of the way, surged forward.

He might have received his wish and been sent to eternity on the thrust of an enemy spear had not an almost spent arrow struck him in the leg below his hauberk and downed him with a yell of surprise at the startled spearman's feet.

Cursing, Geoffrey sprinted and leaped to stand over Oliver, dicing with death himself as the spear thrust and jabbed. On the ground, Oliver seized one of their assailant's legs and toppled him over. More of Earl Robert's vanguard arrived and the unfortunate spear man was spitted on his own point by a Welsh knight.

'God's eyes!' Geoffrey sobbed, beside himself as Oliver lurched to his feet, the arrow clean through the fleshy part of his calf. 'Kill yourself if you want, you selfish bastard, but don't expect others to die with you!'

'Then go away!' Oliver snarled back. 'I didn't ask you to stay and save my life!'

'You didn't have to ask,' Geoffrey said tersely. 'I'm your friend, for what that counts with you.'

'Hah, if you were my friend, you'd have let him finish me.'

Geoffrey's jaw made chewing motions while he gained control of himself. 'Not to fulfil your own self-pity, I wouldn't. Your life's worth more than a wanton squandering in this miserable, muddy little port.' Geoffrey levered his shoulder beneath Oliver's. 'You can't fight on,' he added with grim satisfaction. 'At least that's a blessing in disguise.'

'It's a curse,' Oliver said bitterly.

By eventide they had taken Wareham castle and their victory was complete. Prince Henry dined in the keep's great hall, two cushions on the lord's chair to boost him above the table, and the gold circlet of royalty on his brow - a fact about which he complained in great detail. It hurt, it made his skin itch, it gave him a headache.

'When I'm King, no one will make me wear my crown unless I want to,' he said mutinously to his uncle.

Robert of Gloucester gave him a stern look. 'You may not yet wear one at all,' he said. 'And it is graceless to complain when so many good people have sacrificed themselves for your cause.'

Henry looked down at the table-cloth. His complexion reddened and his lips pursed mutinously. But as swiftly as the rebellion surged, it was gone. He touched the circlet on his brow. 'I am sorry,' he said simply, then looked beyond Earl Robert.

'Oliver, what's crown in English?'

'Cynehelm, sire,' Oliver inclined his head. He felt awkward. Henry had insisted that he be given a place at the high table instead of at one of the side trestles with Geoffrey and the other hearth knights. His leg was throbbing where the leech had removed the arrow-head and cleaned and bound the wound. All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep but, for the nonce, he was Prince Henry's pet, and the child was still as bright and fresh as a new-minted coin.

'Good.' Henry nodded. 'Ic wille awerian min cynehelm.' He looked at his uncle. 'That means "I will wear my crown.'"

Robert gave a pained smile. 'What's "time for bed"?' he asked Oliver.

For the next few days, Oliver was confined to the hall by his leg. It was healing well and showed very little sign of festering, although that might have had something to do with the fact that Oliver was treating it himself. The time to die had been during the battle, from a swift spear thrust. Not even a man desperate for death would choose to die from the lingering agony of a poisoned wound.

After the arrow-head had been pulled out, he had raided the pouch of supplies in his saddle bag. There was a perverse sort of comfort in anointing the injury with Catrin's goose-grease balm, one of the first recipes of her own. He had fond memories of watching her mash a paste of healing herbs into the pale fat, and then carefully pile the resultant mixture into small pots, one of which she had given to him.

'Kill or cure,' he had teased, as he took it from her hand.

Now he said the words to himself and his throat tightened even while there was a smile on his lips.

Prince Henry was fascinated by the little wooden pot of salve. 'What's that?'

'Ointment to heal my wound.'

'Where did you get it?' Henry sniffed at the green, pleasant-scented concoction and took a dab to rub between his fingers. 'From a friend - a wise-woman.'

'I've never met a wise-woman.' Hopeful curiosity entered the boy's eyes. 'Does she live close by?'

Oliver shook his head. 'Only in my heart,' he said.

'Oh, she bewitched you?'

Oliver laughed bitterly and was about to agree with the boy when common sense stopped him. There was already enough prejudice surrounding midwives and wise-women without him adding more, particularly where the future king of England was concerned. 'No, no.' He shook his head. 'She was a widow and we were betrothed, but then the husband she thought lost returned from the dead.' Jesu, that sounded just as bad. He could almost see the word 'necromancy' written in the child's eyes.

'Sit down,' he said, 'and I'll try to explain.'

Henry sat and, to his credit, scarcely fidgeted as Oliver told him about himself and Catrin. There was painful comfort in that too, Oliver discovered, as if the pressure of an abscessed wound had been relieved.

Henry looked at him thoughtfully, but with little comprehension. His own parents had lived apart for much of his young life, and when they were together they fought like cat and dog. His father had mistresses who came and went. Henry had a half-brother, Hamelin, from one such liaison. 'There are other women.' He gestured in the direction of three knight's wives who were gossiping over their embroidery. A tinkling laugh rang out and a hand preened at a wimple.

Oliver shook his head. 'In truth too many, sire.'

Henry narrowed his eyes, then nodded decisively. 'When I am King, I will restore your lands in full measure and give you a wealthy heiress in marriage.'

Oliver gave a pained smile.

Henry bristled. 'You do not believe me?'

'No, sire, I believe you entirely. It is just that I would be content with the lands alone.'

Henry shrugged. 'But you'd need a wife to provide sons to continue the line,' he said practically, and wiped his fingers on his chausses.

Oliver was spared from answering as Henry's tutor, Master Matthew, came looking for his charge, and the child was removed to the world of Aristotle, Vegetius and Thomas Aquinas.

Oliver gazed after the prince, watching his energetic bounce down the hall. He supposed that Henry was right. Would a wealthy heiress be so bad? Coin and companionship, the common yoke of duty. Gently he pressed the stopper into the neck of the wooden jar. He knew all about duty.

Catrin's face was as green as the window glass through which the spring sunshine stained the floor rushes. She leaned over the wooden latrine board and retched agonisingly down the fetid hole. It was the third morning in a row that she had been sick and her flux was almost a month late.

Amfrid, her maid, presented her with a damp, lavender-scented cloth, and Catrin wiped her face. Her stomach quivered and gingerly settled. Although she knew that women suffered from sickness in the early months of pregnancy, although she knew the herbs and simples that helped to ease the discomfort, she had not been prepared for the overwhelming attacks of nausea and the permanent exhaustion.

Pressing her face into the cloth, she walked back into the bedchamber. The walls were hung with Flemish tapestries in shades so deep and opulent that they put her in mind of Earl Robert's solar at Bristol. There was a silk coverlet on the bed. Apparently it had come from the plundering of Winchester following Earl Robert's capture. There was a singe-mark along one edge where a piece of burning thatch had dropped on it as it was snatched to safety by Louis's acquisitive hands. The flagon had come from Winchester too. It was fashioned of silver, with amethysts encircling its base. Catrin hated it, and the coverlet too. They were gains made from someone else's disaster, or even death.

'Spoils of war,' Louis called them with a shrug and a smile, unable to comprehend her distaste.

His plunder had included some silver too, and he had spent it profligately. Not only was there glass in the windows but, for the first time in her life, Catrin was able to see her own reflection in a Saracen mirror of polished steel. Louis had not told her the cost, but Catrin knew that it must have been expensive beyond all dreaming. Not even Countess Mabile possessed such in her private chamber.

She was learning to be blind again; she was learning not to ask for fear of discovery. Staring at herself, she saw a trapped creature, hollow-cheeked and gaunt-eyed.

'I was much happier when I had nothing,' she murmured.

'My lady?'

Catrin shook her head at Amfrid, threw back the slippery silk coverlet and sat down on the linen bed sheet. She glanced at the bolster which still bore the imprint of Louis's head. Oh yes, there were still moments when he set her world alight, but so often it was here, in the bed. He would cajole, he would make her laugh, he would melt her, but it was all a part of the learning and the forgetting. All her worries were answered with kisses, with playful dismissal, with silence. If she persisted, she was punished with petulance and slammed doors.

Amfrid brought her a gown of blue wool, embroidered with golden lozenges. Catrin looked at it, sighed, and tugged it over her head. Donning her wimple and ignoring the hated mirror, she crossed the room and freed the window catch. Cold spring air blew into her face and filled her lungs. The sky was a tumultuous chase of streaky grey-and-white cloud.

As she gazed out, Louis returned from patrol, his dark bay horse lathered and fretting the bit. She watched the graceful way he dismounted, light even in chain-mail; his rumpled black hair as he removed his helm, the ready smile on his lips. Despite her misgivings, the flame swept through her. He was so lithe, so glowing and handsome. Other women would give their eye-teeth for a husband like hers.

She was about to turn away from the window when Wulfhild, one of the kitchen girls, came walking across the ward. Her hips swung seductively, and on her arm there was a basket of honeycakes. Her hair, blond as new butter, was tied back from her face by a kerchief, but hung loose below it, supposedly in token of her virginity, but everyone knew she had left that behind in a ditch some time ago.

Beneath Catrin's narrowing gaze, Wulfhild approached Louis. She said something to him, and he laughed and snatched one of the honeycakes from her basket. Then he stooped and murmured in her ear. Wulfhild giggled, covering her mouth with the palm of her hand. Then she sauntered on her way, pausing once to look over her shoulder, her expression full of suggestion and promise. Louis grinned from ear to ear and saluted her with his half-eaten honeycake.

Catrin tightened her lips and slammed the window shut. It meant nothing, she told herself. It had always been his way to flirt. But he had promised he had changed, and there had been more than flirtation in Wulfhild's eyes.

Louis was still chewing the last of the honeycake as he entered their chamber. Although panting a little from his run up the stairs, his stride was brisk and there was a gleam in his eye.

'Stirring at last, I see,' he said as he unfastened his belt and began to shrug out of his hauberk like a snake shedding its skin. 'I thought when I did not see you in the hall that you had chosen to become a slug-abed for the rest of the day.'

She came to help him with the heavy garment. 'I am sure you could find things to keep yourself amused.'

He eyed her quizzically and ran his tongue around his mouth to dislodge a fragment of honeycake. 'Such as?'

'Such as Wulfhild.'

He rolled his eyes. 'Jesu, she's a simple kitchen wench. I cozened a sweetmeat from her in passing.' 'Is that all you cozened?'

He made an impatient sound. 'Am I to have my every movement watched and judged from that window? I spoke to her, I took a cake from her basket. God's bones, what is the matter with you? Are you going to help me or not?'